Customer Reviews

Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Details on Japanese sexuality that make it to the English-speaking
world are usually plucked from the extremes: adult manga reading on
the subways, costume fetishes, sexless marriages, prostitution,
sashimi served atop naked girls, and one of the lowest sexual
satisfaction rates in the world. Goodbye Madame Butterfly connects
these extremes, exposing the less sensational center of Japanese
sexuality by letting Japanese women, mostly housewives, and one man
speak for themselves about their own sex lives.

The resulting stories feel both familiar in their mundane reality yet
quietly unsettling as they reveal how sexual morality and gender
politics in Japan differ from those of the puritan-values, post-
feminist U.S. In Goodbye Madame Butterfly, extramarital affairs are
forgiven or silently accepted as inevitable by both spouses, while
unfulfilled housewives seek relief from sex volunteers. Mothers
assert their commitment to their children and family harmony, but not
always, sometimes admitting to dispassionate feelings towards
offspring who happened to arrive under the wrong circumstances.

As a reader I appreciate the authentic messiness of sharp and muted
emotions Kawakami captures, but the uneven pacing and lack of
resolution takes some getting used to. The stories are hard to put
down and very readable, but not always as tightly edited as they
could be. The total effect is almost like reading a long "catch-up"
email from an old and very close friend, not always the most finely-
chiseled prose, but engaging, entertaining and deeply personal
nonetheless.

The book is beautifully designed and a great followup to Kuhaku, Chin
Music Press's first contribution to filling in the gaps between the
Japan you usually hear about and real Japanese life.

I haven't read one of these kinds of books for a while - about the modern Japanese woman, so I thought I'd give this one a try, to see if it had something new to say - to see if women had something new to say.
It's been several years since I grew tired of reading the old saw about stockings and women growing stronger after the war, glass ceilings, blah blah.

Several thoughts came to me while I was reading.

So women are having affairs now. OK, but more than in the past? I don't recall reading any details and it's not really that kind of book. Still, there might be more sex for the women in a statistically sexless country (acording to a Durex survey anyway), but the interviewees whose words Kawakami chose to print were all lacking in passion.

In fact everyone seemed to lack passion. Everyone seemed to just fall into situations, they allowed things to happen, to continue, to end or carry on. They did things because it was the sensible choice, the practical move; because they were told to; because that's how it has always been done.

It might just have been the translation, or the writer's style, or the writer herself (who easily admits in the intro that she lacked certain skills as an interviewer) that combine to make the interviews seem so passionless and passive... but I'm not sure.
Emotions came out mostly in reference to children.

Secondly I thought, well, Japanese women are no different, no more or less special, than those in any other country. They choose the wrong guy, do the wrong things, question the same kind of decisions. They just react differently, less aggressively, with more a kind of 'Wait and see' approach.

Not to say that it's a book without a lasting impression. Some of the quotes and events stay with me:

A doctor tells a pregnant woman that her dead baby, still in her womb, was just garbage that was taking up space and needed to be trashed; and to consider a miscarriage as just another accident. I am not surprised to read about this insensitivity from male doctors, but I am disappointed, and feel for the women.

(I read this book shortly after Kumi Koda, a popular young singer, was blasted in the press for saying that women should have kids while they're young, otherwise the fluid in their womb will rot... This reflects rather badly both on how women are viewed (baby makers) and on biology education in Japan!)

A woman still in her early 20s describes when she first realised how love and marriage are different - I'm sorry, but that strikes me as a very sad realisation to have so young.

There are cultural differences I simply won't ever get - a pregnant woman realizes her husband loved her after she found out he hadn't told her of her father's death until about a week later...

I'd've been pretty annoyed. That kind of controlling behaviour is a bit much. Still, that's just me; it's an interesting insight into how family dynamics work in Japan.

What was also annoying was that all through the book I was hoping for a happy tale, a happy story, a happy woman.

There was contentment to read about, mind you, but it was more a resigned than a smiling face that I imagined telling her story.

There was a final happy tale (happy because unfinished I guess, we'll never know the outcome), but both the interviewee and her boyfriend had ties with 'muko' - abroad.
The woman, her mother was British, and she went to school and uni abroad.
The guy also went to school abroad and stayed there after she returned to Japan, because of work or study, I forget which. They hope to be reunited in about a year.

I wondered why Kawakami couldn't've used a happy story where the woman was just simply Japanese - why embellish it with the foreigner angle?

The book itself is very nicely bound, and I like the old-fashioned bookribbon. The messages on the inner pages were a little *too* cute - you may as well have stuck a waving Hello Kitty there and been done with it; but I imagine a proud author/publisher is allowed some whimsy.

If you're new to Japan, or to this kind of book, then give it a read.

If you, like me, have been through the mill of such books, or through Japan, there's nothing you didn't already know but it's nice to have it summarised.

All in all, it is not as different from the others as I had hoped; but still worth a read.

and these have been, what, ten of them. Nothing or no one special here except as
we are all special. The only really remarkable Japanese characteristic on display
is the capacity to endure loveless marriage for the sake of appearance, the
children or getting your laundry done regularly. The book reads like gossip which
makes it hard to put down even if what you've learned is of little use. Buy it for your commute into work; the time will fly by as you skim through the light fare. You also might find yourself wondering what stories your fellow passengers could tell.