With the proliferations of technologies that aim to “help” bring people together, socially and particularly romantically (speed dating, personal ads, video dating services), and the eruption of internet dating services, the process and politics of “wooing” -- both within and without these technologies -- are becoming decidedly problematic. In the following, Phil Sawkins examines the culture of “cruising” (on foot) in Japanese society, a culture that is concerned both with play, and with a sense of the game of romance.

Playful Attraction -- Examining the Nature of Japanese Cruising [printable version]

Phil Sawkins

1.Introduction

<1> Much research has been done, in and out of the field of social anthropology, on courting and associated practices (especially in rural communities), such as yobai (literally "night crawling" -- entering a girl's house under cover of darkness in search of "love"), letter exchanging, wakamonoyado (literally "young people's inn," a house where young people meet socially) omiai (arranged marriage), and so on. Most of this research has been done under the rubric of pre-marriage activities, or even, activities permitted because it is expected they'll lead to marriage [1]. The sheer volume of this research is undoubtedly a reflection of the importance of marriage in Japanese society [2].

<2> Although in Smith and Wiswell's The Women of Suye Mura (1982) there is extensive discussion of the carefree pre-marital sexual exploits of the young men and women of pre-World War II Suye mura [3], there is no mention of similar activities in any post-War anthropological text that I can find.

<3> So what about present-day rendezvous between young people in Japanese cities, who are previously not acquainted? What about those young people who have little intention of marrying (now or perhaps ever), but instead are out on the busy streets of Japanese cities, looking for a bit of fun with the unknown, no pressure, no consequences? People unhappy with the potential mates in their various (possibly limited) social circles, who are keen to step outside them, without friends, colleagues, families, or organizations being involved. Where, outside of teen magazines, coffee shop gossip, and mobile phone text-messages, are these encounters documented?

<4> This essay is concerned with an investigation of what might be called, for want of a less archaic phrase, the "courting practices" of young Japanese in present day Japan. More specifically, it will examine a courting practice known as nanpa, which, for want of a more academic English phrase, we might translate as "cruising" or "pulling."

<5> The aims of this study, then, are twofold:

1) To discover if we can understand Japanese cruising or nanpa as "play." In this study, the small questions contribute to answering this wider question. What is nanpa? Who does it? Why, where, when, and how? None of these questions are easily answered. As in a lot of anthropological research based on fieldwork, the answers people give to these questions suggest other questions, such as: What is nanpa not? Who (allegedly) doesn't do it? Why not? Are there shared ideas about nanpa and those who do it? Are these ideas positive or negative?
2) To add to anthropological knowledge of the diversity of young Japanese lives today.

<6> In order to achieve these aims, I have gathered data in fieldwork, and post-fieldwork conversations with Japanese, observations from the field, internet homepages, and text research in libraries.

<7> My motives for investigating the subject of cruising are quite straightforward. I spent three years between 1997 and 2000 working on the JET programme in north Wakayama prefecture. In those three years, I made no male Japanese friends my age. Female friends my age were limited to my girlfriend and her best friend. I wondered why this was. Where were all the people my age in my town of 45,000? What did they do with their leisure-time that I wasn't doing?

<8> During those three years, I often found myself on my way home, very late on Friday or Saturday nights, at Wakayama city JR station. Instead of waiting inside the station, I would wait outside, and watch, what I now realize, were the local girls and boys my age at play, doing nanpa. So began my fascination.

<9> Before taking a look at the ethnographic data, it's important to review the various play theories that have been elaborated by social scientists, including anthropologists, over the years, to bring us to a contemporary understanding of play theory today. The ethnographic data will be presented and analyzed simultaneously within the theoretical framework of play. The conclusion will bring together all the points from the main body of the essay to show that, based on the data, I believe we are quite correct to understand nanpa as a form of "play."

2. A Summary of Play Theory

<10> Some of these theories are the work of sociologists and historians, first presented more than 60 years ago now. Since that time, however, they have been revised and elaborated by anthropologists, who were quick to notice their potential application for understanding aspects of the complex societies they had chosen to study. Included here is some discussion of the original theories, plus those subsequent arguments which have led to the current understanding of play theory, and its use in the study of complex societies like Japan's, in volumes such as Japan at Play (2001) [4].

<11> Before looking at play theory, however, I'd like to make a point related to the second aim of this study, regarding recent writing on Japanese youth culture. Based on what is available in English, I would contend that our knowledge of the diversity of young Japanese lives is sorely lacking, or at least, that what writing there is in English is clustered around subjects such as education. Although in publications such as Japan Quarterly and the Yomiuri Shinbun there have recently been some articles on male fashion, enjo kosai ("compensated dating" -- school girl prostitution), youth's preference for the ephemeral and so on, the anthropological literature is not great in volume [5]. To do further research it is clear that I will have to look at writings in Japanese (which I'd hoped to do this time) and hope that, in the meantime, more anthropologists outside Japan publish in this area too.

<12> So, what is "play"? This may seem like a simple question easily answered: "Play is what children do all the time because they don't work," or "play is what we do to relax," or "play is what we do when we are not being serious" or any of a number of similar explanations for what this universal "thingie" might be. But is it really so simple? Certainly, when some of the first anthropologists looked at play, it was seen only as a small part of the life of a people, because play was "what children did" [6].

<13> It wasn't until Johan Huizinga wrote what is now considered one of the classic pieces of play theory, "Homo Ludens," in 1938, that the central role of play in all human lives began to be appreciated. In fact Huizinga's main thesis, the courage for which he is still lauded today, was that some of the most important human activities could be viewed as forms of play. He put play on the map, as it were, rescuing it from being seen as something only children do, and therefore of marginal importance in the research of social scientists. He pointed out that, since animals also play, play must come before culture, must be more fundamental than culture in human social life. Play therefore, rather than being below notice, should be one of the central areas in social science research too.

<14> But why is this? What is going on when we play? "In play there is something 'at play' which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action," Huizinga wrote [7]. One of Huizinga's main points was that we should avoid trying to explain play in purely functional terms, as a biological need for relaxation, or a desire to compete or imitate, or as practice for adulthood. All these hypotheses, he asserts, leave the essence, the very root, and therefore, the importance of play, unexplained. Huizinga states that play is "a well defined quality of action which is different from 'ordinary life,'" [8] or "real life," but it is not, contrary to our thinking, simply the opposite of seriousness. Rather, all play, including games, absorbs us in a ludic moment. A freedom delimited ("well defined") in time and space. We become serious within a non-serious situation, or vice versa. A certain amount of tension is inevitable, but serves to feed the fire of creativity, when anything may be possible. It may be tense, because after all "who knows what's going to happen?" but above all, it is fun. Huizinga's thesis is mainly about sports and games, and although anything may be possible in this kind of play, it is only possible as long as one does not break the rules of the game.

<15> So Huizinga first called our attention to the idea that play is something that takes place when we "step out of 'real life,'" [9] and this is one of the ideas some writers have sought to clarify.

<16> Bowman, for example, in a volume of anthropological perspectives on play, argues that, if we say that play is outside reality, we are, in effect, saying that reality is something we can hold on to, it is a given, "changeless category" [10]. He argues that our concepts of reality and play need to be reassessed, to avoid viewing either as static. This is why Bowman agrees with Caillois's remedy to Huizinga's "narrow" [11] theory. Caillois proposes that games be viewed as existing along a continuum, between the two poles of paidia (uncontrolled fantasy, creativeness, impulsiveness, exuberance, improvisation, and spontaneity), and ludus (arbitrary, conventionalized, calculated, subordinated to rules) [12].

<17> Presumably, Bowman would also agree with Csikszentmihalyi's self-confessed "metaphysical" observations, that play allows us to restructure reality, to shift our goals and "risk the things that matter most," and "When we do this it is no longer meaningful to explain behaviour with reference to ordinary life" [13].

<18> Although Huizinga's initial observations, on what makes play play, are still relevant to the material examined in the present thesis on nanpa, it is the questioning and refinement of Huizinga's argument by Bateson, Bowman, Csikszentmihalyi, and later by Turner (presented below) that is the most insightful and helpful for the interpretation of the ethnographic data presented herein.

