Error #5

My Father’s Fault
I’m a woman. Don’t get me wrong --I’m thrilled to be woman, and there are times in my life – like when I’m lowering myself into a Japanese electric bath – that I think , "thank goodness I don’t have testicles". But being a woman in Japan is not an asset. Sometimes it’s positively toxic, like when I tried to step down into the training area of a sumo stable, and was told in no uncertain terms that the workout floor – composed of gallons of sumo sweat poured over dirt and sprinkled with abraded sumo skin – was actually pure and sacred. Furthermore, that women – according to the sumo interpretation of the Shinto faith – are anything but pure, and by their very touch would contaminate aforesaid sacred space.

The only way to get my footage was to go outside, climb up an unexpectedly solid rosebush, lodge my backside against its prickly stem and hang my chin on the cement eave of a windowsill.

Unfortunately the sumo stable faced a major highway, so over the next few hours several hundred passersby made it clear by look and gesture that I must be some kind of perverted peeping tom. No wonder the Japanese think Caucasians are barbarians.

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