The rise of Japan’s 'girlie man' generation

Forget the salarymen, Japan's new 'herbivore' generation of males believe that life is far more important than work



Yasuo Takeuchi makes an improbable radical. Skinny, wearing jeans, a striped sports shirt and a baby blue cardigan, he is fidgety and talks in a near whisper. He is 33, works for a major publisher in Tokyo and inspired a label now applied to a new generation of Japanese men. He is the archetypal soshokukei danshi, “herbivorous male” or Ojo-man “girlie man”.

Herbivores are shy and quiet. They seek the friendship of women and spurn aggressive dating. They are thrifty and abhor consumerism. They like quiet evenings in with friends rather than drinking till they vomit in the izakaya bars of Tokyo. They are the antithesis of the macho Japanese salarymen, on whose long-suffering shoulders modern Japan was built.

Early, non-Japanese descriptions of the herbivore put them in the category of freaky Japanese cultural sideshows. From the folks who brought you robot dogs and huge-bosomed manga heroines came a large group of men in their mid-twenties to early thirties who rejected the “carnivorous” ways of older Japanese men. Bravo Japan. Challenged by a low birth rate, rising suicide numbers and an economy shrinking at the fastest rate in 60 years it had produced a generation of neutered geeks.

But go deeper and you find that these “girlie men” represent something different: a quiet, social revolution for which many in Japan have been clamouring for years.

Change in Japan is glacial. But the recent general election swept away the dominant Liberal Democratic Party, which had ruled Japan almost without interruption since the Second World War, and put in power the more liberal Democratic Party of Japan. The conservatism of the country, both political and social, is under threat. And the herbivores, reckoned to make up 30 to 40 per cent of men aged between 21 and 34, are staging a social revolt in which the sexes become more equal, the workplace less spiritually crushing and broken family ties are remade.

Two years ago, Megumi Ushikubo, the head of a market research firm in Tokyo, began receiving calls from panic-strickenclients in the beer and car industries. They were struggling to sell cars and beers to men in their twenties and thirties. It had once been so easy. Pitch them as a means to social status and the bars and showrooms were overrun. Not any more.

“In the 1980s, boys had to buy a car, otherwise girls would not look up to them,” says Ushikubo. “We were leaders in consumption. Suddenly companies were asking why are guys no longer interested in cars? And why are girls telling us they aren’t interested in boys who waste their money on cars?” The trauma of Japan’s bursting economic bubble, Ushikubo found, had created a generation suspicious of the cavalier spending habits of those a few years older. They were also less willing to endure the humiliations an older generation had tolerated both at work and in relationships.

“In my generation, we had a show called 101st Proposal, in which a man proposed to 100 women and was eventually accepted the 101st time,” says Ushikubo, who was born in 1962. “The important thing was that you tried and tried and showed endurance. Guys these days don’t want to go through that rejection. Instead they want to be acknowledged as people by girls. Being popular is a much lower priority.”

Yasuo Takeuchi epitomised the phenomenon. He grew up in Chiba, a dormitory town just outside Tokyo. All the fathers in town were salarymen, who took the train into Tokyo early in the morning and came home late. But his father never pressured his son to do as he did. “All the fathers in town were quite radical like this. They let the children do what they wanted with their lives. In fact, they encouraged it.” Takeuchi went to Tokyo University to study physics, where he found friends who, like him, did not accept that their fate was to suffer silently in Japan’s vast corporations and bureaucracies. They envisioned work occupying a discreet rather than overwhelming place in their lives. And they believed that family friends mattered far more than shopping or travel.

It was a change from the generations that preceded them. The Japanese who survived the Second World War were stoic in turning their bombed-out country into the second greatest economic power in the world. Next were the baby boomers and then the “bubble generation”, who came of age in the 1980s, when it seemed the Japanese were poised to take over the world. It was a time when the Japanese thronged Bond Street and bought the Rockefeller Centre and Van Gogh’s Irises for mind-blowing sums. There followed the lost decade when Japan entered a long slump and global attention shifted to growth economies such as China and India.

