...important role for the central focus of the each of the main characters within each of the novels. Nakano Hitori’s Train Man follows the story between two young people in their 20s as seen through the eyes of the boy in the relationship as he posts to ask for advice and encouragement from an online message board. They meet on the Tokyo train, when the boy, Train Man, a self-proclaimed geek, acts out of character and stands up for a group of women on a train against an obnoxious drunk. The girl, Hermes, is one of the women on the train who Train Man stands up for and as a thank you sends him a pair of expensive Hermes teacups. The novel follows...
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...The internment of the Japanese American population was a dark chapter in American history that drastically altered the lives of generations of Japanese Americans. Generations after the war ended curious arose about the hardships experienced by the Japanese American’s in the relocation camps. The tales often unheard are of the Japanese first generation women, Issei, and the second generation Japanese Americans, Nisie, who directly experienced the drastic shift in gender role, education, and economic freedom. The first Japanese immigrants came to the United States in search for the American Dream and with them they “often brought the strongly patriarchal agrarian values and family roles of the old county with them” Charlotte O’Kelly and L.S. Carney stated in “Capitalist Industrial Society” (1968,...
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...Final Report Japanese Human Geography “Working mom” in Japan According to the Japan Times, in the recent survey, it is found that 40 percent of respondents in their 20s to 40s believe husbands should work full time while their wives stay at home. Of all the male respondents, more than 64 percent said women should concentrate on parenting while their children are very young, and surprisingly, female respondents who supported that view reached 71 percent. The number of total respondents was 3,616. The results are unexpected and surprising when we consider the current policy Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is working on, to increase the ratio of women in the workforce as part of his government’s growth strategy. He promised to create a better environment for women to exert their talents, saying their power is a vital engine of his economic policies. However, regardless of the current efforts Abe is putting on, current situation is apparently not good for women to continue working after childbirth. According to 2013 survey figures, about 3.15 million Japanese women who want to work remain unemployed and more than 60percent of the women surveyed said that they quit work after giving birth because of the lack of support for working mothers. Even though Japanese people are renowned with their mature sense of civic awareness, women’s right issues still remain a concern and living as a “working mom”, seems to be extremely tough especially in the contemporary Japanese society. In the society...
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...Introduction Within a traditional patriarchal society women are normally valued far less than that of a man. They are usually subjugated and oppressed in various ways both directly and indirectly within their given society and culture. The country of Japan is no different with its long history dating back centuries of female subjugation. However, recent generations of both men and women have been working to try and change that and director/producer/writer Hayao Miyazaki is one of these people. Within this paper it will be argued that Hayao Miyazaki is a cultural feminist and that he uses several of his animated films to de-popularize the cultural acceptance of oppressing and subjugating women, while simultaneously promoting new cultural views and the independence of Japanese women. Miyazaki has used such films as a dog of...
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...Study Questions for Exam 1, Fall 2012 Theme 1: The Japanese Family System, structure and functions Please remember to use your class readings when applicable to answer the following study questions. Where relevant, think which reading and /or video would illustrate your answer. Why is the family important to study? How have its functions changed and why? The family is important to study because it is the primary agent for socialization. It is the first unit that teaches the rules of society to children. One of the two social entities recognized universally, the other is religion. The function of family has changed over time because it has shifted from an extended family to more of a nuclear family. The functions of a family: Protection, affection, procreation, production, education transfer of status. What are the three important differences between family systems in East Asia and the United States? Explain each. 1. Confucian values- places emphasis on loyalty and obedience to the group and its leader, where the United states has individualism 2. Gender Inequality- In east asia there is a patrinlean and multi-generational system, with the inheritence rights traveling down the male line, where in united states its bi-lateral and emphasis is placed on nuclear family. 3. Demographic Transition- Change from high fertility high mortality to a low fertility and mortality rates causing an aging population. Same in US but there is more immigration to...
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...role of men and women in society? A lasting piece of literature is a work that accurately reflects the role of the people during certain time period eloquently. This is best perpetuated in the short novel Kitchen written by Banana Yoshimoto and the play The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. While the main characters Mikage in the novella and Gwendolyn in the play reflect the shifting role of women in the Japanese society and Victorian era respectively, Yuichi and Algernon, on the other hand, however reflects the role of men through unconventional means. Through subtle use of symbolism, Banana Yoshimoto and Oscar Wilde highlights to what extent these two characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in Japan during the 1980s. Mikage in the novella and Gwendolyn in the plays both follow the philosophy of women in the Japanese society in 1980s and British upper class in Victorian era respectively. The main character in Kitchen, Mikage, a young student living in Tokyo, is trapped between the traditional role of women in the Japanese culture and her desire for independence. To comprehend the context of the literature and the character portrayed, one should possess a thorough knowledge of the author, Banana Yoshimoto. The novel is written in 1988, in which Japan was in the midst of the longest economic boom it experienced since the World War II. Yoshimoto, who was in her early twenties, determines to reflect the juxtaposition between the Japanese traditional values...
