CH7: Sexuality

Do you have koibito?
The issue about "having koibito" is always a big deal for teenagers. (Maybe even for children nowadays) I remember when I was in middle school in Taiwan; about 70% of girls' conversation is about guys or other couples. Even until now, many of my friends in university still mostly talk about guys. It seems like everyone is so eager to have a koibito. I guess media has a big impact on it. Many movies and dramas have successfully created an ideal image of love relationship. Moreover, peer pressure is the other factor to catalyze this phenomenon. When I was in high school, there was a period; all my closed friends had boyfriends. I think I felt quite pressurized and lost my confidence that time. I kept thinking "I must be not pretty or good enough, so I can’t get a boyfriend…" Especially when my friend shared her "happiness" (with her boyfriend) with me, I envied her so much. Sometimes I think "having a koibito" is like a "trend", if you don't have one, it shows you are not popular or out of fashion. I also had few friends who were not interest in love relationship. However, they were considered as "bookworm" kind of image.
People who don't have koibito worry a lot. However, people who have koibito also have their own problems. Firstly, I think it's really difficult to have an underground relationship, because this kind of thing (which guy goes out with which girl) spread out quickly. It's not easy for teenager couples to have their own privacy. (Especially when the couple has the same class) For instance, if the couple fights, almost whole class will know and "discuss" about it. Secondly, teen couple's friends are often "too curious" about their relationship. Especially for guys, they like to ask "How far do you get?" or "Is she good?" these kind of sex-related problems. If the guy has a girlfriend but still doesn't have experience, other guys will look down on him a little bit, I guess. In the other case, if the guy has experience, his guy friends will want to ask more and specific. Therefore, I think even couples have peer pressure, just in different ways.

About the first sexual experience
I was quite shocked when I heard the average age of Japanese teen's first sexual experience is that early, 16.8 years old. Actually I was also quite shocked when I know there are so many love hotels and erotic comics in Japan. But I remember I was even more shocked when I know Otaku culture in Japan. As a foreigner, when I first came to Japan, I thought Japanese people must be really conservative about sex because of their polite and pure superficial image. However, when I have better understand of Japanese culture, I realize that Japanese people are not that "pure" as I thought. I guess the reason is that Japanese people don't really show or talk about their true feeling toward sexual desire in public, so their feeling are suppressed. In this case, people need to find an outlet. (So, many people watch AV or erotic comics) Moreover, I think compare to other countries; Japanese people are less likely to talk about their personal affair with others. I guess it's the reason that the average age of teens' sexual experience is much earlier than our expectation.

PS: I'm not sure whether my assumption is right or not, if someone has different ideas, please telling me.

CH6: Friendship

Shinyu:
I remember once my father told me "It's more and more difficult to have a best friend when you grow up." I didn't fully understand what my dad meant that time, but now I understand. Perhaps, people have different definitions for "best friend". For me, best friend means "real friend" who will always support and understand me. Also, we don't feel embarrassed even we keep silent. When I talk with normal friend, I feel uncomfortable if we keep silent. In that case, I will try to "make" some topics to continue our conversation. In addition, I think best friend is not necessary the friend you always hang around. Form my personal experience; my best friend in high school and me had no class in common, so we seldom had chances to talk to each other in school. Normally we just talked on phone for about twice a week. Now, since I am in Japan, we meet twice a year. However, we don't feel unfamiliar with each other.
In university, I think it's quite difficult to have a best friend. Partially because people have their own lives, and partially because people become more sophisticated. As a young adult, people tend to think more complicated toward their personal relationship. People may not easily show their true feelings unless they meet someone who is trustworthy.
I think a difference between younger teens and older teens is: younger teens is more likely to show how they really feel and whom they don't like. On the contrary, older teens (young adult) may use moreたてまえ, and try to maintain good relationship with others. (at least on the surface).

