NEW Japanese girl, OLD japanese girl.

[Ageless]

Thankx for all your comments guys from the last post but now I`m pondering over something that maybe we can all relate to.

-Through forms of literature and assorted mass media, is there a changing of what people believe Japanese girls to actually be like??

Let`s consider: the image of the traditional Japanese girl who carries herself with grace and sensuality, plays some sort of musical instument and can talk about subject matter like the beauty of the arts, or traditional Japanese customs. A person who is bound more with nature, to be a part of it.

-Are we seeing a change of what we think a Japanese girl is like in modern Japan?
The girls who crave for indepedence, who rack up massive phone bills, the kinds who spend all their devoted time for material pursuits under an expensive `image` market.

-I think we all have some idea: That we carry in ourselves some idea of this `exotic` woman but how much, for you, has this been realised?

-How much of this view is dying with every passing day: For me, I used to carry a very different image, influenced alot by Japanese media, but I`ve woken upto reality. With hope, I still continue to believe that this `image` can still be found.

What do you think??
Peace!

[kurogane]

You want to check the dictionary for a definition of the word 'image'. While you are at it, look up 'delusion', 'rose-lensed romanticism', and 'pointlessly speculative ethnocentric stereotypical bullshit'.

" -I think we all have some idea: That we carry in ourselves some idea of this `exotic` woman but how much, for you, has this been realised?"

People who realise their pathetic delusions should be very very worried. Take them for what they are, not what you so imperialistically want them to be.
And Peace be unto you my wayward son.

[Ageless]

Ouch!

Kurogane, you may be right. But, I do say that their are definite characteristics to people from different cultures and backgrounds. And whether my delusions may be pathetic to you, they are still my own delusions and I`m trying to be honest about them. No, I don`t try to stereotype, but you may be right in saying that I should look at how things really are. But...it doesn`t hurt to think otherwise though,

Cheers.

[kurogane]

Sorry about the pathetic comment. I get tired of people coming here for their own reasons (which is fine), but then also expecting Them to behave according to a logic that accords with those imported reasons, rather than accroding to Their own. I see now you are not doing that, and having read your GF thread, I sympathise.

Thnaks for taking the pearls out of the sh%t. I do strongly disagree that "that there are definite characteristics to people from different cultures and backgrounds", but on a technical level, not an emotional one.

Which is to say, we all know the Jpn (and Bulgarians, and Azerbhajanis, etc.) are different from Us (whoever we are). My point is that culture and socialisation do not determine personality or behaviour. They are the idiom, but not the grammar. The tendency, of which They themselves are guilty, to stereotype Jpn culture and personalities according to a rigid and pre-ordained set of disturbingly narrow categories is a result of the improper application of a scientific mindset and mode of analysis to a problem that is irreducibly non-scientific (in the experimental method sense of science). The categorisation into these narrow categories, and our subsequent understandings of "Their Definite Characteristics", is a result of our own analytical insufficiencies rather than a meaningfully acccurate description of the Way that They Are. Their varieties and diversity can never be understood by looking at them through too narrow a perceptive or analytical range.

Anyways, a thought to chew on (and spit out if ya like)
:=)

[spacegrrrl2012]

"Let`s consider: the image of the traditional Japanese girl who carries herself with grace and sensuality, plays some sort of musical instument and can talk about subject matter like the beauty of the arts, or traditional Japanese customs. A person who is bound more with nature, to be a part of it. "

*this* is what people think about japanese girls??? wow. that's not how i would have stereotyped them at all.

[TX]

"Are we seeing a change of what we think a Japanese girl is like in modern Japan?
The girls who crave for indepedence, who rack up massive phone bills, the kinds who spend all their devoted time for material pursuits under an expensive `image` market."

That's as good a definition as anything I can come up with. We all crave something, and mass consumption seems to be the way the cravings of Japanese women seem to manifest themselves. It's not "negative" - it just is.

If a girl is with you, it's because you are the bridge to the things she wants out of life. Yes, you may be a free language teacher, a fashion accessory, or a bank account - or all of the above. That's just how it is.

