There is a newspaper in Japan, "Mainichi Shimbun News" or better known on their English language website, "Mainichi Daily News." Their English website which is read throughout the world helps readers gain an insight into the nation of Japan. For the past couple of years there appeared a column called, "WaiWai," principally written by an Australian living in Japan, by the name of Ryann Connell. Mr. Connell also co-authored two books, titled,
"Tabloid Tokyo: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies," and "Tabloid Tokyo 2: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies."
You can judge by the titles what the books are about. Mr. Connell would scour the sex tabloids in Japan for extreme and bizarre stories about sex in Japan. Now mind you, most nations are afflicted with sex tabloid printing the same garbage. Mr. Connell would then take selected articles and reprint them in the WaiWai column on the English website for the "Mainichi Daily News." People and perverts the world over read these columns and due to a lack of growth in their brains, believe the stories to be true. Some have even ventured to Japan look for free sex from the sex crazed Japanese women according to these articles.
The please of Japan discovered these columns and the impact they had upon the image of their nation, their people, and most important, their women. This caused a surge in protest to the newspaper. The newspaper the pulled all those stories from their website and suspended the column.
The Japanese were at a disadvantage here for being an Asian nation. Asian women are seen by many men in the West as being very pretty and exotic. Which is the reason for a large sex tourism trade in another Asian nation. Upon reading the articles, some perverts thought, why go there and pay for sex when it is free in Japan? Of course they were miss-guided and horny.
Please understand the sex drive among the Japanese is no greater than any other people on this planet. We were all programmed with it at the same level during different ages in our life times. Besides, traveling to another country just to have sex is an illustration of depraved behavior. Want sex? Stay in your country for it, and do not seek it abroad as you only embarrass yourself, and the nation you come from.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
WaiWai tabloid, the truth about sex in Japan?
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14 comments:
Thanks for your writing
as a Japanese woman.
Thanks so much for your comments. I don't know how thankful I am, as one of the Japanese women.
I thank for having taken up this problem.
This problem is not taken up in Japan by the media.
As far as it is the story of the own country, but is ashamed.
= Machine translation
I agree that non-Japanese who read these stories got the wrong idea, but your assertion that said wrong idea was essentially "sex is free in Japan, get me my plane ticket" is pretty off-target. The WaiWai stories, while primarily raunchy, touched on any number of bizarre topics. The wrong idea was a more generalized "those nutty Japanese get up to all manner of craziness, sexual and otherwise." The Ni-chaneru bloggers seem to have distorted this into "foreigners now think Japanese women are easy, and they're attacking our shores as a direct result of these WaiWai articles."
This second idea, which you seem to be taking as gospel, is a complete red herring offered up by the Ni-chaneru anti-WaiWai crowd.
Could you please post some links to news stories or evidence that people traveled to Japan thinking they could engage in outlandish sexual activities?
Although many of the stories published were about bizarre sexual practices. They were all pretty obviously meant to be comedic in nature.
I find it hard to believe anyone not clever enough to understand these articles were not based on true events would have the means to travel to Japan at all.
I'm not going to speak to the quality of the stories published on Wai Wai but I strongly believe in freedom of speech and I thought it was a shame that the newspaper decided to make a huge deal of this issue and "punish" the authors as they put it. The newspaper certainly has a right to publish what they choose but bowing to the will of a small group of right wingers is a little depressing.
Manami, I feel you mislead readers as if Ni-chaneru bloggers were all red-wings and hated foreigners. Hope this is just my misunderstanding.
We strongly believe most foreigners are smart enough as Kovert not to trust Wai-wai's dreadful stories. However, as these are the articles of one of the most famous Japanese national newspaper, some may believe them are true. We know it would be too difficult to correct such misunderstanding, and it would be almost impossible to delete all articles spread into the world. Mainichi must be aware of the meaning of web communication.
We don't deny that Mainichi has freedom of speech. But please mind that these articles were quoted from other gossip magazines. The author chose whatever he thought interesting, did not confirm if the contents were true, added his view/comments, in some case twisted the original meaning, then announced them to worldwide under the name of 'Mainichi'. Can this be called editing? Would 'The Guardian' or 'The Times' quote 'The Sun' to let the people living outside of UK know the sex life of people?
We are furious, because Mainichi took no responsibility for whatever they announced to the world. Punishing an author? Giving 3 months holidays, that's all. Almost all his bosses promoted to President and VP as of July. What Mainichi must do is to correct wrong articles and show sincere apology. If Mainichi thinks they are a kind of untrustful newspaper that only foolish readers can believe the contents, say so.
Attracting readers is quite important especially in web, but that does not mean you can do anything. Furthermore, Mainichi was believed as a trustful paper.
