Now Reading
You Are What You Hate: The Japs Among Us
Slut for Slicha
A Very Jewcy Rosh Hashanah
Snipped and Satisfied
Schtupless in Seattle
Gefilte Guilt
Messy Meshugane. Again.

You Are What You Hate: The Japs Among Us

I deplore Japs even more than the people who throw a fit over the use of the word. I don’t mean the people responsible for drawing alcohol from rice grains; I mean the ones who say their holiday weekend was awe-some while they toss their hair and speak louder than necessary into their mobile phones as they leave their Murray Hill apartments en route to "fourbucks" for their coffee enemas. I know Jews get offended by the term. Get over it. It’s not a Jew thing; it’s regional. While I only know a handful of jappy boys and girls, the ones who are, are japtastic with a vengeance. There’s no middle ground. Just like the girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead. Japs get their forehead curl straightened with Japanese chemicals. To set it right, Japs can be male. I regret to say I’ve met a few too many Juvenile Affected Princes who go to Boston to get their eyelashes tinted. They’re not just heteroflexible, they’re judgmental. A jappy guy won’t date a woman with the "wrong" family, friends, or clothes. "Wrong" consists of blue collars, a propensity for hermitic inactivity, and sans logo apparel.  You’ve got a nice rack, but if you don’t have a Lexus, BMW or Mercedes lease on life, he’s having second thoughts. Japs don’t think Saab; they live sob: Oh vey is mir.  You’re his accessory and door, but here’s the real rub: he doesn’t want a jappy woman. See Jewish men detest Jappy women. They complain about how long it takes her to get ready, and how she spends too much money on her hair, tank tops, plaid waders, and doggie treats for a yapping pooch named Gucci. It’s the goyish mensch who covets the Tiffany Bean clad girl. Goys love high-maintenance woman. They love her manicure pedicure time, her affinity for valet parking, and the backbone, heard periodically in a fine whine. It’s the Japman who nibbles on exaggeration and feasts on schadenfreude. I could never let a man who dabbled in Yiddish touch my triangle. I can’t imagine foreplay with a guy who says “fakakta.” Japs are rarely women; they’re always girls. I can’t take them seriously; it’s the voice. It’s her inflection. It’s not necessarily what she says but how she says it.  It’s a four-letter word: tone.  Even her small talk butchers. “Oh, hoy. How awe you?” Talk fucking normal. And learn to pay for your own gym membership. I don’t care if real estate is slow. Your parents shouldn’t be paying for your life if you’re in your twenties. Even when she’s over forty, she still dresses like her teenage daughter hoping to be deemed M.I.L.F., gets her hair blow twice a week, and buzzes around town in her SUV with a Tasti-D-Lite cup in her like-linen manicured hand. She’s a yenta with a slim cell phone tucked into the back pocket of her I-have-no-ass Habitual jeans. On Sundays she slums and does iced hazelnut coffee from the bagel store, where she orders low-carb bagels and diet lobster salad after her pilates class.  And then you hear her open that glossy lined mouth (you can always see her liner globbing up in the corners. You don’t know why it happens, but it always does.), and you flinch.  These are the jap snobs, not to be confused with the pearly pink and green society snobs. I can bear the WASPS; at least they volunteer and enunciate words.

Japs don’t need to have money to be japs; because no amount of money can buy her security… not even Daddy’s.  She’s insecure and cries into her gold-trimmed pink "princess" pillow.  You see her insecurity flecked in her green panicked eyes as she avoids eye contact and checks you out. I’ve pinned it down. Japs have middle child syndrome, worried the truly good moments are happening to someone else. They’re fair-weather; just look at her clothes. She always has to have the latest thing; worried she’s not on top of things. And when she’s with you, she always finds a reason to flip open her phone. She needs messages and group photos of her friends on a corkboard to feel important. I’ve never met a secure Jap. And that’s what I can’t stand. None of them are comfortable in their own perfumed skin, so they grab after men who will shower them with attention. And they stay because, to them, there’s nothing worse than alone, not even a bad haircut or cellulite. I used to be a jap… wearing Big John jeans,  pointy Justin’s lizard cowboy boots, and an Il Bisonte handbag with the strap too long.  I walked to the side and nearly gave myself whiplash with all the ‘tude shaking.  Then the bell rang, and I returned to class for fourth period.  I was 12, not 21. The really disarming bit is I have a website strewn with photos of my friends, flecked with posts about make-up, cufflinks, and everything-I-wants.  It’s making me nervous now.  We always hate in others much of what we detest of ourselves.  I’m chewing my fingers now.  I mean, why else would I respond so vehemently when faced with a hand on hip jap?  It’s because I hate how jappy I can be.  It takes one to know one; it’s what I hate about myself sometimes. I too get insecure and think the new it bag will be a nice band-aid to an almost nice life. I can be materialistic; I like nice things.  But I’d never govern my life with materialism behind the wheel.  I’ve learned living life on cruise control isn’t living at all.  And I always look ’em in the eye. Besides, a jap would never bite her nails.  And, I dig the curl in the middle of my forehead even if I do get it blown out from time to time.

Stephanie Klein, author of Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she’ll be here all week. Stay tuned.

View Comment (1)
  • You actually make it seem really easy together with your presentation however I in finding this matter to be actually something that I think I’d by no means understand. It kind of feels too complicated and very large for me. I’m having a look forward in your next publish, I will attempt to get the grasp of it!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Scroll To Top