27.01.02

sher-li's halfway through her teach-english-in-japan stint and sends an email on her observations of japanese women...

From: Sher-li Liew [mailto:sherliew@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 11:25 PM
Subject: Winter Update @ midJan 2002

ok. this is the last update for winter, friends. (NOT
A BIG FILE, so won't jam up your accounts like the
last one.hahaha)thanks for telling me you love my
emails :-) really feeds my ego...hahahaha

I shall not send any pictures of LOVELY ME or of
LOVELY WINTERY JAPAN(because, alto there are pictures
of both items, neither are very lovely at current
moment...heheheh)

What I am going to talk about is ROLE OF WOMEN IN
JAPAN

my reason for bringing up such a topic is cos, prior
to coming (as some of you know,) I swore I would not
be preparing the tea/ coffee for the teacher's room.
But last friday, I succumbed to my humble role as a
female in Japan.

Some background here: Women in Japan HAVE to prepare
tea for the others everyday. She will then bring
around a tray with the cups of coffee and serve them
to everyone saying :"Doozoo. Yonde Kudasai".... The
youngest has to do it. I have been spared this, cos
(i) I am a foreigner (ii) I make bad coffee/ tea

But, on friday, one of the male teachers (new baseball
teacher with a really handsome face and of a lovely
height) asked me if I could make the coffee. Turns out
that youngest-japanese-girl was absent.....so I made
my "coffee-debut". Judging by the strange expressions
on their faces, I dun think they are going to ask
Youngest-Singaporean-girl to make coffee again.

Some other things that I have observed to prove my
point about women's relatively low position here:
1)Women here tend to walk about 3 to 4 steps behind
their husbands/ bfs. At least, we are expected to.

2)In Kyoto, my friend and I witnessed that in buses,
the men would be sitting, and the women would be
standing next to him. (Them talking to each other made
us realise that they were a couple). I later checked
and confirmed that it is expected.

3) Many a times, we have seen a super-cool dude stride
happily down a street, while his female partner (blond
curls, high platform shoes), with a couple of shopping
bags hurrying after him......of course the high
platform shoes tend to slow her down quite a bit....

4) The word for HUSBAND in Japanese (which is Chinese characters is
'Zhu3 Ren2'. which means OWNER

5) Many of my japanese friends tell me that their
husbands/ bfs have ever cheated. And they say"Well, we
cannot do anything about it....Are you ok with it?"

6) My Canadian friend, Michael once told his pals that
he cooks for himself. Their eye came close to popping out....they told
him that Men should NOT enter kitchens.

7) I have been reading/ watching a bit about Japanese
History. The Heian period (about 1000 years
ago).....men had more than 1 wife...best deal? They
only had to marry one of them. The rest were
officially kept women.....My Japanese friend who told
me this had a wide smile on his face. He seemed pretty
upset that such a regulation was no longer available
in Japan. Blubber!

But then again, women do control the purse strings
after marriage.
And more importantly, this IS the country that
produced the likes of goodlookers like Takuya Kimura
and Aniki...and so on and so forth. Well, something
has to give right?

DISCLAIMER:
(a) I am not saying whether I agree or disagree with
all the abovementioned points. They are just things
that I have witnessed. (may or may not attempt to
do?!?!")
(b) NOT ALL JAPANESE MEN/ WOMEN ARE THE SAME
(c) I shall not hold responsibility for my male
friends who, after reading this, get themselves
attached to a lovely Japanese girl, who is NOT at all
like I mentioned. (there are always exceptions,
honey.)

ok. this is probably the most boring update from me.
(Well, what do you expect from someone who has
forgotten how the sun looks like and how hot air feels like....hahahah!
Kidding)

newly-promoted-to-coffee-maker-status,
SHER

"it's not to say that it's all very nice to have a culture that
subjugates women. but there must be something about jap women that
raises more than eyebrows. a few hundred million non-japanese men can't
be wrong." - vince.

"wateverrr.." - weelim