January 25 2006

Philippines sees rise in "Desperate Japanese"

Philippines sees rise in Desperate Japanese

It's not just lonely middle-aged farang men who get reduced to poverty by scheming bar girls - as George Nishiyama of Reuters explains:

MANILA (Reuters) - They come to the Philippines hoping to start a new life, often with a new young wife. But most of these middle-aged Japanese men end up without money, abandoned by their Filipino wives and with nowhere to go.

The number of these men, known as "Desperate Japanese" among the local Japanese community, has increased in recent years, an embassy official said.

"One would show up at least every two days," said a consular official with the Japanese embassy in Manila.

He said most of them were married men who had fallen in love with Filipino bar hostesses in Japan and had followed the women to the Philippines, leaving their families behind.

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"They would seek early retirement so they can come here chasing the women. They would start living together, then buy a house, then a car," said the official who declined to be named.

The lower cost of living in the Philippines allows them to enjoy a good life initially, but unable to speak English or the local language, the men, mostly in their 50s, cannot find work and use up all of their money in a year or two, he said.

With the money gone, their Filipino wives usually leave them, and shunned by their families in Japan, the men come knocking on the embassy's door for help.

"It's a case of self-destruction," said the official.

Some of the men also turn to the local Japanese community for help, said Masahiko Ieda, 67, a senior member of the Japanese Association in Manila.

"Many have even sold their passports and although they don't go begging in the streets, they don't have the money to carry on a living," he said, adding one followed him into a Manila restaurant asking for money.

Nearly 80,000 Filipino women go to Japan every year on entertainment visas, and most end up working as bar hostesses, although the number is expected to fall after Tokyo tightened visa rules last year.

The 67-year-old Ieda, who has lived in the Philippines for 45 years, said it is only recently that these troubled men have shown up in such numbers.

The consular official said the embassy had dealt with less than 50 "Desperate Japanese" until 2000, arranging their return to Japan, but the cases had risen in the last five years with the number rising to around 180.

Toru Nishimoto, a Japanese Christian priest in Manila who has helped some of the men, said in addition to those who came after the Filipino women, there are some who come to the country hoping to make it big in business and end up penniless.

The Japanese community in the Philippines is the sixth largest in Asia with around 12,500 people, mostly expatriates working for major corporations, but the number could double if unregistered Japanese were included, the Japanese official said.

He said "Desperate Japanese" as a phenomenon was almost exclusive to the Philippines, adding that the "Philippine pubs", found even in rural Japan, provided comfort to the men facing a midlife crisis.

"These men, they may have been victims of their company's restructuring and may have felt isolated at home," he said.

"So they may have been heartened by a young Filipina at the local hostess bar and decided: 'what the heck, I'll go to the Philippines.'"

This story mirrors the predicament of countless middle-aged Western men stranded in Thailand. Normally to be found swigging Beer Chang on the concrete toadstools outside 7-Eleven, they always jump at the chance to explain their ill-thought-out business plans to anyone who'll listen.

If they fail to drink themselves to death, those lacking a high balcony have to dream up a more imaginative exit strategy.

The only thing that surprises me about the Japanese experience is the relatively small number of men involved. On the back streets of Pattaya, you could easily round up 180 "Desperate Farangs" within the space of an hour. How many there are in total is anyone's guess.

Philippines sees rise in "Desperate Japanese"

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