A Japanese exchange student has opened up about the cultural differences of dating in America after a man she was seeing invited her over to his house to meet his family — and then told her he just wanted to be friends.
Yumeka Umemori, 21, who is attending college in New York, has been documenting her study abroad experience on TikTok, where she has more than 160,000 followers.
She recently went viral after opening up about a baffling dating mishap that never would have happened to her back home in Japan.
If women weren’t hard enough to understand, women from Japan make the already incomprehensible even more so. How do they accomplish this? Well before we begin let us with the same admonishment used in our Japanese Men article.
This is a snapshot of the stereotypical Japanese woman, with emphasis on stereotypical. As with any culture and people there is a generality however it certainly does not apply to all of its citizenry.
This article describes how young women in Japan transgress ideals of proper literacy, particularly notions about normative women’s writing, when they compose carefully wrought yet hard-to-read texts. Writing in this novel style serves as a generational and gendered identity marker, and elders and outsiders find it nonsensical, unfeminine and unsightly. In addition, the writing style itself demonstrates an expansionist stance through appropriation of multiple script sets, fonts and icons. The findings offer a corrective to scholarship on writing systems that routinely neglects the importance of a gestalt understanding of writing.
When I studied abroad in Japan years ago, I remember being struck by how many people in my program came because of a love for anime.
I also remember how many of those same individuals were anxious to date a Japanese girl — a phenomenon not uncommon to language schools and foreign exchange programs.
“Some of my guy friends at school have admitted that they’ve got a bit of an Asian fetish,” says Emily Brown, a 25-year-old student at a language school in Fukuoka. “They’ll openly admit that they like Asian girls, and there’s also a fetish for foreign guys among Japanese women.”
This dynamic has led to terms like “gaijin hunters” and “yellow fever,” which have complex structural, racial and cultural dynamics behind them. In addition, fetishes and attraction don’t always impact what it’s really like to find love as a person living in Japan.
After talking to people in the international community about dating apps last month, I wanted to ask people what they thought about gender and cultural roles in interracial and intercultural dating. As with the previous article, some of the people I spoke to asked for aliases so that they could keep their private and professional lives separate and speak about their experiences in a more honest way.
Himono-onna, Minato-ku joshi, Age-Man… You may have overheard these terms or seen them appearing repeatedly on social media. What do they mean, and what have they got to do with women in Japan? Well, this article will answer your questions—and give you a glimpse of not only the women behind those inventive groups but the Japanese society as a whole.
If you’ve lived in Japan for a while now you may have overheard people saying things like: “She’s sure an age-man, her husband got promoted right after they got married,” or “That girl is so nikushoku-joshi, she doesn’t care if the guy she has a crush on has a girlfriend or not. She just goes for him,”—or even, “I was a bari-kyari until I got pregnant. Now, I’m a yuru-kyari and earn less than before, but I’m glad I made that decision because everyone in my family is happy!”
The list is endless and these are all words and phrases that categorize and describe types of women in Japanese culture. You’ve probably noticed that Japanese women (and men) like to and tend to categorize others—and themselves—based on their personality, actions, and behaviors, as well as how they’d chosen to live their lives.
But why so many labels do exist in Japan?
This tendency probably has a lot to do with the importance of wa (和, group harmony) in the Japanese society—how one should always belong in and conform to a group, and be both dependent on and responsible to other members of that group. This, I believe, is why there are so many categories/groups out there for Japanese women—and why during a joshi-kai (女子会, women’s get-together) and other similar occasions, you’ll hear remarks such as the ones above made over and over again.
Without further ado, let me introduce some common terms and phrases that are often used to depict a certain type of Japanese woman. Some of them have quite a history, but are still commonly heard in daily life; others are buzzwords that have popped on social media and/or appeared in female fashion magazines these last years.
