Our Song

Essay 5 Chapter 7 Sexuality

2007-01-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Teens’ knowledge about sex is really poor, because of the lack of sufficient sex-education. In Japan, parents do not teach about sex to their children, because they regard it is one of the taboo. They learn it in school, however, it is far from getting sufficient knowledge about it. Japanese teachers think it is not good for students to learn about sex in direct, so they can not do the lecture in detail. Thus, I think most of teens get sex related information from the magazines, friends and TV.
I was really surprised that the pregnancy rate among 18-19 girls in U.S total is 144 per 1000, and I wondered why the rate is so high.
I heard that teens in U.S put condoms for not to get a pregnancy but to avoid having a venereal diseases or AIDS. On the other hand, Japanese teens use condoms for not to get a pregnancy. I was surprised the difference of attitude toward the usage of it. In Japan, what is more, parents do not care about child’s sex life　unless they do not have the baby. Also, abortion rate in Japan is still in a low (6%) compared to other countries.
In Japan, it is not a rare case that couples get married if woman get pregnant. Japanese call it “Dekichattakon”(couple has no other choices except to get married because they have the baby). Getting married is absolutely inevitable choice for Japanese men if he makes his partner get pregnant.
I prefer this idea than abortion, because we should not kill the small life just because we do not want to give a birth.

chapter 6---Friendship

2006-12-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

White pointed out that “you want your group to be filled with akaruiko” (158).　The reason of this is really simple; they themselves do want to be seen as “akaruiko”. Friends are a kind of measurement for students to tell others who they are. In brief, what kind of people their friends are is related to their status or character. It may not be too much to say that your character or groups sometimes decided by your surroundings not by just yourself. If you are always with “kuraiko”, other friends definitely regard you as “kuraiko.” This result has a big impact on your school life. Suppose, you once be labeled as “kuraiko” and classified to “kuraiko group”, there might be a hard time in your school life. You would have the less time to spend with “akaruiko”, because you are not belong to “akaruiko group”. Besides, it may trigger serious problems on you: ijime (bulling). Most ijime (bulling) victims are “kuraiko”. Surprisingly, the reason of this is just you are “kuraiko”. It is really ridiculous. There are no other reasons of this. However, it still does exist in Japan, and suicide of kids is caused from ijime in school. It is one of the biggest issues in Japan. There is a crucial factor existing ijime in Japan; no one try to make friends stop to do ijime. Even though they know it is poor and bad thing, they can not warn: they are afraid of the possibility of to be the next victim if they warn their friends.

White also quotes an interesting Japanese junior-high-school girl’s diary on the page 159. In her diary, there is not a day without writing “my friends”. I think her diary is extreme one, but friends play an important role in students’ daily lives. Although this “dependence on friends” phenomena occurs both boys and girls, it can be seen eminently in the girls. Japanese teen girls always play with same members, and it means betrayal for their friends to play with another group members. It seems strange, but this custom still exists among Japanese young girls.

The Material Child

2006-11-30T20:49:00.000-08:00

Japanese teen magazines help set trends in various ways. As White says in the article, magazines offer teens many kinds of information: friendship, fads and presents for Christmas or Valentine’s Day.
Girichoco, or “obligation chocolate”, is an obvious example of Japanese teens’ thoughtless faith in trends which teen magazines offer. Japanese chocolate companies made the customs of chocolate-giving by women to men on Valentine’s Day, and answering-gift on White Day. Magazines offer the ideas of gift which is favored by girls and boys in these gift-giving seasons. Then, these goods are considered as trendy by teens.
As for presents or gift-giving, Japanese teens regard it as trend-related thing. They easily influenced by magazines and companies’ strategies. Magazines and companies affect Japanese trends very much. They use various strategies: surveys, limited edition, spokespersons, etc. They also provide how-to manuals or handbooks. Young person’s, especially Japanese teen’s worst fear is of being dasai, uncool, as White says in the book. Actually, magazines play the role of creating this fear.
Manual shokogun, or manual syndrome, was brought to Japanese youth culture by the magazine-insert how-to manual or handbook. This media phenomenon was mostly because of the teens’ fear of being dasai. Most Japanese teens eager to be regarded themselves as trendy or cool. Because of this thought, they greatly hate to be uncool.
I think that most of these White’s statements are true. Actually, Japanese young people always try to catch up trends by reading magazines. People who wear clothes which appeared on magazines are thought to be fashionable. I agree that the idea of magazines’ big role in setting trends. Teens get much information about fashion or trendy goods from magazines. Magazines and companies are the centre of Japanese teens’ trend.

