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sexuality

2007-01-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

White argues in the book that Japanese teens tend to look innocent, cute and asexual to American people. Girls dress well looking innocent and seem to hang out with friends of the same sex. The same applies to boys as well. Then White adds that they are actually experienced, though they don’t look so. However, I think it is not really true anymore, since the fashion trends, or way of dressing for young people, changed a lot. I think the fact the girls, or boys, have experience since the early stage of their lives did not change but the way they look differs from the time White wrote her book. I do not think girls or boys look so much innocent or asexual at all.
I would say Japanese, and Korean, sex education is far behind what is necessary. This way, sexual activities are not taught by teachers or parents but by friends, and the media. The problem is, that the information the young receive this way is usually somewhat distorted, or insufficient to prevent any possible disasters that can happen. Enjyokosai, schoolgirl prostitution, must be mainly related to the materialistic culture the students are related to, but it cannot be denied that this is partly from the insufficient sex education, too.
The culture that gives ‘’mixed’’ messages to teenagers should be fixed. Although the adults refrain from talking about sex and teaching it to their children because it is ‘’shameful,’’ they produce movies, dramas, magazines and etc… that contains every bit of sexuality in everywhere. I think it does a big part of distortion of sexuality to teenagers.

friendship

2006-12-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

I find lots of similarities between the friendship in Korea and Japan. However, in many cases, Japanese has a specific expression for a certain symptom of an event between friends but Korean does not. In my opinion, although Korean and Japanese cultures are similar in many ways and sometimes share the same traits, Japanese is better packaged and presented in terms of word usage or letting its things known to others. A good example I can think of is the honne and tattemae.
I am not sure if I consider honne & tattemae omnipresent, or universal, in the world where people exist because I am Korean, but at least it was a common thing I have been noticing throughout my life in many different countries. As I assume everyone to know already, honne is what people really feel and say, while tattemae being the opposite, saying things that are not necessarily true (or false at the same time) just in order to get close to others. When one feels that someone is trustworthy and close enough to be considered his best friend, he will tell his honne, if not, tattemae.
It seems to me that both in Korea and Japanese, people who are not good at differentiating the both and not able to choose which one to tell often become the prey of bullying, which kills quite a number of children in the both countries. One could not deny that bullying has become quite a keyword when related to friendship in Japan, or Korea. Bullying often targets a child who is considered “different” from others, but I think it can happen to anybody, anytime, quite randomly.

School essay

2006-11-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

Personally, I have both the experience of Eastern and Western culture and school system. It is too bad that I ended up having poor English skills, some imperfect linguistic knowledge, and Korean that is fading away day after day. However, it was fun living and studying everywhere and nowhere. Therefore, school chapter of the book was digestible with interest, although I am not really sure if there is such an expression. As I said in the last piece of writing, I find Japan quite similar to my home country, Korea. Though I did live in America for a short period of time and find England quite similar in a way, I am not sure if that is enough to keep mentioning America and its culture. I decided, therefore, to talk mostly about Japanese school system, especially the way students are expected to behave.
Quite funny enough, it is almost always the case when two Asian people meet, they usually ask each others’ age as if the older one has to be respected just because he was born just a few months earlier than the other. The same rule applies to relationships created in school; “senpai” and “kohai” relationship would be the weirdest thing when a person from Western hemisphere without any prior knowledge sees its. As you will probably already well know, senpai is the older, and kohai being the younger. Kohai is always expected to be respectful to senpai and use of words is so as well. This is exactly the opposite from the Western culture, where people become “friends” no matter their ages. Teachers are the objects for respect, too; one is always to be polite before them, whereas in America, it seems more like a human-human relationship between teachers and students.
Academic pressure difference is another thing that sticks out. While it is more of the students who choose to whether or not to go to college in America, or what kind of college, the students in Japan are somewhat “expected” to go to college if there is no specific reason not to, with exceptions of students who decide to drop school and live doing whatever job they can get after high school. People who take SAT’s are lucky in a sense, because they are given several times to take the exam, but there is only one chance in a year whatsoever for those who take the entrance exam. Furthermore, as the text book shows as a table, Japanese students have to study much harder than American students do, American students given more time to invest in themselves with sports, art, or anything they are offered meanwhile. I think this has not changed much over the ten years since the time the book was written, and I personally think American system is much more productive and humanlike.

2006-10-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

The text book The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America introduces mainly the sociological differences between American and Japanese, especially teenagers. The book has several subtopics such as school life, family, friendship, and sexuality. It is written more than a decade ago hence lots of information that is no more valid. However, there are valuable points made by the author that can still be applied to the modern life. One of the most interesting things to me was chapter 3, which deals with “family.” It is the chapter that the class has covered so far and the most discussion took place-Vicky’s explanation of its contents was quite interesting as well. As a person who had experienced American culture and now experiencing Japanese, it came to me as somewhat familiar and fascinating.
Personally, I find American family life slightly similar to that of British and Japanese, Korean. Although I am not fully aware of Japanese way of thinking, I can make guesses according to very Korean way of thinking; I was pretty much right every time I asked my Japanese friends about it. More than American, I have experienced British way of parental actions as well, but I think there was not too much difference between them.
No matter which country, the basic norm of actions that parents take seems to be the same although their way of expressing often are different due to cultural differences. Similarly, American and Japanese parents, the both focus on making sure that their children stay on the right track. Also, very universally, the kids do not always follow the ways their parents suggest and there “Pressure and Paradoxes,” one of the subtopics of chapter 3. It seems to me, as a Korean, that Japanese parents are more strict than American parents. For example, we see that in American teenager movies, a boy friend drives to their girl friend’s home, gets off the car, knocks on the door, and her father opens the door. The difference between American parents and Japanese parents comes here. The next thing happens in America would be her father greeting the young man and calling his daughter upstairs, whereas in Japan it will be the father asking his daughter what in the earth the guy is. It will really depend on the style of different parents, but no one could deny. In addition, American parents might participate in the activities that the children do with their friends, but Japanese parents are somebody that the children have to look up to. It seems to me that American parents try to be somewhat parents/old friends, whereas Japanese parents are strictly parents, except for mothers and daughters, which commonly become friends like relationship when daughters grow up.
There is, however, another similarity, which is not so positive. The topic discussed in the class already, the “mixed messages.” The example Vicky used was that adults tell their kids not to have sex before marriage and they produce pornography and easily dispose it to teenagers. It happens because adults, or parents, are indeed more complete and mature, but these descriptions do not necessarily mean perfect. They still are people and are imperfect. Therefore, it seems to me that the parents in two very much different countries, America and Japan, although they seem different, are pretty much the same in terms of people and the thoughts about their children.

Hi!

2006-10-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hi my name is Kevin Lee,welcome to all of you!My Japanese is weak yet but soon I will be posting things in Japanese. So wait a minute! :)