There’s a complete industry devoted to the garb of the female Japanese student. That’s me being polite. In this case, however, I’m not talking about the manufacturing of said clothing, rather the predilection of some people (men) who find the catholic school/naval uniform to be sexy. Here’s an example of a kids cartoon that men seem to like: CLICK
I thought it was a sexy look back in high school, but then again, a girl could have been wearing a garbage bag and I would have found it hot. This is not to demean the clothing worn by any of the women I dated, ‘dated’ or had a crush on while in Japan—though Kristine South recently described my choice of women in Japan as “flaky”. I can’t argue with that, Kristine.
Click HERE for an image of the Japanese school girl uniform. Do you know how difficult it was to find an image on-line that wasn’t overly sexual that would label me a pervert? (Be quiet, Matthew).
There are a plethora of men’s magazine’s in Japan, and in every single one of them you can find an adult female model dressed up (or down) in one of these skirts and blouses. Did you see that skirt? Pretty short, huh? Some of the high school girls—and the junior high school girls—just like the one’s in a school near you, would roll up the elastic waistband to make the skirts shorter.
Make-up and jewelry are strictly forbidden additions for the student while at school.
The Japanese teachers do check out the students—but not in the way you think. They check for shirts not tucked in properly, improper shoes, hair colour (like Henry Ford said: "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black.") and the aforementioned make-up jewelry—that includes watches—and I bet you they sure as heck don’t allow them to have cell phones, I-pods, Blackberry’s or any other handheld device. School is for learning. Socializing—that’s called school club activities (like on the tv show GLEE – watch it!).
While I did not ever see this at any of my seven schools, other AETs (Assistant English Teachers) did—and I even read quite a few news stories on it—but teachers would check female students to ensure that they were wearing the correct coloured panties (white, because white stands for purity… and the Japanese want to be pure. I didn’t make that up. I was told that by quite of few of the native Nihonjin {Japanese}). I believe that the news stories involved male teachers doing the checking, so at least there was some moral outrage.
So, to sum up. School girls wear what some consider to be a very sexy uniform. Girls will be girls and many try to make themselves more attractive to boys by shortening their skirts or wearing non-white underwear.
So… there I sat in the teacher’s room at one of the schools—let’s say, Kaneda Minami—after eating my lunch. I was writing down a few Japanese alphabet characters in a shoddy attempt to memorize them and was hunched over my papers when I suddenly felt two warm and soft hands on my shoulders.
I tensed up, but didn’t look around. Instead, I glanced straight across my desk to see a Japanese teacher sitting there having his back thump-thump-thumped by an attentive, acne-charged student. I wondered if my would-be masseuse was as oily a guy as his was.
Hazarding a glance, I espied a cute, young girl—a first year, Grade 7, 12-year-old—smiling at me asking: “An-do-ryu sensei, okay?” It was mostly English, so I said “hai” (yes), but not really understanding what I was hai-ing to.
That’s when she began lightly thumping me about the neck, back and shoulders with her balled up fists.
Just so we’re on the same page here—my back was and is crappy. I had a herniated disc and a disintegrating one, and sleeping on a wafer thin futon on a tatami (grass) mat really wasn’t doing it for me. I even wore a back-strap (brought with me from Toronto) to hold myself erect (I know there’s a joke there, too).
Anyhow, I was enjoying the massage, drifting in and out of consciousness, when in a moment of clarity, I realized that the massage was now feeling different, and that something had moved. Fans of Seinfeld will know what I mean – not sure? Click HERE.
Being a decent guy (back then), I grabbed the hands working on me and turned around. Gone was the little girl. In her place was a very tall, well-built phys ed. teacher. And female. Very female. She looked at me and smiled, took her hands out from under mine and continued the massage. Glancing around me, I espied several young students staring at her with arms and faces crossed—like I was spoiling their fun. I noticed many of the other male teachers smirking at me—I caught the odd wink, too, as they shook their head and bellowed for a student to come over and work on their back.
Twenty minutes later, when I figured she had enough, I turned and said “Bikurishita. Domo arigato.” (Smokey Hokes! Thank you very much).
She was gorgeous. About the same age as me, 25, black shoulder length hair, tall – 5’10” or so, slender, but built. I quickly peeked at her left hand, and didn’t see a wedding ring (I know, Matthew). So I asked her: “Anatawa do-desu ka.” (ah-gnat-awa doe des ka means ‘How about you?’ – the word “ka” denotes a question – the Japanese do not use question marks in their written language!).
She leaned close to me and in a hushed, breathy voice answered into my ear: “Atode” (ah-toe-day, which means ‘afterwards’). It moved again, Jerry.
Now some of you might be saying – ‘Hey, you idiot! Don’t you have a girlfriend?’ Well, depending on the day of the week or the phase of the moon, I may or may not be dating my southern belle, Ashley. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we were dating, so I merely filed her response for atode should I ever require options.
After my masseuse departed my shoulders, a gaggle of students rushed over to continue.
Five minutes later when the school klaxon sirened denoting that lunch was over and classes were start about to start, my student masseuse, Kimiko Atsushi (Atsushi is the family name, and here in Japan the surname is said prior to the given name – ergo, Atsushi Kimiko or simply as Atsushi-san – in a more familiar setting, girls might be Kimiko-chan and boys might be YY-kun) bowed to me and left while I stammered my thanks.
She turned, came running back and handed me something. If you check out that photo below the title, you’ll notice that the teddy bear is holding a black, plastic gadget—a paw-held massage device for slapping yourself about the neck and shoulders.
I still use it 19 years-later.
Somewhere, my back still hurts.
