TV01:

Ok. My point was, PMS or not, if there is not a strong culture/religion pointing to marriage, it will suffer and birthrates will fall. The same root cause, with some variation, may take differening pathways, but leads to the same outcome.

The Japanese are highly heterogenous - or xenophobic if you prefer to think badly of them - only 1 in 60 or so is non-Japanese, and they look down on even the Koreans (ethnically the same). I wonder how they will retrieve the situation?


TV

They will figure out what to do about the whole situation hopefully. Of all the countries in that region, China is really the only one I have an unexplainable likeness for.

Crackhaus, I have a new collegue at work, he is a trainee and he arrived from Japan two weeks ago.
He is one of the weirdest people I have ever met. He lacks social skills. When you say hi, he answers so quietly, you can hardly hear him.
His body posture is very stiff. To call him shy would be an understatement. You smile at him, he doesn't know what to do. My collegues and I thought he was scared and tried to be extra nice so that he feels comfortable but this boy is just strange. You say "Ok, bye. Have a nice day/trip etc.", he won't respond. You get him something to drink, he doesn't know what to say. You ask him if he wants to join you at lunch, he doesn't respond but follows quietly. He won't talk without being aksed and when he answers, it's very short.

I was at some point wondering if he is autistic or could be a serial killer.
And I was also wondering if he has ever had a girlfriend in his life. The boy is in his early 20s.

And then this thread showed up and so I decided to do some reading on the topic in question.

This is what I found and point three explains and confirms my impression of the lack of social skills. I didn't want to generalize based on one individual encounter but there is something about their culture - according to the author of this article who mentions that his account is based on personal experience and not a study - but there may be something about the Japanese culture that is hard to understand to both - Africans and Europeans.


The Truth About Sex in Japan

(...)

This rather banal discussion recently took a turn for the interesting, however, after the Japan Family Planning Association reported that 45% of young Japanese women, and over 25% of men, “were not interested in or despised sexual contact.” The Guardian followed this with a piece entitled Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

So why have they?

Why Japanese People Aren’t Having Sex

After living in Japan for a few years, this actually makes sense to me. Okay, I’m not like a sociologist or anything. I’m just some dude in Japan who tries to find a clean pair of socks so he can put one on and run to the station to cram onto the train with ten thousand of the unhappiest Japanese people you’ve ever seen. I don’t pretend to have discovered the Unified Field Theory of Japanese sexuality, but I’ll give you four factors that I think are contributing.

Thing One: Work in Japan

People in Japan, and Tokyo in particular, work a ridiculous amount, in a way that’s hard to comprehend if you live in, say, sunny California. Take a former student of mine, Naoko, who worked as a programmer. She worked—wrap your head around this—twenty hours a day.
“Every day at 4 a.m.,” she said, “they’d turn off the lights and we’d sleep at our desks for four hours.
“Did you have locker rooms?” I asked. “What about clothes?
“I just wore the same clothes, but on Sunday I’d go home for half a day, to shower. The men only went home once a month.
“That must have smelled pretty nice. How long’d you do that for?
“Five years and three months,” she said.
Okay, so maybe that’s an extreme example. A more typical case is probably my former student Masahiro, who’s an executive at a famous beverage manufacturer. He works from 9 a.m. until to midnight, six days a week, with a 15-minute lunch break at his desk. He has Sunday off, which is when he studies English.
“I have it easy,” he said, “since I work at an international company. Japanese places are a lot worse.”
“Do you ever see your wife?” I asked.
“I see her on Sunday,” he said.
“But Sunday’s when you come here to study English,” I pointed out.
“Ah, good point,” he said.
For most people, it comes down to two choices: work like mad as a single person and have a tiny apartment full of dirty clothes and half-eaten Cup Ramen containers, or get married. That way, the man goes off to work, and when he comes home after midnight, his dinner is sitting on the table covered in Saran Wrap, and there’s hot water in the tub. His wife and daughter are already asleep. Shopping, ironing, cleaning, paying the bills, everything’s taken care of for him. All he has to do is bring home a paycheck. The woman gets to do all the fun, fulfilling things like taking care of baby, grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking meals. Sometimes I’ll ask my adult students how often they see their spouses, or ask the kids when they see their fathers. The answer is roughly on par with how often I’ve seen the Easter Bunny. I am, however, a big fan of marshmallow Peeps, so maybe it’s not as infrequent as you think.
The young Japanese people of today grew up watching their parents live this life, and it’s understandable if they’re not thrilled about this option. Marriage isn’t a great choice; it’s just the second-worst option. For a man, it means he’s working to pay for his wife. For a woman, it means a life of indentured servitude. A lot of people are apparently “just saying no” to the whole thing.

