Opinion Where is the romance in Japan? By Juliet Hindell	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
日本人の愛情表現 携帯電話で楽しめる疑似恋愛ゲームが日本で人気を集めているが、実際に異性と付き合うよりも手軽で面白いらしい。日本の男性は異性に接近したり愛情を表現することが下手だと言われるが、これらのゲームによってその傾向がさらに強まるのではないだろうか。

I was recently on a train in Tokyo late at night when I saw a uniquely Japanese romantic moment take place between a man and a woman. They were young company employees apparently on their way home after a night out drinking with colleagues. They were chatting when she took out her grease-absorbing papers and offered him one to mop up the day's secretions on his face.

They sat there and dabbed away as if this was the most normal thing in the world. There was intimacy — who would you admit you had a sweaty face to? There was sharing, and the implication that this couple sometimes did more together than wipe their faces. Japanese couples so rarely show affection in public that I found it deeply touching.

It was a scene that you would never see in London. Not just because grease-absorbing papers are extremely unusual there, but because that kind of act is something you just don't do in public even though kissing is quite acceptable. But at least that was real contact between two real people.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan, it seems, would rather have a relationship with a virtual lover. Men and women are falling passionately in love with what is no more than a few pixels on a screen and a program on a server.

Take the virtual dating games, like Mail de Koi Shite, that you can play on your mobile phone. People playing these games never meet or contact real people. Men can meet their ideal (but virtual) girl on the tiny telephone screen and flirt by e-mail. Depending on how well they handle their female companions they can look forward to more intimate correspondence or the ultimate insult of being dumped by electronic message.

Women can be seduced by "handsome men" who only exist in a cyber-world and feel their pulse quicken when their phone shows them they have a message from "him" waiting. That's just the mild end of the spectrum, there are far more complicated and sexually graphic games available on your PC and hugely popular they are too.

But the popularity of these games makes me wonder about the future of Japanese romance, especially as men seem to play far more of these games than women. Do men need these games because they can't score in the real world? Do men need them to practice interacting with the opposite sex because their past advances have met with failure? Are the games good because there are no strings attached, while real relationships are too prone to trouble and pain? Or are the games simply good, clean fun?

Female friends tell me that Japanese men are not very romantic. They are not good at flirting, they don't have that glint in their eye, that way with words, those charming manners that are part of the art of seduction. Japanese men shouldn't feel too bad, there are good and bad flirts the world over.

But if they spent less time in front of their computer screens trying to win the hearts of imaginary heartthrobs they might have more time to hone their skills with real women. Then they too could be sharing romantic moments late at night on the train.

Shukan ST: June 8, 2001

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