Customer Reviews

The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan

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There is much that is of value in this book -- there is much that is true -- but an uninformed reader will have difficulty sorting the wheat from the chaff. As with any vanity publication, this book cries out for an editor. An editor would have enhanced the book in four ways: first, by obliging Dr. Hayes to flesh out -- no pun intended -- the portions of the book actually dealing with sex & sleaze in Japan (despite its title, surprisingly little of this book concerns sex & sleaze in Japan); second, by excising his frequent tangential sermons on science & philosophy, which serve only to showcase his familiarity with the cream of the world's abridgements; third, by curbing his urge to pontificate on economic theory (which at least he is qualified to do -- in another book); and, finally, by the simple act of reining him in.

The last point is key. This book is a rant. It is the ill-considered, uncontainable outburst of a man outraged: outraged by the gulf between the reality of Japan and its image; outraged by the treatment he has received from his Japanese employers. It is written in the breathless style of paranoid schizophrenic delusion familiar to fans of, say, David Icke. Dr Hayes' state of mind when he wrote this work is evident from the proliferation! of exclamation! marks! The work is marred by sloppy expression and frequent contradiction, and hops wildly from topic to unrelated topic like a butterfly on "shabu". This is disappointing, as there is certainly scope for a comprehensive, thoughtful study of this subject. Blinkered romantics peering through the smog that is modern Japan but seeing only a mirage of tea-ceremony in temple gardens have held the field for too long; it is time for honest assaults on the saccharined image of modern Japan. Sadly, this book is not quite one of these. Although Dr. Hayes describes his work as "the mother of all Japan-bashing books", the reader will hesitate to cite it in any actual criticism of Japan or modern Japanese culture. One does not feel comfortable that it is entirely trustworthy.

I quote below a review of this book published in the Yomiuri last November. From his choice of terminology, I presume Mr Kruse had access to this review and that it inspired his criticisms. I remember Hayes writing science reviews for the Yomiuri some years ago, some good, some bad and some referenced in this book. The Yomiuri review does highlight many of the strong and weak points of the book. There are too many tangents in the footnotes on science, economics, world politics and the arts. However, an important point is that Hayes seems to be saying that "unusual Japan" is not all that unusual and, as the Yomiuri mentions, he cites similar cases throughout the world. As the Yomiuri states, he also spends only a comparatively small amount of pages highlighting some of Sophia's dirty linen - as it is in a chapter beginning with a gang rape society at Waseda University, perhaps he felt some balance was needed. He does cite far too many crimes without, as the Yomiuri points out, going into any detail on most of them. However, the sheer number of crimes he cites seems to me to make the point that Japan is lawless in many ways, just like other countries. Finally, as the Yomiuri and Mr Kruse echoes, the author does jump, mothlike around from topic to topic much too much. The question to decide before spending your money: is do you want to follow the moth from the war crimes of the Second World War (chapter one) via more modern crimes to the final chapter dealing with the media and judicial system in Japan? If so, his book might be worth buying.

Japan scholar reveals all the muck that's fit to rake -- and then some
Mark Austin / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan By Declan Hayes
iUniverse, 619 pp, 35.95 dollars

Can you think of any other country that has a sexual molestation problem on the scale that Japan does? I don't recall seeing anti-groping posters in any of the mass transit systems in the world's big cities I've visited outside Japan.

And in how many other countries have railway operators introduced women-only train cars to counter a groping problem?

The design of one anti-groping poster used in the Tokyo subway system until a year or so ago was ironic, though the irony was obviously lost on the railway operator that commissioned it. It had a photograph of a pretty teenage girl, wearing school uniform and a fierce expression, holding one arm out in a "stop!" gesture.

I have no doubt the poster became a collectors item among the legions of chikan (gropers) in the nation's capital.

About 10 years ago, one of them, Samu Yamamoto, became a regular on the late-night TV circuit when his Chikan Hyakka (Encyclopedia of Groping) was published. I remember watching, dumbfounded, one show in which he gave advice to a group of young, would-be chikan, who wore ski masks to preserve their anonymity, while the audience howled with laughter.

"Only in Japan," I remember thinking.

