a resort noted for its scenic beauty and romantic history is especially effective in bringing out the femininity of Japanese women. Men in Japan are well aware of this effect and make regular use of it in their romantic peccadillos by purposely taking their girlfriends to such places.
One advantage the typical Japanese girl has over her Western counterpart in the matter of dress is that she is generally more concerned about her appearance and the impression her clothing makes. Very few Japanese girls deliberately dress sloppy. When they go casual, they generally do so with a keen knack for knowing what men will find attractive.
Most Japanese girls also gain a special advantage from Western-style clothing because it generally looks better on women who have slender builds and are not over 5 feet and 6 or 7 inches tall. Japanese girls are often especially attractive in form-fitting casual and sportswear.
As a result of the unusual interest Japanese girls have in fashions and dressing well, dress-making schools abound all over the country. Fashion shows are as popular as bargain sales. In Tokyo, for example, dozens of department stores, dress-making schools, apparel shops, and design studios stage fashion exhibitions several times a month, so that on any day there may be as many as forty or fifty well-publicized shows going on somewhere in the city. As a rule, Japanese working girls skimp on food in order to spend more on attractive wearing apparel, and the results are immediately obvious to the girl-watcher.
If the girl-watcher is in Japan during summer, he would find a visit to one of the large beach areas especially rewarding. The swimwear industry in Japan is very advanced, and the girls have taken to bikini suits as if they were made for each other.
To the Japanese of old Japan one of the primary goals in life was to achieve harmony within the self and in relations with those around them. Among the means by which they traditionally attempted to achieve this harmony was strict adherence to an elaborate code of etiquette. Eventually they went so far as to equate "proper" manners with virtue. Present-day Japanese are no longer forced to follow such rigid rules of behavior, but after so many centuries of adherence to specific patterns of conduct it has become the natural way of life for them and remains characteristic of much of their behavior today.
Japan's traditional etiquette code demanded a degree of physical gracefulness seldom seen in the West except among professional actors playing roles. Each person, beginning in very early childhood, was methodically trained in how to perform all the routine functions of daily living in a carefully controlled, graceful manner. Being able to eat with chopsticks, for example, was not enough. There was a particular way they had to be held and used. Even minor deviations were not tolerated. The same rules applied in hundreds of other situations. Manners were not a matter of personal interpretation. Everyone was expected to behave in an exactly prescribed way in all circumstances.
Among the methods used to train girls in gracefulness and Japanese manners were the tea ceremony and flower arranging, along with serving food, dancing, and greeting guests. Each succeeding generation of Japanese was meticulously conditioned to be able to perform life rather than simply live it. They were born, raised, and lived all their lives in one giant charm school.
In the new, more relaxed atmosphere of present-day Japan, the training of children in gracefulness and the old code of manners is considerably less intensive. Adults are also less restricted and stereotyped in their behavior, but the Japanese in general are still much more concerned about etiquette and gracefulness than Westerners. Where. the average Japanese girl is concerned, the remnants of this old feudalistic etiquette gain her valuable points with foreign men— who are mostly impressed with its passive and masochistic qualities. The Westerner in Japan tends to see the typical girl as meek, retiring, and flowerlike. His appreciation for this kind of behavior grows out of his conviction that here is a female over whom he can exercise his masculine will. When he compares the feminine behavior of Japanese girls with the rough-and-ready manners of Western girls the conclusion is foregone.
The studied gracefulness of Japanese women is one of the primary facets of their sexual appeal, especially to Westerners who tend to associate gracefulness with femininity. To the average foreign man the unusually graceful girl exudes feminine sexuality whether or not she is physically attractive. A Japanese girl with a plain face and a so-so figure may therefore appear very feminine and desirable because of her manners.
Many of the Western men who have been in Japan and came away impressed with the manners, personality, honesty, and integrity of Japanese girls met only bar and cabaret hostesses—and before the red-light districts were outlawed, professional prostitutes. As is well known, the Western sex girl tends to become hard and cold (an image Hollywood has been trying very hard—with some success—to change). But unless the professional Japanese girl has been "de-Japanized" as the result of long exposure to foreign customers, she is apt to be as soft-spoken, mild-mannered and innocent-appearing as the average girl. Many a foreign visitor to Japan introduced to a young lady who immediately thereafter spent the night with him has refused to believe she was ''in the business." She was "just too nice, too well behaved, too refined!"
To a Japanese girl, whether or not she is a professional sex partner, being a female is a role she takes seriously. Instead of being taught from childhood that she is expected to compete with males, she is taught in both explicit and implicit ways that her role is to serve and complement men. Learning how to do this—along with the usual homemaking skills—is a standard requirement without which she regards herself as incomplete. Femininity and the ability to please men have traditionally been of special importance to courtesans and mistresses in Japan. They received more training and spent more time practicing feminine skills than the ordinary girl, but ordinary Japanese girls as well believe it is only natural for them to become skilled at being women.
The nature of Japanese etiquette requires an attitude and manner of great humility. The average Western man is unable to say whether or not any Japanese concerned is really humble, but he tends to be very impressed anyway, especially when the person is a pretty girl. Such behavior has the effect of elevating the position of the man while lowering that of the girl—a situation the man finds very pleasing.
In addition to wearing a humble mien and generally behaving in a reserved, compliant manner, Japanese women also ordinarily use a form of speech that is extremely passive and humble. Receptionists in office buildings, store clerks, and hotel maids, for example, behave toward and speak to every guest or client in a manner Westerners usually reserve for royalty. It is no exaggeration to say that Japanese women literally make men feel like kings. Just a little sample of this kind of treatment is often enough to spoil a Westerner.
Another aspect of this humility factor and another of the secrets of the special charms of Japanese girls, is that they are masters at being aggressive and taking the initiative in their relations with men while outwardly appearing to be passive and submissive. They do this by the simple technique of allowing men to exercise their masculine vanity, which disarms and weakens them, then letting the men know what they want by indirect means. Feeling both grateful and guilty, Western men especially gobble this bait up.
Cabaret hostesses specialize in this technique of "losing to win." Newcomers in the trade are systematically instructed in how to make their customers feel superior by exalting them, always assuming a "low posture," and catering to their whims—whatever they may be. The average Japanese girl receives no special training in this, but so much of it is bound up with the overall culture that she nevertheless rates as an expert by Western standards.
