original author | [US] R. Taggart Murphy
excerpt | Xu Yuedong
"Japan and its Historical Shackles", [US] written by R. Taggart Murphy, translated by Li Chaojin, Xinsi Culture | CITIC Publishing Group February 2021 Edition
From Chotaro to a "herbivore man",
What changes have the ideal image of Japanese men experienced?
"Herbivore man" has received much coverage in Western media, as the new term has drawn attention around the world to the changing role of traditional men. When American writer Hannah Rosing discussed similar problems in the United States, she called it "the end of masculinity." Like Western men, many Japanese men now behave in ways that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Today, a young Japanese father would not feel ashamed to comfort his young daughter in public after she fell and was injured, but his grandfather would not have done that.
Before the war, men would never be seen in public with their young children, except on ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals, but even then only mothers were concerned about their children's behavior. . But today, like Western men, young Japanese men openly express their affection for their girlfriends, wives, and children. It used to be considered normal for teenagers to avoid women, but now they don't feel uncomfortable around girls. At the same time, if Japanese young people are not as blind to gender differences as they are in American college dormitories, at least groups of Japanese men and women working and playing together are no longer considered anything special.
Teenage boys now call each other by their first names instead of surnames (something older generations would have never imagined), and even in offices, young Japanese men no longer behave inappropriately towards female colleagues like their fathers did. Feel free to stop treating them as "office vases" who can only serve tea or copy documents.
The male protagonist of "Hanakai Iroha" is a herbivorous boy who is very gentle to women and grew up in the city.
But the label "herbivore" suggests that we're dealing with more than just an apparently relaxed morality. Once again, new vocabulary provides clues. Just as the epithet "good-for-nothing old man" is used to refer to retired men, some of the flippant terms used to describe younger men border on open mockery. Today, many young Japanese women refer to their boyfriends as "keep-kun" (キープ-kun). "キープ" comes from the English word "keep" ("keep"), and "kun" is the Japanese suffix when calling boys. "Keep Jun" means that the boyfriend is kept by his side because he can satisfy the woman in some material way, not because she has deep feelings for him. Therefore, "foot-kun" means that he has a car, which can provide a means of transportation; "mingsashi-kun" (literally means "business card") means that he will take her to high-end restaurants, giving women a symbol of noble status; " Gongjun” (literally “gift”) means he will buy her expensive gifts.
This is a sea change. Traditionally only men could use objectifying language towards women, but now women are free to use the same objectifying words towards men. Of course, this phenomenon can also be seen in other developed countries. But what's interesting here is the difference in underlying assumptions about what happens to men. There is a pervasive misogyny in American pop culture today that depicts men (at least heterosexual men) as incompetent losers or insensitive boorish men. But in Japan, men are mostly portrayed as cowardly, passive herbivores dominated by "carnivorous women."
A look at the popular 1979-1980 TV show "Naughty King Sakurama Chotaro" gives us an idea of how Japan's expectations of men have changed since then. The title of this show is almost impossible to translate. It's about a kid who has so much energy that he can't control it. The story revolves around the adventure of this 11-year-old boy and his relationship with his sister, parents, teachers, friends, rivals, and favorite girls in the same class. In 2011, the actor who played the little boy's father passed away, triggering people's nostalgia for the TV series.Its status in the minds of the Japanese people is comparable to that of "Little Trouble" and "The Kid Next Door" in the United States.
The protagonist Sakurama Chotaro is a typical representative of emerging masculinity in traditional Japanese concepts. This little manly man always wears super short denim shorts no matter how cold the weather is. The only way he expresses his emotions is by fighting and getting into trouble over and over again. His homework is not good, but it is hard not to like him because of his strict and amiable teacher. His sister, who pretended to be a decent young lady, thought he was an insufferable urchin, but his kind mother knew how to tolerate him. His father wanted to be a carpenter, which was clearly his ambition, but in order to make a decent living he was forced to take a job in a suburban department store, where he sold wooden furniture that needed to be made by himself. , and having to kowtow to customers and haughty bosses every day—important in discussing issues of masculinity.
The father usually vents his emotions in the only socially acceptable way, which is to lose his temper at his child's troubles, but the two always make up because they are essentially older and younger versions of each other. For Chotaro, his father's experience gave him a direct precedent of what kind of life he would lead when he grew up and his boyish energy and enthusiasm were tamed by social and economic reality.
But at the time, Chotaro's only real weakness was his innocent feelings for his classmate Hitomi. He didn't know how to express this emotion. Hitomi finds Chotaro difficult and prefers his rival, the gentle and polite Masahiro, whose father is Chotaro's father's boss. However, Chotaro usually fares better when faced with real danger or moral dilemmas. Hitomi understands this to some extent, although she is annoyed by Chotaro's rude and clumsy ways.