Friend vs. Koibito
I remember when I was in junior high school/ high school; my girl friends and me were used to talk a lot about guys. I remember there was once, one of my friends liked someone, our group of girls helped her to get information about the guy, even made some "opportunities" for her. I think we girls quite enjoyed doing that on that time. BUT… When she actually went out with that guy, we girls seemed not so happy. Partially because of we didn't have boyfriend (maybe a little bit envied her), partially we felt the guy stole our friend. It was a fact that she spent less time with us comparing with before. I think we girls were quite sensible, we understood it's natural that she spent less time with us and we knew she still treated us as important friends. However, we didn't invite her for shopping/ girls' talk sometimes, because we thought she needed time to spend with her boyfriend. We didn't want to interrupt her. I could tell she felt she has been excluded from our group.
I think it is really difficult to find a balance between Koibito and friends.

CH5: Materialism

“She looks cheap!” sometimes I hear my friend says that when she see a girl who wears poor quality clothes. Maybe my friend is too mean, but what she said reveals a phenomenon “materialism”. People tend to overemphasize their appearance and what things they possess. On the other hand, they also care about other people’s appearance and what do they have. From my observation, I think teenagers now are more “Brand conscious” than 10 years ago. As you can see, many Japanese university students/ OL use LV or Dior handbags. (Also, it’s full of young women in LV flagship.) I don’t know what’s the main reason behind them to spend lots of money on luxury goods. (I don’t think they buy it because of the good quality.) Perhaps, those young women feel confident when they bring expensive handbags. (Maybe they can also show off a little bit.) Or, perhaps they feel pressurized because they see many people have expensive bags. In my opinion, I think many of Japanese young people don’t have strong wills of their own. Therefore, they are easier to be influenced by other people. Moreover, Japanese people value “unity” as a merit. So they tend to do the same thing, and feel pressurized if they are different from others. I think marketing industry can easily manipulate market trend due to distinct Japanese characteristics.
Japanese marketing industry is really good at creating trends. For an example of a pair of jeans, it seems quite difficult to sell jeans, because they basically look similar. However, Japanese fashion retailers always create “something new” each season even though the product is just slightly different from last season. They may put lace on the pocket to attract young women. Or, they may sew dragon pattern on the back of denim jacket when Chinese style is in fashion. Other than product innovation, Japanese marketers also keep to try finding new ways to attract young consumers. For instance, they find the famous teen idol as their “brand representative” and also show their commercial on TV. Therefore, teens feel that they have to buy that brand to show their royalties to the idol. In addition, some sports shoes marketers in Japan often use “limited edition” strategy to attract young consumers. Sometimes, sports shoes brand cooperates with famous Japanese artists, and ask them to design special pattern for sports shoes. Of course, these shoes are more expensive than normal shoes, because they are unique and rare. For this reason, many Japanese young guys try to get those limited edition shoes as much as possible, to show their purchasing power.
For my personal experience, when I go to Disney shop in Tokyo, I always feel I want to buy something. They change their products according to different seasons or special events. For instance, they have Mickey wearing Halloween costume on September/October or Minnie wearing Kimono during Japanese New Year. Even I don’t particularly like Disney’s characters, I feel I want to buy them because it’s seasonal limited. If I don’t buy this now, I don’t have chance to buy the same thing next year. (Also, I think it’s just a toy, which just cost little money.) I think I can understand why it’s always so crowded in Tokyo Disney store and why Japanese girls always buy lots of small cute stuff… (but they don’t realize they spend lots of money in total.)

CH4: School

School Rules:
I think "school rules" is a quite interesting part of school life. I guess many people had experiences of trying to against school rules. In my personal experience, I attended middle school in Taiwan. It was a private school, so basically the school was really strict on students' dressing and manners. Every month, there was a "check day". Teacher would check your hair length, hairstyle (no dye and perm), and skirt length (to the knee). As I knew, some girls had many skirts. They wore shortened skirt in normal days, and wore regular skirt in the "check day". There's once my friend didn't pass her hair check, and teacher just cut her hair in public. She felt so embarrassed and cried a lot after it. I would never forget that scene. Moreover, we also had a "change season day". For example, on October 1, students had to change their summer uniform to winter uniform, but sometimes it was still too hot to wear winter uniform. However, school argued that those school rules were good for students. They set the rules of wearing uniform because they didn't want students to compare their clothes. Also, they didn't want students to waste time of choosing what to wear. Although I understand their standpoint, I still hoped the school rules could be more flexible.
I guess the "school rules phenomenon" is same in other countries in Asia. In White's book, I found an interesting Japanese school rule: "Girls should wear only regulation white underpants of 100% cotton". That was bizarre. I am curious about how did they check student's underpants? However, I believe this kind of rule doesn't exist anymore. On the contrary, American schools don't really have school rules. Anyways, I was quite surprised when Vicky said that some American schools don't allow students to wear baggy clothes, because some students might hide weapons under their clothes. I think even American schools don't have much school rules, but some dressing taboos do exist.

