The Tattoo (Chris McKinney) Novel Response 3

The last section of Supernova in the novel Tattoo felt like a very powerful statement on well-oiled saying of the Japanese man being a samurai. Throughout the entire book the main character Ken is being formed, or as he puts it, crafted in into a bomb, or the samurai as far as his Japanese ancestry goes. The idea of samurai – a man who knows no fear and is both the protector of his household and master of his wife – is the social norm and cultural standard Ken is raised under by his father, and is the prevailing theme of the novel. He is expected to not only be fearless, but also to ‘take shit from no one’, especially not from his woman (Claudia) in the later portions of the novel. It is emphasized in the later sections of the novel that marriage is a noose and it suffocates a man, making him weak, which is what Koa is trying to tell Ken through his own experience with Kahala. Ken is told by multiple people back from the country side that the old norms remain and he is supposed to be in charge, not the woman, and also that his infatuation with Claudia will not last and he should back out while he still can and not get ‘fucked’ by her.

Perhaps the most uplifting part of the novel is even though Ken’s life is a downward spiral he himself admitted he might never have any hope of escaping what he had become.  His son is to be raised without him and without Musashi (what he had become) his son will escape the cycle and it will become the end of the line of Hideyoshi samurai.

The theme of assimilation is caught in the conflict between Claudia and Ken’s father – the forced coming and clashing together and the ideals that they held. Claudia is the new way, while Ken’s father is the old way or as Ken’s father saw it, he is the right way – traditional – and Claudia is the wrong way – the haole way. Despite these differences Ken acknowledges the fact that even though they are two different people with two different backgrounds, he and Cal share a similar story not because of race, culture, or skin color but because they are both human and it is the choices they make that create the outcome.

Growing up in Hawai’i, we use the term samurai to describe men who live by these ideals – the old way of doing things – and this book is a very accurate portrayal of this concept. It is not a book I would have likely read on my own, but I’m glad I got the opportunity. It proves great insight into things we don’t even think of on a day to day basis. But what’s even more interesting is that this theme of ‘men being tough’ is not exclusive to Hawai’i or traditional social norms of Japanese culture. This expected behavior in fact can be found even in today’s modern society in America as discussed earlier this month regarding that men are expected in today’s world to be unemotional towards sex and to carry a cool and collected face. The book carried a theme that although many of Ken’s experiences may have seemed exclusive to Hawai’i, they were in fact not so and that really it can be related to anyone, anywhere in the world today. Though we all might never relate to the situations that Ken was presented with, there is something to be learned in regards to what to take out of the experiences we are presented with in our daily lives.

Review Paper: "The Ideal Woman Is: Asian."

It’s a growing trend nowadays that men seem to picture their ideal woman to be a youthful Asian (typically Japanese) bride. But what's more interesting is the increase in the stereotype male fetish of youthful Asian women in maid costumes. So what is exactly going on here? Why are men so interested in these socially accepted ideals of youthful beauty in servants’ clothes?

It all starts with historical stereotypes. In the past, Japanese women had the perception of being as a geisha: a woman whose job was to please and entertain men carrying a face of beauty and grace.  She was trained the arts and her sole purpose was to honor her male cliental, and this ‘ideal woman’ was continually perpetuated throughout the culture in history even to the modern day (where female students are required to take home economics and flower arrangement). It’s not surprising the West have the view of Asian women, especially those of Japanese ancestry, to be perfect brides when they are modeled to be such by their own culture.

But this still isn’t the full picture. With Japanese women and literature there are three main archetypes: the Maiden, the Wife, and the Mistress.  The same thing can be said regarding the West’s view of the fantasized woman, but most importantly is the idea of the maiden and innocence in regard to the appeal of this fascination with Japanese women. Japanese young women are marketed as this ‘maiden’ persona of purity and innocence to which even the West is biting into.

But where does the maid outfit fetish come in? It is the ever appealing idea of a relationship without attachment. As mentioned in the essay before this, there is a social expectation in the West that men are supposed to be detached of emotion, especially in relationships. They should be experienced with the act of intercourse and it should be something mundane and since there are no emotions invested in it, marriage is something that also becomes mundane and boring, and the thrill of a mistress becomes all the more appealing.

The union of the maiden and the mistress seem to have manifested itself in the new age fetish of attractive young Asian women in maid outfits and other attire usually associated with risky one-night-stands. Most people do not consciously think of these things as marriage of two themes together as a result of socially constructed expectations (and as a result, social norms). We write it off as it being a guy thing, when in fact that further proves the fact that it’s a social expectation for men to buy into this kind of thing.

Does this have adverse effects? Well yes, like anything that comes with a perception, it’s just that – a perception – it’s not always true and sometimes it can be anything but the truth. There has been a revitalized intrigue in America in Japan in the current generation and as a result women are becoming less and less meek. They still are nowhere close to as outspoken as Western women (which is expected given the cultural differences) but Japanese women given the environment of the big city and longer period of education, are straying further and further away from that ideal geisha woman.

These things are far from out of the ordinary to me, and worse than Western men in the consumption of the popularization of this fetish and the market it entails is the Asian men themselves. For the most part it’s harmless if you exclude the delusions it might create with those who believe blindly in the media, but it just goes to show the social norms and expectations of society. I believe that these ideas and the appeal to them has only heightened because of the movement of feminism and the result that women stray further and further away from this ideal. Just like how women like to read sleazy romance novels to feed their fantasies of a perfect romance, men buy into this market to feed their own fantasies.