セクハラ—sekuhara (Sexual Harassment)

In 1998, I was in Barcelona to give a talk at “Bellaterra”, the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. One night, after a session at “The Quiet Man”, in the company of old friends from The Dublin School, I was being driven back over the hills from Barcelona to San Cugat by Sean, the Dean of the Faculty which had invited me to speak.
Sean was telling me about his expeditions to the Far East on university business. He had liked Japan and had been impressed by the gardens and temples of Kyoto. “You know”, he said, “One strange thing did happen to me in Kyoto. I was visiting a Zen temple and was sexually assaulted by a monk there.” After I had got a few details from him, I realized we had both been the victims of the same serial molester.
I had been at a JACET （“College Teachers of English”） conference several years before. On the second day of the conference, Prof. Jenkins suggested to Sean, another of the PUK foreign teachers and me that we join him on a visit to a fine temple which he had discovered the day before.

We were admiring one of the gardens when one of the monks approached us and offered to tell us about the temple. He asked us if we wanted to be shown the basics of zen meditation. Before long he had the three of us lined up on the tatami and he was explaining to us the breathing system essential for good meditation. He emphasised that the lower abdomen was the key and, since he was sitting between Sean and me, he was able to put his hands on both of us to check whether we had the technique right. Before I realised what had happened, his hand had strayed lower than could be required by any introduction to zen meditation. I could hardly believe what had happened and did not react. We quickly got up, and left the temple. “Did something odd happen in there?” Sean asked. We confirmed that we had both been victims of the same compulsive monk.
I met Y, who had come to Kyoto for the weekend, an hour later and told her about the “sekuhara”(sexual harassment or assault) at the hands of Zen monk. She burst out laughing-- so much for the loyal support that Japanese women are famous for. I persuaded her that we should do something and half an hour later we were in the City Tourist Office reporting the incident. Y still had trouble keeping a straight face as she explained the incident to the manager of the office, who was giving the impression that he was not taking it seriously. Aware that it wasn’t enough, but comforting myself that at least we had done something, I did nothing more.
The incident brought home to me how difficult it must be for children and young people to resist sexual assaults from adults. If even a couple of forty-year-old university teachers were incapable of reacting at the time and of properly reporting the incident, there can be no wonder that children find to difficult.
I arrived back in New Zealand in May 2002 to find the news media full of cases of sexual assaults of children in various Catholic institutions, some dating back more than 30 years. I had spent thirteen years in Catholic schools, the last five at boarding school, but had never suffered or heard any hint of sexual assault. There were loads of assaults of course, in the form of corporal punishment, but I knew of nothing else. My experience in Kyoto though has given me proof that Christians have no monopoly on sexual hanky-panky. An article by Tariq Ali in the London Review of Books describing how the Mullah in Pakistan are notorious for their salacious interests in male students provided further evidence that such sexual malpractices are indeed an oecumenical phenomenon which transcend all doctrinal barriers.

The Kyoto incident was around 1997. Since then “Seku-hara” has exploded into Japanese consciousness.Committees against it have been set up in universities all over the country and there have been several high profile sackings. In our own city, there was a very low-profile resignation of a foreign teacher of English after allegations of homosexual intimidation of a student over exam results.　　28 Nov. 2002.