University Entrance:
In Asia, the competition of university entrance exam is severe because people see "good university" as a guarantee of "good job opportunity". When I studied in Shanghai for my high school year, some of my friends were planning to study in Chinese universities. They told me that foreign students and Chinese students' exams were separated. The exam for foreign students was much easier than the exam for Chinese students. Therefore, some Chinese students "bought" foreign passports, so they could easily pass the exam and go to top university. In addition, in both China and Taiwan, some parents buy houses, which are near the famous public middle/high schools (Higher possibility for their children to enter the good public schools). Those parents believe that if their children enter the good public middle/high school, they will get into the good universities. Perhaps, above examples are too extreme, but people do use different means to get into good universities. I wasn't surprised when I saw so many "Juku" in Japan. Actually, in Taiwan, there's a "Cram school street". Students have to pass the exam to enter the famous cram school, because they want to keep their standard and good reputation. Other than cram school, some Taiwanese high schools have "self-study time" after the class. When the exam is coming, some teachers even "borrow" classes from music or PE teachers for students to self-study.
I guess this kind of situation will never happen in the US. I'll say Asian students and parents are really crazy for exams.

Sempai-Kohai Relationship:
Until now, I'm still not get used to the "Sempai-Kohai culture" in Japan. Even though we have sempai-kohai concept in Taiwan or China, normally kohai don't really treat their sempai as sempai if they don't have big age differences. For instance, we may call our sempai : "XX學長/學姊(sempai)", not their name. However, we don't talk to them in keigo. We treat our sempai as friends. I think both Japanese and Korean are really care about sempai-kohai relationship. As the kohai, they have to be careful when they talk to sempai. As the Sempai, they are sensitive if kohai don't talk to them politely. By the way, maybe there's no sempai-kohai concept in the US, because I don't think I can find an English vocabulary, which is equivalent to sempai/kohai.

CH3: Family

Gender roles in the family:

I do believe sexual discrimination still exist nowadays. However, comparing to 10 years ago, this problem has improved due to the higher social status of women. Now, women can be politician, lawyer or doctor…etc. They are not only labeled as "housewife" anymore. This significant social change reshapes the gender roles in the family. I can't say 100 percent, but sons and daughters nowadays are more likely to have equal right than before. Anyways, I don't think all families accept or actually practice this new idea. As I know in Taiwan, some conservative parents still treat their daughter badly, and see her as "useless person". If they just have one daughter, they will try to have more babies until having a son. However, some Taiwanese families do accept the idea of "daughter succeeds to family business". Therefore, I think the "gender roles in the family" largely depends on family style.

Family Avoidance:

White mentioned about family avoidance in both Japanese and American families. It is still quite true now. Personally, I have never tried to avoid my parents, because we hardly had arguments. Also, I think I was an extreme case. Everyday when I came back home, I couldn't wait to tell them things happened in school. Sometimes I even felt they tried to avoid me because I talked too much. All of my friends said I was weird. I thought so, too. Most of them argued with their parents quite often. One of my friends said, "I don't want to see my mum and communicate with her, because we always fight when we see each other. If we don't talk and we won't fight." I think it's a common problem of many families, especially when children are in puberty period.

Hello everyone !!!

hello~ my name is Cheng Yu-Ting, from Taiwan...
You can just call my nickname "Sandra" (i guess it's easier to remember)...
I have lived in Shanghai for 3 years (high school), and came to Japan one years ago...
Living in Japan is a novel experience for me...
I am really curious about Japanese culture as well as American culture, that's why i take this seminar...

I like to read magazines, take photos, make handcraft and play tennis...
My dream is becoming a magazine editor in the future...
If you have same interests as I do, let's share our experiences...
By the way, if you interest in Chinese culture, maybe we can also discuss about it...

Thanks for reading my self-introduction...
I'm glad to know you all...