Takeuchi would hear constantly from older people how great Japan had been and how deprived he was to grow up in such austere times. The factors once seen as crucial to Japan’s success were now seen as failures: a rigid educational system that had produced generations of highly intelligent employees was now thwarting the individuality and creativity needed to rebuild the country; big corporations that had propelled Japanese industry to the top of the world were now ugly bureaucracies that suffocated their employees and stifled entrepreneurship; an ethnically homogenous people who had worked with a common purpose and set of values to build modern Japan were now insular and xenophobic.

“But I never bought that,” Takeuchi says. “I never felt deprived.” Nor did he feel any obligation to be a corporate samurai, battling for Japan’s economic supremacy. At work he refused to dress or behave like older employees. He was considered sloppy, and his bosses thought he did not care for work. “I just believed that at work and in life, doing OK is OK. There’s no need to show everyone how much effort you’re making.” He had no veneration for conventional models of success. “All we want to feel is that our work has a sense of purpose.”

To hear Takeuchi talk is to hear echoes of what Westerners call Generation Y, a generation in their twenties and thirties who mystify older managers. They do not believe companies will look after them. They do not respect job titles or hierarchies, only those who control resources and produce obvious outputs. They abhor office politics and do not respond to traditional motivational tools such as promotion, pay rises and the promise of job security.

The herbivores’ revolution may be one of shrugs and quiet refusals, but to take on Japan’s managerial hierarchy takes chutzpah. “People often tell me, ‘oh, you must be really confident to behave this way’,” Takeuchi says. “But I never think of myself that way. Making a big effort to be something I’m not just isn’t me. I want to be natural, just to be myself.”

This desire to be individual may seem unremarkable in San Francisco or London but was novel enough in Japan to catch the eye of Maki Fukasawa, a marketing writer who shared an office with Takeuchi. When she talked about him with friends and older managers, she found that they were horrified, that here was the future of Japan.

The herbivores, managers complained, did not regard work as the centre of their lives. When it came to the drinking sessions essential to Japanese corporate culture, the herbivores passed. They refused to debase themselves to please a boss.
“Once I recognised the phenomenon, I noticed it everywhere,” says Fukasawa. “Looking at the IT CEOS in Japan, I realised that they didn’t seem competitive in the same way as an older generation of Japanese CEOs. They didn’t need some trophy wife standing beside them or the expensive car or watch. They weren’t desperate to spend time in New York, London or Paris. Instead they wanted to be at home. They had lived their entire lives in an era when Japan was an established economic power, despite its troubles. They felt completely confident being Japanese.”

Fukasawa dubbed this new generation “herbivores”, a term she says has been poorly understood in the West. “I keep being asked if they are like the the nerdy computer game fans, or the men who buy girls’ high school costumes. They’re not. We are Buddhists and the idea of being ‘grass eating’ is that you’re more spiritual. It’s not just the opposite of carnivorous. It means they aren’t so interested in physical things or physical relationships.”

“The more you study them, the more you think that they’re actually the ones who are consistent with traditional, pre-war Japan,” says Fukasawa. “It was the generation of the rising economy who were ultra-competitive who were maybe the strange ones.”

In every Japanese convenience store are special sections devoted to men’s cosmetics, eyebrow shapers, packets of disposable wipes for dealing with sweat and body odor, skin whitener. The herbivores may not buy beer and cars but they spend on keeping themselves odourless, hairless and pale. Their clothes come from cheap, fashionable chains such as Uniqlo. This week, Shinya Yamaguchi, 23, a fashion designer, launches his latest collection of skirts and lacy tops — all aimed at men. Many of Japan’s younger male celebrities, bands such as Arashi and actors like Eita, Teppei Koike and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, project an effeminate, herbivorous look.

“It’s non-man, non-woman at the same time,” says Fukasawa. “Sexually neutral.” This neutrality, both Fukasawa and Ushikubo believe, is a response to the changing nature of Japanese marriage. During the 30 years up to 2005, the percentage of unmarried men between 30 and 34 rose from 14 per cent to 47 per cent and the number of unmarried women from 8 to 32 per cent.

