yuriのぶろぐ

Sexuality

2007-01-11T21:34:00.000-08:00

Sexuality
White mentioned in the book that sex is not mixed but compartmentalized. I had never thought about anything like this, but I could soon understand it. Japanese women tend to separate romance, sex, and marriage differently. My mother once told me that man for husband and boy friend who you just go out with are different. I could understand what she said because I knew that boyfriend just for fun might not be a good husband in the future. So that long time of love is the only way you can figure out if he or she is suitable for you to get married.
According to the news and information I got in school, the number of women getting married before 20 is increasing. I often hear horrible news about young girl who is only 16 or 17 years old who killed her child because she could not talk to any one about her pregnancy. She could not even talk to her child’s father because she said she knew his answer. I think this kind of accident could have prevented if they have used condom or if she had her parent’s support.
White mentioned about a major crime problem which schoolgirls prostituting after school to get money. I think those girl must have some problems that they can not tell anyone to talk to.
To sum up, condom is not 100 % sure for preventing from pregnancy and teens should think about something more important before they have sex. I think that sex is not for satisfying themselves but for something when two of mother and father who are really in love are responsible for having a baby.

Freindship

2006-12-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

Friendship

As White said in the book, Japanese teens learn about the friendship in three different ways, which are best friend, group friend and sempai-kohai relationship. To talk about myself, I had my first best friend in my elementary school. I could be myself in front of her, and I could talk to her anything I wanted to. For group friend, as White said, we just talk normally about school life or about our love story but not as deeply as I talk to my best friend. But we still hang out together for shopping, Karaoke and watching movies. For sempai-kohai relationships, I experienced since I entered high school because I spent my high school life in Japan. In Japan, I do not know why, but we have to use “keigo” to our sempai so there is always to distance between sempai and kohai. I spent my junior high school life in Beijing, and I went to international school so that I did not have to care about the sempai-kohai relationship and it was very comfortable. As we talked about the sempai-kohai relationship in the discussion in the class, we figured out that it is the way we speak that make sempai and kohai are in some way different. We use keigo to show respect and this keigo seems to be the keyword of difference between Japan and America. In Japanese school, there are always separated into several groups. It applies to both boys to girls. I was really confused when I came back from Beijing to find out the way Japanese make friends. I do not like the way Japanese think when it comes to making friends that they always tries to belong to a group and act like other group members to show they are friends. On the other hand, I have the image of American teen’ s friendship which is more comfortable. Because, they do not have any sempai- kohai relationship to think about. One of my friends said that it is natural to have friends who are younger than her. Japanese teens seem to be influenced by their friends. In White’s book, it mentioned about that there are some teens who are influenced by other bad friends who have drug and smoke. I have seen some in my high school so I believe what she said in the book.

Materealism

2006-11-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

Materialism

Marketing industry try to sell fashion magazines that include something teenagers would like to read. For example, putting about the trend, stress fortunes, horoscopes and some articles about music and films. In order to know what especially teens are interested in are seeing teen’s blogs and the comments from teens which are posted at the back of the magazines.
I think that the department store does not play that big role influencing teen’s fashion. I think that they are more influenced by popular artists and popular models on the magazines. I usually decide what kind of clothes should I buy before going to the department store by magazines and sometimes seeing pretty clothe worn by other people on the street.
I would add the name of the DVD/ VIDEO/CD rental shop called “Tsutaya” to this chapter. You will be able to find it anywhere. Tsutaya is very popular among Japanese teems. Maybe the reason why Tsutaya is popular is because Japanese teens soon get tired of the new CDs. In other word, new products seem to become out of date quickly which White mentioned too in this chapter.

The Material Child

2006-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

The Material Child
As the book says, recently teens in the US and Japan both participate in material culture. There are five factors mentioned in the book that tells us why we became interested in information and which led us to the material culture. Firstly, teens read, and this influenced people, and made information society. Secondly, we have got busy. Thirdly, we have got money. Fourthly, we have become to value friends, and lastly teens have been the target of the consumer.
I think that teens are the best target for marketing, because they are easily influenced by others. For example, many children tend to wear clothes that the people around them wear or some clothes in the magazines. Many Japanese teens tend to imitate others so that they do not have to feel any differences, or any feelings that they are left out. I can understand this, because I sometimes feel the same too.
The problems of this material culture are that they seem not to have the individualities of their own, and they might sometimes lose themselves. The other problem is that the media may mass-produce and can waste thing.
However, TV, Karaoke, magazines and manga have made our teen’s life more enjoyable. We are now surrounded by full of information, but I like this information society, because it is very convenient and we can always get what we want to.