Is that right, though? Do the Japanese--Japanese men, more accurately--have an innate, culturally determined predisposition toward forms of sexual behavior considered outrageous in the West, or is the groping problem simply a malign symptom of a "pressure cooker" society--a problem that could occur anywhere, given the right conditions?

Declan Hayes--whose previous books include Setting Sun, Japan's Big Bang and Japan: The Toothless Tiger, all from Tuttle Publishing--seems to believe both the former and the latter. His self-published The Japanese Disease: Sex and Sleaze in Modern Japan is a phone book-sized indictment of a society he claims has lost its moral compass, and yet--surely inadvertently--the book offers plentiful evidence that any "disease" Japan suffers from is far from endemic.

Hayes, associate professor of money, banking and finance at Sophia University, unabashedly introduces his tome as "the mother of all Japan bashing books!" But he concludes its final chapter with the claim: "Although this entire book will lead to the hoary charge that I am a Japan-basher, that is not the case at all."

Glaring inconsistencies such as this are, unfortunately, evident throughout the book, which resembles an extended Web blog written by someone suffering from logorrhea.

Hayes' book is hard to describe; indeed it beggars description. Within the covers, its author flits, mothlike, over a bizarre potpourri of subjects that have at best only a tenuous connection with Japan including:

-- The "Sokal affair"--a hoax perpetrated by physicist Alan Sokal upon a leading humanities journal that exposed the "Emperor's New Clothes"-type theorizing espoused by post-modernist academics (four pages).

-- Political correctness allegedly gone mad at Hayes' employer, Sophia University (five pages; four pages in the endnotes).

-- An overview of economics that encompasses the theories of the ancient Greeks; Newtonian, Einsteinian and quantum physics; game theory; the theories of Marx and Darwin; the development of eugenics; and the theory of rational expectations (24 pages; dozens of lengthy references in the endnotes).

-- Keynesian economic theory (total of 17 pages in the endnotes).

-- The Irish Republican movement (13 pages; dozens of lengthy references in the endnotes).

-- The theory of mercantilism (eight pages in the endnotes).

-- "Empty" apologies by individuals, institutions and nations (20 pages in the endnotes).

-- Anti-Semitism (six pages in the endnotes).

While these topics are undoubtedly interesting, their inclusion and lengthy explication in a book that purports to analyze the "putrid underbelly" of Japan, which he describes as "a country gone seriously off the rails," is bewildering.

Much of The Japanese Disease consists of long lists of lurid crime reports culled from vernacular newspapers. Those who have lived in this country for a few years will be familiar with most of the cases that Hayes cites. There seems little point in his belaboring them in such numbing detail in his book; it would have made far more sense if Hayes had concentrated on a few representative cases and provided some context to advance his apparent premise: that Japan is a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

What context he does provide, however, fatally undermines that claim. Discussing the blight of underage prostitution in the "Japan's Child Sex Industry" chapter, for instance, Hayes admits that "the West, of course, has a blotted copybook in this regard" and devotes the following four pages to the pedophilia problem in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States and other countries.

Similarly, while a glance at the national pages of any Japanese newspaper reveals that corruption remains widespread, Hayes' claim that "Japan's political system resembles that of its wartime ally, Italy. Nice on the surface but rotten to the core" sounds a bit wide of the mark considering that Japan ranked 21st out of of 158 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2005--a fairly creditable showing.

If, for the sake of argument, we accept Hayes' claim that Japan is indeed going to hell in a handbasket (which requires a suspension of reason on the part of this reviewer, a longtime resident of this safe, peaceful and wealthy nation), then at least it won't be short of company there.

(Nov. 27, 2005)

The good: This book is certainly an interesting read and highly informative. Literally thousands of references set this apart from simple scaremongering and rumors. Reads more like a textbook, and covers an awfully wide scope of content from the history after the war to yakuza and child sex industry. In fact, the book is so big that I can confidently it covers everything I thought was messed up about Japan and a whole lot more. Probably everything.