Thing Two: Prostitution in Japan

Again, this is a hard thing to reconcile if you don’t live in Japan, but being in a relationship and having sex have precious little to do with one another. For a Japanese male, it’s possible to get sex almost anywhere, at any time, for little more than the price of a decent lunch. Anyone who’s been in Japan for even a short while has seen the rows of shops offering all the usual services. (As an aside, I’ll add that “foreigners” aren’t allowed in. You can be that crazy dude who lives under a bridge and rides a bicycle with garbage bags full of tin cans hanging off the back, but as long as you’re “Japanese,” you’re good to go. But Japanese racism is a whole other subject.)
Now, I’m in no way saying that the majority of men and women participate in this, but the fact that the institution exists changes the social dynamic. All Japanese people innately recognize that:
If you’re a man with just a little bit of money, you can have sex with as many attractive women as you want.
and
If you’re an attractive woman, well . . . Look, I teach English for a living. Every week, people pay me to sit in Starbucks and simply talk with them. Afterwards, I go to a bar, and every week, sure as hell, someone will approach me and say, “Wow, let’s speak English together!” Now, I may even want to, but really, who gives away what they can sell? It’s my job, not my hobby.
So prostitution has turned sex in Japan into a commodity. It’s something that’s available for purchase, like movie tickets or a head of cabbage or something. Sex isn’t an expression of love between two people; it’s something that can be bought or sold when necessary.
Now don’t get me wrong—again, I don’t mean to imply that there are a lot of men going to these places, or a lot of women working there. It sure seems that way, but I don’t actually know. What I mean to say is that the fact that it exists changes the way people view relationships. As in, I once dated a girl who told me, “You know, a lot of men would pay good money to be dating me like you are.” Which I really couldn’t argue with because, well, she was right. They would.

Thing Three: Japanese Social Relations

Recently, a friend of mine got married to a man through an arranged marriage. She used to get drunk and try to kiss me whenever my girlfriend ran to the bathroom. She was awesome like that, actually.
“Do you love him?” I asked.
“He does train maintenance,” she said. “That’s a stable job.
“I’m pretty sure you just answered a different question,” I said.
“Well, I will eventually,” she replied.
[b]I’ll try to put this in the best light possible, but Japanese social relations . . . um, well, they’re terrible. Okay, that didn’t come out so well. Abysmal? No, that’s worse, not better. [*Note to self: insert more nuanced term before posting this.]
The society functions with robot-like efficiency because your boss tells you what do—or your parents, or your teacher—and you do it. There’s a hierarchy. If you work in a ramen shop, you don’t say, “Hey boss, how about if, instead of two pieces of pork in the noodles, we tried three?” Are you insane? That’s not how things work. The fact is, you don’t challenge what you’re told, you don’t offer up original ideas, and you don’t initiate conversation with strangers. Which presents a koan-like riddle: If you don’t talk to people you don’t know, how do you get to know people?
I’ve lived in my current apartment building for, let’s see, about a year and a half now. Man, time flies. Anyway, in that time the number of neighbors I’ve met is . . . zero. I actually rode the elevator down with a guy yesterday. He was about my age and was tying his tie while I was still fumbling into my shoes. Okay, so here’s a little quiz for you, to see how well you know Japanese culture:
I figured I’d break the ice with a non-threatening situational observation, so I said in Japanese:
“Yeah, another busy morning, huh?”
To which he replied (choose one):
A. “Yeah, it sure is.”
B. “Oh jeez, I can’t believe my alarm didn’t go off.”
C. “Do you know how to tie a Double Windsor?”
D. “Holy crap, a white guy in my building!”
E. Absolutely freaking nothing.
If you chose “Absolutely freaking nothing,” then congratulations, you’re about halfway to earning a Bachelor’s in East Asian Studies. The reality is: people don’t have a lot of contact with each other. For Japanese folks, it’s insanely difficult to establish friendships and connections, which is no doubt why so many Host and Hostess Bars exist, so people can at least pay someone to talk to them.
Japanese people excel at social interactions when there are clearly defined roles: Boss and Worker, Clerk and Customer, Drunk Salaryman and Gaijin. There are clear rules and precedents for those situations. But for two Japanese people to strike up a conversation while in line at the grocery store? Well, it’s hypothetically possible, I suppose, like Dark Matter or something.[/b]


