Mutual Fantasy and Desire in "Asian" Vacationscapes of Nepal
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Japanese Girl Meets Nepali Boy: Mutual Fantasy and Desire in "Asian" vacationscapes of Nepal by Chisono Yamaga A Thesis submined to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Anthropology University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright O 2006 by Chisono Yamaga THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDTES ¡t Jr it:t ¡t COPYRIGHT PERMISSION Japanese Girl Meets Nepali Boy: Mutual Fantasy and Desire in "Asian" Vacationscapes of Nepal by Chisono Yamaga A Thesis/Practicum submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Master of Arts Chisono Yamaga @ 2006 Permission has been granted to the Library of the University of Manitoba to lend or sell copies of this thesis/practicum, to the National Library of Canada to microfilm this thesis and to lend or sell copies of the film, and to University Microfitms Inc. to publish an abstract of this thesis/practicum. This reproduction or copy of this thesis has been made available by authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research, and may only be reproduced and copied as permitted by copyright laws or with express written authorization from the copyright owner. Table of Contents List of Tab1es............. ............ ii Abstract.... .......... iÌÌ Acknowledgments........... ...... iv Chapter I I SHOW YOU MY HEART 1.1 Starting from My Travel Diary ........ I 1.2 The People and Places I8ncounter................ ......................7 1.3 Observing My Positions... .............. I 1 1.4 Meeting People and Showing My Hearr........ ....................17 1.5 Writing Our Ethnography ..............23 Chapter 2 GLOBAL TOURISTS EXPECT EROTIC ENCOUNTERS 2.1 Sex Tourism or Romance Tourism? ................2g 2.2 Transnational Sexual Identity and Desire ........33 2.3 seeking the Authenticity of other and self in vacationscapes............................. 39 Chapter 3 ASIAN JAPANESE WOMEN TRAVEL TO NEPAL 3.1 Japanese Women Travelling Abroad..... ..........47 ..Asian 3.2 Japanese Female Tourists Become Japanese,' .......52 3.3 Travelling to Nepal and Enjoying an Authentic ,.Asia', ....59 3.4 "Asian Japanese" and the Feeling of Nostalgia in Nepal .................... 65 Chapter 4 ASIAN JAPANESE \ryOMEN FALL IN LOVE \ryITH NEPALI MEN 4.1 Dreaming that Nepali Boys will Become Authentic "Asian" Men......... .............71 4.2 Japanese Girls Growing into "Asian Japanese,'Women ..................... g6 4.3 The Tears and Smiles of "Asian Japanese', Women..... ... 101 Chapter 5 MODERN NEPALI MEN FALL IN LOVE WITH JAPANESE WOMEN 5.1 chinese Food, English Life, American Money, Japanese wife......... .................107 5.2 The Frustration of Men from the country of Mt. Everest ................. 126 5.3 The Power of Love in Modern Nepali Men's Lives ........ 13g Chapter 6 WE DEPART FOR HOPE 6.1 Steering the Airplane of Globalization to Our Future ..... I44 Notes .,','..'.'.,.., ]5] References ....... I53 List of Tables Table 1 Tourist Arrivals in Nepal by Major Nationalities from 2000 to 2004...........3 Table 2 The Percentages of rourist Arrivals in the National populations ................. 4 Table 3 Outbound Japanese tourists ...................4g Table 4 Gender, age groups of outbound Japanese tourists in2004.........................49 Table 5 Japanese Tourists in Nepal .................... 53 ll Abstract Recent research on global tourism has focused on the relationships between Western tourists and non-Western locals. However, there have been unique cultural processes in global tourism, which are not only bound to this binary. As a Japanese student, my concern is how Asian female tourists create intimate ties with Asian local men - particularly Japanese female tourists and Nepali men. I conducted this research from October 2005 to February 2006 inmajor tourist areas including Kathmandu and Pokhara. I contacted Japanese women and Nepali men in these areas through touristic encounters. By interpreting their storie s,I analyzed how they reproduce the fantasy of the transnational sexualities of Other and Self. Through revealing the processes of recreating the fantasy, the vacationscapes of Nepal are illustrated as the chaotic sites of social changes as well as the sites of the "hope" of establishing new relations among Asian people in contemporary Asia. lll Acknowledgments I owe this project to all people with whom I talked in Nepal and Canada. Although it would be impossible to thank everyone who has helped me to conduct this project, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to all the subjects appeared in this thesis. Without your kind cooperation of sharing emotions and stories