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...and Japanese Cultures Culture plays a vital role in defining a group of people, helping to shape the way they live, the traditions they carry out, and how they’re viewed by others. That being said, cultures vary greatly worldwide; some customs that are normal to Americans may seem strange to those living in Japan such as entertainment in America and Japan, Respect for Women in American and Japanese Cultures, and The Individual in America and Japan. To begin with, American and Japanese cultures both place an emphasis on film and video as a form of entertainment. In America, it’s not unusual for the media to pay a great deal of attention to new film releases and upcoming television premiers. Similarly Japanese culture focuses on motion pictures for entertainment, mainly through the promotion of “anime,” the Japanese contribution to the animation industry. Much like animated Disney movies are prominent in American culture, anime films are a common appearance in Japanese culture. Anime films are so popular, in fact, that they’re even viewed in the United States, creating a link between American and Japanese culture. America and Japan may share similar interests regarding entertainment, but one must remember that the two countries are at opposite ends of the world, creating differences in the way people live in the two areas. Perhaps the greatest difference between Japanese and American culture is the fact that Americans seem to have more respect for women, while...
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...William Prado Professor Solis HST 301 OL 11/19/2014 The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema The Golden age of Japanese cinema started in the mid-1940s and lasted approximately 30 years to the end of the 1960s. It was a period marked by the end of the war that saw the defeat of Japan by America and her allies. The destruction that Japan faced with the twin bombings had left the country shaken to the roots and the young men and women wanted to find something useful to keep them busy. They found the cinema. With the advancement in technology, film directors such as Akira Kurosawa took the center stage with films that tried to teach people about harmony and restoration. Most of the films in the golden age focused on the need to prevent war and bring people together as one unique society through the preaching of peaceful coexistence. This research, therefore, focuses on the Seven Samurai film that was directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1953. Through the film, we hope to understand the concepts of the golden age of Japanese Cinema, as well as its characteristics (Tezuka 47). Seven Samurai is a war film that depicts the struggle that human beings go through in search for freedom and emancipation. It also reveals the post war effects on the society and tries to persuade people to coexist peacefully without causing chaos (Fischer 1-65). The film directed by Akira Kurosawa and produced by Sojiro Motoki, stars Toshiro Mifume, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima and several other individuals who...
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...Today, the voices calling for women's participation in society have increased significantly. However, our society still cannot escape from the idea of male being centered. Prejudice on women stemming from sexual discrimination can easily be found in many parts of society. However, Japanese women have played a complex and at times powerful role in pre-modern and early modern society and politics With the establishment of the ancient ruling country, the political power of male supremacy became firmer and the consciousness of male supremacy gradually dug into society. The patriarchal family influenced Japanese society in the middle ages. As a result, the women’s right of inheritance in property got weakened. The sexual subordination of the wife began, and there were also prostitution that did not exist in the past. In the modern time, the mainstream in family was the married couple and their immediate children or parents. Only men could represent household called as ‘ie’, which can mean either a physical home or refer to a family’s lineage and women only played the role of producing a child. Women who were totally excluded from the position of a government and economic official were forced into masculine Confucian morality. In addition, Sankin Cottai system,...
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...the total population are urban dwellers which are ideal for our product. A highly urban population eases promotional tasks by having access to the population through major cities rather than rural area. Out of the approximately 127.5 million people who reside in Japan, 99% are literate and 66.4% work in the service industry. This goes to show us that their employees are well educated and generally earn a good income which goes to show they can afford to spend more. According to a recent survey by the World Tourism Organization, the Japanese take 25 days per year off for vacationing. This is ideal for Bombardier, as our water crafts are primarily going to be used during vacation time (personal use or through resort). In terms of spending at households with two or more persons, a relatively large percentage of spending is towards culture & recreation which is advantageous to our company as our product is for recreational use. The Japanese spent an average of 32,800 Yen on culture & recreation. Furthermore, spending on “durable & semi-durable goods” have been growing faster (3.1 %)...
