YAKIMO
25-01-2007, 05:45 PM
I'm gumming! Hillbilly hookers redefine pillow talk
Japan's latest adult entertainment trend comes courtesy of the freezing northern Tohoku Region, whose mumbling maidens are looking for Tokyo men's hearts so they can warm the cockles, according to Weekly Playboy (2/5).
Tohoku natives hailing from the northern part of Honshu speak a mumble-like dialect other Japanese speakers disparagingly refer to as Zuzuben.
To Japanese ears, especially the sophisticates in major cities like Tokyo, the Zuzuben spoken by people from prefectures like Yamagata, Miyagi, Akita, Fukushima and Aomori sounds something akin to what hillbillies or other backwoods bumpkins babbling away hit the ear in English.
But rather than grating, as Zuzuben has tended to do for many Japanese until recently, truckloads of Tohoku totty sweeping in to replace Tokyo women taken off the job in a spate of crackdowns on the adult industry has seen the pastoral patois become the most erotic elocution of the ejaculation industry.
Tohoku has hardly been seen as a heavyweight player in Japan's adult businesses, but things appear to be turning in a different direction. And yokel-rich Yamagata is spearheading Tohoku's sexual assault on the capital.
"In Tohoku, Yamagata Prefecture has by far the most active call girl (deriheru) business. You can find soaplands (brothels) in Iwate, Miyagi, Akita and Fukushima prefectures. Aomori Prefecture doesn't have soaplands, but its massage parlors and hand job bars are doing brisk business. There're loads of soaplands in prefectures neighboring Tohoku, like Niigata and places in the northern Kanto region. Yamagata never used to have any adult businesses and guys had to go to places like Akita or Niigata, or cross the mountains into Sendai or Fukushima. For Yamagata guys to go on the prowl, it used to be a really huge task," the editor of an adult business magazine tells Weekly Playboy, adding that the deriheru business in Yamagata has grown so big now, there's a glut of workers drifting to Tokyo to fill the shortage.
Surprisingly considering past attitudes, the strongest weapon in the arsenal of Yamagata's hillbilly hookers appears to be their country linguists.
"I just adore the accents," says Kotaro, a 36-year-old Tokyo salaryman who has become a regular at Chameleon, the Shibuya-subsidiary of a Yamagata-based escort service staffed entirely by women from Tohoku. "I couldn't believe it when I first tried out the service. They looked like normal girls from Tokyo, but ended up speaking Zuzuben. The impact was incredible!!"
Considering the effects of Zuzuben would change iku-iku to igoo-igoo, or the English "I'm coming, I'm coming" to "I'm gumming, I'm gumming," it's easy to understand why Kotaro reacted the way he did.
Weekly Playboy gives some other examples of how Zuzuben mangles hyojungo, or standard Japanese. Among them:
"It feels good" would normally be kimochi ii in standard Japanese, but is rendered as kimojay in the Tohoku dialect. Likewise, "na?ve" changes from uiuishii to "obokoi, "I don't understand's" wakaranai transforms to waganne and "you're cute" goes from kawaii ko da ne to become menkoi ko dabe.
Japan's latest adult entertainment trend comes courtesy of the freezing northern Tohoku Region, whose mumbling maidens are looking for Tokyo men's hearts so they can warm the cockles, according to Weekly Playboy (2/5).
Tohoku natives hailing from the northern part of Honshu speak a mumble-like dialect other Japanese speakers disparagingly refer to as Zuzuben.
To Japanese ears, especially the sophisticates in major cities like Tokyo, the Zuzuben spoken by people from prefectures like Yamagata, Miyagi, Akita, Fukushima and Aomori sounds something akin to what hillbillies or other backwoods bumpkins babbling away hit the ear in English.
But rather than grating, as Zuzuben has tended to do for many Japanese until recently, truckloads of Tohoku totty sweeping in to replace Tokyo women taken off the job in a spate of crackdowns on the adult industry has seen the pastoral patois become the most erotic elocution of the ejaculation industry.
Tohoku has hardly been seen as a heavyweight player in Japan's adult businesses, but things appear to be turning in a different direction. And yokel-rich Yamagata is spearheading Tohoku's sexual assault on the capital.
"In Tohoku, Yamagata Prefecture has by far the most active call girl (deriheru) business. You can find soaplands (brothels) in Iwate, Miyagi, Akita and Fukushima prefectures. Aomori Prefecture doesn't have soaplands, but its massage parlors and hand job bars are doing brisk business. There're loads of soaplands in prefectures neighboring Tohoku, like Niigata and places in the northern Kanto region. Yamagata never used to have any adult businesses and guys had to go to places like Akita or Niigata, or cross the mountains into Sendai or Fukushima. For Yamagata guys to go on the prowl, it used to be a really huge task," the editor of an adult business magazine tells Weekly Playboy, adding that the deriheru business in Yamagata has grown so big now, there's a glut of workers drifting to Tokyo to fill the shortage.
Surprisingly considering past attitudes, the strongest weapon in the arsenal of Yamagata's hillbilly hookers appears to be their country linguists.
"I just adore the accents," says Kotaro, a 36-year-old Tokyo salaryman who has become a regular at Chameleon, the Shibuya-subsidiary of a Yamagata-based escort service staffed entirely by women from Tohoku. "I couldn't believe it when I first tried out the service. They looked like normal girls from Tokyo, but ended up speaking Zuzuben. The impact was incredible!!"
Considering the effects of Zuzuben would change iku-iku to igoo-igoo, or the English "I'm coming, I'm coming" to "I'm gumming, I'm gumming," it's easy to understand why Kotaro reacted the way he did.
Weekly Playboy gives some other examples of how Zuzuben mangles hyojungo, or standard Japanese. Among them:
"It feels good" would normally be kimochi ii in standard Japanese, but is rendered as kimojay in the Tohoku dialect. Likewise, "na?ve" changes from uiuishii to "obokoi, "I don't understand's" wakaranai transforms to waganne and "you're cute" goes from kawaii ko da ne to become menkoi ko dabe.