with me, this project would never have been possible. All your words, tears, and smiles are now part of my life. Thank you. This project was made possible by the endless patience, understanding and valuable guidance of my advisor Susan Frohlick. I also would like to thank her for the generous financial support from her research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thank you Susan - for everything, always. The other two members of my committee - Jessaca Leinaweaver and Colleen Be.ry provided me with constructive suggestions and great encouragement. Thank you both. 1V Chapter 1 I SHOW YOU MY HEART L.1 Starting from My Travel Diary At night, I walked with didi (an elder sister in Nepali) and dai (an elder brother in Nepali) [who are the managers of the guesthouse] in Kathmandu Durbar Square. I felt so good. I realized that I am a "woman". (translated by author)l This passage is taken from my travel diary. It was written in 1999 when I stayed in Nepal as a Japanese backpacker. I was 26 years old and traveled alone. I still remember the day I enjoyed a night walk in the steamy weather of May. The orange streetlights illuminated the erotic figures of gods and goddesses in wooden Hindu temples. Rickshaw drivers were sleeping, lying in their showy vehicles. Wearing cotton clothes and beach sandals, I felt the pleasant night breeze on my cheek and body. The smell of urine and garbage. The sound of temple bells. Listening to the Nepali conversation between didi and dai, a married couple who were my Nepali friends, I was deeply immersed in my imagined landscape of "authentic" Asia. It is one of my most vivid memories, an example of how important my tourist experience of Nepal is to my life. Remembering that day and reading my diary again and again, a question came to mind: why was it that the tourist space of Nepal had made me say that I was a woman? My research for this thesis started from this question. Searching for the answers to this question, I re-entered Nepal six years later in October 2005 as a Japanese ethnographer. Emerging from my earlier tourist experiences in Nepal in 1999, my research focuses on sexual identity in the context of global tourism, especially intimate relations between Japanese women and Nepali men in the transnational touristic spaces of Nepal. Theories of globalization and transnational sexuality suggest that sexual desire and fantasies of Others and Self formulate sexual identities in transnational spaces including global tourism (Appadurai 1997, Stoler lggT,Povinelli and Chauncey 1999,Grewal and Kaplan 2001). For example, Stoler (1997) examines the politics of sexual desire toward the Other in transnational colonial spaces. Povinelli and Chauncey (1999) contend that the study of transnational sexuality shows how the process of globalization is experienced by individuals in sexual ways. Employing these theories, this research aims to articulate the processes of imagination in the formulation of the sexual identities by Japanese female tourists and Nepali men. Exploring touristic encounters in transnational spaces, most research has focused on Western male tourists and non-Western local women. However, since the mid-1990s, feminist scholars have started researching how Western female tourists recreate their exotic and erotic imaginations toward non-Western local men. Pruitt and LaFont (2004) have researched romantic relationships between Jamaican men and Western female tourists. Sánchez Taylor (2001) conducted a greatnumber of interviews with white female tourists and local beach boys in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Kempadoo (1999,200I) also discusses the sexual relationships between Western female tourists and Caribbean men. However, the factthatmany scholars have focused on Western female tourists to the exclusion of other ethnicities is problematic. Is sexual desire for local men in global tourism exclusive to Westerners? Remembering my backpacker experience in Nepal, I argue that it is not. In order to explore this question, I chose Nepal as my field site. Investigating sexual desire in the transnational spaces of Nepal, Ortner (1996) and Adams (1996) have both studied the politics of romance and sexuality between Sherpa men and Western female mountaineers and trekkers. Liechty (1996) describes the largest tourist area, Thamel, as the primary location where Western female tourists engage in sexual relationships with young Nepalese men. Remembering my tourist experiences in Nepal, I wondered why these scholars do not mention Japanese female tourists because Japan has been one of Nepal's major hosted countries (Table 1). Looking at the percentages of tourists to Nepal in the national populations, Japan ranks only between eighth