School

2006-11-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

Recently, some childen suicided themselves because they had been bullied by their classmates. I was really shocked by this, because these kind of accidents started to occur after broadcasting the first news, and I guess many children started to think about dieing too.
Since these accidents, people have started to think about the problem in school, and often hear news on TV discussing the school in Japan. There are some cases which were not from the class mates, but from teachers that bullying happened. I think this is such a big problem, because teachers are supposed to teach children how to be a good people when they participate in the society in the future, but not supposed to teach them bullying. Teachers should notice earlier before children suicide themselves. The other day, when I was watching TV news, a child who had been bullied by their classmates in his childhood sent TV station a letter telling that his teacher helped him out of his hardtime by diary. He exchanged message with his teacher, and he told about everything, and he said that the bullying was no more happening after telling about it to his teacher. I was impressed by this teacher, realizing that there are also good teachers too even if these crual accident happening at the same time.
Truancy is as well a quite big problem I think in Japan. When we talked about the truancy, I heared that there are much less truant student in US than in Japan. Because there was at least one or two truant student in my school life, but not that much as I heared from Korean student in our class who graduated from American high school.
I often hear "ronin" in Japan, but I was surprised by the fact that it is much more open in America that people have a wide option of college and can try taking university entrance examination again even failing once.
I was also surprised that there are rules of forbidding guns or other weapon in US, which there is no such a rule in Japan.

Family

2006-10-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

There are 4 members in my family, dad, mom, older brother and me. Since everyone is busy doing their own stuff, we are unable to eat supper together. In my family, I really love my mom, because I can tell anything to her, and I think she is the one I can trust the most. She is really busy, because she goes out for playing tennis almost everyday
However I go out with my mom for shopping or watching movies at least once a month even if she is being busy. In my child hood, I did not help my mom with housework at all, but recently, I started to help with cooking for supper and cleaning up the plates, and sometimes clean up the whole house. I think I need to be more independent. I should not depend on my parents so much.
I do not like the way Japanese mothers become too strict with their children about the study. My mother does not, but I think some mothers in Japan are quite like this. This is going to be a big pressure on children. In White’s book, there are some children who can not decide things by themselves about their life, and I think that is also true
It was quite interesting to read White’s idea that Japanese mothers are good at psyching out their children so as to make children understand about them(wakaraseru). In a positive way, I thought this is quite true in Japan, that mothers know what motivates their children and what do not.
When we talked about the Family in the class last week, I thought that “Daddy’s Little Girl” is common in Japan as it is in America. But someone said that she does not agree with it, and I was convinced by others as I thought about the Family relationship in Japan now. Unfortunately, daughters tend to dislike their fathers in their adolescence in Japan, and mostly not in America. I wondered why that happened. Soon teacher told us clearly that it is because mothers in America are quite strict with their daughters, and that is why they go to their fathers! This was a good reason to understand about American family.

Hello everyone!

2006-10-16T23:58:00.000-07:00

My name is Yuri.
I'm a freshman in the Waseda university.
I belonged to the SILS department, and I study English everyday.
My hobby is watching movies, reading books and cooking!
I also love eating!!But at the same time, I am going on a diet too.^^
I especially love the movie called "NARNIA", which I saw this summer!
I belonged to a modern dance club in this university, and I enjoyed playing perfomance in Kobe this summer.
For my part-time job, I usually work at a small wagashi store near my house. What I work there is that wraping up the cookies and cakes, and putting powder sugar on the them.
I 'm looking forward to take this class, and I'm also glad to exchange information with you!

　私の名前は富田百合です！
早稲田大学の１年生です！私は国際教養学部に所属していて、毎日のように英語を勉強しています。
　趣味は映画鑑賞と読書と料理を作ることです。私は食べることが大好きです。けれど、ダイエットにも励んでいます＾＾映画は特にこの夏に見たナルニア国物語が大好きです！
　私はモダンダンスサークルに入っていて、今年の夏は神戸の大会に出場しました。
　アルバイトは、地元の小さな和菓子屋さんで働いていて、週に一度、ケーキやクッキーを包装したり、クッキーに粉砂糖をまぶしたりといった作業をしています。
　この授業を受けるのをすごく楽しみにしています。たくさんの情報を交換し合いましょう！