Thing Four: That Sexy Sexy Atmosphere

People are massively impacted by their environment and the people around them. That’s the Ken Seeroi Theory of Human Behavior. Wikipedia it. That means that if everyone else is having an awesome, sexy time, you’re more likely to as well. That’s why we have New Year’s Eve. When it’s a sunny day, everybody’s happy, and when it rains, everybody’s glum. Life’s funny like that.
So I was talking this over with my colleague Fujimoto-sensei last week, and he said,
“Ah, Ken, you should have seen it in the 90’s. Japan was different then. Everybody was making money, people were positive, it was more fun.
To which I replied, “Uh, it’s ‘Seeroi-sensei,’ remember? But yeah, I’ve heard that from a lot of people.
“Sorry, Ken-sensei,” he said. Then, “You know I used to have a wife and a girlfriend in those days.
“And now all you have is a wife?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I think we’re in a recession.”
So then after work, I went to my usual shokudo, which is basically like a cheap restaurant. It’s a tad dingy and run-down, but the food’s solid. I think of it like an extra living room, which helps since my apartment’s so darn small. The place was packed full of about thirty guys and gals in dark suits all sitting alone in silence, eating and reading manga or staring at their smartphones with glazed eyes. I stayed for about an hour and a half, ate some grilled mackerel and rice and miso soup, drank an Asahi beer, and watched TV. Their grilled fish is really good, I must say. The only person I talked with was the waitress, which is pretty typical. She’s about sixty and doesn’t say stupid things like, “Wow, you can use chopsticks,” so I like her. Then I walked the concrete corridor to the station and silently waited in line for the train.
When it came, it was packed as always, so we put on our faces of resignation and forced ourselves on since we had to, then rode without a word. When I got to my neighborhood it was dark, which was fine since there’s really not much to see anyway, nothing like a river or a tree or anything. Well, there is a little brown canal nearby, so I guess that’s something. I stepped around some rain puddles on the asphalt as I walked past the same gray blocks of condominiums I do every day, and thought, There must be a thousand units, and someone living in each one. Why is it I never see anyone on a balcony or in a window? And suddenly that seemed kind of strange, but then the feeling passed.
Eventually I got to my own dark building and rode the elevator up. Did I simply come to Japan too late? I wondered. Like 20 years too late? Then I opened the door and found my apartment just as I left it, full of dirty laundry and Cup Noodle containers. Nah, Japan’s still wonderful, I thought as I took a can of malt liquor from the fridge. I just need a Japanese wife–that’s the ticket. Someone to clean this place up, cook me some hot meals, and love, eventually.

http://japaneseruleof7.com/sex-in-japan/

Good one SiestaFiesta, culture and work ethics certainly contribute to the Japanese social behaviour.
Coincidentally, I did make mention of Tokyo and it's high working class population in an earlier response to TV.

I also like that example you gave about the new guy at work. I was actually going to share my experience with some Japanese expatriates in Nigeria and the way they go about their work, but I didn't want to conclude using just that experience because I assumed that being in a country like Nigeria may have made them less sociable and extremely careful.
With your example, it seems that's just how they are.

crackhaus:
Good one SiestaFiesta, culture and work ethics certainly contribute to the Japanese social behaviour.
Coincidentally, I did make mention of Tokyo and it's high working class population in an earlier response to TV.

I also like that example you gave about the new guy at work. I was actually going to share my experience with some Japanese expatriates in Nigeria and the way they go about their work, but I didn't want to conclude using just that experience because I assumed that being in a country like Nigeria may have made them less sociable and extremely careful.
With your example, it seems that's just how they are.

I also remember what a friend and mentor told me about child upbringing in Japan some time ago. He travelled to Japan with his wife in the 90s and the two spent some time there in two different host families. He said that Japanese children can do whatever they want without being reprimanded up to the age of four. He told me how he witnessed a toddler smearing ice-cream into his mother's hair and his mother let the child quietly finish. Then she went to wash her hair. The child wasn't told anything. And from the age of four onwards, their upbringing changes drastically. They are drilled into extreme forms of discipline.

