Megumeru wrote:
Insulting you when you visit? Normal. Very normal--I can say tame even. When I visit my girlfriend's house two months ago for the first time, her father took me to his study room to show his prized armor and a Naginata before talking about my own plans in the future. There's another world outside the US where you're not allowed to go totting guns everywhere and parents are not this submissive thing that you discard to house cares when you grow old.
As long as they're alive here, they have authority over you. And if they want to measure you whether or not you're on qualify to trot along with their daughter, it's the most nerve-wracking thing you can experience and it all depends how well you cope with it--almost like a measure of strength.
They soften up in time, don't worry.
I don't think the Japanese are horrible to be a bit like that, and I don't find Jigoro so horrible too (Even if I think it's a bit more serious than "Be passive-aggresive with the boyfriend of your daughter", his way of being is not totaly right but I think it's more he has some problems than he is a jerk but I see what you want means when you said it's absurd to contest ou want to change your father-in-law) but it is not a bit sexist ? a girl need more the approval of her parents than a son and is less free in her life than a men ? not only the Japanese are like that (Some westerners are like that too, and many other people in the world) but personaly I find it's somewhat of a remnant of the mentaly where a woman is not responsible for her life but is an eternal child who is went from the authority of her father to the authority of her husband.
It's just a mentality that I find very questionable and problematic, nothing to do with cultural intolerance (at least because I will question everyone who thinks like that no matter of his culture, and if his culture has really something I find wrong, well I would says that this thing in his culture is wrong, but I would have nothing against his culture itself
*) and I remind to you that you was the only one here to be insulting against an another culture(implied that westerners neglect their parents because they have an another opinion than you) where the others have critized Jigoro without cultural consideration.
I'm pretty sure that most japanase do that by tradition without being really opressive against their daughters, if we think about Jigoro : finally he quicly accept Hisao when he see that he is a good guy who loves Shizune and is loved by her, not necessarily more or less slowly and truly than many parents who have a facade of politeness (I really think that the brutal honesty of Jigoro may eventually finish to be easier to live with than the hypocrisy of some in-laws) and we can't say that he don't respect the freewill of his daughter. (He is even the kind of father who would be proud that Shizune has a career)
And even in the West, it's rare to don't be "evaluated" in some ways by his in-laws, if the shape appears to be different in the West than in Japan, how many people have problems because their in-laws don't like them ? especially before marriage ? it's very common everywhere in the world. (it's pretty funny to see how people judge the problems in the'foreign cultures, while most of these problems also exist to some extent at home : like many westerners tend to think that all foreigners are intolerants, when the majority of the westerners are still homophobic for example)
Yeah, it's totaly no japan or even asiatic-specific, but there is something inherently sexist in the fact that a man must "earn" the right to marry a woman against his father and that the woman must have the approval of her father, this means nothing less than that the girl is the property of his father and I see nothing paternal, protector or even "reasonable" in that.
Of course, I quite understand that it is better to don't destroy a family by not trying to please his in-laws and that they want to protect their childrens, but since a men generally need less the approval of his parents to "choose" his wife, it's more that a men is considered "free" since he is major but must convince the father of his beloved because she always depends on him socially and can't choose for herself like an adult men; and I often see that some families are more possessive towards their daughters than to their sons. (if strangely this kind of mentality is more usual in the family where there are only daughters, especially when they are only one or two daughters)
Sorry if the question is indiscreet, but what are the male/female role in a married couple in Japan ? the husband has many much more authorithy over his wife than the opposite ? have you the impress that a female must more often search the approvation of her parents or her husband to do something (to choose her studies, to works or to go out) than a men ? or it's just that japanese parents have many authorithy over their childrens of both sex even when they are adults ? (who could also be an questionable mentality if it's too exaggerated, but it's not the same thing and I think we, westereners, go sometimes too far in the opposite trend in how we treat our parents, it's a question of balance.)
For example : You said elsewhere that if you were the parents of Lilly, you would bring her back to Scotland and It doens't matter that she wants or not (although she is major in Scotland), but are you sure you would think the same thing if she was a boy ? and are you sure that trying to control the lives of your children once they are adults, even when you have misbehaved with them (like leave your childs during years partialy because one of them is disabled, I suspect it's more subtle but I think that's really what Akira thinks and not a dishonest exaggeration) and use shakedown to incite them (like doom the career of Akira if she refuse, and they would do certainly the same thing with Lilly if they would have influence in japan public education,ect...) to do what you want and almost kidnap her if she refuse while you pretended to give her the choice is RIGHT ? (In any case, it's not legal to force your major childrens to do something, and threats like stopping financial support when most young adults can't be financialy autonomous, are just abusive shakedowns and not the expression of a legitimous right, even if our society almost encourages them
*)
And are you sure that this kind of behavior is more motivated by the desire of protect our children than they filled our social expectations ?