The bad: References fill up the final third of the book - something which I personally would have liked to see cut down since I'm actually living here in the land of limited shelf space. It's also severely badly edited. There are an awfully high number of spelling mistakes and repeated occasions where the author seems to have cut and paste sentences that occured only a few paragraphs ago - giving an overall amateurish feel to what would otherwise be a very thorough textbook. The book is literred with pages of non-related material about similar problems worldwide. Though it puts the problems of japan in context somewhat, it seems out of place in a book that should be specifically about Japan!

As a former koshi lecturer at Ichigaya High, none of this surprises me. The American fossils he cites in chapter six who should have been sacked for falsely and very stupidly claiming the Americans are a race have been using tactics like this long before the 1985 memo Prof Hayes cites was written. They are a disgrace to a Jesuit university and should have been sacked years ago. However, because the Japanese Ministries are now beginning to audit grant recipients better, there is a chance the academics Prof Hayes mentions in chapter six will be brought to book. Justice delayed is not justice denied.
I disagree that Hayes should write a book on Sophia's cesspit as these people are not worth it. He should, instead, consider building up some of the other chapters, perhaps in collaboration with others. The first chapter, dealing with the war crimes of the second world war and the book's last chapter dealing with Japan's media and judicial system are the book's strongest chapters. The plethora of endnotes detract from the book. Hayes should find his true voice and his true topic before he again commits pen to paper. This is not to say this book is a waste or bad value for money. I believe it will help many researchers find their way to richer veins.
Much of the first chapter revolves around Iris Chang's expose of the rape of Nanking and his comparison of the war crimes of the Japanese to those of the French, Aussies and Italians is insightful. Hayes makes the valid point that historians ignored the Nanking "incident" and instead attacked the messenger, Chang. How ironic it is that Michael Kruse attacks Hayes and ignored the message. No doubt he prefers limp books that say nothing and that are byproducts of the vanity presses we call academic publishing. See Chapter six of Hayes' book for a lot more on this.
Chapter six is the key to this book and it is where Hayes' endnotes really go off the wall. If he wants to spend more time on academic idiots, then he should forsake the more interesting material the other chapters concern themselves with. But that is how the narcissistic academic industry works with academics divorced from the real world writing books that only libraries and other protected species buy and no one, indentured students apart, reads. It would be an irony if Hayes was to choose that sterile road when he has the potential to do more interesting studies.

A brave endeavor to tackle a challenging subject. At the same time, however, the book title threatens to discredit both the author and the subject by pathologizing sex (i.e. as "sleaze" and "disease") while reinscribing the Orient (i.e. Japan in this specific instance) as the locus of (sexual) "disease." We all know that controversial sexual practices and underground adult industries are not specific to Japanese society. Then again, this book can be read as an ironic cautionary tale for the voyeuristic Japanophile who hopes to get laid in Japan.

Before one buys this 634 page book he should be informed that the actual text begins on page one and ends on page 300. Those 300 hundred pages of text are followed by 319 pages of end notes, though I use that term loosely, as few of these end notes actually credit a source for the information they refer to--and by the way, "information" is another term I'm using loosely here. Where a source is credited, that source is most often the Mainichi Daily News. This is interesting in view of how he maligns the Japanese press generally, and the large newspapers specifically. Still, Dr. Hayes, it seems, reads his daily paper. It also seems clear that he's read some of the recent works on Japan. Never mind that he's misinterpreted them, misunderstood them, misread them, or simply misrepresented them.

In his 12 page introduction, which precedes the 300 page text and the 319 pages of notes, Dr. Hayes informs us that he has lived in Japan for nearly a decade, and I suppose a reader who hasn't himself lived in Japan might assume that all those years must qualify Dr. Hayes in some way. They don't. His resume makes him appear to know a lot about Japan. He doesn't.

I have lived here nearly two and a half decades. Now, that fact certainly hasn't made me an expert on Japan either, but it has taught me to recognize those bitten and bitter Westerners like Dr. Hayes who have spent seven or eight years here, believe they know all about the place, believe it's all bad, cannot stop ranting about it, yet refuse to leave. And "ranting" is exactly what Dr. Hayes is doing here. He's also rambling. There is simply no way for the reader to guess where the next sentence is likely to take him.