I am not sure but I think I have also read somewhere that suicide rates among school children are the highest in Asian countries.

Mindfulness:


I also remember what a friend and mentor told me about child upbringing in Japan some time ago. He travelled to Japan with his wife in the 90s and the two spent some time there in two different host families. He said that Japanese children can do whatever they want without being reprimanded up to the age of four. He told me how he witnessed a toddler smearing ice-cream into his mother's hair and his mother let the child quietly finish. Then she went to wash her hair. The child wasn't told anything. And from the age of four onwards, their upbringing changes drastically. They are drilled into extreme forms of discipline.

I am not sure but I think I have also read somewhere that suicide rates among school children are the highest in Asian countries.

Their way of life is too serious, I wouldn't want to be around that kind of environment permanently.

I stumbled on an article and thought of this thread:

Excessive hours exact heavier mental toll on Japan's younger workers

TOKYO -- Japanese employees in their 20s and 30s are particularly vulnerable to depression and other psychological disorders caused by grueling hours, government data shows, a finding likely fueling the labor ministry's focus on the mental health of the young.

About half of men and 60% of women awarded workers' compensation for mental illness fell between the ages of 20 and 39, a research group of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday.

The group analyzed 2,000 cases ruled eligible for such compensation between January 2010 and March 2015.

Some 31.8%, or 436, of the men were in their 30s when they developed a disorder, with those in their 40s and their 20s accounting for 28.6% and 19.1%. Among women, 30-somethings made up 31.2%, or 195 workers, closely followed by 20-somethings, who totaled 29.8%.

Extreme cases led to deaths. A total of 352 men and 16 women killed themselves, including 101 men in their 40s and nine women in their 20s.

Excessive hours continue to be blamed for suicides by depressed workers in Japan. Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old hire at advertising giant Dentsu, took her own life last December after coming down with depression.

Takahashi had put in 105 overtime hours from Oct. 9 to Nov. 7, according to an attorney for her family. Inspectors from the Tokyo Labor Bureau raided Dentsu's headquarters in the capital as well as three branch offices and five major subsidiaries. Takahashi's case was ruled last month a death linked to overwork.

The ministry is taking seriously the rise in younger filers for workers' compensation over depression from overwork. It started dispatching occupational physicians and counselors to workplaces this fiscal year to help teach younger employees how to notice that they are under stress

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Excessive-hours-exact-heavier-mental-toll-on-Japan-s-younger-workers

What a sad way to live...

Everywhere has its own madness.

CC:

Mindfulness, crackhaus

bukatyne:
I stumbled on an article and thought of this thread:

Excessive hours exact heavier mental toll on Japan's younger workers

TOKYO -- Japanese employees in their 20s and 30s are particularly vulnerable to depression and other psychological disorders caused by grueling hours, government data shows, a finding likely fueling the labor ministry's focus on the mental health of the young.

About half of men and 60% of women awarded workers' compensation for mental illness fell between the ages of 20 and 39, a research group of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday.

The group analyzed 2,000 cases ruled eligible for such compensation between January 2010 and March 2015.

Some 31.8%, or 436, of the men were in their 30s when they developed a disorder, with those in their 40s and their 20s accounting for 28.6% and 19.1%. Among women, 30-somethings made up 31.2%, or 195 workers, closely followed by 20-somethings, who totaled 29.8%.

Extreme cases led to deaths. A total of 352 men and 16 women killed themselves, including 101 men in their 40s and nine women in their 20s.

Excessive hours continue to be blamed for suicides by depressed workers in Japan. Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old hire at advertising giant Dentsu, took her own life last December after coming down with depression.

Takahashi had put in 105 overtime hours from Oct. 9 to Nov. 7, according to an attorney for her family. Inspectors from the Tokyo Labor Bureau raided Dentsu's headquarters in the capital as well as three branch offices and five major subsidiaries. Takahashi's case was ruled last month a death linked to overwork.

The ministry is taking seriously the rise in younger filers for workers' compensation over depression from overwork. It started dispatching occupational physicians and counselors to workplaces this fiscal year to help teach younger employees how to notice that they are under stress

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Excessive-hours-exact-heavier-mental-toll-on-Japan-s-younger-workers

What a sad way to live...

Everywhere has its own madness.