And why don't admit that some parents are sometimes wrong ? what happens if you really love a woman (like you have never loved a woman before) and she loves you in the same way but their parents don't like you for some reasons (and some parents could reject a "pretender" not because they thinked he isn't not reliable or reasons like that but just because they don't appreciate him
* or think that their daughter deserves better whatever their daughter think...I even knew a girl whose her parents are determined to put her in a relationship with someone she don't like and admit themselves that her current boyfriend is a good guy but that they don't like him and will never accept him or any other pretender who they don't have chosen...sorry but sometimes it's not a desire of protect their child but a desire of posess their child and think that they knows better what is good for them than themselves combined with a total lack of empathy about what they feels, obiously you're forced to adapt more yourself to the elders than the opposite, but sometimes they are really wrong an it's impossible to lives if you blindly obey to them, and it's not limited to the datation : they are somes parents who just want to control everything in the life of their childrens and/or are just too irrationnal or even dysfunctional....in this case, must you obey to them ?) ? you give up all your passions, inspirations, desires, when you're confronted to the first social difficulty ? or you will try to change their mind about you because even when the chances are small, you cannot give up so easily when you really love someone ? what is a "puppy love" ? a love for which you can do "unreasonable" things (even if I think that fulfill always the social expactions whatever you really want isn't reasonable, but you see what i want mean), or a love which is boils down to social structures, and for which you will give up as soon as the opportunity to live a socially perfect and easy life is over ? you are sure to not only find a woman because that is what is socially required ? (I personally don't particularly want to get married because it is difficult to find a woman with whom I can live my whole life, and I don't want a woman I would barely endure and that I'll just have an agreement to fuck, have children and "live" with when I would not even want to be friend with if she was a men; no that I think it"s impossible but I think it's better to don't get married only to get married)
And I don't think it's a question of culture. (I think that it's a pretty universal conflict)
*And if they don't like him because bad reasons like they are racist and the pretender is a foreigner ? like parents who don't want that their white daughter marry a black men for example, they are still right for you ? (Or if you cant an example more close to you : a japanase woman in love with a gaijin, but her parents don't like him because he is a gaijin, i'm pretty sure that these situations exist in Japan because these situations exist eveywhere in the world.
)
It's a little like most people seems almost to despite the love between Romeo and Juliet and gives reason to their families when the "morale" of the play is that both were stupid and irrational and think that most people are stupidly romantic with this story when it's almost everybody despite Romeo and Juliet and forgives completly how their families were wrong too. (the Capulets and Montagues have horrible and irationial reasons to quarrel and to prevent the marriage; the secret mariage between Romeo and Juliet was a bad idea and the play finish badly only because Romeo was to quicly to act and kill himself; things might have been different if everyone were more reasonable)
Everybody thinks that everybody too much emphasis on the fact of live his love despite the constraints, when in fact it is the opposite ! everyone says they are better to abandon because the sentimental viewpoints are said too much, while everyone despite that and encourage to abandon quickly.
It's a good comparison because everyone is so insistent on the fact that one must be "reasonable", that children are too free and that parents are too lenient, when in fact almost everyone sacrificed their desires to be "socially acceptable", that many parents are abusive and possessive even after their children are grown up, ect ....(certainly many much more than lenient parents with lazy boomerangers, if the overrepresentation of them in the pop culture only exist for justify the abandon of the childrens in this actual economic crisis or when you're tired of them : if your childrens can't get a job or if you're failed to educate them, you can abandon them because you will not become a stupid lenient parent with a 30 years NEET, so you're more right than a non-existant cons-example)
(*and especially that our society offers no recourse to adult children who are victims of shakedown from their parents : young adults are highly vulnerable : it's almost impossible to study without financial support and generaly you must study if you want a good job, you must be resident for get a job, ect ...the abusive situations are very very many...when the "too laxist" family just have to have more authority; I don't even speak about how some parents could be legaly abusive against their childrens when they are still minors...and I don't think that "too laxist" families are a problem since most criminals come from abusive families and not from families too laxist)
They are a kind of anti-aesop that are common in culture only for be anti-example to alllow everyone to believe that they are reasonable and margins compared to an fictional and idealist majority; when it's in fact this bland behavior is what is exactly expected by the society who wants that we have the mentality of slave who is proud to don't be an idealist, it's the reverse psychology of the postmodern indoctrination. (like us to believe that the society is still in modernism, : makes us believe that submersives things are even when they are no longer since decades, makes us believe that today's mainstream is underground, makes us believe that what is tolerated for decades isn't tolerated for that everyone believes they are tolerant while they don't tolerate what is really not tolerated today,ect...)
*But I find problematic the argument "It's an another culture" to prevent criticism against what someone could find wrong in your culture/thinking, have a different culture don't allow you to be sexist, intolerant, hurt some people for respect a tradition or simply never question yourself.
But I understand that the West may seem hypocriticaly critic against the others cultures. (Yeah I think it's a great flaw of us, the westerners, maybe because we have the impress to rub a lot of tolerant people when the majority and the society itself isn't; but it would be the same with Japan and many countries in the world; if it's certainly exacerbated with us by some remnants of our hegemonic past : we cannot deny that most of the tolerant movements come from the West, but it's certainly partialy because we tends to think that our manner of doing things is better that what the others do; what is a good thing and a bad thing, a good thing if you can question your own culture and really do it for good reasons but a bad thing when you're hegemonic; like the will to preserve your own culture that many foreings cultures have is a good thing, but a bad thing when the "it's our culture" is involved to justify bad things in your manner of doing things and thinking)
Munchenhausen wrote:Zarys wrote:Nothing changes for Kenji, perhaps he is a little less happy without a neighbor to talk with.
I gotta say, I definitely think Kenji affected Hisao more than Hisao affected Kenji.
I think Kenji has no problems : he is just too depressed by losing his girlfriend and he know so well that he will no go to the unniversity to makes efforts socialy or at studying; if he found funny to troll Hisao.
