Sexuality

I did group work in sexuality one. We introduced one of the ways Japanese young meet boyfriends and girlfriends, 合コン(Gokon). As other country, Japanese also find boys and girls in school and in the places at part time jobs because they spend a lot of time there. However, Other special cases are 合コン, and 出会い系サイト(Deaikei-site) which was extremely popular a few years ago.
合コン is that we actually did (acted) in the DVD. It is a kind of party to meet new friends of opposite sex, or to find boyfriends and girlfriends. Mostly, one boy and one girl among the member already know each other. And each brings other friends who are unknown for their friends. Usually the number of boys and girls is the same. They go to 居酒屋(Isakaya), Japanese- style bar, or Karaoke to have this party. This style of party is popular for high school students a little, for college or university students a lot, and for adults a lot, too.
出会い系サイト is now decreasing, but it is still popular to some people . It is the web-site that give the chance to exchange the e-mail addresses each other in order to make friends and to meet them outside, who are mostly opposite sex. You can access to the sites by the Internet or by cell phone. Once, this fashion was a big social issue. That is because some people lied about themselves and met people and raped them. For example, mostly a man said about him a girl, e-mailed to a girl, and asked to go shopping or something. In that case, a girl didn’t worry about meeting strangers. Because of this kind of criminal, 出会い系サイトhave been decreasing. However, in spite of this issue, 出会い系サイトwas very very popular to large range of people and, it still exists.
In my opinion, these ways to meet people became to be popular in Japan, because of Japanese’ shyness. They are shy to make boyfriends and girlfriends in their familiar place like in school. So they look for partners in the place where there are no body who know them.

Chap.6 Friends

Friends are the most important thing for teens. Many look forward to going to school because they can meet their friends in school. So did I, when I was in elementary, junior high, and high school. I didn’t like studying but I was able to deal with studying because I was with my friends. of course, I do now, too. But one different thing is that I am willing to study. So now I go to university not only because I have friends there. However, I am enjoying a lot to have many friends who have the same interest in academically.
In this chapter, the most impressing part for me is “Friends and Lovers” section. It is true that friends and lovers are the most important thing for teens. Probably they can’t choose which one is more important. But sometimes they seem to think “love” is more important. I think having boyfriends or girlfriends is high status for teens. When they get, sometimes they hide about the fact but most of them want to show off about getting someone who loves them. So I couldn’t believe the story in the book that a girl was happy that her friends go out with the guy who she loves. I guess she actually envies her friends a lot and is angry little bit. In fact in this kind of situation, there are surely some conflicts. And it is also true that many are careful to choose a person who they become to love, avoiding a person who is the same person who his/her friends. If so, they surely hide about it because they don’t want to break their friendship.

Chap. 5 Material Child

Recent years, the marketing industries focus a lot on children. Compared with before, children have more money and more opportunity to buy things. So now the marketing research on children and try to attract them.
The marketing industry tries to get close to teens themselves, as this chapter says. To know about teens, they do research them by various ways. For example, NHK have the group that deal with teens. Also, in many magazines, the surveys can be seen. Actually, I have seen on TV a lot of people, especially teens, were interviewed in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Through this, the marketing industries are able to know about teens. Also, we all can have opportunity to know what is like teens in present.
The marketing industry also tries to shape trends and to influence teenager to buy things. Among the many ways, magazine is probably the most influence one. Fashion magazines introduce newest clothes in each fashion brands. Even they often say “you should but it.” “It’s the most popular in this shop.” or something. And usually in the Japanese fashion magazine have “shop list”. That is a list of shops whose closes or things the magazine introduces. It has shop name, address, and telephone number. That makes teens reach the products easily and want them as soon as possible.
These are the way the marketing industry deals with teens.

By the way, there is a lot of wrong information in this chapter. Especially in the part “new media”. Because the book is little bit too old, some of the information is out of date. Especially, telephone party lines no longer exist. Even, I have never heard of it. But, as seen in the definition of the “new media”, it seems to be replaced now by chat on the Internet. Each other’s faces cannot be seen, but they can talk with many people at the same time. They can be friends or can be strangers. Many teenagers try to find friends there and if they get alone with well, they may exchange phone numbers and meet each other.

