I always just considered it part of a general super-politeness he has that exceeds the politeness I’ve seen in other American families, and which I therefore attribute to his being Japanese-American.
His family also did something else that may have just been their personal quirk, but which I always felt had to do with being Japanese, super-polite, very restrained overall: they never take candid photos. Every single picture they have is posed. Once his brother came to a barbecue at our house and they were walking past me when I had the camera- they both stopped, turned to me and posed with a smile. It was almost eerie.
That’s a generally Asian thing. I went to a wedding last weekend (in Seoul) and the photographer drove me nuts with his instructions about how to tilt your head or place your feet just so. No laughing aloud - just fixed smiles.
It’s a pretty common stereotype that Asian girls always have to strike certain poses in photos (wide eyes, the “V”, puffing out cheeks or pouting lips), but it’s a stereotype that’s more or less true.
Logically, you would expect anime (with a few exceptions) to be looked down on more in Japan than anywhere else, in a similar way that we would look down on Jerry Springer watchers more in America than anywhere else.
If you are an American watching Jerry Springer you are participating in a low point of your own culture. If you aren’t an American, you are presumably just amazed by how bizarre Americans can be; your own culture is not in the discussion.
Japanese people can’t just toss aside the worst aspects of anime by saying “well, those Japanese people sure make some crazy stuff”, so naturally they would be harsher to anime watchers.
Well yeah but we also sometimes don’t pose for pictures. Most events from an American event will also show candid shots where ppl aren’t aware that they are being photographed or don’t care.
In regards to sexual views, I just wanted to mention that while Japan has your share of “pervs”, on the whole, most people are more Family oriented and not as indulgent in sexual pleasure/lust (physically and mentally). Men don’t generally go around staring at every attractive woman who walks by, or gawking at everyone’s asses like in the America’s. For the most part, they have sexual urges but not to the extent of the obsessions common in the west. Up till recent, divorces are rare, especially due to affairs with other women. On the other hand, brothels are fairly common in most neighborhoods and their use is fairly culturally accepted and not seen as something as bad or wrong as in other cultures. I think, also, that due to the reduced indulgence in sexual pleasure/lust (physically and mentally), there is less conflict in many ways and also allows for social activities like communal bathing with opposite sexes (not so much anymore). I was surprised when I went to Japan around age 15, and my mothers friends daughter (around age 12 or 13 or so) came out of her room completely naked and asked me to take a bath with her. The request is obviously completely non-sexual and if I were not so in shock (being an American second generation Japanese guy (though 100% Japanese genetically) already with sexual thoughts in my head and turned on by her naked body) I probably would have taken a bath with her and there would be no problems with it for both the parents and the kids (but I was a corrupted American so it would not have been an innocent bath).
I definitely noticed this effect in China. It’s not unusual to see women in their thirties carrying around giant stuffed teddy bears and wearing frilly princess dresses. My school bought me a Christmas present during my first year of teaching (I was a then 28 year old professional teaching at a university). It was a pink teddy bear and a pair of mittens, attached with a string, that were done up to look like poodles. I think the level of infantilzation drops when women get married or pass marrying age, but when its out, it’s out in force.
Personally, I can’t help but see it as a manifestation of still vastly unequal gender roles. Treating women like children is a power thing. Remember that Japan is the industrialized society with the largest gender gaps.
While there might still be large gender gaps in Japan and Asia overall, I don’t think the predominance of cute things is really a factor. I mean, they even have cute characters on predominantly male items like condoms and male hair products. Their tolerance level for cute, which we equal with young in the West, is just really high as a society.
The things I am talking about are very gendered, and go far beyond “cute”. You don’t see thirty year male college professors being given toy sailboats and Thomas the Train mittens as an official present from the dean of their school during a work-related event. You do not see college graduate professional men walking around in knee-britches and footed jammies proudly brandishing outsized boxes of legos and coyly tonguing giant snickers bars.
Most women enjoy having a space to act young or cute. But most women, like humans everywhere, also appreciate being recognized for their accomplishments and treated with respect for the work that they do. Unfortunately in some cultures, this is very tough for single women because they are always going to be considered children, not only superficially, but on a very deep level involving what jobs they can get, what power they have to determine their life path, etc… Tell me, if it was just a matter of women liking to dress up and act like children, why do they suddenly lose that urge when they get married?