<19> Czikszentmihalyi's chapter in Play as Context (1979) [14], for example, makes some key points which give a clear understanding, firstly, of a paradox of play as we understand it, and secondly of a solution to this paradox leading to a greater understanding of what it means to play. The paradox in question is that, on the one hand, play is apparently disengaged from reality, yet on the other hand, we are said to accrue countless "real" benefits from engaging in play. How are we to work with such a paradox? As already mentioned in connection to Bowman, Csikszentmihalyi also begins by questioning the often-accepted supposition that an observable external reality exists. He goes on to point out that much of play has no goal other than play itself. He gives the example of rock climbing, saying that it is "not one of those playful experiments removed from real life," but "…does that mean that rock-climbing is not play?" [15] So, Csikszentmihalyi wonders how play can be thought of as removed from reality, when activities such as rock climbing, paragliding, gambling and so on have real consequences for their players in "real life."

<20> He also points out that, many activities, which are not typically considered play, are indistinguishable from play because of the way people perform them. An example from fiction (similar to Csikszentmihalyi's example of surgeons) is the character of Sherman McCoy, in Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities who, in the first few pages of the book, spends an intense five minutes in private ecstasy, absorbed in the game/job of notching up points (which turn out to be millions of dollars) at his desk in the Wall Street stock exchange. Finally he proclaims himself, "Master of the Universe" [16].

<21> Csikszentmihalyi sees the subordination of one reality to another (the result of long consigning play to the world of children) as being at the root of the fundamental misunderstanding, which has led to the current paradox. He says, "For each person, reality is defined in terms of the goals he or she invests attention in at any given time. Reality is not an invariant external structure. It is relative to the goals that cultures and individuals create" [17]. If this is the case, does this mean that since any activity has the potential to be playful, we are no longer able to distinguish play from earnestness? No it doesn't, according to Csikzsentmihalyi, because what distinguishes play is that "the player is aware that the goals and rules of action he or she is following are freely chosen among the many sets of goals and rules one could have chosen. The distinction is not in terms of what is being done, but how one's actions are interpreted to oneself" [18]. In his argument, the awareness that more than one "reality" is possible is more important than substituting one for another, of "ranking realities" for their realness. It is up to the player to accept the goals and abide by the rules of their freely chosen reality, knowing also that alternatives exist.

<22> The idea of alternative realities is expanded upon by Turner, who observes that, in the small-scale societies he has studied, "liminal" periods often involve playfulness on the part of participants. He gives the example of initiation into adulthood as a period of liminality in Ndembu society, when the norms of everyday life no longer pertain. He says, "in liminality people play with the elements of the familiar and de-familiarize them" [19]. He goes on to quote Sutton-Smith who saw "liminal" and "liminoid" situations as "settings when new symbols, models, paradigms arise -- as the seedbeds of cultural creativity" [20].

<23> Turner further asserts that, the sharper the line between work and leisure is drawn in society (as in those societies shaped by the Industrial Revolution), the greater the capacity for variation and experimentation in these situations. In these complex post-industrial societies, it is the "liminoid," rather than the "liminal," where "anti-structure," that is, where the structures of life are turned upside down, that provides the opportunity, the "seedbed" for generating alternative models for living. The key difference, Turner points out, between liminal and liminoid situations, is that the latter is entered into voluntarily by participants (following on from Csikszentmihalyi), as in the case of leisure activities.

<24> Leisure is very important in Turner's thesis, and so it is in mine. Leisure time, Turner states, is both a "freedom from" and a "freedom to" set of potentialities. That is, freedom from "institutional obligations…prescribed by the basic forms of social… organization," [21] and it is freedom from the forced regulation of work. Leisure also gives us the freedom to "enter, even to generate new symbolic worlds." It is furthermore "freedom to transcend social structural limitations, freedom to play -- with ideas, with fantasies, with words…with social relationships -- in friendship" [22]. Ultimately what this freedom allows the individual or group is a small measure of creative power -- the power to question, or to support the norms of their society. Raveri, in his introduction to the book Japan at Play, calls this the "dynamic aspect of play, caused by the tensions between conservation and fracture" [23]. This point is of crucial importance in. Examining the leisure-time activity nanpa in Japan, can these points of tension be seen? What is "conserved" and where do the "fractures" appear?

<25> To summarize the main important points of play theory, it should be said that play is an area of potential creativity in all human lives. It is not necessarily only to be found in the children's playground, or on the football pitch. Indeed, it may be seen on the floor of the New York stock exchange, or heard in a conversation between strangers on a train. To play means to risk something that we may hold dear, which may be our own reputation, or our entire life's savings. But in this moment of risk, in the tense moment, when we don't quite know the outcome of our efforts, something "real" within us may be observed. Play, in the form of leisure, is an opportunity to experience freedom from societal and employment obligations, and the freedom to divert and be diverted in new worlds of entertainment. In these liminoid settings the potential is there for us to either "criticize or buttress the dominant social structural values" [24].

3) Methodology

<26> In order to understand what nanpa is, and what it means to those who do it and to those who don't do it, I considered the tool of participant observation ideal. Unfortunately, since there was only time and money for me to spend two weeks in the field, some observation without participating was all that could be managed. The reasons behind my insistence on going to Japan, even for a short period of fieldwork, are quite straightforward [25]. From what I remembered from my time living in Japan, nanpa (the practice of standing on street corners and picking partners from the many hundreds of faces that stream past) was a very visual practice. I knew there would be a lot to see, and I felt I had to see it. Talking to non-participants about it was a way to get one kind of information, but in order to help me "to tell the difference between ticks and winks" [26] it was essential that I see the practice first hand.

<27> Whilst in Japan, and also in the U.K (post-fieldwork), I chose not to conduct any interviews, informal or otherwise. Instead information was gained through conversations with Japanese friends and strangers of various ages and backgrounds. The talk about nanpa was not set apart from ordinary discourse. Sometimes I would ask someone what they thought about something (an idea of mine about something I'd observed, or read, or what so-and-so had said) and other times the conversation was started by someone else, amongst three or four people, and questions, ideas and arguments came from all quarters without my prompting. Still other times I'd meet with Japanese in the UK and provide them Japanese fashion magazines I felt were related to the topic to see their reactions. These were some of the most interesting and surprising times, and the fact that they took place not under interview conditions, not recorded, or limited in time or scope, I think led to some valuable insights.

<28> As well as talking to real Japanese, both young and old, I also looked at young people's magazines for references to nanpa. I was particularly interested to discover how these magazines talked about nanpa, since I thought it might help me to gauge how the activity was viewed amongst those who do it. I also used the magazines as talking points to gauge the attitudes of those who said they don't do nanpa.

<29> Unexpectedly, something that proved even more useful than these magazines were the Internet sites I discovered directly pertaining to nanpa. These sites, such as nanpa kenkyukai (cruising research group) were made for and about those people interested in nanpa. The existence of these sites meant that, although I was unable to meet anyone who engaged in nanpa during my short period of fieldwork, I had access to them and their lives via the Internet. Whether the information they supply about themselves and their movements is exaggerated or not is hard to tell. There is an awful lot of detail. The average diary entry by a guy who calls himself Takeshi contains, amongst other things, dates, times, places, numbers of people, whether he slept with the people or not and what score he gives them. Unfortunately I could not find any online nanpa diaries written by girls. But this does not mean that they don't exist.

<30> The biggest problem I encountered throughout this project was the negative perception of my research topic, and by association, the negative perception of me amongst my informants. Reading Allison we find that this is not an uncommon experience (in Japan at least) for an anthropologist. In her research into Tokyo hostess bars, Allison found that her informants either, didn't take her seriously, they thought she was odd, or they didn't understand how someone from Tokyo University would want to study the mizu shobai (the water trade). Some of her informants claimed that this area of life held no significance for Japanese, and was barely Japanese culture at all. "Others could not comprehend the seriousness with which I approached this subject. To them the mizu shobai and scholarship were antithetical" [27]. Personally, I was (and still am) asked why I am interested in such waisetsu (obscene) subjects, and am I also waisetsu? Doesn't my professor think that nanpa is a bad subject to study? Is nanpa Japanese culture? I could have treated these remarks as problems, but instead I treated them as part of the research. I endeavoured to find out what it was about nanpa that made some people, but not others, react this way. I feel this "trouble" makes my research no less interesting than futsu (normal) research into ikebana (flower arrangement) and the ie (household).

