IN THE WESTERN IMAGINATION, Japan has often been a place of mystery, a locus of the exotic. Before the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and Japan’s embrace of things Western, Japan had been literally closed to most of the world, so an air of mystery was inevitable. But although travel and technology have long since opened up Japan to the world, there are some aspects of Japanese life that remain enduringly inaccessible to the non-Japanese. You can visit Japan, but you can never fully experience it, except as a visitor. Even if you speak the language, the barriers are manifold, and they go beyond the obvious. This is especially true of gay life in Japan. I learned much of this during a recent trip that included stays in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Matsue.
Most queer Americans are used to encountering an established gay nightlife in the world’s larger cities (at least those where political oppression is not a factor), and it’s reasonable to expect Tokyo to fall into this category. After all, it’s a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis of some 30 million people. But as Donald Richie (perhaps the pre-eminent interpreter of Japan for the West) has pointed out, Tokyo is not a city as much as an organic, dynamic accretion of villages. It has no center, literally or figuratively, and to find one’s way around there is not easy. Although the Shinjuku district is arguably the center of Tokyo’s gay life, it is not so in the sense that Americans are accustomed to.
For one thing, there’s a subtle yet well-guarded line of demarcation between the doors that are open to non-Japanese and the ones that are not. Shinjuku has an assortment of bars and clubs within a few blocks of each other that cater to the gay tourist crowd. These include “Dragon,” “The Advocate,” and the popular, crowded dance club, “Arty Farty.” On any given night an assortment of locals, expatriates, and visitors gathers and mixes and sometimes spills out into the street of this small gay neighborhood. The area has some of the features typically associated with the standard gay ghetto—there are porn shops scattered nearby, and at the end of one dark street, underneath a relatively enigmatic yellow sign, there’s even a gay bathhouse. But to the non-Japanese, there are also closed doors. Many of us like to think of queer culture as a kind of international community that trumps all other claims to territory and tribe, and while that can be true in Japan, just as often it’s not. For every highly visible tourist bar, there are many more that are tucked away, deliberately obscure and known only to loyal locals. Many bars and clubs actually have membership requirements. Sometimes, though, being visibly foreign is reason enough for the friendly but firm denial of entry. I first encountered this as I tried to enter an inviting-looking place that resembled a Japanese version of a “piano bar.” I was first perplexed, then offended, when the proprietor, smiling all the while, hurried toward my partner and me as we attempted to enter and raised his hand, clearly pushing us back out the front door. Even my partner’s Asian appearance (he’s Chinese but was repeatedly taken for Japanese) wasn’t enough to gain entry. Once I got over my initial anger and had some time to reflect on what had happened, I was able to recast the experience. After all, most Caucasian men aren’t used to being excluded on the basis of ethnicity, and to be on the receiving end of it is enlightening, to say the least. If Tokyo is Japan’s capital, the city that welcomes the citizens of the world and serves as the showplace of many of the nation’s cultural treasures, Osaka is Japan’s working city, a commercial and industrial center not too dissimilar in texture and feel from Chicago. Though it’s not as dazzling as Tokyo, Osaka is just as lively at night, and its gay nightlife, like Tokyo’s, is harbored within a small area of a larger, bustling district. Most of the bars are hidden-away pockets, small rooms, really, that seat perhaps fifteen people at the most. In the typical Japanese urban center, bars, clubs, and restaurants are usually arranged vertically, with several alcove-like establishments per floor on successive levels. Visitors are advised to “look up” if they want to be sure of finding their destination, and even with detailed directions and maps, it usually takes a while to locate a particular spot among the seemingly hundreds of individual names stacked on the thin, ladder-like vertical neon signs. That’s how we found Osaka’s “Bacchus,” a bar noted for its friendliness toward gay Westerners. The owner of “Bacchus,” Chanho, is a jovial, energetic Korean who speaks flawless English and Japanese. On any given night he keeps the bar conversation going in both languages with the skill of a diplomat and the flair of a talk-show host. We were lucky to find him, and when we returned there on our second night, we listened as he held court for a group of straight women, some married, some single. They had no hesitancy about discussing their varied sex lives. I was amazed and fascinated as a bookish-looking, bespectacled, thirty-something woman next to me lamented that she never got enough sex from her husband. In a separate