The best coffee in town (possibly) - foxymoron

spending habits of the parasitic O.L. or ‘office
lady’ generation of women who live at home
with their parents and spend most of their
income on leisure and shopping.
Also, they sell some extremely nice knitwear at
the Takashimaya in Ginza.
b) In my dreams, I run around Japanese
department stores buying limited edition Nike
trainers, bulk discount patterned leggings,
amazing eggshell ceramic sake cups and
woodblock prints of copulating Geisha.
c) Man, those crazy Japanese. They love
shopping. What a trip those places are.
Japanese department stores have all these
crazy promotions with crazy girls dressed up
like reindeer drinking egg nog lattes and robot
dogs eating hot dogs.
4. You buy some condoms from a lovehotel
and they’re a little on the tight side.
What is your reaction?
a) The Japanese male member is statistically on
average around the same size as the European
male member. Thus my male member must be
slightly larger than the average male member.
How nice!
b) I hope this cute Japanese girl is impressed with
my size.
c) I HAVE THE BIGGEST PENIS IN ALL OF JAPAN!
5. You’re on a business trip to Tokyo. It’s
the perfect opportunity to:
a) visit Namidabashi, the “Bridge of Tears.” It
was here, where a canal once flowed, that
prisoners were brought to bid farewell to their
loved ones before being taken off to the nearby
execution ground at Kozukappara. A section of
the road running north called the Old Streetcar
Boulevard is still referred to as Kotsu Dori
(“Street of Bones”), a reference to the rows of
decapitated heads that were once displayed
here.
Cursed from the outset, Sanya was established
in the northeast of the city, an unlucky direction
according to Chinese geomancy, and one
that required a belt of well-placed temples to
protect it from evil spirits and demons. Sanya
carries the added stigma of being “poisoned
ground,” its unconcealed concentration of
social outcasts and their descendants an
embarrassment to mainstream Japanese.
You are very interested in the position of social
outcasts in Japan, such as immigrant groups
like the large Korean and Chinese populations.
You are aware that the image of Japan as
being ‘racially pure’ is a myth.
b) visit some temples, buy those nice freshly
roasted sweet rice crackers with the white
frosting like snow, go shopping in Aoyama
where they have the most amazing fashion, go
to karaoke and then some nightclubs; you just
love DJ Krush and Ken Ishii.
c) go to Harajuku to check out the crazy speed
tribes, super bizarro fashion and the kids who
die their skin to be like African Americans. It’s
pretty sad how real Japanese culture is being
lost: the world in Memoirs of a Geisha and The
Last Samurai is what they should be preserving
instead of copying American culture.
6. You see a sweet-looking Japanese
girl holding hands with a 40something
American guy with a ponytail and a dirty
sweatshirt. You feel a pang of anxiety as
you think:
a) I wonder if his Japanese is better than mine?
Still, my wife tells me I’m getting pretty fluent
now… be still, troubled heart…
b) Where can I go to meet a cute Japanese
person? They’re so hard to get to know…
c) Hells bells, another guy taking advantage of a
subservient Japanese girl. I should march up
and liberate her from his evil clutches. Onward
feminist soldiers!
7. What best describes your feelings
towards other professional Gaijin?
a) Natural affinity and a sense of relief to find
others like yourself, or casual indifference.
b) Slightly competitive feelings and an obsessive
desire to be the expert on Japanese culture.
c) I choose to deny their existence. There Can Be
Only One.
RESULTS
If you answered mostly a), congratulations!
You are a JAPANOLOGIST.
You most likely have some special area of expertise such as obscure bonsai techniques or popular
literature in the Edo-period.
You will eventually have three half-Japanese children of whom you will be very proud, and you will
grow old teaching English in a rural backwater of Hokkaido, eventually dieing when you choke on a
sticky mochi rice cake.
Try not to be a snob and think that you know more about Japan than anyone. And try to get at least
one more hobby. And always remember: YOU ARE NOT JAPANESE.
If you answered mostly b), congratulations!
You are a JAPANOPHILE.
If you can be arsed to do all the research, you could graduate to become a Japanologist. Try not to
bore non-Japanophiles with your endless delight in cute rice snacks, san-rio Hello Kitty and chu-hi
drinks. Try to balance your love for quaint Japanese customs with a little knowledge of their war-time
atrocities, and try not to congratulate yourself too much on every little word of Japanese that you
learn. The Japanese act amazed at your being able to say ‘oishii desu!!” out of politeness, not true
amazement that you can say ‘this is yummy’ in their language.
If you answered mostly c), our sincere apologies.
You are an ORIENTALIST.
Orientalism was defined by Edward Said as the imperial attitude of the West towards the East. At its
most harmless, it is characterized by careless stereotyping, such as thinking all Japanese are quiet
and short and into crazy gameshows.
At its worst, Orientalism sees the East as the passive, submissive, worshipping counterpart to
the dominant West. Asian males are thought of as effeminate, shifty and weak; Asian females
are thought of as helpless, sexually promiscuous and needing to be ‘saved’ by a Western hero or
heroine.
Orientalists find it hard to understand that Japan is a developing, modern nation that also makes
contributions to Western culture.
Japanologists and Japanophiles can also display occasional signs of Orientalist, god-complex
tendencies. Learning Japanese language and history can be a cure, but not always. Plenty of gaijin
Japanologist professors who act like spoilt brats that want to be given gold stars every time they
take a shit.