<31> What is clear from the preceding critical discussion is that, although I initially thought participant observation was necessary for a deeper understanding of my subject matter, the use of magazines, the internet, and (sometimes spicy) conversations with Japanese friends and strangers, more than made up for the brevity of time spent in the field, and I think the results bear this out.

4. Findings: An etymology of nanpa and koha

<32> In The Professional Stranger (1996), Michael Agar reminds us that, "the basic premise of the field [of anthropology is] the learning of how people think about the world by attending to how they talk about it" [28]. In social anthropology, brandishing a dictionary full of definitions of the words people use when they talk about the world, leaves us some distance away from the goal of learning how they think about it, just as digging up a skeleton, and staring into the cavity of its skull will not tell us much about a dead Neanderthal's thoughts. However, there is some value in looking at these "official definitions", just as there is value in looking at Palaeolithic skeletons. The rule, of course, in both cases, is to be careful how we use what we find, and not to see too much into what are the very bare bones of a language. Presented here then, in the knowledge of its limited use, is an etymology of the words nanpa and koha.

<33> In the dictionary of Meiji era (1868-1912) words [29], the word nanpa is listed first in 1894 (Meiji 26). It is said to refer to moderate party politics, described, quite literally, as expressing "soft" opinions. I say "quite literally" here, because, in terms of the Chinese characters used to make up "nan" and "ha," (or "pa" in this case) the first is the character for "soft" whilst the second is the character for "group" or "faction." At the same time, koha or "hard group," were the hardliners, whose political stance was naturally tough. These two words, then, are presented in this dictionary, as describing two opposing styles of governance that were said to have existed at the time.

<34> By 1910, towards the end of Meiji (Meiji 42), when more and more children were entering school, the use of the words had shifted from the political arena into the playground, as it were. nanpa and koha were now said to divide into two groups the "sexual desires" (seiyoku) of "classmates of that era" (sono koro no seito nakama). Those considered nanpa were supposedly not able to control their sexual desires, whilst koha students were. On this subject the dictionary makes no reference to age, sex, or to the sexual orientation of the students in question. It is probably safe to assume that the description is of adolescent boys, since the majority of students in those days would have been male [30]. As to whether their sexual desire was aimed at each other, at the opposite sex, or both, can only be guessed, based on the use of the word nanpa in the Showa (1926-1989) and Heisei (1989-present) periods, as described in the body of this thesis.

<35> The Japanese dictionaries (Daijiten) for the Showa and Heisei periods maintain that the word nanpa (still represented by kanji) is only used as a noun, and refers to "boys whose habit is to associate with girls and care about the way they dress. That sort of person or group of people." These dictionaries also maintain that koha, as the opposite of nanpa, refers to "boys who are repulsed by what they regard as weak behaviour (i.e the behaviour of nanpa) and emphasize force and masculinity." These definitions drive home quite forcefully the idea that there is a real division amongst boys, between nanpa and koha "lifestyles." In her examination of the popular animé film Akira, in a volume on anthropological perspectives on Japanese popular culture, Standish refers us to Sato's definition of koha as "'the hard type [that] is a traditional image of adolescent masculinity which combines violence, valour, and bravado with stoicism and chivalry,'" whilst "nanpa, or soft type is 'a skirt chaser or ladies man.' The college student/dokushin kizoku [rich singles] belong to this latter group. The koha school of masculinity also carries with it connotations of makoto [purity of motive]" [31].

<36> In contrast to what we find in these dictionaries, and the article by Standish, none of my informants (who ranged in age from 20 to 55), thought that any such division of boys, and the word koha was treated as anachronistic. Furthermore, as far as they were concerned, the word nanpa was always written in katakana (most were unaware of the kanji), and more importantly, as far as this study is concerned, it had taken on the verb form, as in nanpa suru (to do nanpa/to cruise). The oldest of my informants, Shoji, says he remembers that in his day the phrase "girl hunt" (garu hanto) was used, rather than nanpa suru. He was fairly sure that girl hunt had come from an American song popular with the occupying forces after the war. A recent katakana dictionary turns up the phrase garu hanto, along with the opposite "boy hunt" (boi hanto), and the alternative, "girl/boy fishing" (garu/boi fishingu).

<37> Personally, during three years of living in Japan and associating with young people, many of whom were avidly engaged in the activities described by all of the above idioms, I had only heard the phrase nanpa suru, which was used to refer to the activity of "cruising for" or "pulling of" a member of the opposite sex. For example, I was always being asked by students, whether I had nanpa shita (approached/pulled) my girlfriend, or whether I'd been nanpa sareta (approached/pulled) by my girlfriend. It was the research for this paper that brought the other words and ideas (mentioned above) to my attention, and consequently to the attention of my informants. Similarly, although all of my informants knew the word koha (as defined by Sato above), any immediate association with today's nanpa suru (the activity of cruising) was not made. They all found the idea that anyone would wish to "koha suru" very funny, and wondered what, if indeed the activity existed, it would possibly involve. "I think you'd have to be very serious," said one 37-year-old male informant, Tsuyoshi, jokingly. Are those who nanpa suru by contrast "not serious" or "at play"?

<38> Although the precise point at which nanpa passed into the popular consciousness as an activity is unclear, it seems clearer that when the word's use was altered (turned into a katakana verb), it was pulled away from the old meaning, and therefore the use of its opposite, koha, also fell away (sources indicate this happened sometime in the 1970s). This is a crucial point in our understanding of the phenomenon of doing nanpa suru. Not only was the word set apart by this alteration in use, but the activity, as people thought about it, also became something different, something outside the circle of "normalcy." There are many other "nouns- become-verbs" like this, for example to "make a telephone call" is denwa suru, but this is now a standard and quite acceptable Japanese grammatical construction in many cases. But there are other words like nanpa suru probably invented by young Japanese more recently, which are considered machigai nihongo (mistaken Japanese) or even warui nihongo (bad Japanese) by some, usually older, Japanese. An example of this phenomenon is the word kokuru. Like nanpa suru, kokuru cannot be found in the average Japanese dictionary, because it is a play-on-words. Kokuru is in fact a contraction of kokuhaku suru (to confess), and it refers only to confessions of love. Another example of the practice of playing with words would be o-cha suru. This does not mean, "to practice tea ceremony," it actually means, "to go to a café and drink tea (or even coffee!), with someone." There are far too many examples like this to mention them all here, and I think that the linguistic point is clear. Playing with words draws a circle around the subject they refer to and says in effect, this is fun, this is exotic, this is bad, or this is good. Often times it is also saying, "this is outside the realm of your experience." In the case of nanpa suru, it is possibly entering into the realm of "play," which is always fun and experimental.

4.1 Japanese Youth at Play

<39> To begin this section, I'd like to raise something that some of my informants took great pains to make clear to me, regarding the place of nanpa and koha in Japanese society, as they saw it. In the past, perhaps up until the 1970s or 1980s, it may still have been common in Japan to think of Japanese (male) youth as divided into two broad "types" i.e. "toughs" (koha) and "skirt chasers" (nanpa). More recently, as mentioned in the etymology, writers such as Sato and Standish have appealed to this division to better understand firstly the bosozoku (biker gangs), and secondly the characters in the animated film Akira [32]. In other words, they have used these terms, whose currency I have discovered seems to be flagging, to try to understand very specific groups within Japanese culture.