Infantilization has a long history of being both a manifestation, symptom and a perpetuator of highly power-differentiated societies. Not too long ago, we called black people “boy” and treated them like children. It’s just really unlikely that infantilization exists, and a power-differential exists, but the two are completely unrelated.
Well, divorces due to cheating are not as common, but cheating itself is pretty common. I read in a magazine (yeah, it was SPA, but still, others I spoke to about it agreed) that around 50% of Japanese married women step out. Not so surprising given that a lot of couples married today are still the result of arranged marriages.
Yeah, ‘red-light’ districts are all over the place, each with their own long established customs, and heavily in bed with the local constabulary (if you know what I mean). I’ve heard it said, but don’t know if it’s true, of course, that the sex industry (including both porn and prostitution) is bigger than the electronics industry in Japan. :eek:
I remember reading somewhere about a Japanese family sent to America for work whose father got reported to the police as a sex offender because an American neighbor who was in their house saw pictures of the father taking a bath with the daughter. Totally normal (up to a certain age) in Japan.
Of course they wouldn’t get Thomas the Train Engine mittens. They’d get Gundam ones instead. Here’s the thing. I think you have a point that the culture allows women to get away with a more childish image, however, I disagree that it’s necessarily infantilizing. Most cosmopolitan Asian women are not wearing frilly pink princess wear just as most American women aren’t wearing kitten/Winnie-The-Pooh applique sweaters out to the mall. It’s a aesthetic choice and the cutsey single 30-something woman who takes out teddy bears and wears frilly dresses might tone it down once she’s married and has kids, but she’ll probably still wear stuff that we might deem childish.
When I say that the tolerance for cute is higher in Asia, it means that my college professor cousin has Hello Kitty items in his house as part of the decor (yes, he has kids, but it’s not in their rooms). It means that the Post Office has cute cartoons in their ads. It means that adult women don’t necessarily see it as infantilizing to wear cute things and if you tell them that they’re being childish, they’d think you’re out of your mind.
Here’s my main problem with your conclusion. You’re viewing things through your Western view that anything that is cute and frilly has to be childish. Whereas, to these Asian women’s point of view, it’s at worst, unsophisticated and slightly more feminine. There’s sexual inequality in Asia, but we’re not going to get rid of it by demeaning Hello Kitty and teddy bears.
Imagine a place where the women wore smart business suites on dates, while the men walk around in children’s sailor suit. Imagine where women solve problems by negotiation, while men’s problem-solving arsenal is relies heavy on “pouting.” Seriously- it’s not unusual to see grown women throwing full on temper tantrums. Where women win lucite business awards and bonus checks while men are given toys. Would your conclusion be “Well, I’m sure this isn’t a sign of any sort of inequality.”
Now imagine this place also #94 of 134 countries in gender equality. It’s a place where less than 10% of parliament seats and less than 2.5% of university science professors are held by the wrong gender. Where they areonly 4% of departmental managers, no CEOs of top companies are of the other gender, and people face massive wage gaps (earning 60% of what the other gender does!) with nearly no ability to sue for gender discrimination.
I am not a cultural relativist. I have no problem saying a given culture gives women a raw deal. I will be the first one to defend a woman’s right to wear a burqa, but I have no problem saying it’s probably a sign of a society that has some very sick and harmful ideas about women. It’s not okay for a modern, prosperous society to be in a situation where almost no women hold positions of power, and where women have sharply limited choices about what sorts of lives they can live. I’m also not okay with a narrow and sharply defined set of things that are acceptably feminine, especially if those are noticeably worse (pouting vs. negotiating) than what men get.
The clothing is just a part of what I am talking about. I’m also talking about the coy looks, the mindless giggling as you watch your job being given to a man, your salary cut, yourself being derided as a spinster for daring to age over 25- the constant emphasis of a single beauty ideal, and the countless rules. DId you know in China it is considered hopelessly unfeminine to take off your sweater when you get warm? This while the men are happily sitting happily spitting melon seeds with their shirts pulled up to their armpits and the potbellies hanging out. Women are politely excusing themselves to the bathroom to unzip their hoodie.
Much of Asia has a long, long way to go until their women are living lives as rich and full of options as those afforded to men.