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...market and further gave women within Japanese society who read Shojo manga a sense of exemplification and ‘an air or authenticity’. This was an important mark within Japanese society, because it very closely related to the rise of femininity within Japan, as there were not many female artists before or after the World War. In came the era of the 1970s, and many female artists appeared to express their opinions by manga; their work met the demands of Japanese girls to read manga written from the female point of view. The development of manga had portrayed reality quite well, and sales within these girls’ magazines skyrocketed. As female artists maintained and developed more individuality within their art, Shojo manga in turn depicted the social roles and reduced responsibility that Japanese women had in society. Many of these magazines ‘pushed the envelope’ within society, as many of the relationships created within the stories were doseiai, or same sex romances. The writing and imagery reinforced a “visual of monotony, as many of the characters had similar facial features, and wore identical school uniforms as they struck similar poses”. These represented young Japanese girls’ close, adoring bonds with their female cohorts within their school life, as artist Jun’ichi Nakahara further wrote that the similarities of the characters emphasized “sentiment and the exploration of interiority.” This gave many young girls a sense of unity as it questioned societies’ expectations of an...
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...focuses on asylum seekers and refugees, but there are other groups of displaced persons. This paper will look at trafficked people, particularly on Korean comfort women during the Imperial Japan times, from the years 1931 to 1945. Comfort women are females who were forced into sexual slavery during the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, to provide sexual services to the Japanese Imperial Army troops so to improve the morale of Japanese soldiers (Lynch, 2009). The focus is placed on Korean comfort women as 80% of comfort women in Japan are Koreans (Soh, 1996). It was estimated that 160,000 Korean women were coerced into sexual slavery (Lee & Crowe, 2015). This research aims to investigate the impacts of forced migration on the lives of Korean comfort women. This paper postulates that the impacts of forced migration on the lives of Korean comfort women spans across three areas. Physically, Korean comfort women suffer from violence and injuries, sexually-transmitted diseases, as well as infertility. Mentally, they suffer from severe mental distress and lifelong trauma. Lastly, from the social aspect, Korean...
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...form of decision making. Anything that breaks the harmony of a relationship is terribly wrong. Negativism is bad, which explains why the Japanese have such a difficult time saying no in almost any circumstance. Furthermore, a lack of impoliteness is a form of discord and therefore shunned. Japanese strive for total professionalism in whatever they do. All tasks are taken seriously and normally are done with careful dedication. Employees at all levels are expected to seek perfection. This is true even in lower grade positions. The general rule is that there is only one way of doing a job properly and it will be followed. Zen Buddhism encourages this view, seeing the world in terms or either right or wrong. A person should not be wishy-washy and fudge things, but do things properly. If a foreigner does something the right way they might see it, but if the foreigner does it the wrong way you can guarantee that they will notice it at once. In Japan, training and education are highly valued, as is the quest for professionalism and perfection. Training and retaining of workers is a constant feature of many Japanese firms. Saruta, M. (2006). The Toyota Way and Labour Management. Asian Business Management, 5(4), 487-506. Retrieved from Liberty University Library Website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.abm.9200198 2 The Japanese people usually regard their culture as unique, but it is surprisingly eclectic and open to outside influences. The written language came...
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...that technology expert Hideko Kunii, 66, will join the board, and Issao Mizoguchi, a Brazilian of Japanese ancestry, has been appointed operating officer. These appointments require shareholder approval at the June meeting of the establishment. The company has come under fire in Japan does not advocate any person other than Japanese men. Honda officials clearly stated that Kunii was chosen is because her’s ability and she is the right person but not because of the gender issue. Among Japanese companies, Nissan Motor Co., allied with Renault SA of France, has been the most progressive in promoting diversity. However, this has not yet appointed a woman to its board of directors. Placing women in leadership positions is a motive of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies to rescue the moribund Japanese economy. Japanese society is expected to lose its potential for growth and innovation, if it does not do more to encourage women to enter the labour market, because its population is aging and shrinking. This is because Japanese is a high masculine culture country which the society is driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner in field. This culture make women hard to climb up the corporate ladders in Japan with their masculine norm of hard. Women say the difficulties of finding proper child care as well as cultural expectations about women doing housework making it difficult to significantly pursue a career in...
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...According to Kumiko Saito, Japanese girls have thought about gender roles in the society inspired by those magical girl animes, which is “a mainstay of television animation programming that distinctly targets female prepubescent viewers” (144) after World War 2. The main topic of animes after World War 2 is heroism story. When people read those stories, they found there exists a big gap between Japanese women and female characters in manga. Sally the Witch（1966-68）, the first magical girl genre anime, describes a story about a magic princess’ adventure in the human world and how Sally finally finds her responsibility. The magical world represents the traditional values like “[a] family consisting of an authoritarian father whose values are...
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