<40> More in line with what Koehn says in her article about young Japanese male fashions, "Japanese Men Make Streetwise Statements" (1999), that, "There seems to be less value placed on machismo in men," [33] is an impression I got from all of my informants (made explicit by a few amongst them). For them, this division into "soft" and "hard" types was no longer meaningful, or at least they never thought of people as one or the other. In fact, the younger ones amongst them had such a hard time trying to come up with an example of koha behaviour, that it was up to me to mention something I'd heard from an older informant and see their reaction. Mitsuyo, the 35-year-old schoolteacher in question, had said that everybody was nanpa these days, or certainly nobody wants to be koha, or else nobody really thinks of themselves in those terms, she thought. When I asked her if she could still give me an example of koha people, she laughed and said "oendan" (dance groups who wear smart uniforms, white gloves and headbands, and perform militaristically precise dances at sports days and baseball games). Later she sent me a link to a website [34] that featured photos of high school children who have their own oendan, with a note that said, "This is what I thought of when you asked me about koha, but I don't think these school children would describe themselves in those terms." So when my younger informants struggled to think of an example of koha people, I suggested oendan, and on several occasions they clapped their hands together, and in a common gesture used to emphasize agreement, repeated the word "koha" back to me twice.

<41> So, if few young people are thought of as koha, and almost everybody is nanpa without thinking about it these days, what are people doing that is different when they do nanpa (nanpa suru), and how are we to understand it?

<42> The first thing to realize about nanpa suru is that it is hard to come up with a good English translation of it. Personally, I think the phrase has something of "to chat-up" within it, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "Chat with a person flirtatiously or with a particular motive." It also has a bit of "to flirt" within it, which the OED defines as "1) Behave in a frivolous amorous manner 2) Toy, trifle (flirted with the idea; flirting with death)." This last gives the impression that flirting is playful, as I intend to argue for nanpa. However, for the sake of ease and consistency I have chosen to use the word "to cruise", knowing that, although it doesn't convey the verbal and overtly playful aspects of the activity that the other two words do, it does convey the active side.

<43> The second thing to realize about nanpa is that there is certainly more than one kind. In my research, for example, I have come across suto nan (a contraction of sutoreeto nanpa -- street cruising), netto nanpa (internet chatroom cruising), baa nanpa (bar cruising), kaa nanpa (car cruising) and gyaku nan (reversed cruising -- girls who cruise for boys). Since this paper only deals with street nanpa, which in itself contains two different types, namely soro nanpa (solo nanpa -- cruising alone) and conbi nanpa (combination nanpa -- cruising in pairs), these other areas require attention.

<44> As the words suggest, street nanpa (suto nan) is cruising done out on the streets, as opposed to in bars, from cars, or over the internet. From the etymology and from the above comments about nanpa and koha the impression might be that nanpa is an activity exclusively associated with boys. In the above list of the different types of cruising, although the word gyakunan (reversed nanpa) refers to girls who go out and look for boys, I have never observed or read about this activity, and none of my informants claimed or admitted that they had engaged in it, although they all knew the word. On the strength of this, I have come to wonder whether gyakunan does involve girls actively pursuing boys on the streets, or whether it refers instead to those girls who actively encourage boys doing nanpa to approach them, which I was told they do, and then agree to engage in the ensuing play. With nanpa, it certainly takes two to tango. In this way, I think we can say that girls also actively do suto nan, (which may be called gyakunan to balance the power in the game) but that their yarikata (way of doing it) is different to that of boys.

4.1 a) Setting the Scene -- the "playground"

<45> Huizinga wrote that "all play moves and has its being within a playground marked off beforehand, either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course" [35]. The nanpa basho (cruising spot), the playground in which the playful activity of nanpa takes place, is interesting in this respect, because it is not "marked off" as such, but favored locations can be said to exist and, more often than not, they make sense to an outsider. In effect, there should be no physical limit to a nanpa playground, it is not "hedged round" or "isolated" as the arena, the temple, the tennis-court, or the court of justice are in Huizinga's thesis [36]. Indeed, if we look at the types of places voted the "top 5 nanpa spots in Shibuya, Tokyo" in Popeye magazine [37], one of the main requirements is that the space is open to a constant flow of potential "players." These players will, if the other side's players have chosen the spot well, mostly be of the desired kei (group or type), and the reputation of the spot should spread quickly (with the help of magazines and the internet).

Fig.1 (View from Hikkakebashi.)

<46> Although it would be claiming too much to say that these nanpa places were "dedicated to an act apart," as Huizinga states playgrounds are, this does not decrease their "playgroundness," because they are certainly "temporary worlds within the ordinary world," [38] in that these ordinary spaces temporarily become the scenes of intense play. This is consistent with Csikszentmihalyi's example of the nature of the mountaineer's playground, since it too is a reality that is temporarily chosen for play [39].

<47> In my view, although particular spaces in cities may not be "designated" as "nanpa spots" by the city's authorities, it would be quite reasonable to suggest that the relationship between some city play (including suto nan) and consumption is a symbiotic one, which is encouraged. Perhaps it is no coincidence that play and shopping should be easy bedfellows, since, as Turner points out, the word "leisure" "ultimately comes from the Indo-European base *leik-, 'to offer for sale, bargain,' referring to the liminal sphere of the market, with its implications of choice, variation, contract" [40]. Both play and consumption are popular leisure time activities amongst young people in Japan, and businesses know this only too well. Where you find young people shopping, you will more than likely find some concession to the ludic tendencies of youth -- whether it be a giant music video screen, a video game centre, or a Ferris wheel that cuts through the centre of a shopping mall (as in the Hep Centre in Umeda, N.Osaka). Combine shopping, play outlets, and young people, and you create some people's idea of the perfect playground for cruising. Of the top five places recommended as good for suto nan in Popeye magazine, three are in front of shopping centres, one is a park, and the other is in front of JR Shibuya station.

Fig. 2 (Carpenter does nanpa at lunchtime whilst balancing on the bridge wall.)

<48> The playground I spent some time observing, suggested to me by my informant Mitsuyo, was a bridge, famous in Kansai, and perhaps even in nationwide nanpa circles as a place where young people "hang around" (see fig.1-4). The real name of the bridge in the minami (south) area of Osaka is Ebisubashi, whilst its nickname, given to it at some point in the past and probably more well known than its real name, is Hikkakebashi (pulling bridge -- hikkakeru literally means "to hang," but it is also used to mean "draw/pull in customers"). Although one young female informant, Sugumi, told me later that Hikkakebashi was no longer a popular place to do suto nan, I did manage to see a few people doing it there, at what I considered, at that point, to be an unlikely time of day -- 12-noon on a Monday.

Fig.3 (Bar scouts/ chinpira look for girls.)

<49> To the tourist, this bridge is quite special. From its centre one is afforded a cityscape that has probably seen many times before in the futures sketched out by Hollywood films like Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, and Japanese animated films in the Akira vein. Almost as wide as it is long, the bridge spans the perpetually murky Dotonbori river, and is unique in the city, in that it connects the two covered shopping arcades of Ebisubashi-suji and Shinsaibashi-suji, which run parallel to the north-south spine of Osaka, the Midosuji boulevard. Both sides of the river, as seen from the bridge, create an east-west corridor of commercial buildings, which are completely covered in advertisements. Notable among these is the locally famous, now ancient, "Glico man" sign, in front of which couples sometimes have their photo taken. The two shopping 'tunnels' connected by the bridge are, from 10am everyday, a somewhat suffocating flow of mostly young people. Not surprisingly, the bridge not only acts as a conduit for these people to move from one arcade to the next, but also as an open air space to take a breath in.

Fig.4. (The "Glico Man" sign.)

<50> Since I was last in Japan, in the summer of 2000, the last of the old crumbling minami buildings on the corner of the bridge has been pulled down and replaced with a new one -- something called the "Kirin Plaza." Opposite that, is the new Olympus building, whilst on the other side of the bridge is a fast food shop, and opposite that a seafood restaurant. Near to the fast food shop there is now a giant video screen, which I have seen showing anything from music videos to sumo, and pop music soundtracks play from subtly concealed speakers. The low gothic-style walls of the bridge are covered in graffiti, (not a common sight in Japan), with messages in Japanese such as "3/2/2001 -- Inaki Tomoharu & Chokobo invade Osaka!!!" and "Shiho and Chikako LOVE²." It makes sense that these messages are written here in this "playground," rather than on the wall of a Gucci boutique in the nearby Midosuji Boulevard.

