Gangsters, Geishas, Monks & Me: A conversation with author Gordon Hutchison

More than a century ago, it was not uncommon for any Westerner of note who spent any time in Japan to write a book about the experience. In that era, each such book contained fresh, new insights into Japan’s seemingly impenetrable culture.

While our knowledge and understanding of Japan has grown over the years, memoirs of “unique” Japan experiences and insights continue to be published. Fewer and fewer of these books actually contain the fresh, new insights that are being sought by readers.

Fortunately, Gordon Hutchison’s account of his early years in Japan, “Gangsters, Geishas, Monks & Me: A Memoir of Three Years in the Underbelly of Japan”, offers a very different perspective on the “gaijin experience.” I recently sat down with Hutchison to discuss his book and his early years in Japan.

In the 1970s, Hutchison came to Japan with a one year contract to teach English and a 10-year plan to work his way around the world. A year later, he decided to forego the rest of his travels and instead commenced Zen training at Hosshinji, a monastery in the small town of Obama on the Japan Sea coast. Hutchison’s decision was based on his desire to train in Zen meditation to develop further discipline and direction in his own life. Says Hutchison, “Zen isn’t about enlightenment— although I know one monk who had an amazing enlightenment experience — it’s about practicing self-awareness and building up a muscle. I didn’t have a clear goal in taking up Zen, but I found I needed it.”

Many think of monks as holy men who are above human feelings and desires. Yet the practitioners of Zen meditation whom Hutchison introduces display very human vices and foibles. In our discussion, Hutchison refers to the monks and trainees he met as “people on the periphery.”

“Hosshinji--and Zen itself--is the kind of place that attracts people who are on the fringe, or at least outside the mainstream,” said Hutchison. “It’s a hard life, both physically and mentally. At the same time, my time at Hosshinji, and even training after I’d left the monastery, was among the most fulfilling of my life.”

After six months in the monastery, Hutchison decided to continue his training from the vantage of an independent English teacher. But if living in the monastery was hard, so was his attempt to be the first Westerner to live in the town of Obama. “Outsiders are not wanted in most small rural towns,” observes Hutchison. “Most of the people in Obama had never even seen a foreigner in person. Whenever I tried to make friends with the townspeople, particularly the women, trouble ensued.”

Then one evening, a bunch of yakuza gangsters walked into his life, or more literally, into the public bathhouse where Hutchison was bathing. This simple encounter makes for another comical episode in the book, but put Hutchison on a path he had never imagined.

Many yakuza are also outsiders, existing on the fringe of Japanese society. They are often from Japan’s under classes, including minority groups such as Koreans whose families have been in Japan for multiple generations, making them a people who don’t belong anywhere. The yakuza of Obama were no exception. Their leader, Murata, was a handsome, intelligent, even charismatic man, who became a yakuza because other avenues were closed to him by the strictures of Japanese society.

“I connected to Murata as a person,” observed Hutchison. “We found we had a lot in common, which made it easy to be friends. He was also one of the first people I had met in Japan who accepted me as a person, rather than seeing me simply as a foreigner.”

Hutchison’s story of their friendship is overlaid with some of the behavioral mores he had to learn in order to be able to spend time with his friend without violating any code of yakuza conduct or unsettling the balance between Murata and his gang or between Murata’s gang and other gangs in the region. As the story unfolds, we see that sometimes Hutchison got that right and sometimes he got it wrong. “Despite good intentions, I made mistakes,” smiles Hutchison. “And there was always an undercurrent of danger. Friendship or not, these are violent people.”

Needless to say for a non-Japanese Zen trainee living in a small town, a close relationship with the yakuza has repercussions. Hutchison found himself subject to covert criticism by his neighbors that eventually got back to his Zen trainers at Hosshinji. If Hutchison can be said to have achieved any kind of enlightenment in his Zen training, it was the moment during a meditation that he realized he had to leave Obama.

While this decision could be said to have led to the rest of Hutchison’s life, the part that we see in his book is just the immediate impact of his decision, namely how he finances moving to Tokyo. Predictably, he asked Murata for help. And predictably, Murata’s help came in the form of a job in an underworld-related industry, Japan’s so-called water trade.

The backbone of the water trade — night-life entertainment — is women. Not actually geisha, as the book’s alliterative title implies, but women whose job it is to fawn over male guests; pouring their drinks, lighting their cigarettes, making conversation with them, laughing at their jokes, and generally mothering them.

Thanks to an introduction from Murata, Hutchison found himself the doorman of a Nagoya cabaret, and part-time English teacher to the ladies of the establishment. The cabaret had seen better days with a new proprietor trying to rebuild its business. So not only is Hutchison treated to an insider’s view of this industry; he’s also seeing it at its most desperate. He shares this view with us, providing various anecdotes about the proprietor, his colleagues, and the clientele.

Hutchison even shares some of the tales of the women in the water trade, giving us an idea of how they choose this career. He devotes an entire chapter to his own romance with one very special lady.

Many of Hutchison’s encounters with women in this book demonstrate that Hutchison is a man who wants to rescue women. I’d like to be able to add “whether they need it or not”, but Hutchison himself admits that he chooses women who are flawed and in need of rescuing, from the receptionist at his first English teaching job, whom he marries and sends back to the United States, to some naïve Texan tourists, and several women in between. “Oh yes,” enthuses Hutchison, “I only realized this myself a few years ago, but I definitely have something of a Florence Nightingale complex.” One of the female stars of this book summed it well when she told him, “You’re just mad because you can’t save me.”

In "Gangsters, Geisha, Monks and Me," Hutchison shows us facets of Japan that aren’t ordinarily visible as well as his own personal journey to improved self-awareness. We are entertained (sometimes laughing out loud and sometimes groaning) to see that while stereotypes have a basis in fact, they are still stereotypes and the reality is somewhat different. On this, Hutchison gets the last word: “This isn’t the kind of story you plan with a travel guide. It’s about dumb luck, and learning Japanese culture in ways they don’t teach you in your Eastern Studies major.”

"Gangsters, Geisha, Monks and Me" is available in paperback and e-version on Amazon.co.jp and Amazon.com. Hutchison has pledged 50% of his royalties to Tohoku relief. For information on this and for more about the book, including “lost chapters,” see http://www.gangsters-geishas-monks-and-me.com.

© Japan Today