I have often noted that the emphasis on youth and beauty has been a driving force in American culture, but it seems twice as important in Japan, especially among women. The amount of time, attention, and detail that women put into their make-up and clothing ensembles is staggering. On the trains I see women touching up their make-up, re-checking their hair, and it is not unusual for girls to spend 30-40 minutes in front of their portable mirrors applying make up in other public places like fast food restaurants. This column from Bilingual in The Japan Today discusses this obsession:
Beauty: Japanese women's never-ending quest Elsewhere in the world women are concerned about politics, social issues, family, warfare or simply survival. In Japan, it seems their interests are centered on just one thing: bi (beauty).Oh, the Japanese female predicament! The pressure exerted on us to be utsukushii (beautiful) and kirei (pretty) 24-7! The drive to develop and maintain female youth and beauty in this country borders on the manic-obsessive -- as a nation, we're probably in need of collective therapy.
According to the media everything in life links directly to the bi factor, from the vocabulary a woman knows and deploys (consider the best seller called "Kirei ni Naru Nihongo -- Japanese That Makes You Beautiful") to the kind of food one consumes (please, no animal fat or heavy starch) to the way one conducts oneself during, um, sex. (Reacting is OK, but overacting distorts the facial muscles.) For the record, I just jeopardized some of my own bi points by writing out such a hashitanai (ribald and shameless) sentence in broad daylight, which shows the lengths I go to for the readers of this paper.
Click here to read the rest.
Very much like here. A majority of young Korean's have had the fold put into their eye lids for example (to make their eyes bigger), and it's only really the 'jeans and sneakers' uni students who fail to wear make up of some sort.
Posted by: Edward | July 24, 2005 at 08:24 PM