Whether it’s customs around food or manners, Japan is famous for having a rich and unique culture. In fact, some aspects of the dating culture in Japan could be a little tricky to understand from a Western perspective. This article will give you a rundown of Japan’s unique dating culture as seen by a Japanese woman in her 20’s. Of course, everything in this article is based on the writer’s own opinions, but if you’re interested in how Japanese couples date, read on to find out more!
‘Did you know we don’t really have a “talking stage” in Japan? But we do in America, right?’ she said. ‘So I was kind of ready to experience some cultural differences in terms of dating.’
Umemori explained that she started going out with a guy she met on an online dating app, and they had ‘hung out like five times’ when he invited her to his home for the first time.
She agreed to come over because ‘he was nice’ and they ‘were having fun,’ but she was stunned when she arrived and saw that his parents and grandmother were there.
‘I was freaking out because in Japan this doesn’t happen that much,’ she said. ‘If you do this in Japan, it’s like you’re marrying that person or you’re in a real serious relationship with that person.’
Umemori said she had to remind herself she was in the US, where this is probably normal behavior and ‘not a big deal.’
‘So I calmed myself down and introduced myself to his family. They were all nice,’ she recalled. ‘His dad even asked me if I am thinking of coming back to America, so that I can stay with [his son] longer.’
They had never defined their relationship, but the situation led her to believe he was more serious about her than she had originally thought.
‘I didn’t really ask him what we are or anything, but we were not in a relationship, she said. ‘I was pretty happy about it — until I found out that he just wanted to be “friends” with me.
‘I was like, “Excuse me?” Like I didn’t get mad or anything. I was just curious. Like what was he thinking about the whole time?’
All Things Cute
Starting off lightly, we have the topic of cuteness. It is something for which all Japanese girls and women strive for. Keep in mind this ‘cute’ is different from ‘sexy’ or ‘beautiful’. One can be cute without being beautiful, however one would still be ‘attractive’.
The Japanese concept of cute revolves around several points, some of which are:
Clothing:
eye lash extensions
pale lip gloss
pastel colors
lace, ruffles
dresses
straw hats
pink cell phones with veritable handfuls of accessories
Physical:
White skin, pink blush
Flat buttocks (Yes its true. A ‘bubble’ but would be considered a negative in Japan)
Wide eyes (eye surgery is not at all uncommon in Japan, and is in fact the thing to do. Japanese women in general are dissatisfied with their narrow eyes and look to women of the West as the model of how eyes should look
Eye color contacts (Continuing on eyes, not only are they not happy with the shape of their eyes but are rather displeased with the color. They consider they have black eyes which have no interest or beauty)
Modest breasts (generally there is no great urge of Japanese women for breast enhancement)
Light brown hair color (Many Japanese women are bored to death of their dark brown and black hair color. And consider light brown, or blonde to be very cute)
Personality
The stereotypical Japanese personality is as follows:
Introduction
A Japanese schoolgirl has written something odd on her graffiti photo.1 The text is a combination of Japanese characters mixed with other symbols to create a mashed up collection of script that is not readable as normal Japanese. In one glimpse the writing projects novelty, graphic complexity, and ugliness. For some observers, in addition to being impenetrable the writing is aesthetically unacceptable. It is called gyaru-moji (‘girl characters’) or heta-moji (‘unskillful characters’) and is a writing practice originating in cell phone text messaging and email, but now found in other girls’ media such as graffiti photos. Newspaper reports about the odd writing noted that the trend appears to have surfaced by the year 2000 among high school girls (Shinbun, 2003, Shinbun, 2005). In early 2004 the phenomenon had become a hot topic on television current events programs. Foreign reporters such as van Blokland (2005, p. 68) described girl-graphs as ‘a mixture of Japanese syllables, numbers, mathematical symbols and Greek characters’ that ‘resembles hieroglyphics.’ It does not actually bear any resemblance to hieroglyphics, but for the uninitiated it appears as unrelated to language as Egyptian hieroglyphics did when first encountered by Europeans. This article will survey some of the notable features of gyaru-moji, called ‘girl-graphs’ in this essay, and will suggest reasons for their popularity and interest among adolescent girls. Most pundits claim that a desire for secrecy is the primary reason for its occurrence, yet there are many other factors that are equally useful to consider. For one thing, girls use this writing style to confront gender socialization, in which femininity is linked to elegance and refinement not only in their comportment, but in how they fashion their writing of language as well.
