More Wondering On What The Heck Is Going On With The Japanese

Confessions of a Grade School Role Model posts about a dicussion regarding "Why do Japanese women act so cute" which covers the social phenomena of Japanese adult women acting like school children.  It's an interesting read and just another thing to add to the things I'll have to get used to when I pop on over there.  Note ladies who read my blog that I don't exactly find this an "endearing" characteristic.  I've seen the value of a strong woman (thank you Lady Koel) and certainly have a hard time taking a woman serious who claps who fingers splayed wide and talks like a female memeber of the Chipmunks.  Ayumi Hamasaki and the song Fly High comes to mind in sounding like a Chipmunk.  I know Amuro Namie doesn't sound a whit like that.

Toni, I'd love for you to weigh in...

Update:  Found the "Great Pigeoned Toed Walking Debate" here.

Comments

[Toni]

Hmmm...well, I think that the author of "Confessions" pretty much covered it. I don't have much else to add so I'm just going to reiterate some of what she said :)

1.) Japan is still largely a strict patriarchical (sp?) society. It's still common for female employees to make coffee and tea for their male co-workers, and the notion of women in the workplace is still slowly catching on. Many gender roles are still in place (men as more superior to women).

2.) The author made a good point in mentioning that Japan is also a very codependent society and thus, the entire country can be considered immature. Adding to this is the fact that, unlike Americans who learned to think for themselves and express themselves in school, the Japanese don't do this.

3.) Japanese men have a strange definition of sexuality. The cuter a woman acts, the more it is of a turn-on for them. Hence, all the anime and porn that feature girls in school girl uniforms. They have the biggest Lolita complex.

Fortunately my female Japanese friends and my female co-workers didn't succumb to acting "cute" to make themselves more appealing to men. They spoke in their normal voices and didn't wear pink. They didn't have little Hello Kitty trinkets hanging from their cellphones either (I...er...um, did *sheepish grin*). Because of this, these same women have been unlucky in finding Japanese boyfriends. Most of these women ended up with Western boyfriends who can appreciate their maturity. It's one of the reasons you'll rarely find a Japanese man with a Western woman. The idea of a woman having a mind of her own and acting like an adult is too intimidating for many Japanese men.