Today's Chinese society is in the throes of development and slowing down, and all social classes, regardless of gender, are under great pressure to survive. But if you look at it laterally, compared with Japan and South Korea next door, the pressure on Chinese society is not so exaggerated.
Japan is one of the most developed countries in Asia, but since the bursting of the economic bubble in the 1990s, Japan's development has entered a period of 20 years of stagnation.
Among them, the first 10 years after the crisis are known as the "employment ice age", young people are basically difficult to find formal jobs, many young people are struggling with the poverty line, and Japan's suicide rate remains high.
As a result, many young Japanese women can only enter the "customs industry" development.
The so-called "customs" are the "pornography industry" in China, including pornographic films, selling pornographic goods and other pornographic industries. In some public perceptions, even industries with certain unspoken rules such as bathing, singing and dancing are among them.
But don't underestimate the influence of these businesses in Japan, Japan's "customs industry" has an annual output value of 330 billion yuan, feeding thousands of people in the cracks of society.
There are very few countries in the modern world like Japan that regard "customs and customs" as a national characteristic, become bigger and stronger, and spread all over the world.
Japan's customs and industry have also plunged a large number of women into the abyss, and the international community has criticized a lot. However, the Japanese government's legislation is not binding on these industries, almost allowing the development of "customs industry".
So how did Japan's "custom industry" come into being? Why has Japan become more and more open in recent centuries? How did customs and customs influence modern Japan?
I. Japan's "Customs" Grown by Seafaring
When it comes to Japanese customs, we always have to start from the ancient official prostitutes thousands of years ago, but in fact, this kind of "official prostitutes" exist all over the world, for example, China had official prostitutes in the Warring States period, and Japan's official prostitutes are not a special invention.
According to existing literature, ancient Japan was not an open society of moral decay, According to the Three Kingdoms. The Book of Wei records that "women are not adulterous or jealous. The Chinese people do not steal, less litigation. ”
Later, Buddhism was introduced to Japan, and Japanese society became a serious Buddhist country, and the people of the whole country rarely ate meat, resulting in an average height of less than one meter and a half, and folk customs were also very conservative and paid attention to observance.
Although there were official brothels in Japan at that time, this was a punishment system in feudal society, and it was often used to deal with the families of prisoners. As for the private sector, there have been no large-scale brothels or similar facilities.
After the 15th century, Chinese, Korean, and European merchants frequently traveled to and from Japan, and many sailors not only had to purchase daily necessities on the coast of Japan, but also needed to relax and entertain.
As a result, in Nagasaki, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and other cities in Japan, hotels specializing in serving overseas sailors appeared, and there were women who provided paid escort services, which were called "wandering girls" at that time.
Most of the "wandering girls" come from peasant families, are poor peasant women, and a small number are the children of criminals, who have no way of survival in society and can only sell themselves.
These "wandering women" not only provided sexual services, but some even sold themselves to overseas sailors and married them.
At that time, there were many such "dew couples" in the port cities, and some even followed the sailors back to China, India, Southeast Asia and other places.
However, in the early days of the opening, the Japanese shogunate discriminated against tourist girls, who were locked up in brothels outside the city and were not allowed to enter the city, and the official people collected taxes on them.
However, as an island country, Japan's ports are busy all year round, and over the centuries, the "custom industry" has developed.
By the end of the 19th century, around the Meiji Restoration, prostitution was officially banned in Japan as a sign of the transition to a civilized nation.
But these prohibitions are not binding on the people, and prostitutes have become a class in Japan, a way of life for unemployed and single women, who rely on this to eat with their families, and if prostitution is banned, there are more beggars.
In the end, Emperor Meiji saw that the "customs and industries" of the people could not be banned, so he simply opened them up completely, collected taxes on these industries, and expanded the national treasury.
Second, the government has repeatedly banned it, and the "custom industry" has become a Japanese characteristic after World War II
In the Meiji period, Japan, facing the pressure of the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire, the emperor wanted to enrich the country and strengthen the army, but the Japanese government lacked income, so it actually sent a large number of prostitutes overseas, which is the famous "Japanese prostitutes going to The South Sea" in history.
According to statistics, the Meiji government of Japan sent more than 1 million prostitutes to the Nanyang region, and the remittances of these prostitutes selling spring overseas became the first funds of Japan's powerful army.
These women have a nickname called "Miss Tang Xing", also known as "Nanyang Sister", they are mostly from the southern region of Japan, before the age of 20, they were organized to go to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and other places to sell spring.
Later, there were also "Miss Tang Xing" in Hawaii, California, and even South America.
After the 20th century, this group was also revered by the Japanese as the "Girl Scout Army", and the foreign exchange they earned allowed Japan to build a strong army and defeat the Qing Empire in the Sino-Japanese War.
The thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi once said: "Japan relied on two things to deal with the Qing Dynasty, guns and the Army of Women. ”
It is extremely rare in the world for a country to allow women to prostitute themselves to earn military expenses, but the Japanese are not ashamed of it, but use it to boast of their national cohesion.