Japanese girls are awash in script overabundance afforded by computer symbol and font menus, yet rather than being overwhelmed by it, it is technological bounty that they exploit and embrace. Some critics suggest that because of American dominance in electronic communication technology, a type of ‘graphic imperialism’ forces non-English languages into its orthographic conventions. According to Chartier (2004, p. 38) users of computers are subject to English orthographic rules, so there is hegemonic elimination of French and Spanish diacritic marks. This article will argue that, on the contrary, Japanese girls’ appropriation of script elements from other writing systems and typographic symbol menus reflects their own imperialistic stance that everything in the world is available for their personal use and enjoyment. Following a brief description of the historical context of girls’ script innovation and of the technical features of the writing, I will discuss some of the cultural and symbolic aspects of girl-graphs.
A fetish for lighter skin
Japan has a long history of colorism, leading to a preference toward lighter skin tones. This history has roots in traditional ideals of Japanese beauty, which on the surface are completely separate from idealizing white people from Europe and elsewhere. However, after nearly a century of such portrayals in the media, whiteness has been put squarely on a pedestal.
“The over-representation of white people in the Japanese media reproduces whiteness in the U.S. and other white-dominated cultures,” writes Chie Torigoe, a researcher at Seinan Gakuin University. “Japanese media (is) saturated with images of young white females as the standard of beauty.”
Studies, such as Karen Kelsey’s article “Capital and the Fetish of the White Man,” show evidence for a fetish toward white men in Japan. Haruka Suzuki, a corporate professional who spent time living in Malaysia and the Netherlands, agrees.
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“I think it’s because in textbooks, the images of gaikokujin (foreign people) are all white,” she says. “If you see foreign models, they’re all white. We’re unconsciously led to believe that white people are attractive because that’s how the media portrays them.”
The term age-man (アゲマン) became a buzzword in the early 1990s, after the movie with the same title directed by Juzo Itami, became a hit in Japan. Called “Tales of a Golden Geisha” in English, this comedy tells the story of a geisha who brings luck to the men with whom she gets involved with. Age comes from the verb ageru, which means “to bring up” or “to raise”—in this case, luck. Where the term man comes from is widely debated, but these two explanations have gained popularity:
Man is written as “間”—a kanji that commonly means “time,” “interval” or “pause”—but also carries the meaning “luck,” “chance,” “opportunity” or “serendipity”
Man is also a shortened version of a derogatory Japanese slang that’s equivalent to the English “c-word.”
Either way, if a woman is designated under the type age-man, she’s seen as someone who brings good luck to her male partner. By being with her, the man feels motivated and achieves success, such as getting a promotion or pay rise. On the other hand, if she’s a sage-man (サゲマン) (sage comes from sageru, which means “to bring down” or “to lower”), she drags her man down—he may go through a difficult time after she enters his life.
When Japanese couples start going out, in a lot of cases, the relationship is proceeded by what’s called a “confession”. This is where one partner tells the other their feelings and asks to date them. This is the point from where the relationship begins.
In contrast, rather than getting confirmation of their partner’s feelings, Western couples tend to go on a number of dates and gradually build up a mutual awareness that they are dating. I dare say that because of this, there are some people in the West who might think they’re in with a chance if someone agrees to go to coffee with them?!
In Japan, people often go out for lunch or tea just as friends. This is why in Japan, if you don’t properly confess and recognise each others’ mutual feelings, you may not really know when your relationship as a couple actually began.