<51> Just inside the Shinsaibashi suji arcade is a popular Dutch coffee shop and not far along from that is Sega World, where people pit their wits against the latest interactive video games, which could be anything from taiko drumming to breakdancing. These surroundings, combined with the frenetic human and digital activity, create a highly charged weekend atmosphere. Whilst at lunchtime during the week, although the hidden soundtrack plays on, the atmosphere is more subdued.

<52> This description should convey an image of the kind of place where some young people choose to search for members of the opposite sex when cruising on the streets. It should also give an idea of the connection between nanpa and other kinds of play, which I think has contributed to these areas (and therefore not others) becoming popular cruising playgrounds (for some people), and suggests that, if a place like Hikkakebashi no longer attracts nanpa enthusiasts, it may be because a) there is great variation amongst people who do nanpa and what they want from their playground and b) the area's "playgroundness" lacks subtlety compared to other spots. The "pulling bridge" may have become a parody of a good nanpa basho, and many cruisers may have begun to take the following warning from Popeye magazine quite seriously, that, "depending on the time of day and the place, the type and quality of girl changes, so be careful" [41].

4.1 b) The Cruisers -- "playboys" and "playgirls"

<53> Despite their lack of cruising experience, a lot of my informants said that nanpa participants "only had one goal" (mokuteki hitotsu dake), which is casual sex. With this in mind, I was interested to find out what kinds of people might or might not engage in nanpa (if it's possible to talk of "kinds"). It follows from what has been said already about the general tendency of my informants not to divide people into either nanpa or koha types, that we should wonder whether they discerned a "type" liable to enjoy suto nan or not, and what they think of those types. This information would enable me firstly to see if, between them, my informants had any collective ideas about cruisers, and secondly, to compare what people told me, with what I had read and observed elsewhere.

<54> Firstly, it is interesting to note that, those who don't do street nanpa commonly perceive those who do it to be very young. One informant, a university student who said she didn't do nanpa, stated categorically that "nanpa people" would be younger than twenty, but older than sixteen. They may even be no older than eighteen, she said. Noriko, another student, agreed with this assessment, but made a slight downward adjustment of the youngest age to fifteen. She added, "If you are still doing nanpa at twenty-five, there is something wrong." Whilst Aki, another student, stated outright that, "university students don't do nanpa." If this were correct, it would rule out almost half of today's over eighteens from the game [42]. The ages quoted by my informants correspond quite neatly to the average age of the readership of the popular magazines Popeye, Egg, and Men's Egg, which they also perceived to be about sixteen or seventeen. One informant described these magazines as "nanpa no zasshi " (magazines for cruisers), and admitted having read Popeye, as "everyone did" whilst at senior high school, although he denied ever cruising, and said he didn't read these magazines any more.

<55> Standing in contrast to the above perceptions about the age of those who do nanpa, is information gained from looking at a notice board called the nanpa nakama boshu keijiban ("The cruising friends recruitment notice board") on the incredibly well produced nanpa website nanpa kenkyukai ("cruising research group") [43]. The Kansai version of this notice board is where those (mostly males) who are interested in doing suto nan in the Kansai area, can post their requests for a patona (partners to do conbinan -- combination cruising -- with). The average age of the people posting these kinds of requests appears to be twenty-one, whilst the maximum and minimum ages I have ever seen are thirty-five and eighteen respectively. These people may not be representative of everyone who cruises. They might just be the ones with internet access. In addition, these ages may be fictitious, as some of the names obviously are ("Gorillaman," for example), but the same person who admits to being fourteen years older than the average age, also admits to being unemployed. Perhaps it is worth remembering here that being somewhat older when it comes to nanpa (which might resemble a do -- "a way" in the traditional arts -- in this respect) may attract a certain amount of respect from young beginners, and reflects a principle found in many areas of Japanese social organization [44].

<56> Apart from the unemployed, the salarymen, and the furiitaa [45] (free-timers -- temporary and/or part time workers who change jobs often to maximize their free time) the vast majority of those seeking conbi nan partners on the board are university students, thus contradicting Aki's conviction above that, "university students don't do nanpa." The information from this notice board would, no doubt, also surprise Noriko, who stated that those still doing nanpa at twenty-five have something wrong with them.

<57> With a closer look at the notices on this board, a pattern emerges which would also, presumably, surprise my informants. Of those on the board who claim to be twenty-one, the vast majority of them also admit to being nanpa shoshinsha (beginners), in search of anyone who has experience of suto nan, who will help them ganbaru (try hard) to koe wo kakeru (speak with their voices [to girls]), and have a tanoshii natsu (enjoyable summer) together, in the attempt to getto (sleep with) as many girls as possible. The fact that a lot of the people on this board are only starting out at twenty-one would seem to suggest that if we go along with Noriko's assertion, there must be a large number of boys (and girls) with "something wrong." In addition to Aki's statement about university students abstaining from nanpa, she also said that those who read magazines like Popeye and Egg and/or do nanpa are idiots. A mature student I spoke to about these magazines in particular, said that she thought it sad the way young people bought these magazines, and used them as instruction manuals for living [46].

<58> The overall impression I got from the above mentioned informants, who were all university students, was that they thought nanpa was a phase that some people (not students) went through, or at least should be "just a phase," and that you would/should "grow out of it." If we view nanpa as a form of play therefore, this assessment of it seems to consign it to the children's playground (from where anthropologists have extricated it), to those who don't know any better (yet). Nanpa is not for educated adults who want "serious" relationships, or who want to get married it would seem. Indeed, when I asked one of the girls if she intended to marry, she replied, "Of course. I'm Japanese." And in her mind this was sufficient explanation. Could she be implying with this statement (in the context of the subject of conversation) that, not only should nanpa be insignificant (a phase), only engaged in by idiots, it should not interfere with this serious business of "being Japanese"? Is nanpa then un-Japanese? What does this mean for others who don't nanpa suru but still "only have one goal"?

<59> Contrary to the defensive claims of the woman who told Ella Luri Wiswell that, "Japanese people don't do such things," [47] plenty of young people engage in casual sex in Japan without it affecting their Japaneseness [48]. Perhaps, in the case of nanpa, it is the very public (urban), unashamed, frank nature of it that affects so many people's judgment -- the style eclipses the content.

<60> Rather than being a question of questioning identity, though no less significant for it, if we understand nanpa as a playful activity of liminoid description, its players are in no way rendered un-Japanese or less Japanese. But what the liminoid, experimental, and somewhat marginal nature of nanpa may do, is cause friction between those who don't do it and those who do. Those who are exploring theirs' and others' attitudes to casual sex in this very "in-your-face" but tanoshii (fun) way are sure to make enemies. Could this friction be understood as an example of the potentially volatile nature of new culture, which has been elaborated through the play of the few and not the many? Turner thought that these "alternative models for living…are capable of influencing the behaviour of those in mainstream social and political roles in the direction of radical change," [49] though he did not detail how hard this change might be, or what friction it might cause.

<61> On the surface, the reaction of the people I talked to above about nanpa might partly be understood as embarrassment similar to the example I gave of Allison's informants. Or they might think that, rather than taking a balanced view, I want to use nanpa to construct an over-arching image of "The Japanese" as waisetsu (obscene), that nanpa would stand for more than they thought it should be allowed to. Whilst my goal is closer to that which Martinez advocates for anthropologists of Japan, namely "to debunk some of these images of modern Japan," which, as signaled by the conversations above, I must try to do "in the face of a national culture which stresses similarity over difference" [50]; I believe, as Valentine has done with dance in Japan, that if it is possible to relate nanpa to wider aspects of Japanese social organization and social change.

<62> Although there may be many people, young and old, male and female, who display animosity toward "nanpa people," there are others whose views are much more balanced. We shall now turn to one of these people, a male informant who, again, denied personal experience of nanpa, but knew many people who had some experience, including his younger brother.