Sadly, there are an overwhelming number of people here just like him. That's why I recognize the type. I've seen hundreds of them, though even after all these years I'm not sure whether they come here because they're off their rockers or whether they go off their rockers because they've come here. At any rate, not to suggest that there aren't American of this ilk over here too, but Dr. Hayes is typical of the European hater over here in that his hatred of Japan is matched only by his hatred of America, and he rants equally at both countries, though he seems to actually know very little about either place.

He rants a lot at England too, though hopefully he's as wrong about that country as about America and Japan. I would suppose that he is.

His facts, in large part, are not facts. And the whole mess resembles nothing more than the spleen venting of a partially educated person gone completely mad.

Let's just start at the beginning--page one. Here's the first sentence: "When 360 Japanese planes sank 90% of America's Pacific Fleet moored in Pearl Harbor on Sunday, 7 December 1941, the Pacific War began in earnest15." In fact, according to the US Navy, the attack force at Pearl Harbor consisted of 351 Japanese planes, not 360. Though many authors call it 350, and one calls it 353, none but Hayes call it 360 that I'm aware of. This is a very easy fact to check. and a very difficult one to get wrong, I would think. Again, according to the US Navy, twenty-one of 96 ships anchored in Pearl Harbor that day were sunk. Most of us, I assume, can figure in our heads that 21 is roughly 20% of 96, not 90%, and this is not to mention that much of the Pacific Fleet was away from Pearl Harbor that day, including all three of the Fleet's aircraft carriers. This is also not to mention that all but three of those ships that were sunk would be back in action before the end of the war. Of those three, two were considered simply too old to be worth repairing. One of them even, the Utah, was in fact being used as a target ship that very week. So ultimately, the only real loss at Pear Harbor, in terms of America's Pacific Fleet, was the Arizona.

Now having said that, maybe the more important point is that Dr. Hayse's sentence is simply not clear. In fact, it seems purposefully unclear. Is he telling us that 90% of America's Pacific Fleet was sunk at Pearl Harbor that day, or is he telling us that 90% of that part of the fleet at Pearl Harbor that day was sunk? Either way, he's wrong. He's both unclear and wrong. How can he manage that? And what does he mean by "the Pacific War began in earnest?" Does he believe there was a less than "earnest" Pacific War going on up until that date? Does he want the reader to believe that? I don't know, but I do know it isn't true. What was indeed going on up until that date was a Japanese war of aggression on the continent, and that war was very earnest, at least for those Chinese and Japanese involved.

So now we come to the end note. Number 15. Page 312. The note takes all but the last line of the page. I'd enjoy quoting all of it here, but assuming the reader may not have exactly the same sense of humor I have, I'll jump right the best part, which Dr. Hayes has saved for last:

"Observant readers will note that the Great War began with the unprovoked bombing of Belgrade by Austria and that Bill Clinton ordered Belgrade to be bombed in April 1999 to deflect attention from his own domestic scandals; the accusations that he is a rapist and that the Chinese Secret Service, whose Belgrade embassy was demolished by NATO's pilots, funded his election campaign. History has a strange way of repeating itself; whether this is farcical or not, only the reader--or the Serbs and Chinese on the receiving end of Clinton's love bombs--can decide."

Wow! How did we ever get there? Like I said, the reader has no way of guessing where the next sentence is going to take him. And I can't resist making the point here that "observant readers" most certainly will not note and could not possibly note any of this--no readers of this book, anyway, observant or not will note any of this because he has not written it. He hasn't yet said a word about WWI, Belgrade, Bill Clinton, NATO, the Chinese Secret Service, elections or love bombs. We're still on the very first sentence here! Rather, in this so called end note he's telling us that the "observant reader" will simply out of the blue make all the long ranging, disconnected, and utterly absurd connections that he makes. There is absolutely no reason why they should, or even might. The thought process here is troubling to say the least.

The book is abysmally edited and absurdly organized. That's been stated over and over again in these criticisms. What's been stated far less often is that it's poorly written as well. And honestly, the author seems mad to me. I mean that in both senses of the word--angry as well as insane. He doesn't seem especially stupid. Smart people can be poor writers. But he seems at best to have let his passion and his bile, if not indeed a degree of genuine insanity, get the best of his intelligence.