Andrew Joseph
Title courtesy of Van Halen - with Dave Lee Roth singing!
PS: I like how the bear knows where the camera is. Work it, baby. Work it!
I thought it was a sexy look back in high school, but then again, a girl could have been wearing a garbage bag and I would have found it hot. This is not to demean the clothing worn by any of the women I dated, ‘dated’ or had a crush on while in Japan—though Kristine South recently described my choice of women in Japan as “flaky”. I can’t argue with that, Kristine.
Click HERE for an image of the Japanese school girl uniform. Do you know how difficult it was to find an image on-line that wasn’t overly sexual that would label me a pervert? (Be quiet, Matthew).
There are a plethora of men’s magazine’s in Japan, and in every single one of them you can find an adult female model dressed up (or down) in one of these skirts and blouses. Did you see that skirt? Pretty short, huh? Some of the high school girls—and the junior high school girls—just like the one’s in a school near you, would roll up the elastic waistband to make the skirts shorter.
Make-up and jewelry are strictly forbidden additions for the student while at school.
The Japanese teachers do check out the students—but not in the way you think. They check for shirts not tucked in properly, improper shoes, hair colour (like Henry Ford said: "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black.") and the aforementioned make-up jewelry—that includes watches—and I bet you they sure as heck don’t allow them to have cell phones, I-pods, Blackberry’s or any other handheld device. School is for learning. Socializing—that’s called school club activities (like on the tv show GLEE – watch it!).
While I did not ever see this at any of my seven schools, other AETs (Assistant English Teachers) did—and I even read quite a few news stories on it—but teachers would check female students to ensure that they were wearing the correct coloured panties (white, because white stands for purity… and the Japanese want to be pure. I didn’t make that up. I was told that by quite of few of the native Nihonjin {Japanese}). I believe that the news stories involved male teachers doing the checking, so at least there was some moral outrage.
So, to sum up. School girls wear what some consider to be a very sexy uniform. Girls will be girls and many try to make themselves more attractive to boys by shortening their skirts or wearing non-white underwear.
So… there I sat in the teacher’s room at one of the schools—let’s say, Kaneda Minami—after eating my lunch. I was writing down a few Japanese alphabet characters in a shoddy attempt to memorize them and was hunched over my papers when I suddenly felt two warm and soft hands on my shoulders.
I tensed up, but didn’t look around. Instead, I glanced straight across my desk to see a Japanese teacher sitting there having his back thump-thump-thumped by an attentive, acne-charged student. I wondered if my would-be masseuse was as oily a guy as his was.
Hazarding a glance, I espied a cute, young girl—a first year, Grade 7, 12-year-old—smiling at me asking: “An-do-ryu sensei, okay?” It was mostly English, so I said “hai” (yes), but not really understanding what I was hai-ing to.
That’s when she began lightly thumping me about the neck, back and shoulders with her balled up fists.
Just so we’re on the same page here—my back was and is crappy. I had a herniated disc and a disintegrating one, and sleeping on a wafer thin futon on a tatami (grass) mat really wasn’t doing it for me. I even wore a back-strap (brought with me from Toronto) to hold myself erect (I know there’s a joke there, too).
Anyhow, I was enjoying the massage, drifting in and out of consciousness, when in a moment of clarity, I realized that the massage was now feeling different, and that something had moved. Fans of Seinfeld will know what I mean – not sure? Click HERE.
Being a decent guy (back then), I grabbed the hands working on me and turned around. Gone was the little girl. In her place was a very tall, well-built phys ed. teacher. And female. Very female. She looked at me and smiled, took her hands out from under mine and continued the massage. Glancing around me, I espied several young students staring at her with arms and faces crossed—like I was spoiling their fun. I noticed many of the other male teachers smirking at me—I caught the odd wink, too, as they shook their head and bellowed for a student to come over and work on their back.
Twenty minutes later, when I figured she had enough, I turned and said “Bikurishita. Domo arigato.” (Smokey Hokes! Thank you very much).
She was gorgeous. About the same age as me, 25, black shoulder length hair, tall – 5’10” or so, slender, but built. I quickly peeked at her left hand, and didn’t see a wedding ring (I know, Matthew). So I asked her: “Anatawa do-desu ka.” (ah-gnat-awa doe des ka means ‘How about you?’ – the word “ka” denotes a question – the Japanese do not use question marks in their written language!).
She leaned close to me and in a hushed, breathy voice answered into my ear: “Atode” (ah-toe-day, which means ‘afterwards’). It moved again, Jerry.
Now some of you might be saying – ‘Hey, you idiot! Don’t you have a girlfriend?’ Well, depending on the day of the week or the phase of the moon, I may or may not be dating my southern belle, Ashley. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we were dating, so I merely filed her response for atode should I ever require options.
After my masseuse departed my shoulders, a gaggle of students rushed over to continue.
Five minutes later when the school klaxon sirened denoting that lunch was over and classes were start about to start, my student masseuse, Kimiko Atsushi (Atsushi is the family name, and here in Japan the surname is said prior to the given name – ergo, Atsushi Kimiko or simply as Atsushi-san – in a more familiar setting, girls might be Kimiko-chan and boys might be YY-kun) bowed to me and left while I stammered my thanks.
She turned, came running back and handed me something. If you check out that photo below the title, you’ll notice that the teddy bear is holding a black, plastic gadget—a paw-held massage device for slapping yourself about the neck and shoulders.
I still use it 19 years-later.
Somewhere, my back still hurts.
Andrew Joseph
Title courtesy of Van Halen - with Dave Lee Roth singing!
PS: I like how the bear knows where the camera is. Work it, baby. Work it!