If you are a girl in Japan reading this, chances are you are already very familiar with this phenomenon. You meet another Japanese girl, who seems as though she may want to be friends. While you’re making small talk with her, one of the first things she will ask you (if not the very first) is this: “Do you have a boyfriend?”
The flow of this conversation is pretty predictable. If you say “No”, it’s “But why not? You’re so pretty!” If “Yes”, it’s either “Urayameshi!! (I’m jealous)” or “How is he?” A Japanese girlfriend of mine tells me that this is kind of a way to facilitate conversation—it either leads to a compliment or a new topic of conversation—but that she doesn’t like to use it because it’s a bit shallow.
I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen in America, but one of the first things I’ve picked up on after coming to Japan is that Japanese girls seem to have boyfriend fever. I’ve been wondering about it ever since I got to Japan, and I think there’s much more societal pressure for girls to have boyfriends in Japan than in America. Again, I don’t mean to say that there isn’t pressure in America. There certainly is. But it seems to be so much more pronounced in Japan. There is so much pressure not to be alone on Valentine’s Day, on White Day, on Christmas.
In addition, Japanese boys seem to have much higher, and more specific, standards than their Western counterparts as a generalization—it’s not just “I like blondes” or “I like cute girls”, it’s “I like a girl of this height, no more than this specific weight, who wears heels about four inches high and wears this specific fashion”. Which, in turn, leads to my next point: beautiful, interesting Japanese girls with depressingly low standards when it comes to men—particularly Western men.
Are you familiar with this comic strip? It’s not so far-fetched—I’ve seen rather awkward, plain guys, who would draw little to no attention in America, surrounded by Japanese girls who should be far out of their league. Not all Japanese girls prefer gaijin boyfriends, but many do. In Christine Tan’s article on China Smack, she describes the phenomena of Asian girls with white boyfriends and gives a list of the reasons Asian women give for this, which rang eerily true to what I’ve heard from several Japanese girls; Asian boys aren’t romantic, they aren’t fun, White men are better looking, etc., etc.
Karen Kelsky also discusses this in her article “Gender, Modernity, and Eroticized Internationalism in Japan”, in which she suggests that Japanese women see Western boyfriends as a gateway to travel, freedom, and work opportunities without Japan’s unfortunate glass ceiling when it comes to women.
It’s not my place to suggest that they do otherwise, but it seems to me that this method of self growth leaves girls still dependant on a man. As a feminist, I can’t help but wish that girls of every nationality could stop defining themselves by whether or not they have a boyfriend.
Sources:
Kelsky, Karen (1999) "Gender, Modernity, and Eroticized Internationalism in Japan." Cultural Anthropology 14 (2): 229-255.
Links:
http://diaspora.chinasmack.com/2011/malaysia/christine-tan-asian-women-with-white-men-suck.html --Christine Tan's excellent article on Diaspora
http://translate.google.co.jp/translate?hl=ja&sl=en&u=http://www.charismaman.com/&ei=XBe5TvO-G6TJmAXf7J2fCA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcharisma%2Bman%26hl%3Dja%26gbv%3D2%26rlz%3D1R2GGLL_en%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D578%26prmd%3Dimvns --The one, the only, Charisma Man!
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/20/11-asian-girls/ --For a more humorous viewpoint, Stuff White People Like.
You are attempting to cover quite a lot in such a short post. Interesting stuff but more specific examples would make for stringer posts.
ReplyDeleteI think you are missing one original photo.
For more on this subject, check out Kelsky's book - "Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams" (2001, Duke University Press).
Unfortunately for us western men, most Japanese girls nowadays do not SHOW interest in having a western boyfriend (or any other gaijin man). I have been told that they USED to, until the 90s, but not now. I focus on show there because, at a rough guess, I would say that around 30 or 40% of Japanese women have some moderate to high interest in having a gaijin boyfriend - but very few actually do anything about it. Meaning they don't show that interest, they dont go up to a gaijin man, they dont ask to exchange contact for for a date...for the most part. I would say that less than 10% of Japanese girls make an active effort to find a gaijin boyfriend. Which means, of course, that 90% do not. So, we can't really say that something is a major trend, if 90% of people dont do it!
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