This book is fun to read, but it isn't reliable. Do not believe a word of it. Some of it is certainly true, though often not in the exact way he states it or in the context that he puts it. Much more of it is simply wrong. Check your facts.

Finally, since I live in Japan and Dr. Hayes lives in Japan, I feel I should make it clear to the reader that I don't know the man and I'm not aware of having ever met him. I don't want anybody to mistake what I have written here as a personal affront to him. I've simply written what I think of his book.

I took two classes with Declan Hayes, one last semester, one this semester. Studying in Japan, it is hard to get insights into anything, as the professors are usually so dense. Sophia has lost out on contracts to International Christian University and Temple University Japan where their low academic standards and general waffle are a source of amusement. There is too much emphasis in Sophia on esoteric subjects like History of Art and Religion. Ichigaya High is a much more frustrating and academic pedestrian place than Hayes makes it out to be.
Prof Hayes is the only professor there who has made any attempt to help us find jobs. He has brought several speakers in and has given several of us leads to potential employers. Because he does not pontificate or stand on a pedestal as others do, it is interesting to read his book to see how man and book fit together. He treats the students like adults and this sets him apart in a "university" like Ichigaya High which has a thriving PTA but no form of student representation to protest against the poor service and teaching we get. Hayes should write an entire book on Sophia and bring all its dirty linen out for public view. As it is, his comments are a stinging indictment on the university and on the Jesuit order who nominally run it. They typify a tenth grade university and, as the gang rapists of Waseda show, they also typify Japanese education. If readers think Hayes is bitter, they should hear what Sophia students think about the place and the professors who abuse their positions there.
But, "Mr Kruse" notwithstanding, Sophia is only a very small part of the chapter on education and a tiny part of the entire book which is an overly ambitious project and goes wrong by trying to capture a vast canvas while giving us hundreds of pages of end notes as well. Chapter one, on the dark side of the Second World War, has the makings of an entire book in itself. Hayes is a war buff and it is interesting to see him tie the economics of war into the book's endnotes even if it sidetracks him from his main themes, one of which is crimes of the mind. He could have done this a lot more seamlessly by concentrating on this alone but he aims too far and too wide. I guess much of his take is answering the questions foreigners of his generation ask about Japan, Yasukuni shrine, the rapes of Nanking and Manila and stuff like that. Hayes gives a wealth of detail and allows us to make a more informed decision and to see the Japanese side of things too.
Chapter two deals with foreigners in Japan. It is good to see injustices highlighted, though in the case of Nick Barker, the English guy convicted of drug running, Hayes, like many others, definitely got it wrong. He raises many themes which should be developed more but are not. In fact, as the Daily Yomiuri review quoted suggests, this chapter, like many others, probably would be better up on the Internet with comments added by others. It makes the basis of a good excursion into how the Japanese have interacted with the outside world. But Hayes does not want to confine himself to one theme and we pay a price for that.
Chapters three and four deal with sex and, despite the shock horror tactics, Hayes' prudishness is obvious. Just look on chapter six, which deals with drugs, drink and cigarettes, all of which Hayes freely admits to abhorring. It is interesting, given how much he abhors drink and drunkards, that one of his racist critics here, knowing him to be Irish, criticizes him for staying out of pubs ad not drinking. Chapter five, on random crime in Japan, should have been cut to a few paragraphs. The Mainichi is needlessly quoted too much. Chapters seven and eight, dealing with booze, drugs, cigarettes and the yakuza, have lots of information but lack bite. The same is not true about chapter six, on education, which, despite the over reliance on the Mainichi, gives a good inkling of the nonsense that goes on in what passes for education in Japan. The last few chapters deal with suicide, the Japanese media, corruption and similar topics. Again, there are too many end notes but lots of good material there as well. It is an eye opener and a good foundation for those interested in life's underbelly.
Hayes is definitely sympathetic to the Japanese who suicide and he is passionately against the criminal loan sharks who are responsible for so much of those suicides. His attempts at wit (he is a very witty professor, perhaps too witty), mixed with dry information and personal interjections are responsible for the mixed response to his book and its moth like thematic character as well.
In summary, Prof Hayes has served us up a stack on information, some of it very digestible and witty, more of it dull and repetitive. You do not have to look far to see worse. Comparing him to David Icke is nonsensical, as Hayes does not preach or follow any crackpot agenda and nor does he believe the world is a big conspiracy. Rather, he reminds us of the religious, political and educational buffoons who have done that and who will be for their own selfish reasons, his harshest critics. Comparing him to David Icke is an attempt to discredit him and his work which is now out in the public domain and will undoubtedly help others make a coherent analysis of Japan and other places where sleaze persists..
I cannot say I noticed too many exclamation marks though there are plenty of typographical errors in it and the hundreds of pages endnotes do run on for far too long. The online version is cheap and worth the money if the content interests you. The paperback edition is overpriced. I give it 5 stars to balance out his dishonest detractors.

