Getting More Friends The Reasons of Shizuka Kanai for Sustaining His Normal Sexual Life

Kanai is eleven years old when he sees prostitutes for the first time. Kuriso, the steward who becomes Kanai’s friend when he is alone, asks him to go for a walk together. They pass some places and eventually come to a street which has many women whose faces are covered with white paint. Kanai thinks that their faces are not ordinary. They have strange face make-up and look similar one another. “Though I didn’t understand what I was witnessing at that time, I later learned that these faces were for sale. These were the faces of prostitutes” 52. The women call and tease Kuriso, but he enters the shop where the woman he already knows is. Kanai does not feel comfortable with the situation that he hesitates to go into the shop. A remarkably high-pitched voice yelled these words. Kuriso entered the woman’s shop and sat down. Since I merely stood where I was, a look of disgust on my face, Kuriso waved me in to take a seat 52. Kuriso and the woman talk about an adult topic. Their conversation is something that Kanai cannot join. Kanai does not mind because he knows that the woman is a type of person he avoids. They spoke in this way. Their words had two kinds of meaning. Kuriso never considered I would be able to conceive the second meaning behind their words. The woman also treated me as if I were nonexistent. Not that I was complaining however. I found her quite disagreeable. I didn’t want to have her talking to me 53. It shows that Kanai has developed a mature sense of sexual life from young age. He already knows how to choose the kind of life that is best for him. In the same year, Kanai studies German and lives at Professor Azuma’s house. He focuses so much on the study that he does not find it interesting to explore the sexual life. One day, he discovers a conversation between the houseboy and the maid of Professor Azuma. He was explaining to her something like the following: A woman’s machinery can be put to use at any time. It can go into operation without any relation to feelings. A man’s machinery is at times serviceable, at times not. If a man takes a fancy to something, his machinery springs forward. If he feels something distasteful, it gives poor showing. The maid was listening with crimson ears. Disgusted, I returned to my room 56-57. Kanai is a young man with big curiosity, but he is uncomfortable to hear or talk about sexuality. Moreover, the topic is something that does not relate to educative sexuality matter. Kanai’s action for sustaining his normal sexual life gives him the opportunity to focus more on his education. His goal to get the government’s scholarship to study abroad in Germany needs proper preparations, and since he is not distracted by any sexuality matter, he has more time to study. Kanai’s life is surrounded by some events which show him that sexuality matters can bring some negative effects to someone’s life. Hanyu’s experience is one of them. He has a relationship with an apprenticed geisha and it disturbs his study 79. Henmi, one of Kanai’s senior students from the queers also cannot make it well in school. He is a homosexual. That abnormal sexuality distracts his concentration in the study. After the final exams at the close of the past year there had been such a great weeding out of students that each class had some members who left school. the majority of these sacrificial candidates were mashers. Even little Hanyu was eliminated along with the others. Henmi also dropped out of school. But only recently had he suddenly turned into a masher, lengthening his kimono sleeves and his hakama skirt and plastering his hair with perfumed pomade, that hair of his which had formerly pointed to the heavens like the leaves of a palm tree 85. Another example from Kanai’s surrounding that sexuality matter can ruin life is the experience of Adachi, a good friend of Koga. He is intimate with a prostitute and tied up to her. Not so long after, he is expelled from school. He has a gloomy life as the result of the relationship. About a year later I heard a rumor that a handsome policeman in a section of Asakusa was quite the gay blade among many nurses and widows. Several years later Koga was at Okuyama in Asakusa and happened to meet a man dressed in a wadded garment made of taffeta, his face sinister, his cheeks hollow. They said that was the miserable end of Adachi, who was being kept by a female acrobat performing in a cheap Okuyama tent show 100-101. Kanai learns many things from his surroundings. He is wise enough to take lessons from others’ experiences. Bryan states in chapter 2 that there are eight steps of goal achievement theory; defining the goal, visualizing, writing the goals down, to believe it will happen, gaining the knowledge, working out a plan, taking the first step, and to keep going. Kanai’s expectation to get permission to study abroad in Germany is the way he defines the goal of his life. A person has to start with defining goal as precisely as possible. He studies hard and puts aside his curiosity as a young man in exploring sexual life. Kanai also has a strong belief that he will get the scholarship. It is another way to manage actions of pursuing goals, to believe it will happen. A person needs to believe that he is worthy of the goal. Otherwise, he admits defeat. Since my class standing when I graduated was good, it was rumored I might be permitted to study abroad at government expense. However, since it was far from being settled, my father was worried. I wasn’t, so lying on my bed in my four-and-a-half mat room in our official residence at Kosuge, I read my books 120. Another step that Kanai does is gaining the knowledge. It is no doubt that Kanai is willing to diligently study in order to achieve his goal. He likes to read a