From every angle of Japanese tradition, Chotaro is what a boy should be. As the show's title suggests, he's brimming with superboy energy. He's handsome, but all of his masculinity is in stark contrast to his rival Masahiro's good looks. He may not be very expressive and his homework is not good, but he is honest and kind. He is a sincere and reliable friend who understands how others are feeling, even if he sometimes doesn't know how to deal with it.
The personality traits represented by Chotaro have not completely disappeared in Japan, but in today's media, it is often expressed as a nostalgic retro. (The male protagonist and his son in " Eternal Third-chome Sunset " are typical representatives.) In the TV series, it was Chotaro who defeated his opponent, but in the real world, it was the "Masahiros" who won the war and got the A girl like Hitomi. Being handsome and feminine in appearance, gentle and courteous are considered universal standards throughout Japan for both boys and young men to adhere to, especially if they hope to attract women.
Stills from "Eternal Sunset on Sanchome"
It is easy to conclude that Japanese women now determine how Japanese men should act and present themselves. But this is too simplistic. In some fundamental sense, the phenomenon of male grooming and female choice occurs not only in all cultures and in all eras, but across the entire animal kingdom. The prototype of the male and female beauty-loving man can be traced back to the aristocrats of Japan's Heian period. At that time, society valued the art of calligraphy and poetry far more than military and male meritorious service.
As mentioned earlier, during the Edo period, "ongata" (male kabuki actors who played female roles) were important trendsetters in fashion and art, and the images of "beautiful boys" in paintings were simply indistinguishable from women. Unless their sexual organs are exposed (as shown in erotic paintings). As a gender-expressive personality, "Bishonen" still exists in modern society. Although his gender characteristics became obvious after the Meiji period, he is still weak and sensitive.
It is undeniable that male homosexuality has a long history in Japanese culture. But today, the "beautiful boy" is usually very popular with women and is intentionally created for them.Evidence of this includes the contemporary enthusiasm for "boy love" stories (typically written by and for women, featuring extremely handsome teenage gay lovers); The work of Johnny & Associates screams. This agency has discovered countless beautiful boys in the past two generations and let them fly with passion on the stage.
Therefore, Japan's rich historical and artistic records make it abundantly clear that Japanese women have always regarded the cultivated and sensitive aesthete as the ideal male type (that is, this is not a phenomenon that suddenly appeared in the past 20 years).
But in the past, economic and social realities inevitably intervened. Until recent decades, women rarely got to choose their own husbands. Even if she could make her own choice, the most important factor would be the young man's future, his ability to get a stable job in society, because this is the only way she can live a decent life. For much of the postwar period, this meant his acceptance into powerful economic organizations such as corporations or bureaucracies, and the degree of acceptance (as we saw earlier) depended on his educational background, ambition, and lack of Scandals and personality traits suitable for integrating into Japanese organizational life. It would be nice if he was good-looking and liked modern jazz or the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, but in any case he is unlikely to have time to develop these interests in the future.
Today, many Japanese women no longer need men to gain financial independence, nor do they need men to gain their social status in women's circles. They are now free to use sexual, romantic and financial criteria to choose a partner. Other developed countries are also facing the same situation: men around the world are faced with women who have higher demands; in developed countries, men who are just "good suppliers" no longer have an advantage.
But over the past generation (the generation since Chotaro Sakurama captured the hearts of television viewers), something uniquely Japanese has changed. Japanese men's traditional ways of achieving emotional satisfaction and striving for their self-esteem as men were shattered, just as Japanese women gained a new and unique ability that allowed them to make demands of their future husbands and boyfriends that Western women would not. .
Compared with traditional China and the West,
The bonding relationship between Japanese men is relatively more central
Japanese culture and society have long been immersed in same-sex relationships, especially among men. Japanese men have relied on other unrelated men for centuries, and these relationships are important for building emotional intimacy as well as economic and political networks. Of course, blood ties and heterosexual ties still exist, and society cannot exist without them. But what shocks observers is that male bonding is relatively more central in Japan than in traditional China and the West. In traditional Chinese society, the blood relationship of the family is paramount, while in the West, at least after the introduction of Christianity, the pairing of men and women based on sex is the most important in interpersonal relationships.