<63> Shingo is also a university student, and was recommended to me as "someone I must talk to" by another Japanese student who described him, tantalizingly (for my benefit?), as "koha." As it turned out, Shingo was not at all how I'd imagined a "koha person" might be. And if he was considered to be koha by some Japanese, he didn't have the koha character described by other Japanese. When I asked him if he considered himself to be koha, he laughed and replied that he "never does things by halves" (chu to hanpa shinai) but that he didn't know if that meant he was koha, nobody uses koha these days, he said. When I asked Shingo what he thought about those who engage in suto nan, he told me he thought they were "sugoi " (amazing).

<64> He explained that once, when he was in London with friends, they'd made a bet that whoever lost at janken (scissor, paper, stone) would have to speak to (koe wo kakeru) a girl they didn't know on the street. He lost, but his legs turned to jelly and he couldn't go through with it, he said. That's why he admires (sonkei suru) these people who can talk to strangers on the street. Although he thought that suto nan had a bad image, it could be good if it led to a serious relationship or marriage (the best of both worlds?). For him, it wasn't the practice of standing on the street and talking to strangers that was objectionable (before university he'd dreamt of being a TV comedian, an o-waraisan), but the idea of casual sex with a different person every week. This opinion was no doubt related to Shingo's closest experience of suto nan, which was through his 19-year-old brother, a university student in Osaka, who tends to nanpa suru a different girl every week. When Shingo talks to his brother on the phone, the end of the conversation is always the same: Shingo says "onna no ko to chara chara shinaide" (Don't mess around with girls, alright?), and his brother replies "wakatta" (Alright). But, Shingo said to me "zen zen wakattenai to omou" (But I don't think he takes any notice of me at all). When I asked Shingo if this chara chara (messing around) could prevent his brother graduating, he said "daijobu to omou" (I think he'll be ok), then, "do yaro?" (I wonder?). He said his mother is more worried about his brother, who lives in the same house as her, than she is about Shingo, who lives 8000km away.

<65> I got the impression when talking to Shingo that he was slightly jealous of both his brother and of other people who had the confidence to koe wo kakeru to girls, but that it was a world away from his own world. His habits and interests were very much linked to controlling his environment, for example, he said he got up at 5am every day to practice ritsuzen (meditation) and has practiced various martial arts including shorinjikenpo and kyokushinkai for many years (he has now graduated from doing press-ups on his knuckles, to press-ups on two fingers, he said). He spoke very softly yet precisely, often spending 30 seconds or more searching his head for the Japanese word he wanted to use to convey his intended meaning (though his girlfriend complained this made his conversation katai [hard]). His head was Bic-razor bald, and he didn't smoke, drink, or listen to music. A few times when we met he was wearing his girlfriend's dead father's setta (sandals). Although the leather sole had worn out, he'd resoled them with an old black bicycle tire. Was this what was meant by koha behaviour?

<66> Some of the details about Shingo may not seem relevant to my attempt to discern whether nanpa can be understood as play, but I believe they are quite telling. The nature of suto nan means that, amongst other things, the player has to be willing to give up an amount of control, throw caution to the wind, amongst strangers, and let the game play itself out. This is "To risk the things that matter most", as Csikszentmihalyi puts it [51]. This is also one of the basic features of play outlined by Huizinga. Play contains tension, and "Tension means uncertainty, chanciness" [52]. I got the impression that Shingo would rather avoid this loss of control, and even wanted to help others (such as his brother) to avoid it. The tension inherent in nanpa (which takes and gives confidence) is part of an alternative reality he chooses not to get involved in.

<67> I found Shingo interesting because, in common with my other informants, he wanted to place sex within what he saw as the legitimate sphere of a relationship that could lead to marriage, rather than as the goal of a playful, frivolous activity, like nanpa. On the other hand he was in awe of the confidence of those (males) who do nanpa.

4.1 c) 'Playtime'

<68> Time is important in at least two ways in nanpa, if we are to understand it as play. Huizinga wrote that all play begins and must be "played out" [53]. But it can end just as suddenly as it began. He saw the spatial and temporal elements of play as essential to our understanding of it. From Bowman's writing, it is clear that he also values the temporal aspect of play, since he is interested in "situations where the structures and rules of play emerge over the course of the interactions" [54]. Is this not the case during a suto nan encounter? This is the first important temporal component of nanpa as play to consider. The "course of the interaction" in suto nan may be the briefest of moments between complete strangers on a busy street. This means that, if the person chosen to nanpa suru is to have any interest in continuing the play, the way the initiator negotiates those "structures and rules" in the first few seconds must count for so much. The reason the structures and rules emerge over the course of the interaction, is because each interaction could be completely different to the previous interaction, and the next one. This temporal component of suto nan might properly be called "timing", rather than just "time", and it may be timing (amongst other things) that separates the suto nan daisenpai (street cruising master) from the suto nan shoshinsha (street cruising beginner).

<69> The second temporal constituent of suto nan is related to its spatial element, namely that the world of nanpa is "a temporary world within the ordinary world." Yet, at the same time, it is a world opposed in time to the wage-earning world of labor. In this it is pure leisure, or "antiwork," [55] which Turner states "includes but exceeds play" [56].

<70> As in many countries whose time has been arbitrarily divided since the Industrial Revolution, leisure time during the week often begins on Friday or Saturday evenings. These are the times that are the most popular for cruising. Although it is argued that it is possible to play and earn a living simultaneously, the very nature of the suto nan playground (the street) prevents this possibility, or at least makes it very difficult. Even if one's job takes them out on the street, the paraphernalia of work, such as a uniform, flyers, slogans, signs, surveys, charity collection boxes, and so on, may inhibit the ability to play. The material symbols that say one wants to play and not work, such as clothing, hair and make-up, use of a mobile phone and so on, remain completely hidden when while working in the playground, therefore the signals they give off are missed. The other problem of course, is that those who may have wished to play, had it been playtime (after work on Friday night), are inclined to ignore your signals during their work time, for fear of jeopardizing their wage.

<71> The way that people who still want to do suto nan during their working day have negotiated this problematic temporal/spatial obstacle, is to do suto nan in their lunch break. Accordingly there are a large number of requests for hiru aida (during lunch) cruising partners, on the nanpa kenkyukai website keijiban. For example, in July there was a student who worked at night, and therefore was looking for a partner for lunchtime cruising, (hiru nan perhaps?). Turner wrote, "work and leisure interact, each individual participates in both realms, and the modes of work organization affect the styles of leisure pursuits" [57]. However, for full interaction, shouldn't the styles of leisure pursuits also affect the modes of work organization? A lot of the people who choose to do nanpa have begun in recent years (since the economic downturn) to structure their wage earning time so as to maximize their leisure-time for nanpa. This may go some way to explain the furiitaa (part time workers) phenomenon (detailed in the Japan Institute of Labour's website bulletins) and may be the "something wrong" that my informant Noriko was alluding to [58].

<72> Finally, it would appear that nanpa is seasonal, not unlike a sport. Most of the notices that appear on the keijiban around May time asking for suto nan patona (cruising partners) appeal to potential partners with the phrase "let's enjoy summer together doing nanpa!" rather than just plainly asking for a partner. Whether autumn brings these requests to an end altogether, or the appeal changes to "let's enjoy winter together doing nanpa!" it is not possible to say from my research. It would be interesting indeed to research the regional differences in cruising habits from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

4.1 d) If I were a host -- cheats and spoil sports

<73> Huizinga wrote that, in play, cheats are tolerated more readily than spoilsports. He wrote this after considering that all play must have rules, and the tension involved in play comes from the player's desire to succeed, which she or he must do without breaking these rules. Play can test the player's "courage, tenacity, resources…and his fairness" [59]. If the player fails this final test, i.e. if s/he breaks the rules, "the whole play-world collapses. The game is over" [60].

<74>While I stood on Hikkakebashi in Osaka that lunchtime, watching the people, a half dozen "hosts"/"scouts"/"chinpira " (literally "little pricks" -- wannabe yakuza) stood scanning the crowds too (see fig.3). Their job is to recruit new girls for the mizu shobai (hostess bars etc.). These are men who, when working, look like no other men in Japan. They are more distinctive on the streets than the police. They have a uniform too, which comprises: 1) an incredibly ill fitting suit 2) a dark shirt (gray or black or blue) 3) a matching dark tie 4) hair that points to the sky 5) and a menacing air. They operate in every Japanese city where there are nightspots, in other words, they are everywhere. In some ways they seem to be a present day incarnation of the Edo period (1600-1868) zegen (brothel procurer) who used to either buy or steal daughters from the countryside to work in the cities' pleasure quarters [61].

