Life as a Nihonjin

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/06/05/japan.herbivore.men/index.html?iref=newssearch
http://www.slate.com/id/2220535
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDt0HD_UCxk

The links above are pretty interesting if you feel the need to explore more after you finish reading this post. The youtube one is just 30 seconds long and its pretty good so definitely check that out. Today I am going to try to give you what I see about life as a Japanese person in Japan. I’ve been here for 13 weeks now and done a little research on the different aspects of the life that I have noticed here.

The CNN and Slate articles above are especially important because it gives a little contrast between new Japan and old Japan. I found the CNN article a couple weeks ago and it was funny because John and I had been talking about that stuff a lot since we came here but this week we found out it’s a really big deal and the females are absolutely not happy about it- which would explain why when we throw a little attention their way they get so excited (I thought it was just my good looks and all that but I guess there is more). But that article and the Slate one are pretty much saying the same thing, which I brushed a little when I spoke about the pop culture thing and how the guys seem kind of soft. Well these soshokudanshi as they are called in Nihongo (it means grass eating men) have little to no social skills with the females and do not have the drive to pursue them or even pursue jobs and seem to just bum around. But more on that later.

I’m going to try to do this chronologically in terms of what goes on during each age period so I’ll start with children. Well it seems like they have a pretty normal life. Kento and his friends go out and play, they have homework and all that jazz just like everywhere else in the rest of the world but there is a huge difference. There is a thing called cram school, and I don’t know about you but if mommy and daddy had told me I had to go to a place called cram school after school I wouldn’t have been a happy camper at all. So Kento goes to cram school on Monday and Friday after school and I think it starts at 5 or so and ends whenever they feel like it. Friday night I came home from football at 8.30 and left the house to go out at 9 and Ueno san still hadn’t gone to pick him up yet. So this thing is massive. He even has to go on some Saturdays or Sundays and has separate tests for this cram school. It seems like a pretty regular thing to do here. A few weeks ago I was talking to a girl and she said she didn’t think little children like that should have to go to cram school...and I concur. At least it isn’t everyday and they still get to have fun I guess.

But as you get older, like Middle School, High School age I’m not sure if you still have cram school. But I have definitely seen a lot of students in uniforms riding the train or walking around on Saturdays and Sundays and I shake my head. They are going to school maybe six or seven days a week man. I mean, at Hotchkiss I had school on Saturdays, but that was only half day and we had half days Wednesdays. Not too bad. But if you have five full days of school, and then school on the weekend again, that is just plain ridiculous. Is there really that much knowledge that the teachers need to impart on these teenagers? They already have three school terms and go to school from April to Mid July, September to Mid December and January to Mid March. They probably know what they need to know already and if not then it’s because they don’t want to.

So that’s why they say that college is the only time the Japanese people get to chill really. But even then that’s not true. The majority, and when I say majority I mean like 95% of them or more, have an arubaito (part time job). They also take a ridiculous amount of classes too, I know this one girl who took like 14 different classes and had 18 periods a week out of 25 and I just had to think, “Man I got it easy.” So a lot of their time is school and job. But the job is necessary because if they want to go out and enjoy themselves, hang out with their friends, eat some dinner, go to a movie, go to a bar, they need the money to do it because that stuff is expensive. I don’t know the exact cost of movie tickets I just know its double or more what I would pay in the U.S. so it’s not even worth me looking at it.

So then they graduate and there is adulthood. I said a couple times that my host father is always working, but it is not so. He does work seven days a week (not the same for everybody)- I have no idea why- but after work is over you are pretty much expected to hang out with your work buddies every night. I don’t know about you but if I had a family at home that would not go down and I would want my wife to not be happy about that. But it’s the culture here. Kate, John and I were talking the other day about relationships here and Kate was saying that her host mother referred to her husband as a potted plant- he just comes home and she feeds him. There is basically no relationship there. My host parents don’t even sleep in the same room and I know that the same happens with Dave’s family and a couple others. John’s host father doesn’t even live in Sapporo and he hasn’t even seen the man yet!! Yes, my host parents converse when they are together but I would say they see each other about 14-18 hours a week and most of the time Ueno san is taking care of stuff around the house and helping Kento and all that. Its definetely not the same as what we are used to growing up in a nuclear family.

Dave was saying a couple weeks ago that the relationships really go bad after the husband retires because he’s now at home all the time and the wife is used to having her space and then it all just goes haywire. And if they do get divorced the man is usually not in a good place because the wives are the ones who take care of the finances and do the cleaning, cooking, etc. I’m sure the men can cook a little but then there is all that other stuff. Anyway I am not sure how accurate this is but it sounds like pretty sound reasoning to me and I could definitely see it happening in some cases. But the older generation of men were the real go getters that made Japan what it is industrially and economically and technologically and all that. They were similar to how we would typify men in the West. Man’s man and all that, going after what he wanted and aggressive and all that jazz. And that stood for every aspect of their lives, including women.

Now the juicy part that I noticed since I’ve been here but in the last week I actually realized how huge it is here- they guys in my generation are not the same breed. If you read those articles you will get this, but seeing dudes with pressed, curled hair, shaved and lined eyebrows and all that makes it even more real. Then seeing all the single girls at school and you’re just like, what is going on here. To shed some light on this, Sapporo is known for having the best looking girls in the whole country (and I will concur with that statement wholeheartedly), and Hokusei, the school I’m going to, is known for having one of the best populations of beautiful females on college campuses here (so yes I got really lucky being here, except for the whole I only speak a little Japanese, you only speak a little English thing).

There are a lot of beautiful girls at school but a lot of them have no boyfriends, and I’ve heard numerous girls say they want boyfriends. “So why is this” I asked. Well, the guys just don’t go after them. If I took 10 girls here with me to Davidson I guarantee they would be chased like a mouse in a room full of cats. But that doesn’t happen here because the guys are, for the most part soshokudanshi. It is a huge thing for the girls. I have been out with this girl, Asami (haha Mikhail), a couple of times (different girl from last week’s post) and I asked her why a pretty girl like her didn’t have a boyfriend and why no guy at Hokusei has gone for her. She replied that the guys at Hokusei are weak and she doesn’t like them (soshokudanshi). This same thing was repeated by John’s girlfriend and a few other girls. Apparently they talk about it a lot- as girls do about many things. But it’s sad. Of course there are nikushokudanshi (meat eating men) around at school but the male population is already way below the female population at school so the gap is even bigger. And this thing is all over Japan. And now the birth rate here is declining and these men don’t want to have women so unless something changes I don’t know what’s going to happen to this place.

The women have become more aggressive (any of my friends know that I am a fan of this: I shouldn’t have to do all the work, this is the 21st century and women are bawling for more equality, take a little initiative sometimes) though because of the situation so we will see where it goes, unless they turn to the gaijin that are slowly but surely coming into the country, which it seems like a lot of them are willing to do. (Wink wink, hint hint, to my single male family members)….LOL. Just joking!! But this place just gets more and more interesting with every turn. But what do I really know, I'm just a foreigner passing through for four months.

On another note, Saturday night I went to a club (free to get in- talk about a deal, and they play hip hop and reggae) and I saw a bunch of black guys in the place and a bunch of white people so it was cool. I actually had a conversation with this one guy that goes to Morehouse and is here doing a summer internship with the U.S. Consulate. If only I had found this place sooner I would have probably been there every weekend.

Until next time.