In pre-modern Japan, loyalty to lords and male groups always took precedence over family relationships, not to mention erotic obsessions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that American men and Japanese men had diametrically opposed views on the relationship between home and school (or the workplace) in the early postwar years. For an American man wearing a "grey flannel suit," the office is a place he must go. Most of the relationships he establishes there are out of necessity, without emotional communication. Only at home can he relax and be himself. . For Japanese salarymen, real close relationships are among colleagues and old school friends, not at home, which is nothing more than their gas station.
It is wrong to view the male population in Japan from a sexual perspective. It is undeniable that as late as a hundred years ago, young men's interest in women would be regarded as unhealthy and cowardly, and they would instead develop attachments to the same sex (this situation also exists in the United States, although same-sex desire is not as obvious as in Japan).Dennis's book, We Boys Together: Teenagers in Love before Girl-Craziness, examines American popular culture before World War II. It points out that boys are expected to be emotionally attracted to each other even if they are not sexually involved, and that premature interest in girls is seen as detrimental to male character development). But by the middle of Edo , homosexuality, regarded as "honorable" by the samurai class, had gradually declined. By the Meiji period, it had completely disappeared as the government followed Western models and legislated against homosexual activity.
Japanese men do not join male groups for sexual satisfaction. They go there mainly for emotional sustenance. The only thing that can compete with this and provide a relaxed environment for them to "be themselves" is the relationship with their mother in childhood (the traditional close relationship between mother and child in Japan is considered unhealthy in some countries. Japanese boys do not wait until 6 He can have close contact with his mother's breasts since he is a child, and he can sleep with his mother throughout his childhood). Fathers, teachers, and other authority figures are distant and demanding.
As for women, besides mothers (and sometimes sisters), they are a source of anxiety. "Good" women do not exist, and love and marriage are nightmares, just to fulfill various social expectations (parents and other authoritative elders take care of their love and marriage affairs). Of course, sexual release can be obtained from prostitutes, but paid sex is far less attractive than free emotional sustenance. As human beings, Japanese men find themselves in passionate love at times, but historically any outburst of erotic affection has been viewed as devastatingly tragic.
Of course, marriage in the Western sense can often provide men with lifelong sustenance and companionship. But for millions of Japanese men, their most important emotional relationships are with their nakama (old friends). In Japan, it is men who determine the circumstances in which boys grow into men, who set the standards for adult male identity and decide who meets those standards and who does not.
Herbivorous and carnivorous men
I reiterate that the above situation is not unique to Japan. In almost every traditional society we know of, boys leave the female-dominated domestic sphere, sometimes by force. Regardless, they spend several years in an all-male environment, whether it's school, the workplace, a hunting or fighting group, or a priestly formation. Only after their manhood has been proven by other men do they return to the female kingdom as husbands and fathers. This male life course is not only common in all human societies, it is even seen in other primates and other highly evolved social mammals such as elephants.
As with much else we see in this book, the Japanese experience differs from that of other countries only in degree, not in substance. Men play important social and political roles in almost all societies, but in Japan they are disproportionately dominant. Today is eroding the power of the male community - women's political and social empowerment; a new economic reality that favors women's empathy and emotional intelligence over men's competitiveness, class and muscularity - is by no means unique to Japan . But for Japanese men, the consequences could be more devastating and drive them out in a different way than we see in the West.
20 Years of Economic Trauma Amplifies Japanese Men's Social Anxiety
During the war years, unfettered male group dynamics played a key role in both tactical glory and strategic disaster. After the war, this group dynamic would be redeployed to serve economic development. For a whole generation, Japanese companies have successfully passed on the emotional life of their fathers on the front line during the war to young Japanese people. It is another version of the heroism and intimacy of the "brother group". Many observers noted the semi-militarized atmosphere of Japanese business during the "miracle" years - the obvious hierarchy of superiority and inferiority, the emphasis on sacrifice and "endurance."
Japanese HR managers very deliberately exploit male group dynamics to build team spirit and inspire their employees into a frenzy of work and sacrifice. Young corporate newcomers often live in all-male dormitories during their first few years on the job. They work and live together, and like ordinary salarymen, they go to nightclubs in Shinjuku and Osaka to have fun and party.
In other words, they lived, acted, and thought like soldiers—and this was intentional, to inspire the kind of fervor and spirit of devotion that would allow young men to fight together and even die for each other. There is, of course, an important difference: Japanese salarymen sacrifice not to defend family, country, friends, or to protect mothers and sisters, but to produce and sell more products.