<75> "Hosts" are an organized group of spoilsports who still operate in the suto nan playground. The main reason they are spoilsports, rather than cheats, is because they are not pretending to play. Rather, the hosts use the playground, the playtime, even the main yarikata (method) of suto nan (i.e. speaking directly to individual strangers) but, instead of the playfulness of suto nan, they speak to people of potential wages, bar names, job titles and so on. They block their passage and grab their elbows. They are sometimes violently swatted away like so many mosquitoes, but more often simply ignored. This is not to say that people doing nanpa do not experience similar brush-offs from those not interested in playing, because after all, they may be breaking rules (norms) too.

<76> Popeye magazine mentions "scouts" once when referring to a place to do suto nan. It says that although this place is great for nanpa, it is always full of hosts and scouts, so you may be liable to be confused for one of them [62]. This might not seem to make sense, in light of what I have just said about the distinctive dress of hosts, but this too is related to their spoilsport aspect. There is a breed of hosts/scouts who do not wear the distinctive bad suit and dark shirt. Instead they dress-down in casual clothes, the kind that might be worn to do nanpa in (a suit is not "nanpawear"). Thus do the activities of the spoilsports render the play-world more fragile by revealing its fragility. The spoilsport "robs play of its illusion" [63].

4.1 e) What does it mean to nanpa suru ?

<77>Bowman writes that he is "interested in situations where a playful move is not met by confusion and disruption, but is recognized and responded to as playful" [64]. nanpa continues to exist, and is popular and fun, precisely because its playful moves are not always met by confusion and disruption. Often they are met by disgust, or else completely ignored, if "Shingo's nanpa diary" (not the same Shingo mentioned above), which he has decided to share with the Japanese-speaking world over the internet, is anything to go by. His playful attempts to catch someone's eye, to attract their interest and achieve his chosen goal, are not always "successful." But, sometimes, the requests for a kei ban (keitai denwa bango -- mobile phone number), or a person's age, or their name, or immediate plans, are met with a request for a light, a laugh and a joke, from this person whom he had never seen before in his life until now. For suto nan moves to be understood as the playful moves they are, they must resemble nothing else that one is likely to encounter on the city streets. They cannot be "workful" (like the bar scout's promise of 6000yen per hour wages), because the person willing to play in the suto nan world might not be willing to work in the mizu shobai, and vice versa.

<78> How then to communicate that "this is play" [65] and convince someone that you are "serious" about it? In the same vein as Bateson's discussion of the paradigmatic nature of the shift that is required in play situations, the observer can see how someone like Shingo could have a problem, and fail to getto (literally "acquire" -- anything from "acquire a phone number" to "acquire sexual access") where he could have. You probably need the individual you choose to speak to, to have "made the jump," [66] as Bateson calls it. Or for both of you to have "mutually tuned-in to one another," [67] if a sense of play is to be achieved.

<79> The way that people doing nanpa first speak to each other is a "jump" from one order to another, in my view. Although it is said that people from Kansai are more boisterous and friendly than those from Kanto (mostly this is said by people from Kansai), on the streets of Osaka, unsolicited interactions with strangers are still minimal. If you are Japanese, the people who are likely to speak to you, on any given day, might include people collecting for charity, people handing out leaflets or tissue packets, people advertising a sale or promotion, and politicians (thanking you for your presumed but unlikely support). The messages all these people use are always conveyed via honorifics (keigo), and they may not even speak directly to you, nor look you in the eye. The language of suto nan, on the other hand, is completely "unwrapped" [68]. This avoids confusion, and distinguishes nanpa yogo (cruising terms) [69] from other "workful" language, which has meaning in these other contexts on the street. It simultaneously attempts to entice the listener with a sense of closeness, a sense that, if you understand and agree with what these words express, you can choose to join this play-world. An example of the unwrapped language that might be used in a suto nan encounter would be: "doko iku no?"(Where you goin'?) This phrase has been taken from the context of a conversation that might occur between family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, in a small community, and transferred to the busy street to become a classic opening line in suto nan. In this way, through language, does suto nan "play with elements of the familiar and defamiliarize them" [70].

<80> In Popeye magazine, there is a joke about this in manga (cartoon) form [71]. The picture is of a boy (sweating with nerves), approaching a girl (who appears to have a pointy tail) and asking her if she wants to go and have tea (nee nee kanojo, o-cha shinai?). To his surprise, the girl turns around and says, "No one says 'd'you wanna have tea?' nowadays! Tell me you'll buy me a new handbag." (imadoki, o-cha nante iwanai wayo, 'baggu katte ageru' tte itte). "That's just what you were hoping I'd say," he replies (sorette, tada jibun no kibo jya). It's quite easy to imagine this situation leading to a getto, or at the very least to some o-cha (tea). In nanpa, if the interaction doesn't start off on the right playful foot like this, people will get hurt, as Bateson claims he often is, when people don't take him seriously because he jokes a lot when he speaks [72]. The nanpa kenkyukai FAQ section's advice on this point is, " do koe wo kakeru ka ha sono toki, sono toki no jyokyo ni yotte adoribu de. " (As for what to say at the time, depending on the circumstances at that moment, adlib).

4.1 f) nanpa as a "liminoid" activity

<81> Turner took Huizinga's ideas about the position of play in relation to culture, and Sutton-Smith's ideas about play and the "liminoid," and postulated that, "liminal" situations in small-scale societies (such as the Ndembu society that Turner studied) could be ludic (playful) in nature. These liminal times, such as initiation into adulthood, are compulsory rites of passage for the participants (hence the use of "liminal" from Van Gennep's "limen" [73]), but part and parcel of the detachment from everyday life that comes with participation, is the ability to explore the ludic potential in abandoning the norms of social relations. The hope is that this forced exploration (it is not voluntary) would have the eventual effect of reinforcing the surrounding social order.

<82> "Liminoid" situations, on the other hand, Turner states, apply only to large-scale complex societies, which contemporary Japan certainly is. The liminoid, according to Turner, is "an independent and critical source," and "a domain of creative activity" [74]. In common with "liminal" actions, liminoid actions allow (this time voluntary) participants, the freedom to explore their ludic tendencies. This is one of the major differences between the liminal and the liminoid, namely that the former is all obligation, whilst the latter is all choice -- "one 'works at' the liminal, whilst one 'plays with' the liminoid." [75] We have already come across the idea that these liminoid phenomena take place spatially and temporally removed from wage-earning work. We have also talked about their ability to influence the wider sphere, even affect radical social change. But if they do this, they do it "along the margins, in the interfaces and interstices of central and servicing institutions," [75] (i.e. political and economic machinery). In other words, they can be powerful social forces, but subtly so.

<83> In this study, as well as in Turner's, understanding the meaning of leisure and leisure time (free-time) in complex societies is crucial to the understanding of play in these societies. Leisure is about two kinds of freedom: "freedom from" and "freedom to" [77]. Firstly, it is freedom from the institutional obligations (bureaucratic organization etc.) of everyday life. It is freedom from the morning commute, clocking in and out, tea breaks, and overtime. Although it is the arbitrary separation of work and leisure that allows this freedom, the freedom allows us to temporarily enjoy a more natural rhythm, all the same. Leisure time is also the freedom "to enter, even to generate new symbolic worlds of entertainment" [78]. These might include theatre, film, dance, literature and so on.