Financial insecurity among men and the social expectations imposed on married women, to have children and forego work, have made marriage less attractive. Traditional matchmaking by families and employers has also dwindled. The hunt for partners became less aggressive on both sides, to the point where businesses saw an opportunity in organising “konkatsu” or marriage activity, social activities designed to bring singles together.

When herbivores do marry, it is with little hoopla and low expectations. Yasuo Takeuchi recently married in a small, private ceremony, and he is saving for a honeymoon in the future.

The herbivores’ views, style and choices can be seen as a very positive story, about a generation of young Japanese discovering their individuality. But they also say a lot about the tensions within Japan.

“After the Second World War, we were all told that Western education was best and that Asian culture and philosophy was bad,” says Fukasawa. “The herbivores are finding their own solution to the problem of resolving Western and Confucian values. They are a function of their time. They are dealing with the change in the economy and I think they are closer to the original Japanese character of being non-competitive, of not trying to win other people over. And as a silent majority, they have the power to change the culture.”

Girly men of Japan just want to have fun


Shinya Yamaguchi with one of his creations

At the age of 18, Mitsuhiro Matsushita already has a good idea of his ideal future. After he graduates from university a few years of work will be followed by marriage to an industrious wage earner. When children arrive it will be Mitsuhiro who stays at home looking after them, baking cakes and biscuits and living the traditional life of the Japanese housewife.

None of this would be noteworthy but for one thing. Mitsuhiro is not a conventionally minded Japanese woman, but a thoughtful, articulate and fashionably dressed young man. And far from being a marginal eccentric he is a member of a large and growing tribe of Japanese manhood that is attracting the fascinated and anxious attention of companies, academics and the mass media.

Two phrases have been coined to describe them: soshokukei danshi or “herbivorous males”, and Ojo-man – or “girly men”
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Definitions vary, but the new herbivores could be described as metrosexuals without the testosterone. Although most of them are not homosexual they have in common a disdain for the traditional accoutrements of Japanese manhood, and a taste for things formerly regarded as exclusively female. Girly men have no interest in fast cars, career success, designer labels and trophy women. Instead, they hold down humble jobs, cultivate women as friends rather than conquests and spend their free time shopping at small boutiques and pursuing in Japan what is regarded as a profoundly feminine pastime: eating cakes.

Sociologists worry about the effect on the shrinking population of a generation of men who are not interested in girls. Marketeers ponder how to sell to this new, unfamiliar demographic. Cultural commentators have produced volumes attempting to explain the phenomenon to the rest of Japan, with titles such as Love Study of Herbivores, The Men Who Wear Bras and the Women Who Don’t and Herbivorous Girly Men Are Changing Japan.

The author of the last work, Megumi Ushikubo, estimates that two thirds of men aged 20 to 34 have herbivorous tendencies. Her marketing agency advises Japanese companies on how to appeal to this new demographic — so different from the generation above who came to maturity during the “Bubble Economy” of the late Eighties and early Nineties when rising asset prices in Japan created a frenzy of conspicuous consumption.

“In the Bubble, what people valued in a car was speed and high specifications,” she says. “Herbivorous boys don’t have any interest in that. They want a car which is practical and which gives them the space to be themselves.”

The last few years have seen a range of products to cater to a broadening of tastes among Japanese men. Japanese brewers have introduced weaker beers as sales of conventional alcoholic beverages have declined. A company named WishRoom sells bras for men — designed with manly simplicity, free of lace and frills.

“In the Eighties and Ninetiess, people imagined that men should be men and women should be women,” says Shinya Yamaguchi, 23, a fashion designer. “It was all about brand goods, foreign cars and pretty girls. But now people realise they can live as they wish.”
This week, Mr Yamaguchi will launch his latest collection of skirts and lacy tops, some of them pink, and all aimed at men.

Not everyone regards the emergence of the girly men as completely positive. Masahiro Yamada, a professor of sociology at Tokyo’s Chuo University, said that it had come about as a result of economic decline: if young men were foregoing designer labels, expensive cars and hot dates at flash restaurants it was largely because, after the bursting of the Bubble and 15 years of stagnation, far fewer of them can afford these luxuries.