Essay "Relationship between teachers and students" Chap 4 School

2006-11-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

Merry White said that “middle school teachers in Japan try to maintain the friendly, open atmosphere of the elementary school classroom, while high school teachers, in service to the greater seriousness of the endeavor, may seem more distant and formal.” I think her point is true.
As I felt in my elementary or junior high school, students tend to like “friends like” teachers, but dislike teachers who abuse their authority. Teachers who like talking with students and allow them not using honorific word are liked by students. On the other hand, teachers who often scold students are disliked by students. They scold students because students sometimes break rules (kosoku). Teachers think that kosoku is similar with basic rules that students would face after they graduate from schools, so they value to observing kosoku. However, students do not understand the importance of kosoku, so they think that teachers who scold them because of breaking kosoku are too severe for them, so they do not furrow what they say and start to dislike them.
In Japan, students who play up to their teachers are called “Teacher’ pet” (yutoousei). Why they do like that? Because they think that yutoousei are liked by teachers and can get higher grade. They obey what teachers say and observe kosoku well. Sometimes they disliked by their classmates.
However, in high school, teachers are not so friendly to students; they seem more distant and formal than their junior high or elementary school counterparts. I think the reason is that Japanese people regard the mean of going to high school is to study hard for entering universities. Students have their own goals and the duty of teachers is to improve students’ academic ability. For these reasons, it is OK for high school teachers to become formal to students, I think.

Chap 3 Family

2006-11-05T05:11:00.000-08:00

In American family, mother closely related to her son; “Mama’s Boy”, and father closely related to his daughter; “Daddy’s little Girl”. However, the situation in Japan is different from American counterpart. The relationship between mothers and their daughters is very close; they go shopping together, do housework together, and chat with. What had made the difference between two countries?
Stereotype about behavior of women and men is the one of the main factor to this relationship in Japan. Traditionally, women have been regarded as a symbol of family; they stay at home, bring up children, and do housework. On the other hand, men had been considered that they have to work outside of home and earn money. Because of these thought, girls have to do more housework than boys do; mothers tend to ask daughters, not to sons, to help their housework. This makes daughters spend much time with their mothers and that must make the relationship between mothers and daughters stronger.
In the class, I heard that the relationship between teenage daughters and their mothers in America is very bad. I think that American teenagers are more independent from their parents than Japanese counterparts; this could be the reason of bad relationship between daughters and mothers. Daughters would have their own ideas which they have to rely on in any situation, so they may do not want their mothers to interfere them.
As I mentioned about Japanese traditional stereotype, girls tend to help their mothers more, compared with boys. Whereas, most people regard that boys should study harder than girls. Boys should get good jobs in the future; this is the reason why they do not tend to be asked to help their mothers doing housework.
All of these differences related to gender in family had been influenced by Japanese old stereotypes. Historical culture and tradition fill an important role to this issue.

2006-10-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

Self Introduction

2006-10-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hi,I'm Asumi Kubota.
I'm freshman of Waseda University
My home town is Shizuoka which is famous for tea and Mt Fuji.
I love animals, especially cats. They fasinate me all the time!!
In the future, I want to be a teacher, then I teach various kinds of subjects at cram school.