2010!

I almost forgot I had this blog.

So 2010 is here! It’s pretty good so far. I’ve been blogging up a storm over at Comics212, my reflections on manga from the decade that just passed. I’m not normally one for a “looking back” type post, but what the hell, I was inspired, and so far it’s been a hit. The second-last one is gonna be tough though… still wrapping my head around what I want to say.

What else… It’s been ridiculously busy, even above and beyond the blogging (which has been so consistant so far! I really wanna keep it up). It occurs to me that I intended to start writing more this year, possibly for money, and about things other than comics. I’ve got a few ideas in me so far, but I was just doing a search on gay life in Japan, and the stuff that’s out there is awful. I mean, I found it helpful when I was first looking into what gay life (and nightlife) was like in Japan before I headed there in 2007… but so far as I can tell, almost none of the material has been updated SINCE then.

Japan has a sort of strange relationship with the internet, where a lot of Japanese gay stuff is very specifically Japanese-only, as they’re not interested in having to deal with foreigners. I kind of get that, but there’s still a gap of information for people like me, who are heading there, or people who are going to the country for teaching or exchange or whatever. You can (and will) be welcomed in Japan, if you know what you’re doing. How do you know what you’re doing? Ideally, you just do as much research as you can and then throw yourself into the scene… if you’re me, and are generally unafraid of the consequences. But, and I know this will strike you as difficult to believe, there are people out there who are shyer than I am, and they don’t necessarily want to deal with the gay and the language barrier and the being thousands of km from home all at the same time. There’s no real writing, certainly nothing up to date, to help a newb navigate the customs and rabbit-warrens of Japanese gay bars.

Admittedly, I feel like on some level that is exactly the way Japanese gay bar owners want it, for the most part. You still see signs like:

Stolen from http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=2486

… more often than you might think. In fact, and here’s a good example of what I’m talking about, some gay establishments, particularly the more risque ones, will have signs like this posted out in front on purpose. Why? Because any foreigner who really knows what goes on in a place like that will disregard the sign and go in. But any foreigner that stumbles into what they think is your run-of-the-mill sento and sees a sign like that will walk out (or make a fuss), indignant, rather than getting themselves into a situation they weren’t expecting inside said establishment, where things would go much worse for all involved if a foreigner got angry or indignant.

But is that sort of information readily available? Well organized? Is anyone like  ”your gay buddy in Japan” walking you through it? Not that I can find.

And that’s just one thing. So I’d very much love someone to pay me to write about that, for an appropriate audience, in 2010. I’d like people to pay me to write about all sorts of stuff. We’ll see. I’m going to start knocking on doors soon.

- Chris