Japanese women, according to Professor Yamada’s research, have not caught up. Two out of five say they wish to marry a man who earns at least 6 million yen (£40,000) a year — but such men make up only 3.5 per cent of the eligible population. The result of such unrealistic female expectations is a generation of men, and women, who may never marry and have children.

About half of men aged 20 to 34, he says, are unmarried and only 20 per cent of them have girlfriends. Thirty per cent, according to Professor Yamada, have never had a girlfriend in their lives. For a country like Japan, which already has a shrinking population, this is a disaster.

“I worry that herbivorous boys are the future of Japan,” he says. “As young Japanese men become more timid and more averse to taking risks, it will affect the energy and vitality of the society.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

Monk completes Mt. Hiei's thousand day mountain marathon


Dai-ajari Endo Mitsunaga, left, heads to the Kyoto Imperial Palace's Kogosho room for the ceremony on Monday. (Mainichi)

KYOTO -- A 34-year-old Buddhist monk here held a prayer ceremony at the Kyoto Imperial Palace on Monday, following the completion of a mountain pilgrimage known as one of the most arduous religious practices in the world.

Endo Mitsunaga, chief priest of Enryakuji Temple's Daijo-in monastery, became the 13th to complete the "Sennichi Kaihogyo" (thousand day mountain marathon) on Mt. Hiei since the end of World War II.

The ceremony is dubbed the "Dosoku Sandai," and is performed only for those monks who have completed the harsher ascetic practices of the Tendai sect. Mitsunaga was bestowed the title of "Dai-ajari" after the training.

Followed by some 1,000 monks and believers celebrating the great feat, Mitsunaga arrived at the Imperial residence in traditional white costume, where he prayed for the nation's peace and prosperity.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20091013p2a00m0na008000c.html

Typhoon bears down on Japan's main islands



TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful typhoon approached Japan's main islands on Wednesday, threatening the heavily populated country's industrial centers with torrential rain and strong winds.

Typhoon Melor may be the most powerful storm to hit Japan's main islands in more than 10 years if it makes landfall, the Meteorological Agency said.

Television showed waves pounding the shores of Japan's small southern islands as the typhoon moved north-northeast toward the main island of Honshu.

The eye of the storm was 250 km (155 miles) south of Tanegashima, 1000 km southwest of Tokyo and home to Japan's rocket launch pad, at 10:00 JST (0000 GMT), according to the Meteorological Agency. It could make landfall in central Japan west of Tokyo on Thursday.

Up to 400 mm of rain is forecast over the next 24 hours in the Tokai region, which includes the industrial center of Nagoya, the agency said, also warning of high winds, gales and flooding across southern Japan.

Toyota Motor Corp may not open its plants in the Nagoya area on Thursday due to the typhoon.

"We haven't decided whether to do daytime shifts tomorrow," a Toyota spokeswoman said.

An official at Nippon Oil's Oita refinery on the southern island of Kyushu said it was raining heavily but the typhoon had not affected the refinery's operations or oil shipments.

Nansei Sekiyu KK's refinery in Okinawa said high seas were delaying some ships.

Melor, which had earlier been classed as a Category 5 Super Typhoon, is now a Category 1, according to storm tracking website Tropical Storm Risk. A Category 1 storm can bring winds of up to 153 km an hour.

Television news warned of similarities to a deadly 2004 typhoon at the same time of year that killed 95 people, brought transport to a halt and disrupted production.

An official at Tokyo's city government offices said no additional measures were being taken to deal with the typhoon. An average of about three such storms hit Japan each year, although there were none last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100604176.html

Japan Today - The impending bankruptcy of Japan Airlines is a highly unwelcome challenge for the newly inaugurated Hatoyama cabinet. The extraordinary financial tsunami that has engulfed JAL shares in the past week leaves the government with a nasty dilemma.

Public opinion is understandably unsympathetic to the idea of any big bail-out by the taxpayer. Given the stories of union-management strife, overstaffing and freebies by senior executives that go back decades, this is hardly the kind of background on which to launch a major rescue effort.

