Natsumi's Blog

2007-01-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

In chapter 7, I learned about sexuality in Japan and the United States. Today young people are sexually active and the age teenagers have sex for the first time is getting lower and lower. I think this is because there are much more information on sex than before around us. I want to write about the sources of such information.
Many young girls often read what we call shoujyo manga and there are more extreme descriptions of sexual matters than ever before. They read these comics and get knowledge about sex from their early ages. Another source is the fashion magazines for girls. Recently, these magazines have featured not only trendy clothes but also love affairs and sex. Many people have thought that information on sex can be got from pornographies but now girls can learn about sex without buying fashion magazines! They cannot be embarrassed by buying them.
I think the most influential thing for teenagers’ sexual activity is the Internet. The Internet is available for getting many kinds of information. Of course there are many Websites contained sexual things and whoever have computer can have access to them even elementary school students. One negative aspects of information form the Internet is that they are not always reliable. Sometimes there is wrong information, so people have to distinguish bad ones and good ones.
I believe that the ease of getting such sexual information really have related with lowness of the age teenager have sex for the first time. It is natural that young people have sex when there are sexual information around them. I cannot decide this is bad thing or good thing but I think anyway people should take responsibility for their action.

2006-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

The topic of this chapter was friendship and there were many things that I could agree with. This book was written more than ten years ago but still many of she mentioned was true even today. Both in America and Japan, it’s true that friends have a great impact on the life of teenagers. Friends are very influential in good ways as well as unfavorable ways. There are two things that I am especially interested in: friends and lovers, and delinquency.
As White mentioned, there are surely some change in friendship if someone of a group have a boyfriend/girlfriend. If people have lovers, the time that they spend with their friend is almost necessarily decreases. Because of this, other friends in a group feel a little lonely and some group might have a conflict. I think, in such a case, most friends will not change their behavior if their friends have lovers. The time with friends is as important as that with lovers, and I think most people hold the balance of each time. When people are biased toward one side and the balance loses, conflicts might occur.
Another topic I want to write about is delinquency. Friends put great pressure on others to get involved in delinquency such as drugs. I heard that more young people in America than in Japan are arrested for delinquency or crime. In America young people can easily get drugs, on the contrary, the regulation of drugs is more rigid in Japan and teenagers have a little availability of them. Smoking and drinking are also misdemeanors of young people. Many people start to drink before the age that people are permitted to drink. These are also due to the influence of friends. It is not good thing but it is already very common and has become kind of a custom. I think people should not force others to drink who cannot drink and also must not drink excessively. If people can keep control of their drinking, it might be forgivable.

2006-11-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

In this chapter, I learned materialism of young people both in America and Japan. In our life, there are many trends and they are shaped by many ways. The marketing industry tries to make particular things popular and to make people buy them. For example, there are always trends in young people’s clothes in each season. Some trends continue to be followed and finally become very common in daily life, but most of them become kind of out of date next season.
One of the things that help shape these trends is a magazine. There are many fashion magazines for teenagers. They introduce current fashions to readers and how to dress them up nicely. Even if the trendy clothes might be fashionable only in the season, magazines give readers many ways of coordinating and make them think the clothes are very beneficial. They even tell readers where they can buy those clothes and their price. The range of price is wide and they present not only expensive clothes but also ones with very reasonable price. It is very useful to research and consider what to buy because many young people especially girls do research on what they will buy before going shopping. By giving more information and reality to readers, the marketing industry tries to have people buy goods automatically and this is one of the strategies of it.
Another way of shaping trends or making people buy things is making commercial message using celebrities such as beautiful actress and cool actors. I heard that American do not use celebrities for advertising compared with Japanese. Most of Japanese advertising use many famous and popular people. Especially, teenagers tend to long for celebrities, so this is very effective to make them want to buy the goods.
Advertising strategies are developing constantly and they cause us to buy things. They take young people’s nature into consideration. I think advertising will continue to be developed and will be more effective.

2006-11-09T07:20:00.000-08:00

In chapter 4, I learned the differences in school between Japan and America. School is a place where children learn how to communicate others and build establish friendly relationships and how to cooperate with others. There are three topics that are particularly impressed me.
The most interesting topic is school regulations, or kosoku. In the book, there was little information about those of America, so I want to talk about Japanese school regulations. There are a lot of silly school regulations in each school. I was surprised to read that a teacher killed his student because of his transgression. It is terrible that he was killed for an insignificant rule. Schools might need minimum regulations to unify students, but I do not think school regulations are effective. Actually, the high school I went to had few school regulations and we had more freedom. Instead, we had to take full responsibility for what we had done. I think this idea is good because we can learn freedom always accompany responsibility.
Another topic that I was interested in was the relationship between students and teachers. I knew that American students see their teachers differently from Japanese. I agree that Japanese teachers were like friends and it is true that these teachers have good reputation. It was unexpected that authorities in America are more legalistic and hierarchical since I had thought they might be friendly. Also, there is a problem of favoritism. This partiality for particular students may cause truancy. Students should be graded by their results of studies and teachers must be fair with their students.
In Japan, it is true that graduating school has great meaning for people’s future. We go to good universities to get better jobs. We just study for the entrance examinations. After passing examinations, we forget most of things we studied. I am not sure whether this examination system is good or not.
This chapter was very interesting because there were many differences between Japan and America. I want to know more about school regulations in America.

2006-10-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

In chapter 3, I learned many things about family in Japan and America. I think situations depend on families, but there were some that I can agree with.
Among them, what interests me most is working mothers and housework. Today, more and more mothers work, a share of housework has become the important issue in a family. In the book, White says that a working mother in Japan is still expected to perform housework and prepare meals for the family. This is true of my family. My mother works most of the day and when she comes home, a lot of housework is waiting for her. Of course, my father help her a little, she does almost all of them. I realized how hard the housework is since I began to live alone. I have to do all housework such as cooking, washing and cleaning. I regret not having helped my mother with the housework so often. I think help of the members of the family is essential for a working mother. Since the social situation has changed, we should adapt to it.
Another topic I am interested in is the ideal father. More American youth than Japanese think a good father considers his family above his job. It was surprise to me, and I asked students in Colorado if it is true in the blog. One of them responded to my question and I understand that it is because the difference of the idea about job between Japan and America. To be sure, changing jobs is not so common in Japan. I realize the difference of culture between Japan and America. I think this topic is very difficult because a father works for his family but he should value spending time with his family.
It was so meaningful to exchange opinions with students in Colorado. I want to discuss other topics too.

2006-10-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hi!
My name is Natsumi Masuzawa.
I'm from Nagano, and now I live in Tokyo by myself.
I belong to a volleyball club since I used to play volleyball when I was in junior high school.
I began to play the piano when I was five years old and I really like to play it.
I also love dogs very much! Actually, I have a dog in my house in Nagano, my hometown.
Thank you!

こんにちは！
私の名前は増澤なつみです。
私は長野出身で、今は東京で１人暮らしをしています。
私は中学生のときにバレーボールをやっていたのでバレーボールのサークルに入っています。
５歳からピアノを始めて、ピアノを弾くのがとても好きです。
また、私は犬が大好きです！実は、実家の長野で犬を飼っています。

よろしくおねがいします☆