Activity10

1. Who do the members of your culture consider to be part of their family?
In my culture, people think grandparents, father, mother, siblings, spouse, children, and pets are family member.

2. What are some roles and responsibilities of specific family members?
In general, the father has to work for family. The Mother has to do house hold works and traditionally, society expects women who get married to quit their job and become house wife. Daughters are often asked to help house hold jobs. Son is asked to study hard and to go to good college more than his sisters. Oldest brother or sister has to take care of younger brothers or sisters. All family members have to be respectful toward other elder family members.

3. Are family members encouraged to stay in the same house/area as their family after adolescence?
Son does not have to live close by after he graduates college. However, parents often encourage their daughter to lives the same house/area until she get married.

4. What are the cultural norms and taboos regarding dating and meeting people with whom to become romantically involved?
In my culture it looks bad if a young woman were to get home late, sleeps over at someone else’s place, or go on a trip with her friends.

5. How are marriage proposals conducted in your culture?
When a Japanese man asks meet your parents/family, it often seen as marriage proposal. Standard steps for proposing would be to ask your partner first, and then request parents the parent’s permission.

6. What is a typical wedding like?
Young couples prefer to marry at a chapel and hold a wedding party at a restaurant or hotel ball room. The most distinctive Japanese weddings would be to get married at a chapel or church even though they are not Christian.
Traditional style weddings are held at a temple or shrine. Brides wear special white kimono (traditional woman’s clothes) and the groom wears a special hakama (traditional man’s clothes). In Japan, women only wear white kimono when she gets married and when she dies. This is because a bride’s parents recognize their daughter no longer belongs to them.
The big difference between weddings from America and Japan is Japanese brides do not have bridesmaids. Thus, most of the time, brides have to organize all of her wedding preparation by herself.

7. How do members of the culture view divorce?
People have negative image. However, in recent years, divorce (especially vintage year’s) is really in vogue. Also, societies are very cooperative about single mother or father’s support. Therefore, still people have negative image for divorce, however, it is dramatically changed from 10 years ago.

8. If divorce occurs, what are the rights of each partner?
Mother often has an advantage of keeping children and the father is asked to pay the expenses of bringing up a child and consolation money.

9. What is the general opinion of the culture toward homosexuality?
People have a very conservative idea of homosexuality. Especially, we do not talk a lot about lesbianism. However, there are many gay bars downtown in the big cities and it is popular. Also, there are many gay TV performers and they have gained a lot of popularity.

10. How are the general perspectives of this culture the same/different from yours regarding gender roles?
Traditionally, people have the idea that men should work outside and woman ought to keep house. However, society changed a lot from 20 years ago, and most young people do not have this idea anymore. Society supports an idea of “man and woman should be treated equal”. For instance, man can be a house husband and wife can be a support a family and I agree with this.

I found that my personal ideas and my culture’s general ideas are partly similar and partly different. For example, why do women have to do house hold works? It does not make sense to me. However, I do have negative image for divorce. If I get married, I do not want to get divorce (My friends say I will do though). Do your culture’s ideas match to your own ideas?