Could you provide a definition of “family oriented” and how Japanese are more so than Americans? The phrase is vague.
I’m curious about the basis for “not as indulgent in sexual pleasure/lust (physically and mentally).” Do you have any other reason than men not staring as obviously as in the States? How does this square with the ubiquitous porn available at every convenience store and channels at all the business hotels? Or the fascination with big breasts and the countless magazines like Spa? Or pick up a sports newspaper like Yukan Fuji. Etc., etc., etc.
This assumes that it’s men who are the ones cheating, when many sources seem to indicate that either party is as likely to cheat.
The traditional rate of low divorces is not related at all to any greater of happiness in divorces. Japanese have a term kateinaibekkyo for people who together, but are living as if they were separated.
Younger women are decidedly not as happy about partners visiting said establishments.
This claimed reduced indulgence in sexual pleasure does not match with increased numbers of sex establishments.
I’ve spent all afternoon thinking of when I would attribute a source to SPA, and still haven’t thought of anything.
I don’t think you can call omiai marriages “arranged” as they are more an introduction by someone. There is an expectation that if it works out they get married, but it’s not “arranged” without the consent of the people. I used to work with a lady who had been on more than 50 introductions.
I thought about it some more last night and I think we might be talking past each other. My point in the previous posts were about articles of clothing and purses that may appear infantile to Western women worn by fully actualized women because cute doesn’t necessarily equal infantile. It seems that you’re talking about arrested development in the women that you met in China. I’m not sure how you managed to meet only these type of women, but they’re not by far the only type of women in Asia. Also, women can’t take off their sweaters in China? That’s news to me. Men with their shirts pulled up to their armpits? This all sounds seriously backcountry and definitely not representative of Japan or even most of China.
Most of the young Asian women that I know are fairly cosmopolitan in attitude and would be offended if they were given token gifts while their male counterparts received a bonus. They’re professional women who work in cities in Asia. They don’t pout to get their way in business situations. The attitudes are slowly changing in the metropolitan areas of Asia and I think the statistics you cite are lagging indicators. Most CEO and management positions are held by men in their 50’s and 60’s because they tend to have the most seniority, but I think that in the coming decades, it’ll start to change.
I don’t think this means that there’s total equality in Asia however. That would be foolish. We still have to change the perception of housework, child-rearing, and a host of other things when it comes to gender issues. However, it’s not as dire (in the cities anyway) as you seem to think it is.
I think we’re drifting away from Japan as the main topic though, so I’ll bow out of this thread for now since I have no first-hand knowledge of Japan itself. If you want to talk about Asian gender parity as a whole though, even sven, I’d be interested in participating.
One suspended adolescence explanation I heard once was that it is a reaction to an absence of such years in the first place. The average teenage in Asia is a time filled with endless hours of school, drills, practice, forced extra-curricular activities etc. with little available for other pursuits.
Eww. I learn something new everyday. Thanks for the link. It’s somehow worse than just taking off the whole shirt. I’m somewhat relieved that some of the men found it just as tacky.
And to bring the population density into sharper focus, most of the interior of Japan is quite mountainous and not suitable for large populations. Most of the population of Japan lives on the coastal plains.
In general, when I lived there I found Japanese culture to be quite different from western culture. Things I liked about Japan:
Public Safety. I could go anywhere at any time and not worry that I’d get mugged or hassled.
Their stoic nature, exemplified by the Japanese word “gaman.”
Things I didn’t like about Japan:
Xenophobia and generally racist attitudes toward other cultures, especially other Asian cultures.
Sea urchin roe.
And I have no problem saying that Japan gives women a raw deal, if they chose to be professionals and not drop off onto the Mommy track.
When I was first working here in the early 90s, it wasn’t uncommon for my boss (in his 50s) and his associates to say things like “that’s a job that even a woman can do.” Work discrimination is prevalent; one book by a Western executive giving advice on how to do business in Japan (written in the early 90s) said “just don’t be a woman.” OK, not quite that, but he said the discrimination was so high he wouldn’t know how to combat it.
I have to agree with him, although there is less discrimination now, I won’t pretend I would know how to deal with it as a foreign women.
I do know and have worked with or used successful female attorneys, mid level managers, doctors but there is so much more that needs to be done.