Keep in mind, some of what I wrote was based on personal observations and sharing notes with other people - Japanese and non-Japanese. And some of what I wrote is based on a collection of people who have critiqued Japanese society, from Edwin Reischauer and beyond. Unlike the immutable Laws of Physics, my observations and opinions are subject to analysis, interpretation and criticism.
Quoting your two posts out of order, let me start by noting 1) that the sources of my comments are essentially the same, as are their limitations, and 2) that we are largely in agreement on this topic. Re #2, I will only add comments and perspectives and perhaps slightly different emphases to what you have said. There is nothing in it that looks "wrong" to me or disagrees with my own experiences and information.
Wwanderer, my friend, I know that you are engaged in a struggle to describe a phenomenon here and it can be difficult. One of the first rules of aesthetics is: “Once you describe something, you are no longer describing it.”
Right. As I said in an earlier post, "submissive" was the best I could do for something so subtle in one word. You have done much better...though in many more words!
But let me reply to your quoted aphorism/koan about "describing", with an often repeated comment about Japan (sometimes attributed to Reischauer...but I've never checked):
"After you spend 6 days in Japan, all of its mysteries and culture will seem clear and understandable to you; after 6 weeks there, you will understand that you have no idea at all what is happening around you; in 6 months, you will have learned enough to feel that you are beginning to penetrate the mysteries of this strange land; and by the time 6 years have passed, you will have given up the hope of ever really grasping the Japanese." (This is only a rough quote, a paraphrasing really.) That strikes me as a bit over the top and an exaggeration, but it is a good perspective to keep in mind when trying to "explain Japan" to other gaijin...and better still for them to remember when listening!
Once again, I think these differences are based on the Confucian and Buddhist roots of Asian cultures. In Thailand, Korea and Japan, there are linguistic differences in terms of male and female usage and vocabulary. Female usage in the three languages of those countries is softer and sweeter. Male usage is rough-and-tumble.
I VERY much agree that it is best to try to understand the fundamentals of male-female relationships in a cultural and linguistic context, as you indicate. Otherwise it is like, say, trying to understand spark plugs or steering wheels without knowing anything about internal combustion engines or cars...just hopeless without the context. True of many other topics as well.
I am also reminded of two people I know, both utterly "native-speaker" fluent in English and equally in a rather different foreign language (Korean in one case, Greek in the other) due to growing up partly in the US and partly abroad. Both say that they have dramatically different personalities in their two languages, that they feel almost like a different person when they talk to a native English speaker vs a native speaker of their other language. It is a cliche', but perhaps an under appreciated one, that our native language controls not what we think, but rather *how* we think.
A buddy of mine was walking around Tokyo with his Japanese girlfriend when they happened upon s shop whose window featured a poster of a very cute J-Girl (I know, I know, that’s redundant) in a bikini. How did his gf react when my buddy gravitated toward the poster? His gf tugged on his arm and sweetly said, “Don’t be boring!” And it worked. He was fine.
A good story and example. I'll bet you could give many others because they are so common. I know I could. If I gave a full account of how I ended up in the unusually themed love hotel room that started this thread, it too would be an example. For a variety of reasons (privacy, brevity, simplicity) my telling made it sound as though she simply suggested the place and took me there (which would have been fine with me, actually). In reality and, I suspect, instinctively she maneuvered me there in a way that made me feel "in control" or "dominant" through the whole process...
An American woman that I know, who has lived as an expat in Tokyo for decades and knows the language and culture as well as any gaijin I've ever met, explained it to me best. She said that for Western women, their man is like powerful stallion which they ride by holding themselves in place with saddle and stirrup while controlling his behavior through constant struggle with reins, bit, crop and perhaps spurs...a contest of wills. For Japanese women she said that their man is also like a powerful stallion, but they ride bareback (heh!) and control with gentle pressure from their legs, stroking the horse's neck or whispering in its ear and by pampering it with food and grooming and companionship. In other words they "persuade" the horse to make pleasing them its own will. She says, and I can see it to be true, that she has done it both ways and that the second is both more difficult (for her, at least) and more rewarding. I think it is a really good metaphor.
This seems to me to be a good place to add the caveat that these are generalizations. I am sure that there are Japanese women who are more the saddle and crop type and American women who are masters of the gentle bareback technique. However, the generalization has a lot of validity in my experience and opinion.
An American girl might have subjected such a guy to a diatribe about the objectification of women, male oppression, etc. An American girl might Read The Riot Act to such a guy....
I remember growing up with the tyranny of the Women’s Liberation Movement....
As we proceed in our present culture with Hillary, Rosanna, Rosie, Whoopi and Oprah wagging their fingers at us, we are the ones expected to be submissive.
That’s yet another reason why I like J-Girls, who have exposed the G-7 and the world to what the American Fem-Nazis refer to as “unrealistic standards of thinness and beauty."
I guess that this is the part of your post with which I least agree, again not that I think it is wrong, per se, but just that I wouldn't choose to contrast Japanese male-female relationships particularly with extreme modern Western feminist "models". The latter is simply too nuts, too recent, too shallow, too theoretical and too politically motivated to make sense or work in the real world. It would be fairer to contrast the Japanese form of relationships to some more conventional/traditional Western one...which, whether worse or better, at least can (and very often does) work and is based on a long evolution and rich cultural history. I think the saddle vs bareback riding metaphor is closer to the mark. The extreme Women's Lib version of "relationships" is more like the rider breaking the horse's legs with a hammer and then beating it for failing to carry her around on its back. Anything that works at all looks better by contrast.
And, to conclude on a happy note, I have at least two more trips to Tokyo coming up this year!
-Ww