In the first decades after the war, these goals were so important that Japanese culture seemed able to psychologically persuade the young salaryman to think like a soldier, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. The postwar settlement discussed in Chapter 4 made producing and selling products the only way to restore Japan to some measure of its greatness. On a personal level, becoming a good corporate warrior will allow young Japanese men to gain social value and self-esteem as men, making them the envy of their peers. Additionally, he can join a superior group of men (replacing the Japanese military of the past). The reward for joining is not only a stable income and status, but also emotional intimacy and socially recognized sexual release - first, possibly through a "drinking girl" ("entertainment" expenses can usually be reimbursed under the company's expense line) , and then through marriage.
Today, the culture's treatment of salarymen borders on open ridicule, with fashionable young women calling salaryman men "old guys" (おやじ). Today, the men people admire are not working-class men, but entrepreneurs, designers, "idols" promoted by Johnny & Associates, and some sports stars who have become famous through self-strength, such as baseball players Suzuki Ichiro , football players Athlete Hidetoshi Nakata and young golfer Ryo Ishikawa, among others.
However, there is a fundamental gap between the ideals described by the culture and the real opportunities. By comparison, there is a huge gap between the messages American professional sports send to young black men and the choices they face in reality. Few young Japanese men succeed in the business world as entrepreneurs because the business world fundamentally does not trust them. For those who want to make a name for themselves in the design and graphic arts industries, only a small percentage of good jobs are available. Sports geniuses like Ichiro Suzuki or male stars promoted by Johnny & Associates may appear to be dazzling, but they are actually very rare among Japanese men.
Ichirō Suzuki
As we mentioned in Chapter 6, the old-fashioned salaryman ethic touted by real-world managers such as the Yomiuri Machine and its baseball teams at least leads Japanese boys and young men down a path that may lead to reasonable consequences. the way. However, as we pointed out in the previous chapter, the economic trauma of the past two decades has made it more difficult for young people to obtain stable positions in companies and government agencies, which remain the only reliable ways for Japanese to achieve social status and security.
The result is a wave of sexual anxiety and social phobia, followed by millions of young Japanese men who are isolated from each other or the opposite sex. Once again, new vocabulary provides clues. The most famous one is the word "otaku", which, like "sushi", is very popular all over the world. Abroad, the term refers to a person who has a fanatical interest in Japanese popular culture such as anime or manga, while in Japan it refers to a person (usually a young male) obsessed with something to the point of giving up and being real people contact. This obsession is usually related to technology or pop culture, but not always. The key to the term "otaku" is not that one is obsessed with something, but that one's obsession overwhelms everything else in life.
Other words are more negative. For example, the word "moe" (derived from its original meaning of "bud, sprout") refers to men who are unwilling to enter into relationships with real women.They idolize cute characters in virtual worlds, usually projections of some young girl's imagination. "Hikikomori" (literally "hikikomori", literally "staying at home for a long time and not participating in social activities") refers to young people who never leave the bedroom. It is obvious that it overlaps with "otaku", A person can be both at the same time. However, a "hikikomori" may not necessarily be obsessed with something. He just hates and is afraid of this world full of responsibilities and expectations, so much so that he wants to escape. Of course, to be a hikikomori, he must have a mother to provide for him and live in a house with a bedroom. The word
reflects an underlying problem: unwillingness to grow up and become a man. Of course, complaints about Peter Pan's reluctance to assume adult responsibilities and obligations abound. But whether in Evelyn Waugh's Britain or Fitzgerald's America, only upper-class men can always be like boys without having to bear responsibilities and obligations, otherwise they will only end up in poverty. But no one is hungry today in Japan, the United States or Britain.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, young men are struggling to survive in dead-end careers, while their sisters continue to join the ranks of single working mothers. This situation mostly occurs among low- and middle-income earners and the working class. Most of Japan’s “otakus” and “hikikomori” come from the upper middle class.
The negativity and cringe conveyed by these words seem to be the other side of the new rebellious woman we mentioned above. But simply juxtaposing “grass-eating” men with “meat-eating” women misses the importance of class factors. The typical "hikikomori" is usually born in a wealthy family. He probably rarely saw his father as a child because his father had climbed to the top of Japan's large corporations or bureaucracies and was rarely at home. His mother spent all her energy finding a good school for him and trying to meet all his needs. A "black girl" might have a mother who works outside the home all day, in a job like a store attendant, and her father is a taxi driver or does manual labor in a small family company, of which there are countless in Japan.
In other words, "hikikomori" and "black girl" are not brother and sister, either literally or figuratively. British football hooligans or American single mothers who view men as "useless" may be shaped by similar economic and social forces, but their relative status in society is actually different.
original author | [US] R. Taggart Murphy
excerpt | Xu Yuedong
editor | Li Yongbo
proofread | Li Ming
Source: Beijing News