CC:

Mindfulness, crackhaus

Yea, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

That may not sound surprising at first, but when you factor in the fact that this same Japan is considered a developed and highly industrialized country, you then start to understand how Africans are among the most relentless and psychologically-strong race of people on the planet.

crackhaus:

Yea, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

That may not sound surprising at first, but when you factor in the fact that this same Japan is considered a developed and highly industrialized country, you then start to understand how Africans are among the most relentless and psychologically-strong race of people on the planet.

We might have our problems but our ability to see humor in all situations and love for celebrations is really keeping us together.

A jobless person mopping about Monday to Friday will dig it on the dance floor on Saturday and shout hallelujah on Sunday.

bukatyne:


We might have our problems but our ability to see humor in all situations and love for celebrations is really keeping us together.

A jobless person mopping about Monday to Friday will dig it on the dance floor on Saturday and shout hallelujah on Sunday.

Exactly.

bukatyne:
I stumbled on an article and thought of this thread:

Excessive hours exact heavier mental toll on Japan's younger workers

TOKYO -- Japanese employees in their 20s and 30s are particularly vulnerable to depression and other psychological disorders caused by grueling hours, government data shows, a finding likely fueling the labor ministry's focus on the mental health of the young.

About half of men and 60% of women awarded workers' compensation for mental illness fell between the ages of 20 and 39, a research group of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday.

The group analyzed 2,000 cases ruled eligible for such compensation between January 2010 and March 2015.

Some 31.8%, or 436, of the men were in their 30s when they developed a disorder, with those in their 40s and their 20s accounting for 28.6% and 19.1%. Among women, 30-somethings made up 31.2%, or 195 workers, closely followed by 20-somethings, who totaled 29.8%.

Extreme cases led to deaths. A total of 352 men and 16 women killed themselves, including 101 men in their 40s and nine women in their 20s.

Excessive hours continue to be blamed for suicides by depressed workers in Japan. Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old hire at advertising giant Dentsu, took her own life last December after coming down with depression.

Takahashi had put in 105 overtime hours from Oct. 9 to Nov. 7, according to an attorney for her family. Inspectors from the Tokyo Labor Bureau raided Dentsu's headquarters in the capital as well as three branch offices and five major subsidiaries. Takahashi's case was ruled last month a death linked to overwork.

The ministry is taking seriously the rise in younger filers for workers' compensation over depression from overwork. It started dispatching occupational physicians and counselors to workplaces this fiscal year to help teach younger employees how to notice that they are under stress

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Excessive-hours-exact-heavier-mental-toll-on-Japan-s-younger-workers

What a sad way to live...

Everywhere has its own madness.

CC:

Mindfulness, crackhaus

I will respond later.

And people are using microscope to search for virgins in 9ja.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/baby-robot-unveiled-in-japan-as-number-of-childless-couples-grows

One thing I love them is that they're extremely hard working and possess a strong work ethic unlike most Nigerians.

Their virginity, however, cannot be said to be due to religion. They're very irreligious.
About the low birth rates, they now actively woo foreigners to come work and live there.

But you must be:
Highly skilled.
Speak the language.


On the flip side, Africa has a lot to learn from the likes of Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea.

Many Japanese and Chinese people do not believe in cohabitation before marriage; they will not stay/live with a man or woman before marriage. I've had 4 people from both countries tell me this. Their views on pre-marital sex is likely similar, although we didn't get into that discussion.

Japan also prides itself in collectivism and are more likely to live by their society's principles.

PMPhoenix:


.....or their small eyes make it significantly difficult for their men to find the hole

Racist much?

.

davidif:

Racist much?

Not at all, it's just jest

The Japs need to lighten up. Japan is a very cold place to be in, everyone minds their business. I remember my mum went to Japan about a decade ago for a month and she couldn't wait to get back.

Going back to the topic, grueling work hours leads to fatigue which in turn leads to decline in sex drive. That's a simple explanation to why the Japs are having less sex, I strongly believe that this is also not a recent trend. The Japs have always had a 'lower sex drive' due to their socio-economic lifestyles.

And I saw news before about sexually transmitted disease is increasing young peoples especially young girls around Tokyo.
They don't know when they got it and some peoples don't know they already have it.
Then they give it to another person.
Warned about use protection and don't try to have sex with many different persons.
(I know some disease is not only from sex)

Worry about virgins and worry about someone who have sex with many different persons at same time.
What happened with Japanese (´д｀;