Better to accept reality that to believe this:
"... traditional Japanese girl who carries herself with grace and sensuality, plays some sort of musical instument and can talk about subject matter like the beauty of the arts, or traditional Japanese customs."

[Mandrake]

"Let`s consider: the image of the traditional Japanese girl who carries herself with grace and sensuality, plays some sort of musical instument and can talk about subject matter like the beauty of the arts, or traditional Japanese customs. A person who is bound more with nature, to be a part of it. "

Say no more, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

I think Surf Board is pertinently pertainingly evidencially relevant to the matter under hand stereotypingly.

But what is the sound of one Surf Board slapping against the waves?

[kurogane]

波の音　　？？

[Code Rot]

Kurogane got it right, though with typically turgid prose.
Stereotypes are at most only a very limited two-dimensional representation of reality.
I think stereotypes are true, to a limited extent -- for example, Japanese culture is steroetyped as being mournful, suicidal, fastidious, fatalistic, insular, etc.
This is true -- but there is so much more to Japan than this!
If you want to understand Japan (or any country), I think the best thing is to have an open mind.
You could spend your whole life here, and still not understand what Japan is. There is simply too much to digest. The same goes for every other country on the planet.

"Let`s consider: the image of the traditional Japanese girl who carries herself with grace and sensuality, plays some sort of musical instument and can talk about subject matter like the beauty of the arts, or traditional Japanese customs. A person who is bound more with nature, to be a part of it. "

I don't think anything has changed at all, only the technology. The Japanese girl still carries herself with grace and sensuality, but now she is wearing high-heel shoes and jeans with a keitai phone sticking out of the back pocket. She might not play a musical instrument but she is well versed about Disneyland, Snoopy and the shopping conditions in Ginza, Shibuya and other such places. Japanese culture has evolved. A lot of people might look down on modern Jaoanese culture (all the Hello Kitty! and Snoopy references), but this is the way it is, This is the real Japan.

[sincity]

I'm sure almost everyone has been asked at least one of the following questions by their Japanese friends or acquaintances:
"What do you think about Japanese women?"
" Do you like Japanese women?"

To the latter question, I always answer: "No, not particularly. "
But then I qualify that by saying women are women, regardless of their nationality. I just happen to live in a country where 99 percent of the women are Japanese. Don't have much choice but to like them...

The former question (and perhaps the one more relevant to this thread) is a trap. Your Japanese friend or acquaintance is inviting you to stereotype Japanese women (just like Ageless is, but for different reasons).

Keitais? Disneyland? Hello Kitty?
Your best defense is silence. Or tell me what your girlfriend smells like, how she sleeps, and how she makes you feel. That I might believe...

[kurogane]

Turgid? Ouch. ;)

[FLCL]

My wife paints her face while and sits in the corner playing her koto in a kimono until I demand sake, at which point she rushes away on her knees without speeking to fetch me all I desire. However at weekends she gets the train down to shibuya dresses up like a space cowboy and plays those dance machines in the arcagde while buying cute plush toys and giggles into her mobile phone (with loads of wierd **** hanging off it).
Before I met her she was an OL.

[encephalon]

Just a quick comment on being asked sincity's 'two questions'.

I haven't been asked those exact questions, but I have been asked variations of them.

I sometimes get asked "Are you looking for a Japanese girlfriend or a Foreign girlfriend?" by Japanese men. This question isn't so much a trap, I think, as just curiosity.

I sometimes get asked "What do you think of Japanese women compared to American women?" by Japanese women. Yeah, probably a trap.

This answer seems to be fairly safe for both questions. That is, the answer they want to hear. "Both are OK, but many American women are a little rough." The Japanese word I use for "rough" is "ararashii".

I hate to perpetuate a stereotype, but working in a very Japanese environment (Jr. High School), I can't really afford to be honest...

An answer a friend suggested to me was "Japanese women are shorter."
I think I might use that one from now on...