In the guise of an outrageously funny tome, Declan Hayes has produced a groundbreaking book. Hayes has uncovered a foundational difference between western and Japanese culture which forces a paradigm shift in our understanding of Japan Inc. The book is both thought provoking and hilarious. He lays out in detail the hidden role that sex plays in this country and the stuff is beyond our wildest imagination. Not since van Wolfram's book has there been something this important in our cultural understanding of Japan. The book is peppered with real insights and takes both a broad and precise view of the landscape of modern Japanese life. Who would have thought that so much could be learned about Japan by focusing on this subject matter, but it really does lead to a new way of thinking. It is a book where form meets function. Dr. Hayes speaks of Japan in the true language of the Japanese mind and thereby reveals an engine which sustains Japan Inc. He is laying the ground for much further research. With this book, a country which had heretofore been as inscrutable as its notoriously difficult language now seems to be speaking English. We owe Dr. Hayes a great deal of gratitude for this important book. Although painful, it will definitely prove a door to growth for the Japanese people. Thanks!

I had Prof hayes some years ago when I was an exchange student in Sophia University, Tokyo. He is an original thinker, his politics, which he pushes on nobody are enlightened conservative and his knowledge is immense. Like many others, I downloaded the $6 version, which seems to be selling reasonably well, the protestations of (very right wing) hisotry buff (who claims to have deposited the droppings of his right wing version of truth in over 100 countries).
Hayes has a lot to say about war crimes, not only those of the Japanese but those of the Americans, Germans, British, Belgians, French and Italians among others. He also skewers Irish war criminals. And if history buff's "too long away from the pubs" quip was a form of anti Irish racism, then History Buff should refrain from posting on Amazon as his bile serves no positive purpose.
Hayes has written a big book, half of which is comprised of end notes, that is a compendium of knowledge and a masive indictment on right wing proto fascists like History Buff who can do nothing better than make racist quips.

I've seldom seen a book reviewed by its author but it would seem that the reason for this is that the author has spent too much time in a country which is far from home and no one cares about his views of the country he has chosen to live in and the sales of his book would seem to support this.
I must admit I have spent far too much time in Japan to view it as a place I'd want to live in, which is why I don't. But the truth is that this culture has changed little over the centuries and writing about it in the lens of Western eyes is a bit like Commodore Perry showing up again. Hayes should move to some enlightened society like Germany where they are still cleaning up the mess of their boy Adolph who did a bit more than the occasional criminals in Japan. Yes, there are some nasty dudes and events in Japan, but what is new and out of the ordinary compared to other societies over the centuries. He could even try living in the USA, where we have a lot of problems, but we now spend hundreds of billions of dollars to support the illegal aliens from places like Mexico who risk their lives to flee from one of the most corrupt countries in the world. If he finds Japan a strange place, he ought to look at Mexico, where a tiny percentage of the population can afford to go to school, let alone college, and the vast majority of peasants are forced to support the elitists who steal from the masses every day. I can only imagine what will happen there once we erect the wall to force the Mexicans to deal with their own problems instead of exporting them to the USA. But Japan looks like paradise compared to that fetid swamp and Hayes should expand his knowledge of the world before knocking the country he has chosen to live in. This book is not worth the time, and for sure, not worth the money.