After the end of World War I, Japan became a "victorious power",
From this point on until the end of World War II, the whole country of Japan was tightening its pants and belts to fight, the normal economic life in the country was affected, and the customs industry did not improve.
Many custom women were even recruited as "comfort women" by the Japanese army and formed troops to carry out comfort activities throughout Asia.
Later, the Japanese army directly coaxed the women of the good family to join these ranks, and the families of some soldiers were unknowingly reduced to military prostitutes, which caused protests within the Japanese army.
At that time, the Japanese government used a red line to draw a range in which bathing places and restaurants could be sold and only serve Americans.
During this period, about 40,000-50,000 prostitutes served the U.S. military, which did reduce the number of sex crimes committed by the U.S. military and gave birth to a group of mixed-race children.
In 1948, after the withdrawal of a large number of US troops, the Japanese government introduced the Customs and Business Prohibition Act to close the brothels, vowing to wash away the national shame.
But more serious problems occurred, just like the problems encountered by Emperor Meiji in those years, and a large number of women lost their jobs. Not only prostitutes, but also many women who accompany drinking, bathing, and massaging have no livelihood.
Therefore, in the private sector, private prostitution is still widespread, and the police do not ask questions.
In 1956, Japan promulgated the "Law on the Prevention of Prostitution", which completely prohibited the sale of prostitution from the law and became a country that prohibited prostitution. Despite Japan's strict legal management of customs and customs, the folk "sound of the waves" is still the same.
According to incomplete statistics, there were more than 120,000 prostitutes in Japan at that time, and together with the families behind them, hundreds of thousands of people were counted as "customs and industry dependents".
In order to promote social stability, Japan has continuously revised its laws, stipulating that "the law cannot affect the rights of the people" and that "it is forbidden to solicit customers and introduce sellers in public places, and it is forbidden to lure women to sell spring.". In addition, prostitution itself is not restricted.
Therefore, many Japanese stores do not have the sign of pornography services, but they combine pornographic services with other services and continue to operate without legal supervision. The world-famous bubble bath has become popular since then.
Third, the problem of female discrimination and poverty is the truth of Japan's "custom industry"
At the end of the 20th century, the Japanese economy entered explosive growth, and the development of the pornography industry also followed, and prostitutes entered the industry day by day, allowing more people to enter the industry.
Japanese pornography escorts have also expanded to other countries in Asia and even Europe and the United States, becoming a characteristic industry, affecting the development of the entertainment industry in these regions.
In the era of the bubble economy, Japan was immersed in paper drunken fans, until the bubble burst in the early 90s, the Japanese economy stagnated, companies went bankrupt, young people lost their jobs, and the marriage rate and fertility rate began to decline.
Japanese society is inherently discriminatory against women, and after the outbreak of the economic crisis, the number of japanese companies recruiting has decreased significantly, and fewer women have been hired.
Eventually, even women with academic qualifications may run into a wall in the workplace, and a large number of women without academic qualifications and no family lineage will either work in low-end and tiring jobs or hope to marry.
But the economic downturn has increased the pressure on men's marriages, many men are reluctant to get married, and finally these helpless women can only sell themselves.
Eventually, this triggered a strange phenomenon in Japanese society:
No matter how bad the economy is, the pornography industry will always be prosperous, the red light districts across Japan are also brightly lit in the era of economic crisis, men with unsuccessful careers need entertainment, and the customs industry has swelled several times in the face of adversity.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Japanese AV movies rose to become the first in Asia, monopolizing the entire Asian market. The reason for the sudden rise of AV is actually because of the surplus of "labor" in the custom industry, and the income of physical stores is not high, and it is not as fast as making money by filming.
After 2010, Japanese AV has become a world-class business, employing hundreds of thousands of employees, leading the world in terms of output and quality.
But behind this prosperity is the tragedy of a large number of housewives, unemployed women, and university students.
Only a very small number of them entered the industry voluntarily, and the rest were tricked or had no choice but to enter the industry because of debt.
However, after customs became a social feature, young Japanese people who heard about this trend also changed their thinking.
In Japan, underage girls began to use the "aid" of selling their bodies as a means of making money, and high school students and even junior high school students used aid as a way to exchange pocket money.
In addition to directly selling their bodies, they also play, chat, and serve baths, which is very famous in Tokyo, Osaka and other places, and Westerners even come from thousands of miles to experience it.
The United Nations has also paid attention to the Japanese minor pornography industry, and as a result, it was reprimanded by the Japanese government for "interfering in the internal affairs of the mainland", which really confused all mankind.
At present, Japan is basically laissez-faire for the customs industry, especially in the past two years, the outbreak of the epidemic, all walks of life are sluggish, the number of women who join the customs industry has increased significantly, and even some housewives have hidden from the family to sell spring in exchange for living expenses.
As for the moral issues involved, perhaps only in the eyes of the Japanese will there be such a strange concept as "morality yields to survival."
Literature/Commerce Field
Reference: "About Japanese Customs and Industry", Li Min