JAL’s reputation may be in tatters but saving what was once a national icon will have its diehard supporters in the Democratic Party. Yet, it is one thing to wave the flag and claim that JAL should not go to the wall, but quite another to cobble together a practical solution. It is going to take both political skill and freight loads of cash to keep JAL in the air.

To save or not to save used to have only one simple, instinctive answer. Since the new government has vowed to cut unnecessary expenditure, many will obviously wonder why JAL is particularly deserving of the special kid-glove treatment. The international airline industry is experiencing hard times everywhere and with the budget-firms likely to keep gaining customers as the recession continues, saving JAL could mean merely staunching a wound that is bound to reopen again.

The initial indications of a possible JAL fix are far from promising. Comments that it can all be solved through a special task force hardly inspire total confidence. Talking of calmly working things out through negotiations is not exactly what the nation’s hard-pressed electorate had in mind when it overwhelmingly gave the green light to Yukio Hatoyama’s men and women.

The skeptics will want to learn - and soon- what can realistically be salvaged from the mess. The extraordinary plunge in JAL’s share price ought to be sending the transport ministry and the special advisers a pretty clear message. If JAL gets its bail-out, it may well be asking in the future for more of the same. If the European model is anything to go by, massive state aid for poorly performing industries is usually seen as no more than the first in a dreary series of bail-outs. The begging bowl has a habit of being passed round repeatedly before the process ends up with a permanent charity.

All this bad news, though, should not disguise the fact that even now, JAL can still get some things right. Flying last weekend from Narita to Heathrow by JAL showed me that its long-haul flights can still compete successfully in terms of cost and service. Jam-packed in may have been at the back, but this did not prevent excellent, attentive service.

If JAL were able to consistently treat its customers as more than just bodies to be flown from one airport to another, then there is just a case for saving portions of the carrier. However, this ought to be contingent on a management cull and renewed talks with other airlines overseas on a possible merger. Leaving JAL as a sacred national treasure won’t do any longer.

A supertyphoon headed for Japan hit Manila, Philippines instead this past week and these increasingly powerful supertyphoons will strike Japan if global warming continues to affect weather patterns in the western Pacific Ocean. Supercomputer simulations show there will be more of these typhoons with winds of 288 km (179 miles) per hour by 2074.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090925-supertyphoons-japan-global-warming.html

Seems like the airline I once worked for, Japan Airlines, is in major crisis these days so much so that it may disappear all together! Anyway, I came to like ANA much better after I used it countless times for business trips with NTT and have realized it is by far the best airline in Japan in every way...

Can reform help Japan Airlines soar again?

Mainichi News - Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," features space planes operated by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). At the time the film came out in 1968, Pan Am was the United States' flag carrier.

For Japanese living at a time when overseas travel was something people admired, the Pan Am logo was a symbol of American affluence. But by 2001, the airline had already disappeared. The carrier collapsed in 1991, and the brand name alone was carried on by another company.

It was the debt that emerged in the 1970s that claimed the life of Pan Am, which had dominated the world's skies against a background of American power and prosperity. After the collapse, the United States was described as a country without a flag carrier. It is a rule of the market economy that if a company loses out to competition, then it will disappear, even if is an airline representing a great country.

Japan Airlines was born shouldering the earnest desire of Japanese in the postwar period to once again take to the skies. The airline was semi-private until 1987, when it became fully privatized. But for Japan Airlines, being a flag carrier appeared to have meant that it relied on the government to foot the bill, and the airline's chronic deficits brought on by high costs were preserved.

In addressing the issue of Japan Airlines' financial reconstruction, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Seiji Maehara scrapped a panel of experts set up by the former government administration and set up a new team of specialists to consider how to revitalize the airline's business. The team will lead Japan Airline's business plans, and is set to outline the framework in about a month.

As a flag carrier under politics of the past, Japan Airlines was saddled with such burdens as being made to fly on unprofitable routes due to the construction of regional airports. Will the change of government administration open the way to revival and independence for Japan Airlines? It is not only the directors of futuristic films who are watching the situation.

