Sun, Mar 05, 2000 page19

• Japan's rules of love brought to Taiwan

  TAIWAN NEW RELEASES

  • By Yu Sen-lun / STAFF REPORTER
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  The frenzy over Japanese pop culture is no longer the exclusive domain of young Taiwanese. When it comes to relationships, middle-aged Taiwanese now find themselves indulging in the steamy and fanciful world of Tokyo love affairs.

  And they are doing it through Liu Li-erh (劉黎兒), a Tokyo correspondent for the China Times who last week published two books that delve into the new and diverse love relationships between men and women: Tokyo, Scenes, Men and Women (東京, 風情, 男女), and Tokyo Erotic Handbook (東京情色手冊).

  The books have brought her a long way away from her journalistic writing of the past 17 years, reporting political affairs, and transformed her into a "new erotic queen" in local literature circles.

  

  Liu Li-erh discusses her recent books on love and sex in modern-day Japan during an interview in Taipei last week.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  "My original intention was maybe to titillate myself or my Japanese friends, but accidentally I also titillated the desire of Taipei people and other Chinese readers in the world," Liu says in her book postscript.

  Tokyo, Scenes, Men and Women covers an ambitious range of material, from mid-life affairs and changing ideas of love and relationships in Japan, to cellular love affairs, food and emotions. Tokyo Erotic Handbook consists more of social observations on contemporary love and sex in Japan, and Liu delights in writing about the secret of women's hand books, the five rules for having affairs with married men, and stories of housewives who are part-time porno stars.

  "Liu not only has a superb sense of smell and diagnosis, but the rhythm of her writing echoes with the brisk melody of urban Tokyo," says literature critic Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明) in the preface of Tokyo, Scenes, Men and Women.

  For Chen and other middle-aged intellectuals, Liu's writing is more than vivid, it is tempting, offering Taiwanese a chance to glimpse and consume Japan's erotic world. To others, some of Liu's presentations seem more like scenarios skimmed from Japanese TV dramas, in which women are preoccupied with extramarital affairs (Excerpts follow.)

  Asako, my girlfriend, said, "The supply and demand of men and women in the market was considered relatively balanced 10 years ago, but recently that balance has rapidly tipped. Just look everywhere, the good men are all married. That is why a disposition for illicit love affairs has appeared. Girls who were born late are very disadvantaged. They have to love married men."

  Sachiko said, "I pressed the redial button of his mobile. The number of my closest girlfriend always shows up. I don't know if I should keep my eyes shut or expose him."

  Liu says these snapshots seem all too familiar to Taiwanese, who may find their lives paralleling those documented in her book."Taipei's social life and social structure is getting closer to that of Japan," she says. "So people, especially middle-aged men and women, feel a familiarity when reading my stories. They don't seem to be reading about an exotic or different culture."

  Liu believes there is a new flood of middle-aged Japan lovers (中年哈日族), people who like the hot springs of Izu peninsula (伊豆半島), eating yakitori at Japanese pubs, watching the films of Takeshi Kitano, listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto and, more importantly, tuning into Japanese melodramas.

  Ironically, Liu has in a small way become part of the Japanese pop culture she is writing about, albeit in a non-erotic way. During the book launch, a lot of Liu's old media friends treated her like a Japanese pop star, requesting interviews, inviting her to start new columns and asking her to autograph old columns.

  "I have been reporting political news for my whole life, but I have never received such a fervent response like this," she says. "Some of my friends even told me I am very popular at the One Night Stand talking group on the Internet."

  For Liu, Taipei is a city full of color and intensity. Yet she thinks it lacks a sense of diversity. She believes Japan is a more diverse society, especially in terms of sensibility in dealing with the world of love and emotions.

  In Japanese popular literature, there are many examples of prosperous works that explore emotions and senses and provide ways to think about matters between men and women, Liu says. But Taiwan is too polarized so books on such topics are either too sublime or too popularized, and those in the middle are absent. She also laments that good writers in Taiwan care too much about literature critics so they tend to talk about philosophical issues.

  Liu steers clear of such high-handed pontification in her books, sticking with the simple stories that emerge from the changing ways that men and women relate to each other in Japanese society.

  "This is what Taiwan has been most hungry about," Liu says. "You can see the want of love in the society. Just look at the popularity of the recent melodrama series `Love in April' (人間四月天) on the public TV channel, and you can see such hunger."

  "Love in April" is based on the love stories of Chinese poet Hsu Chih-mo (徐志摩) in the 1920s.

  Liu questions whether Taiwanese are really enamored by the old love stories of Hsu and suggests that they are popular because of a lack of decent, fresh alternatives. "We are in need of more models of love stories. This explains why so many people in Taiwan are so easily moved by the love scenarios in the Japanese TV dramas, because they provide many more possibilities of love and emotions."

  In a sense, such hunger just reflects an extension of the Shitsurakuen phenomena that came from Japan to Taiwan two years ago. Shitsurakuen (失樂園, meaning the lost paradise), is a book by Junichi Watanabe that intertwines a love story with hedonistic scenes involving intensive sex and luxurious food. In 1997, the book sold millions of copies in Japan. The Chinese translation sold tens of thousands of copies and dominated the local book charts. When the film version was released, it became an instant hit in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

  "People at my age (44), we would have a longing to have another jump for love, as in our younger days. Many would say, `I am not resigned to living like this for the rest of my life. I need more excitement,'" Liu says.

  In what some call a "second wave" of "lost paradise phenomena", mobile phones and the Internet as well as the highly commercialized love hotels have all become the practical toys for flirts and sex.

  There are more and more temptations, traps and opportunities for affairs to happen, Liu says. And in this environment, women in Japan are getting more active in pursuing love, and they are tougher in relationships. Many women are choosing to marry younger men and others are forsaking stable relationships altogether, preferring to be single but with multiple lovers.

  It is this new generation of men and women in Japan, which have come roaring forth with a new set of rules for relationships, that intrigues Liu -- as well as the youth of Taiwan, who seem to always be borrowing from Japan what they can't find at home.

  "It is very difficult to blame our kids for identifying with foreign cultural products. If your culture were able to provide good content, you would not be so hungry for foreign culture. Unless you can create a better product, you cannot stop the flow."
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