British author Pico Iyer has lived in Japan for more than three decades, yet he considers the country largely incomprehensible in his new book Japan at First Glance, published by Alpina Non-Fiction in 2026.
In an excerpt released by Lenta.ru, Iyer explores a nation where the constitution guarantees gender equality but nine out of ten women prefer remaining single over marriage, and where love hotels have operated for three centuries alongside Kabukicho, the country's largest red-light district.
Iyer describes love hotels as the best places to stay in crowded Japanese cities because they cost less than business hotels while offering amenities absent from luxury venues like the Four Seasons, including karaoke machines, high-tech showers, and mini dance floors. Official Tokyo maps display these hotels as blank spaces, though local maps clearly mark them. Iyer compares Japan to a bento box with small portions in separate compartments, where every item stays in its assigned place and sauce never spills over like takeout food in India.
The concept of love hotels originated in Japan, where establishments traditionally marked by an inverted jellyfish symbol have operated for over three centuries. Modern venues are now called motels or boutique hotels, identifiable by theme park architecture resembling an old Sleeping Beauty castle, curtained parking spots, and price lists for three-hour stays or overnight visits posted at the entrance. Hotels with names like Labia, Pasha, Listo, or Brown Made signal that guests will not find conference rooms or child care services inside. Nearby, the Kabukicho district packs three thousand entertainment venues into a Tokyo area barely two hundred metres wide and under five hundred metres long, transforming a former theatre district into a massive red-light zone.
Love hotels are often compared to Las Vegas, which Iyer describes as the Western equivalent of an entertainment district found in any Japanese city. The entertainment industry operates under the principle of the water trade, known locally as mizu shobai, where what happens in the district remains there. While standard Japanese hotels feature grand public lobbies and simple private rooms, love hotels invert this design by removing public areas entirely except for a discreet corner counter to pay cash and collect keys. Rooms feature baroque decorations, including rotating mattresses, glass-bottomed bathtubs, and beds shaped like pineapples, the Columbia space shuttle, or Queen Elizabeth II's coronation carriage.
Japanese men can spend an entire night paying fifteen dollars at an internet cafe with unlimited access to adult videos, later following advice from decluttering expert Marie Kondo to blindfold a plush teddy bear before throwing it away. Observations from foreigners highlight distinct cultural behaviours. The director of an English language school in California noted that Japanese students cause no headaches and are ideal guests, but require the most support. Meanwhile, an employee at an elite hotel in Marrakech shared that Japanese guests are the most polite during their stay, but submit the highest number of complaints after returning home.
Despite an intense work ethic, observers note a deep capacity for celebration in Japan. Prose writer Lafcadio Hearn wrote after years in the country that entertainment appeared to be the purpose of existence, while scholar Basil Hall Chamberlain described Japan as a nation that loves holidays more than any other. Iyer notes that shame in Japan is social rather than sexual, making public observation more important than private action. On a late Saturday night train, a married woman in her early forties with permed hair briefly touches the wrist of a handsome man in a suit, who strokes her chiffon sleeve before stepping off at the next station.
Theme parks and daily fantasy
Japan creates extensive spaces for fantasy because real-life pressures remain high. Theme parks function as confessionals for a society that places little value on guilt but seeks absolution. Iyer notes that context determines content, allowing people to briefly imagine themselves as anyone provided they conform most of the time. Unlike his experience in California or New York where reality felt malleable, Iyer learned that the Japanese language has no future tense, though present tense forms can be modified in many ways. Self-concept remains fluid in a culture built on impermanence.
Appreciation of Japan depends on acceptance of two-dimensionality, seen in a Cinderella section inside a luxury department store or the Dream Refuelling Station at Universal Studios in Osaka. Some view this as emptiness, while others see a practical culture designating specific places for illusion. Americanisation has also influenced expectations. Between 1948 and 1978, the average height of fourteen-year-old Japanese boys grew by nearly eighteen centimetres, accompanied by expanding personal ambitions. When Iyer's wife divorced at age thirty-one to seek a creative life, it marked a significant step toward American ideals. Iyer notes that Japanese dreams remain compact, with friends seeking to repair specific corners of the world rather than change it entirely.
Gender inequality and career barriers
Japan's constitution explicitly guarantees fundamental equality of the sexes, drafted with help from an American woman, yet citizens routinely ignore the rule in daily life. In the film You Only Live Twice, Tiger Tanaka tells James Bond, played by Sean Connery, that men always go first in Japan. Ancient Japanese viewed Western chivalry toward women as barbarism, placing gallantry instead in loyalty to a feudal lord. While Japanese streets are exceptionally safe for women, domestic duties fall to wives while professional workers handle entertainment services. Historically, excessive male friendliness toward a woman was viewed as disrespectful because it implied treating her like a worker from the pleasure quarter.
Career opportunities for women remain limited by statistical data. Women held less than one percent of executive positions in Japan in 2019, while 2016 data showed most working women held irregular, temporary, or part-time jobs. Furthermore, female wage levels in 2014 lay far below the poverty line. A survey by the Japan Times conducted one year after Iyer moved to Japan revealed that seven out of ten Japanese men refused to consider working for a female boss.
Marriage dynamics and ancient traditions
Marriage trends reflect growing detachment among women. A 2014 survey showed that nine out of ten Japanese women prefer remaining single over entering traditional marriage. Literary works highlight these social tensions. In Junichiro Tanizaki's novel The Light Snow, the heroine agrees to marry after five hundred and twenty-nine pages, only to suffer diarrhoea on the way to the altar. Sawako Ariyoshi's twentieth-century novel The Doctor's Wife, set in the late eighteenth century, portrays a twenty-one-year-old woman living with her parents as past her prime, expected to entertain visiting noblemen after dinner. When Iyer arrived in Kyoto in 1987, unmarried women over twenty-five were called Christmas cakes because they were considered inedible after December 25, a label that has slowly shifted to New Year presents.
Family power dynamics often center on mothers-in-law rather than husbands. An East Asian scholar jokingly told Iyer that women are so accustomed to taking orders that they look forward to becoming mothers-in-law so they can command others. Iyer's wife observed that a husband knows he can find a new wife at any time, but cannot find a new mother. Women in Kyoto frequently choose husbands based on the mother-in-law, who dominates the household while the husband is rarely seen. The ancient Confucian text Liji outlines three obediences for women: obeying their father and elder brother in youth, their husband in marriage, and their son after their husband dies.
Gender expectations in Japan contrast with neighbouring cultures. A Chinese mistress-dispelling specialist told The New Yorker in 2017 that a second-hand woman loses value like a used car, whereas a second-hand man resembles renovated real estate whose price increases. However, China now has far more women on corporate boards than Japan, where Confucian models were taken to extreme lengths. Historical customs further enforced female discipline. A samurai daughter from the early twentieth century recalled that boys in her circle were permitted to sleep splayed out on beds, whereas girls had to adopt the kinoji posture to demonstrate modesty and self-control.
