Japan travel guide
Trips  
Language courses  |  Hotels in Japan  |  Japan Photos  |  Japan Forum
SEPTEMBER 8
:: Japan Travel » Pop Culture in Japan » Salarymen and soaplands


Pop Culture in Japan

Pop Culture in Japan: Salarymen and soaplands




The dark-suited salaryman is generally a clerical office worker, although the term is applied to many other types of jobs. Guaranteed lifetime employment and steady promotion, Japan's corporate warriors during the boom years of the 1960s through to the 1980s only had to watch out for karoshri: death from overwork. Nowadays, the fear is more of their company announcing a "restructuring", a polite way of saying there will be redundancies.

Although it's perhaps not discussed as openly in Japan as in the West, sex generally comes with less hang-ups for the Japanese. One place a frisky salaryman might turn to for relief is a soapland, or massage parlour where the rubbing and other services are carried out by women under the guise of a Turkish bath. Soaplands were once called Turkish baths until the Turkish embassy complained that this was insulting to their wholly honourable bathing practices.

Back to Pop Culture in Japan



Contact us | Advertising | How to link to us | Links | Site map


© 2008 - Japan travel guide
http://www.justjapan.org

World travel guides
Greece | England | Spain | Italy | Germany | France | Portugal | Russia | Japan | China | India | Thailand
California | Florida | Canada | Australia | Peru | Mexico | Argentina | Cuba | Brazil | Kenya | Egypt | Turkey