Roc Morin interviews Ishii Yuichi, the 36-year old founder of an 800-person company in Japan that provides people with fake family and friends when needed, ranging from infants to the elderly. In the interview he gives examples of the roles that he and his staff have played.
I had a single-mother friend, and she had a son. He was trying to enter a private school, but they denied him solely because he had no father. I wanted to challenge the unfairness of Japanese society, so I posed as his father.
…I played a father for a 12-year-old with a single mother. The girl was bullied because she didn’t have a dad, so the mother rented me. I’ve acted as the girl’s father ever since. I am the only real father that she knows.
…Imagine there’s a married couple, and the wife cheats on the husband. When that happens, the husband often demands a confrontation with the other man. Naturally, this can be difficult to arrange, because the man usually runs away. In that case, they bring me instead.
…It doesn’t happen often, but there are cases when I have to be a groom. There are situations where parents pressure a daughter to marry—if she’s a lesbian, for example. So, they have an entire wedding, and it’s a fake wedding, except for the client’s family. The friends, and everyone else are fake. My side is all fake. Fifty fake people all pretending it’s real. The cost is 2 million yen, for everyone.
…We have a huge variation of employees and the dedication to create an experience that surpasses reality. That’s why our motto is “more than real.” We had a case recently where a dying man wanted to see his grandchild, but it would not have been born in time. His daughter was able to rent an infant for the day.
He describes the rules that his staff must follow and the things they will and will not do.
Attachment is a problem. So, there are rules. They cannot share personal contact information. If it’s a boyfriend or girlfriend scenario, they cannot be alone in a room. They can hold hands, but they cannot hug. No kissing. No sex.
…Unless it’s a crime, we will accept any request. Some people with anorexia, for example, want to see people who are willing to eat in front of them. They just find relief in watching a person who eats a lot. We will even do that.
This service would not be suitable for the ‘incels’ (involuntary celibates) that were discussed in a previous post because of the strict ‘no sex’ rule.
Yuichi says that in some cases, he plays a role for the long term, such as in the case of being a ‘father’ to a young child, providing explanations to the child as to why he does not live with the child and mother. He says that at some point, the truth will have to come out but hopefully that will happen when the child is older and the time when she really needed a father has passed. I am not so sure that there will be a happy ending in such cases. What would it be like to think of someone as your father all your life and find out that he was merely playing a role?
I think it wouldn’t be suitable for many people in western societies because of how pragmatically transactional it all is. We romanticise a lot of our basic needs, and stigmatise those who for whatever reason aren’t able or just don’t want to meet those needs in the “normal” way. We stigmatise the childless, the single, the fat, homosexuals, basically anyone who isn’t in the societally approved arrangement. Obviously, it would be better not to romanticise those things and stigmatise those without it, but until that happens (not holding my breath) monetising seems preferable to just sucking it up.
“I think it wouldn’t be suitable for many people in western societies because of how pragmatically transactional it all is. We romanticise a lot of our basic needs, and stigmatise those who for whatever reason aren’t able or just don’t want to meet those needs in the “normal” way. We stigmatise the childless, the single, the fat, homosexuals, basically anyone who isn’t in the societally approved arrangement.”
You think Japan is any less judgemental about that stuff? Just read the examples. A boy was denied admittance to a school because he DIDN’T HAVE A FATHER. That’s fucked up. The very first example came about from “challenging the unfairness of Japanese society”.
Notice that most of the examples given are for deception. For good or bad, it sounds like a good portion of his business is helping people get around some of the more rigid expectations of it’s culture.
I think there’s no reason that a similar service cannot prosper here.
I don’t see anything wrong with this, especially in a society where every action and aspect of life is strictly structured, and shame and stigma are heavy.
As for the child/father business, I wasn’t allowed to see my father after my 3rd birthday. Ripped away from me, what I wanted did not matter. So, is growing up with a parent denied better?
Mano,
I have to wonder if Yuichi ever watched reruns of the short-lived, 1966 sit-com Occasional Wife.
Cheers,
Jeff
I kind of wonder if the child/father thing is a bit like my situation with being adopted. There was a time when I was too young to understand it since I was adopted when I was a month old. But my parents told me as early as they thought possible. I cannot recall either learning about it or a time when I didn’t know. They must have told me when I was only a few years old.
So I think a child can start to learn things about the true nature of their parents very early on. It’s probably better that way. I certainly don’t feel like there was ever any trauma about that. Even though I later had some very serious issues with my parents I don’t feel like this was ever any sort of problem between us. I would highly recommend being honest with children as soon as possible about things like this because whatever else may happen, they won’t have to wonder if they can trust you about something this basic.
@lanir, No. 5
My youngest brother is 17 years my junior and I was away at college and then the military before he was out of diapers.
I typically came home once a year, usually at Christmas, for a few days. When my brother was five my whole family, minus my next oldest brother who is six years my junior, came out to San Diego to visit during my last year in the Navy. On the flight out, my brother asked why the family was going to San Diego, and our dad told him: to see your brother.
My youngest brother was confused. He replied that his brother was still back in Marietta and our dad had to explain that, no, that was his other brother, they we going to visit his oldest brother, Jeff.
My youngest brother was still confused and it took our parents a minute or so to figure out that he—because I was just this guy who visited once a year—didn’t realize that I was, in fact, his brother.
There’s nothing queer as folk.
Cheers,
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write