Summer Lessons: A course in Cultural Understanding Part 1

Every so often, something gets announced in Japan that raises a few eyebrows in the West. It mostly has to do with sex, a topic where our cultures seem worlds apart. You get two basic responses when these strange titles come up. The first is one of condescension and ridicule. The second is one that can be summed up as “they’re Japanese, you wouldn’t understand”. Neither one of these responses has ever really satisfied me, so I set out to try to understand why things like Summer Lessons exist and I just want to point out some of the things that potentially explain the phenomena. To do that, I have to start with an explanation of the things that shaped the attitudes of the people today. So we start out with a bit of history.

Japan once famously sought isolation from the rest of the world, particularly the Western World under a policy known as Sakoku which started around 1639. Then, in 1858, Commodore Mathew Perry landed/invaded and demanded/negotiated/encouraged change – and boy did things change. The shogun, who were in charge during this “surrender” were criticized as being weak and eventually were ousted from power to make way for the Meiji restoration in 1868.
The Meiji restoration saw power restored to the Emperor and the adoption of a modified version of the Bushido code to indoctrinate the population into an attitude of unquestioning obedience and allegiance to the emperor (considered a god) and the nation. The most important aspects of the new code were those of honor and loyalty and life itself was thought to be cheap is those ideals were at stake. It allowed for a militarization and centralization of power around the emperor that led them into World War 2.

Why does any of that matter? Well, the Japanese lost the war (spoilers), and the people set about to re-build the nation. During this time, that sense of Meiji ultra-nationalism was put to work and one form it took was that of the salary-man, which existed before the war, but took on a different identity post-war. There’s a lot of variation in the definition of the term salary-man in Japan, but a few key elements seem pervasive. One of those was and still is, the obscene number of work hours that they are expected to put in. These guys are usually recruited straight out of university, and are set to work 16 to 20 hour days as a norm, with a lot of that in the form of unpaid overtime. Some report up to 80 hours of unpaid overtime a month.

Now, to prop up this exploitation of its workforce, women were expected to stay at home and take care of the children and household. A woman could have a career or a family, but not both. In fact, a woman with children who chose to work was considered as oniyome, or "devil wife". Even today, around 70% of Japanese women leave their jobs after their first child. These women were effectively single mothers and would sometimes only see their husbands on weekends, since many workers choose to stay in the city in those capsule hotels instead of commuting. They were effectively single mothers with a good but not great income. The system bred a culture of isolation between the sexes that would later have significant repercussions.
Very few children are born out of wedlock in japan, and relationships are generally expected to progress towards marriage. In Japan, 2% of all children were born outside wedlock in 2005 compared to 43 per cent in the UK (2005) and 43 per cent in the United States (2004). Pre-marital sex is frowned upon to say the least. In 2013, photos of pop star Minami Minegishi surfaced that showed her staying the night at her boyfriend’s apartment. When she realized this, she chose to shave her head - a traditional act of contrition in Japan – and beg for forgiveness. She was a founding member of AKB48, but was immediately demoted to trainee level because of the incident. So yeah pre-marital relationships are heavily frowned upon. In fact, another pop star in the same group, was similarly demoted for just having a boyfriend. They are not allowed to date as the group want to project an image of youthful purity and innocence. Just to underline the glorious hypocrisy and inconsistencies involved here, take a look at a candy ad done by this very same group and hence condoned by its managers. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

I’ll give you a moment so that the blood can re-circulate. Ok, let’s continue. The point is that publicly, the moral code or standards that govern relationships between men and women has not changed over the years, as it has in other parts of the world. You can’t openly date for a few years and then finally settle down in your 30’s as is the norm in the west. It’s all or nothing, and more and more, people are choosing nothing.

The choices for women are not great. They either live on their own with the freedoms of a single person (trying to have secret short-lived relationships), or they live an isolated existence with the responsibilities and stresses of raising a family on a single paycheck. Many women are choosing the former, and understandably so. Many blame a mix of that Mieji-influenced salaryman culture, lack of job security, increased living expenses, natural disasters and strict traditional values for propagating a culture of isolation and exasperation that has led to many of the problems Japan faces today. What problems you ask?

Many women have chosen to forego not only marriage, but relationships and sex altogether. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. A 2013 survey by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women and 25% of men aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". Japan's Institute of Population and Social Security reports an astonishing 90% of young women believe that staying single is "preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like”. An average of 1.39 children born per Japanese female - a rate of 2.1 is needed to simply maintain the population. They are in the midst of what Japan's media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome" where the young population is declining.

The current population looks like this
Age structure: 0-14 years: 13.2% (male 8,681,728/female 8,132,809)
15-24 years: 9.7% (male 6,429,429/female 5,890,991)
25-54 years: 38.1% (male 23,953,643/female 24,449,655)
55-64 years: 13.2% (male 8,413,872/female 8,400,953)
65 years and over: 25.8% (male 14,218,655/female 18,531,653) (2014 est.)
So don’t expect those console sales to improve unless you bring content aimed at adults – that 25 -54 age category. I think that is what Sony and their counterparts are hoping to do with Morpheus and those dating sims.

continued in part 2