So I can sue the school I taught at for those onsen trips?

[vkladchik]

This is freakin hilarious. Start at paragraph 38 for the "humiliating" and "sexually degrading" experience these gaijin employees of a Japanese company were subjected to while on a business trip to Japan. (Granted, this Shigeta guy sounds like real scum...)

[two_heads_talking]

If I were those guys, I'd just do a cannonball into the onsen and then tell Shigen I had to.... oops. is it ok to pee in the pool? lol

Sounds like a lot of queer things going on there if you ask me..

[becki_kanou]

The guy definitely sounds like a jerk from the rest of the story, but the onsen sounded pretty much like a regular onsen with no funny goings-on.

It's interesting because I just had a friend (an American) come to visit and suggested we all go to the local onsen and he was all "No way, I'm not getting naked in front of other guys." And he's lived here for 6 years.
I guess it all depends on what culture you were raised in...

[vkladchik]

That's true, the guy does come off sounding like a jerk, but keep in mind that the whole point of this legal document is to make him sound like a sexual deviant. The whole thing came to light because he was caught taking pictures of Maria Sharapova's butt during shooting for a commercial. It seems kind of incongruous to try to paint him as a homosexual in light of his initial transgression, but most cases like this seem to opt for out and out character assassination as a legal strategy.

Any introduction to onsen/sento culture is a delicate affair, though, so I do feel for these guys, who were thrown into it without so much as a by-your-leave.

[two_heads_talking]

It seems kind of incongruous to try to paint him as a homosexual in light of his initial transgression, but most cases like this seem to opt for out and out character assassination as a legal strategy..

If you are making that comment because I said queer, you might want to realize that queer doesn't always mean homosexual, it also means odd or strange or out of the ordinary.. I think he's an odd bird, I am not even worried or concerned with his sexual preference..

[OokamiWolf]

I Japan, there is a certain etiquette one is supposed to follow when in a public bathhouse. For men, they usually they give you a towel and you pretty much use that to cover yourself. I'm not sure how it works for women though. But after you get your towel, you go to the locker room, get naked, and then proceed the bath. But stray hair is a "private issue" so if you need to cover anything, you should cover that first. Also, no matter how tempting it is, don't go into the hot bath first. The first thing you should do is go and wash yourself off. You get the filth and grime off at the nearby shower thingies. Spend a good 10 minutes doing so, and then you can proceed to enter the hot bath and enjoy it. But be warned, as compared to American hot tubs they are VERY hot. If it's too hot for you, you can also try the cold bath usually right next to it, but then again, that's really cold. But that's the Men's Onsen Monologue from me. XD