conversation, as Chanho translated for us, the women suggested that gay men like my partner and me should rent ourselves out to frustrated straight women. We were also chatted up by one of the bar’s gay male patrons, a young man whose reasonably good English allowed him to invite us along to his favorite haunt, another alcove of a place, this one presided over by two bantering queens and filled with an equally lively and appreciative collection of regulars. At first, our foreignness inspired a spirited round of inside joking, but our friend helped us ease into the group and soon, assisted by our phrase books, my partner and I were able to entertain them with an animated “argument” punctuated by ample helpings of Japanese slang. It was during encounters like this that we felt we were experiencing a bit of authentic Japan. These small neighborhood bars, attended by dedicated regulars, seem to be the spirit not only of gay nightlife, but also of most nightlife in Japan. Osaka, like Tokyo, has an assortment of larger, more Western-feeling clubs, but it’s the hidden-away places that contain the heart of the gay community. As Richie notes, one of the tropes of Japanese culture is reverence for one’s furusato, one’s “home town,” and in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka these little bars are like the local meeting place. Tokyo and Osaka can be almost dizzying, especially at night, when the crowds and the lights can easily provoke a case of sensory overload. One longs for the more sedate Japan of legend with its temples and gardens. Kyoto offers much of this; it’s a smaller, more intimate city, a nexus of old and new Japan. Kyoto has perhaps the densest assortment of old temples, cultural treasures, and historical sites of any Japanese city. One of its enduring charms is its mingling of the spiritual and worldly, the proverbial brothel next door to the temple. At the end of Shijo Dori, one of Kyoto’s main thoroughfares, alongside Pontchoko Alley, the heart of old Kyoto’s pleasure district, there’s a handful of gay bars. Like those of Osaka, most of Kyoto’s gay haunts are small, cramped, upper-story rooms where a few regular patrons gather faithfully to smoke, drink, and carry on. We were told that a bar called “Apple” was worth a visit, but when we finally found it—its sign hidden amid others on one of those vertical neon pillars—we wondered if we’d been given good advice. It’s in an old building at the top of a flight of stairs covered by ancient-looking green linoleum. We went through the door and found an empty room of faux wood paneling, looking a bit like a bar in a basement “recreation room” of some 1960’s or 70’s-era suburban American home. The place was empty except for the bartender, a handsome man with close-cropped hair and a trim moustache who looked to be in his late thirties. The paneled wall behind him was decorated with an array of small-scale movie poster reproductions. Only one of these, for Brokeback Mountain, gave any hint of the bar’s queer friendliness. He explained the rules with a charmingly low-key demeanor: we were to purchase at least one drink and “a small snack” (a plate of crackers and cheese that he quietly prepared). Gradually, he warmed to the challenge of conversation with us, frequently consulting a big Japanese-English dictionary, bound in white leather, that looked like a Bible. He asked us about our life in the U.S. He carefully wrote out his name, Yuji, on two small calling cards and presented one to each of us. When he found out that my partner was a part-time actor, he revealed that he’d been an actor once too but had given it up for bartending. He looked vaguely sad as he told us this, smoking thoughtfully. He was either unsure of the words, or unwilling to share the story with us, but he readily showed us a photo album with pictures of his patrons and of drag nights at the bar. He shared a collection of old theater programs from favorite shows. He talked with me about famous Japanese writers, particularly ones from Kyoto, and he advised us where to visit during our stay. In all the time we were with Yuji, no other patrons came up to his place, and when we returned the next night, he was alone again. But, big white dictionary at the ready, he soon was engaged with us once more, talking about Kyoto’s grand artistic tradition. He carefully copied out poems in Japanese for us, his hand gracefully tracing out the characters. He told us about waka, a traditional poetic form, unrhymed and pared down to phrases, and he presented some favorite examples of it. He wrote one out for me and then roughly translated it with the help of his white book. “The river that flows around the mountain is parted,” he said, “but then it comes together again on the other side.” He looked at us in silence, then added, “This is a love poem,” and gave us a little nod of affirmation. When we left him, I wanted to hug him, but I held back. That kind of demonstrativeness is not typical in Japan. We contented ourselves with handshakes. As we walked down the steps from his place, I found myself hoping that if the waters of his particular love had parted, they would come together again for him soon. Jim Nawrocki, a write based in San Francisco, is a frequent contributor to this magazine.
