Tokyo Hostess

Tokyo Hostess by Clare Campbell
It's time we in the west became more adult about Japan. Far from being a mysterious place full of murderous sexual deviants, it's actually pretty safe, says Susanna Jones

Susanna Jones
The Observer, Sunday 30 August 2009

Campbell draws attention, rightly, to the western media's fascination with these cases. She criticises the "racial stereotype of perverted Oriental and pale-skinned victim", but is guilty of similar stereotyping. When an eager customer emails a hostess friend of Blackman's after Obara's arrest, it is suggested that he represents "the eternal up-for-itness of the Japanese male". Western women are always "girls", open-eyed and vulnerable. Of the tabloids' attempts to interpret Hawker's death, she asks: "Was it exquisitely Oriental or just plain barking mad?"

Good question. The connection between the deaths of Blackman and Hawker is probably this: they were targeted by horrifyingly dangerous men. Japan is a relatively safe country, so these women may have been less careful than they would have been in Britain. They stood out physically and this would have made them vulnerable, but as Richard Lloyd Parry wrote in the Independent (quoted by Campbell): "The notion that Japanese men are 'obsessed' with western women is a lazy cliche."

It's a cliche that Campbell perpetuates. For her, it's all about s*x – Japanese s*x. She writes: "I did not ... believe that I could ever fully comprehend Japanese culture or sexuality." Does any other culture suffer the insult of being continually reduced to a puzzle that can never be "comprehended"? "What were they really thinking, all those salarymen and office ladies, as they shuffled robotically around [Tokyo's] underground labyrinths?" she asks, as if commuters in other countries have thought bubbles over their heads.

After a depressing afternoon reading about the wasted lives of these bright young women who lived in the city I lived in and loved for many years, I went for a walk near my home in Brighton. Soon, I was in Waterloo Street where, in 2003, music teacher Jane Longhurst was murdered by Graham Coutts, who had an obsession with extreme pornography and who drew nooses on photographs of women. He kept her body in a storage centre before dumping and setting fire to it. It's hard to imagine anything more appalling. But was it exquisitely British or just "plain barking mad"? Transfer the details of the crime to Japan and then how does it look?

We should grow up about Japan, stop wondering whether or not we can comprehend it and just try to get to know it a bit better. This book, though sharply written and not without genuine sympathy for its subjects, is too excited by the sensational to be much help.

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