Osorezan (Mount Osore) is ranked along with Koyasan and Hieizan as one of Japan's three most sacred places. It was discovered over 1000 years ago by a Buddhist priest in search of a sacred mountain that resembles the world of Buddha. Today, it is the site of Bodaiji Temple.

Osorezan is translated as "Fear Mountain", a name that comes in part from the mountain's exceptional landscape. The area is rich in volcanic activity, and a strong smell of sulfur permeates the air. The ground is gray and barren and marked by openings that steam, bubble and blow hot water. Lake Usori, located next to the temple, is colored various shades of blue due to its high sulfur content.

Osorezan is also known as entrance to afterlife, because it features geographical elements similar to descriptions of Buddhist hell and paradise, including eight surrounding peaks and a river, Sanzu no Kawa, which has to be crossed by all dead souls on their way to afterlife and is often compared to the River Styx of ancient Greek mythology.

Among the souls trying to cross the river are the souls of dead children and unborn babies who build piles of pebbles along the riverbed (Sai no Kawara) in an attempt to get to the other side. They are supported by Jizo, a popular bodhisattva of Japanese Buddhism, who protects the souls from evil demons, which constantly try to destroy the piles of pebbles.

Statues of Jizo are commonplace around Osorezan, as are piles of stones and pebbles. The pebbles are offerings to Jizo by parents of dead children in the hope that he will use the stones to help their children gain access to paradise. Brightly colored toy windmills are another common offering frequently seen around Osorezan's grounds.

Every year, Bodaiji's festival (July 22 to 24) attracts the bereaved and those hoping to communicate with lost loved ones through mediums, known as Itako. Itako are blind women who have undergone extensive spiritual training. In order to commune with the dead, they perform austere purification rituals for three months prior to the event and enter into a deep, prolonged trance during the festival.

Although access can be a challenge due to the lack of public transportation, Osorezan is a well known destination and the temple is equipped with overnight lodgings for guests. Both overnight and day visitors to the temple can use the simple hot spring baths located on the temple grounds.

Walking paths crisscross Bodaiji's unique temple grounds, affording visitors plenty of opportunity to stroll around the site and take in the scenery. A walk along the shores of Lake Usori is recommended, although visitors should avoid the poisonous water.

I am currently on Bon Summer Vacation here and climbed Mount Fuji for the first time this week!

Check out the pictures on my Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5050&id=100000052408518&l=480f43e294

Aomori City, way up on the northern coast of Japan's main island is home to the annual summer Nebuta Matsuri, the largest of a number of similar festivals that take place around the region, which are famous for their spectacular floats that are essentially huge paper lanterns. The Aomori Nebuta Festival is held every year from August 2 to 7.

The main event of the festival is the evening parades, where 10 to 20 floats (depending on the evening) are wheeled around the streets of the city followed by taiko drummers, flute and chappa (a type of cymbals) players, and dancers.

Not so surprisingly, they are quite expensive to build, costing around 4,000,000 yen ($40,000.) on average. What I found really interesting is that it costs an additional 16,000,000 yen ($160,000.) to operate the floats as well as their music and dance teams over the six days of the festival.

The origins of the festival are disputed, however the floats may have evolved from large statue like structures that were build during war as a way of attracting or intimidating the enemy.

Today's floats are often themed after historical myths and legends from both Japanese and Chinese culture, with NHK's Taiga Drama enjoying recurring popularity.

Hundreds of dancers, called Haneto follow each of the floats as they round the streets. They all perform the same dance while calling out "Rassera Rassera". Some of the dancers belonged to organized dance groups, however most seem to be individual participants.

An interesting legend surrounding the dance is that its stomping motion supposedly mimics stomping the ground above your defeated enemy as they are buried alive. How's that for a festive occasion!

Anyone is welcome to dance as long as they wear the Haneto costume which can be bought or rented around the city, and people come from all around to participate. It looks like a lot of fun, and I hope to come back and try it out someday.

The atmosphere is always very festive since anyone can participate in the dancing and many people dress up all out.