Chap.4 School

　　This is the very interesting chapter because it directly relates to my life. Because school is the center of students’ life it is very important thing for both American and Japanese students. So there is very interesting to know each culture and to compare them.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of description of Japanese school but few American one. However, seeing the description of ourselves’ life style, I clearly understand and notice the difference from American.
At most I was surprised at the part of comparing two young teen in America and Japan. I felt that the description of Kenichi who is Japanese going to Japanese high school is exaggerating a little too much. He seems to be very busy and to be the poor boy who doesn’t have much his own time. It is not so bad to be Japanese students. It is true that they have quite a lot of homework on usually days and in summer vacation and that students are very busy doing club activities, but because they are hard, students can feel they grow up some way. When they overcome the trouble, they can have confident and tight relationship with friends who struggle to work together.
However, though I like Japanese school life, American school life is still seemed to more interesting. Seen as Jeff’s story in the book, many American students take part in summer camp or something. It is the thing I really wanted to try in my elementary school. Japanese really go out far away for a long tome and go to experience unusual life. It is absolutely fun for children and it is very valuable experience for them. When I have children, I want them to try such an experience.
In this chapter, it is very useful for understanding American school life and recoganizing what really Japanese students live in school.

After reading Chap.3 Family

I expected that American family quite the same as Japanese. Because they are the same human being and “family”, so I couldn’t image any different points. However, there are a lot of differences between two families. I was very surprised at that.
Of many unexpected difference, I am very interested in pressures on the young. The book is true about Japanese young have a lot of pressure of academic. Probably, the pressure is greater now. There are few students who study for the entrance examinations without going to cram school nowadays. Even many elementary school students go to cram school to get to good junior high school since they are 3rd grade. On the other hand, American young have social and economic pressure. They are expected to be independent in early days. Japanese also have the same situation, but it’s very different levels. And, in Japan, there are a lot of young students who “want” to be independent as early as they can somehow. Japanese parents are care about their children’s academic skills because of worried about children’s future. Then the parents pay their school fee until their children graduate from universities or colleges. I’ve heard that lots of American student pay for university by their self. However, I didn’t know they are under great pressure.
The relation between parents and children is very difficult in any countries. But it is interesting that there are various kinds of the relations in each.

はじめまして☆彡

最初の投稿なのでちょっと緊張している、直子ちゃんです。
あっ、はじまして、宮葉直子（Miyaba Naoko）と申します。
ただいま、早稲田大学国際教養学部１年の２０歳です。
２Bの授業のプロジェクトということで、このブログを作ってるわけですが、
授業という感覚はなく、とても楽しんでこの授業＆ブログに臨んでます！
たぶん、このブログはあたしの個人的な日記・ブログになる可能性が高いですが、ｆ（＾＾；）
こんなあたしの行動・言動でも、一人の日本人として、「こんなJapaneseもいるんだなぁ」って
少しでも理解していただいたら、幸いです♪
これから、よろしくお願いします。

ここで、もう少しあたしの自己紹介をしときたいと思います！！

名前・年までは発表しましたよね？
じゃぁ、あとは見やすいように箇条書きにしてみます。

　　住まい・　　埼玉（大学には電車で１時間かけて通ってます。）
　　　　　　　　　両親・７つ上の兄と実家暮らし。
　サークル・　　スキー
　　　　　　　　　（３歳くらいから、スキーはやっています。今年の冬は１ヶ月ほど合宿に行く予定です♪）
　　　趣味・　　　映画鑑賞・読書
　　　　　　　　　（映画は毎日のように見てます。洋画のホラーや恐いのが好きです。）
　　　　　　　　　（本は今、村上春樹と吉本ばななに、はまってます。）
　　バイト・　　　塾で数学と英語の先生＆パン屋さん。
　　　　　　　　　（映画館でのバイトも過去に経験。）
中学時代・　　吹奏楽部所属（サックス担当。）
　　　　　　　　　優等生（笑）
高校時代・　　チアリーディング部所属
　　　　　　　　　成績最悪（笑）
　　　　　　　　　１年アメリカのオレゴンに留学。
　その他・　　　猫大好き！！（昔、飼ってました。）
　　　
まぁ、手始めはこの辺で。少しでも何か今日あることがあれば、書き込みしてくださいね。
それについて、一緒に語り合えたら嬉しいです。
では、これから、よろしくね。