<84> Furthermore, and most importantly for this study, leisure is the freedom to "transcend social structural limitations, freedom to play -- with ideas, with fantasies, with words…and with social relationships -- in friendship" [79]. I have come to see suto nan as an embodiment of this last "freedom to," positioned in an area created by the "freedom from" work-associated practices, which I have called "the playground" and "playtime." Suto nan embodies this "freedom from" because it cuts across the social groups that Japanese people grow up a part of, and so often remain a part of for life. These may be more properly called social statuses or roles, rather than groups, and the particular roles I am thinking of here are things like age cohorts, school friends, work colleagues, family, and so on. What suto nan allows, is a liberation from normative constraints that come with these roles. It allows people whose paths may never cross under "normal" circumstances to temporarily get off the "normative hooks" [80] they are on from day to day. To not just be Kunitomo the student at an all male school, but to want to become "Gorillaman," and do conbi nan with Shingo the "ugly salaryman," speaking to girls from all over Osaka who pass through Shinsaibashi. Girls who are older or younger, conservative (consaba) or flashy (fasshon modo) or wild (gyaru) or working or poor or educated or married, none of these things should matter -- if they are willing to engage in some playfulness with Gorillaman and Shingo.

Notes

[1]See Hendry, J (1981), Smith, R.J and Wiswell, E.L (1982), Emori, I (1986), and Bornoff, N (1991) for more on these customs and practices. [^]

[2]Lunsing, W (1995). This Ph.D thesis discusses the importance of marriage as a rite of passage and symbol of gender identity in Japanese society, which, if avoided, can cause people to live unusual lives. [^]

[3]Smith and Wiswell (1982) "Chapter 4 Sex:Public and Private." [^]

[4]Hendry, J and Raveri, M (eds). [^]

[5]Sato, I (1991), Tanaka, Y (1995), Templado, L (1996), White, M (1996), Kawai, H (1997), Martinez, D.P (ed) (1998), Koehn, V (1999), Washida, K (2001), Yamada, M (2001). [^]

[6]See introduction to Hendry, J and Raveri, M (eds) (2001) Japan at Play, where Raveri mentions the place of play in the work of Taylor. [^]

[7]Huizinga (1980;1). [^]

[8]Ibid;4. [^]

[9]Ibid;8. [^]

[10]Bowman, J (1978;240). [^]

[11]Ibid;241. [^]

[12]Ibid. [^]

[13] Czikszentmihalyi, M (1979;17). [^]

[14]Czikszentmihalyi, M (1979) in Cheska, A.T (ed). [^]

[15]Ibid;16. [^]

[16]Wolfe, T (1988). [^]

[17]Csikzsentmihlayi, M (1979;17). [^]

[18]Ibid;19. [^]

[19]Ibid;130. [^]

[20]Ibid;131. [^]

[21]Ibid;139. [^]

[22]Ibid;140. [^]

[23]Raveri 2001;5 in Hendry and Raveri (eds)(2001). [^]

[24]Turner (1983;140). [^]

[25]See Mintz, S (2000) who feels that fieldwork is losing its centrality in social anthropological research. [^]

[26]Geertz, C (1993) quoting Ryle's example, to illustrate the limitations of "thin description" and therefore the importance of "thick description." [^]

[27]Allison, A (1994;146). [^]

[28]Agar,M (1996;151) [^]

[29]Meiji no kotoba jiten (1986). [^]

[30]See Thomas Rohlen "Japan's High Schools" (1983), for a relatively brief but detailed history of the education "system" starting in the Meiji period. During this period, if girls did go to school they usually did not go as far as high school. [^]

[31]See Standish, I (1998;67) in Martinez, D.P (ed). The writer Sato Ikuya referred to nanpa and koha in his book on biker gangs. [^]

[32]See Standish, I (1998) in D.P Martinez (ed). [^]

[33]Koehn, V (1999;40). [^]

[34]http://www.bankara.vis.ne.jp [^]

[35]Huizinga (1980;10). [^]

[36]Ibid;10. [^]

[37]Popeye (2001;99). This edition of the popular boys magazine featured a "ranking of anything and everything" in Shibuya, Tokyo, which included the top five nanpa spots. [^]

[38]Huizinga (1980;10). [^]

[39]Czikszentmihalyi, M (1979;16). [^]

[40]Turner, V (1983;143). [^]

[41]Popeye (2001;99). [^]

[42] According to official statistics found at www.jin.jcic.or.jp/stat, 49.1% of high school graduates entered higher education in 2000. [^]

[43] This website's homepage can be found at www.nanpa.ne.jp [^]

[44]Valentine, J (1998;271) considers this principle in the context of Japanese dance [^]

[45]Matsunaga, L (2000) for more information about the furiitaa phenomenon. [^]

[46]Tanaka, K (1990) found that didactic language is pervasive across many different kinds of magazine, and not just those aimed at the young. [^]

[47]Smith, R.J and Wiswell, E.L (1982;111). [^]

[48]Tanaka, Y (1995;93). In a survey of Japanese schoolgirls, one respondent said that the idea "that teenage girls are sexually innocent is 'a myth created by men'." [^]

[49]Turner, V (1983;136). [^]

[50]Martinez, D.P (1998;2). [^]

[51]Csikszentmihalyi, M (1979;17). [^]

[52]Huizinga (1980;10). [^]

[53]Huizinga (1980; [^]

[54]Bowman (1978;242). [^]

[55]Turner, V (1983; 139). [^]

[56]Ibid; 135. [^]

[57]Turner, V (1983; [^]

[58]Japan Institute of Labour (see website) survey of 30,000 employees showed (1) majority of male non-regular employees were in their 20's (2) Percentage of non-regular employees who'd worked for a different firm was 75.3% (3) 76.1% of non-regular employees wished to continue working as such (4) reasons for being non-regular employees inc. "to earn extra income" (34.2%) "to be able to choose one's hours" (32.8%) "to work shorter hours" (30.5%). [^]

[59]Huizinga, J (1980;11).[^]

[60]Ibid; [^]

[61]Bornoff, N (1991;502-505).[^]

[62]Popeye (28/5/2001;99). [^]

[63]Huizinga, J (1980;11). [^]

[64]Bowman, J.R (1978;242). [^]

[65]Bateson, G (1978;9). [^]

[66]Ibid;13. [^]

[67]Bowman, J.R (1978;242). [^]

[68]Hendry, J (1993) discusses how an unwrapped gift to a friend expresses the closeness of the relationship. "Wrapped" or "unwrapped" language can do the same, as well as express a hierarchical relationship between people, which changes depending on the context. [^]

[69]The nanpa kenkyukai website has a table of nanpa yogo including such terms as yari tomo (sex friend -- also known as seku fure) and yari nige (have sex and escape). [^]

[70]Turner, V (1983;130). [^]

[71]Popeye (28/5/2001;99). [^]

[72]Bateson (1978;12). [^]

[73]Turner, V (1983;127). [^]

[74]Ibid;136. [^]

[75]Ibid;159. [^]

[76]Ibid; 158. [^]

[77]Ibid; 139. [^]

[78]Hendry, J (2000) discusses the way that the Japanese, whose society is often thought of as so constraining by outsiders, are allowed considerably more freedom in Tokyo Disneyland than the Americans are in their Disney parks. Even though America is "the land of the free". [^]

[79]Turner, V (1983;140). [^]

[80]Ibid;147. [^]

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Magazines

Egg -- 1st June 2001. Vol. 56. Published by -- Taiyohtosho Co. Ltd. Tokyo.

Men's Egg -- 1st June 2001. Vol.21. Published by -- Taiyohtosho Co. Ltd. Tokyo.

Popeye -- 28th May 2001. No.610. Published by -- Magazine House, Tokyo.

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i-mode Search -- 23rd May 2001. Vol. 7. Published by -- Recruit Computer Publishing, Tokyo.

Websites

Bankara -- www.bankara.vis.ne.jp

Ministry of Health.Labour and Welfare -- www.jil.go.jp/bulletin/year/2000/vol39-11/01

nanpa Kenkyukai -- www.nanpa.ne.jp

nanpa Tengoku -- www6.freeweb.ne.jp/computer/meetwave/contents.html

nanpa Yoi -- www1.rightnet.ne.jp/nanpa

Shingo's Diary -- www9.freeweb.ne.jp/diary/dk24

Statistics -- www.jin.jcic.or.jp/stat

Takashi's "Between Thighs" Diary -- www.memorize.ne.jp/diary/oo

Yomiuri Shinbun -- www.yomiuri.co.jp