Thank you a lot, Propaganda Buster.
Many japanese people are angry against Mainichi.
Not only this case, several years ago Mainichi news campany was accused of having written the false article. In court the company said, "There is no legal duty for the news company to make a true information"
That is the Mainichi.
Thanks for picking the one of the hottest topic in Japan.
The house wives BBS seems to be working so good to accusing Mainichi's bad behaviour. I suppose the movement won't stop until they officially apologize for the wrong article.
Sometimes you mentioned some of the American newspaper media takes communist side. It may be more obvious and strong in Japan.
(a few days ago, one of the politician commented "Japan should have returned the hostage to North Korea after the agreed period. Surprising, isn't it! This issue was not reported by media at all...)
Their power is very strong (maybe stronger than governemnt), though some people started realize the fact.
Individual power is so small and we must unite well and never give up.
Thanks again for your kind and friendly comment to Japanese.
I think the thing that really bugs many people about this is that hte magazine took the stance of "punishment" against writers or editors of this content. As if Mainichi had no idea what was being published on their own website. The proper thing to do would have simply apologized and moved on. Since they are no longer publishing WaitWai then it probably stands to reason that they will no longer employ the writer of the column.
To put it simply if you hire me to do a job, and I do it for several years with no complaints I don't expect to suddenly be punished as if I were being intentionally malicious. There is simply no logic behind this. The newspaper bears 100% responsibility for the content they publish period.
The author of this article is being absolutely ridiculous; it shows an immature and childish attitude to the real world. Any of the type of content found on Waiwai I can find at my local Lawsons, Circle K or other convenience store anywhere in Japan. Do I see you protesting against those Japanese language publications? And does anyone really take them seriously? Just like Alien adbuction and crop circle stories, they are a bit of a laugh, and no more. As to your assertion that "foreign men come to Japan to find sex", I have never heard or or seen a sex tourist in Japan, despite being here for over 20 years. Perhaps you could introduce me to one? You should take a trip to Bangkok, Manila or Amsterdam and see how many Japanese men are on the sex tour! I would bet that for every foreign sex tourist to Japan there would be 10,000 Japanese sex tourists to the above mentioned cities. Finally, have you not heard of freedom of the press? Surely this is much, much more important than a few outrageous articles about the supposed sexual proclivities of Japanese men and women.
I am very appreciative of your
You know most of the world see's this whole strutting about and saying "Stay away from our women." as like a comedy.
Only its a tragic one.
I have seen the reaction on Japanese gentlemen when I have put an arm around a Japanese lady. They often don't like it.
Sucks to be them. I just lol.
Welcome to the future!
It don't matter what country you come from, what race someone says you are or any of that sh*t.
:)
Seriously I saw a survey http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13980013 that said Japanese have the least frequent sex of any country. Because a stressful life. Is it correct, I doubt it. Its just a survey, you can use them to prove anything if you write the questions in a loaded way.
Anyway getting back to the newspaper this was about
http://ianfu.blogspot.com/2008/07/mainichi-daily-news-apologizes-racist.html
""tornadoes28 said...
"More than sixty years after the war, western people love to picture Japanese people yellow, crude, and sexually-obsessed barbarians."
This is an incorrect assumption. Many men in general, including foreign men, are attracted to stories (and pictures) regarding sex and women. That is why the MDN Wai Wai articles were popular.
Yes, they may have been innacurrate, but they were popular because they were about sex.
""
Sorry for big post
but thought PB would enjoy :)
Let's get real here friends, sex sells regardless of accuracy or truthfulness. I loved Wai Wai, it was larger than life and filled with gossip and naughty bits which raised eyebrows. About it's accuracy, I won't be able to say for sure until I've visited Japan for myself. Rest assured, I'm not one of those people who goes any where for sex, since I'm waiting for marriage, so my visit would be for the initial cultural shock which would surely derail this Bahamian's expectations.
The commentaries above show the hypocrisy of Japanese society or maybe these people have no idea what's going on in Japan. Waiwai articles mighr have been exaggerated but the underlying essense of Japanese sexual life and their serious problems is true. Of course one should not generalized but I have never seen in my life so many people with serious sexual issues, where campus and company rape is so common, where school prostitution is everywhere, where bosses use company money to have sex with OLs. I specially know cases from Mitsubishi corporation, government officials, NHK and JDF. So corrupted and perverted that these people make look the Yakuza like innocent young rebel boys, other bunch of perverts but they are at least more fun and more honest. And if one looks for wild sex, Japan is the place to go, just racist Japanese guys like the author don't want to get competition and the open secret that Japanese women are sex slaves. No offense, just Truth!
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