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Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

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Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#101
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now on top of annoying them, now you're dictating their phone settings too? What if they don't want to stop notifications? What if they don't know how to do it? What if they want to still get one from the child or partner or friend who's travelling if anything happens to them? Should they turn it on and off for your convenience, lest you have to forego sending a non-essential text at night?

I'm not dictating anything. You don't want notifications? Great! You can disable them. You want notifications only between these sets of timespans? No problem! Oh you want blacklist/whitelist certain groups/people? Can do! The receiver has full agency of when they receive notifications and of whom. In fact a person NOT sending a message and keeping it stored later is, in fact, taking away agency of the receiver. The…

>I'm not dictating anything. You don't want notifications? Great! You can disable them. You want notifications only between these sets of timespans? No problem! Oh you want blacklist/whitelist certain groups/people? Can do!

But you're still sending the message, regardless of if they want it or not, and even if obviously they might not have done those things, not know how to do those things, or simply not want to have to do those things, but still not want to have to get some message at night.

Sorry, but you're intruding with your late nightn message. And that's irrelevant to what they have or haven't set on their phone.

>In fact a person NOT sending a message and keeping it stored later is, in fact, taking away agency of the receiver. The sender assumes he knows better then the receivers.

It's not about agency, it's about courtesy.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#102
post #3

As an American who spends a lot of time traveling to Japan and who had experience living there (and who has dreams of moving back there once I pay off my student loans), I’ve done this type of confession twice; it’s quite different from the ambiguity that often occurs with forming relationships in America where people don’t know exactly where they stand. While it doesn’t remove all ambiguity (does she like me? Why is…

Does that mean nothing ever happens until you've agreed to a serious relationship? I do not see that refreshing or better in any way than our dating style.

> Does that mean nothing ever happens until you've agreed to a serious relationship?

You go on dates. Among people looking for a serious relationship, many women won't have sex - may not even kiss - if you haven't agreed to a serious relationship. Of course hookups exist, but looking for a hookup is a more or less separate activity from looking for a relationship, and happens in different spaces with (largely) different people. Whereas AIUI American culture is that you're supposed to do some drunken hookups and then eventually after you hook up with the same person a few times then you sort of come to a silent understanding that it's now a relationship.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "better" because there is a culturally accepted way to move things along to the next stage of potential relationship. So if you are not good at reading the situation, you get a formal way to approach things. From the anecdotes on the page, it also sounds like creepy or awkward folks have a formal way to be weird. Which sounds like a net positive. Society expects you to give your interest a heads up.

That just doesn't sound like a good thing. Dating is meant to be fun, awkward, wild, and everything in between, imo. It teaches you about yourself and other people. I would really hate having all that formality, but of course that's just my cultural bias.

Don’t worry; dating in Japan can be fun, awkward, wild, and much more. My friends and I have our stories. Different cultures just have different scripts.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Do not disturb' settings have been granular enough for awhile now, such that this is no longer a problem unless you want it to be.

You're still putting the burden on the receipient to setup a system that filters out emergencies and non emergencies, and who they want messages from at what time, potentialy switching things on and off as their schedule changes etc. Basicaly they're still spending time and effort so you don't have to.

I don't know about you, but for me spending that time and effort is a requirement, and not just because of friends or relatives sending me text messages when I'm asleep. If I don't set up do-not-disturb, I'll get woken up by various automated messages and alerts from different apps, not actual humans: maybe Amazon sends me an alert about something that's on sale, maybe a news app sends a notification about a new story, etc. Just looking at my phone now, I have a notification at 5:08AM from Meetup about events tomorrow, another one at 3:33AM about some event scheduled in a group I follow, there's a YouTube notification at 7:55AM about some video posted, etc. So either I go to all these stupid apps individually and see if they have a mechanism for restricting when they send notifications (maybe, probably not), or I simply set a do-not-disturb setting for the hours I'm normally asleep and don't get bothered by anything.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#105
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainstream American culture conceives of amorous relationships as fundamentally a fantasy of fortunate spontaneity, "the stars and planets coming into alignment", rather than something explicitly worked at formally; formalism, explicit terms, these are antagonistic and disrupt this fantasy of things 'just happening', and so have to be carefully approached, if at all. This is not exhaustive, America is a big place, bu…

It seems very clear which version you prefer, but why do you call it a "fantasy" of spontaneity? Because it happens all the time, it's no fantasy at all. You might not like it, but it very much exists. It's not just something from the movies, it's how basically everyone I know who's married got started. You're right that arranged marriage is very much anathema to mainstream American culture, since arguably the most c…

The problem with Americans and Indian arranged marriages is that they don't understand that, for modern arranged marriages, they're usually not forced upon anyone, but instead are basically a system where the parents play matchmaker.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#106
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>koi shiteru Are you sure this isn't actually "aishiteru (愛してる)"? I've never heard of 'koishiteru', but 'aishiteru' occupies roughly the same level you described. Actually, I have heard of 'koishiteru' (which I assume is 恋してる) but usually in the euphemistic context of sex. Additionally, and not totally related, "soulmate", rendered in katakana (ソールメイト, sorumeito) is often used to breezily describe someone, often a co…

Miki Matsubara has answered this conundrum (or the protagonist does) in her classic, Mayonaka no Doa (Stay with Me) : > 恋と愛とは違うものだよと Koi to ai to wa chigau mono dayo to “Romance and love are different things”

Yes, but that's 恋, not 恋してる. Do you ever hear anyone say 恋してる? I can't say I ever have, which isn't to say that it doesn't happen, though.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#107

I know the grass seems always greener on the other side and this culture has its own set of problems but I still think I would prefer this over what the west has to offer in the dating market. I absolutely hate the ambiguity of the relationship in the west, “Dating? I’m not sure, we have only started sleeping together a month ago. They might still be seeing other people.” And yes, not everywhere is like this but arou…

It doesn't have to be ambiguous. If you want to be exclusive with someone, just say so. If they don't want to be exclusive with you after a month of dating, you're probably never going to get there and you're better off cutting your losses.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#108
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miki Matsubara has answered this conundrum (or the protagonist does) in her classic, Mayonaka no Doa (Stay with Me) : > 恋と愛とは違うものだよと Koi to ai to wa chigau mono dayo to “Romance and love are different things”

Yes, but that's 恋, not 恋してる. Do you ever hear anyone say 恋してる? I can't say I ever have, which isn't to say that it doesn't happen, though.

恋してる is for songs and poetry, as far as I'm aware.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#109

I read carefully the first half of the article then scanned the rest, so I may have missed it; it didn't seem to also mention "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?", which is a poetic way of saying I love you as well: https://www.tsuki.world/world/the-moon-is-beautiful-isnt-it https://www.wikihow.com/The-Moon-Is-Beautiful-Isn%27t-It

It's not about being poetic. Soseki thought "I love you" was too obscene for a Japanese standard at that time.

Although I don't think it applies to modern Japan, it certainly resonates with me somehow. I don't trust people who talk about love.

Re: Kokuhaku: Japan’s Love Confessing Culture (2013)

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just doesn't sound like a good thing. Dating is meant to be fun, awkward, wild, and everything in between, imo. It teaches you about yourself and other people. I would really hate having all that formality, but of course that's just my cultural bias.

Don’t worry; dating in Japan can be fun, awkward, wild, and much more. My friends and I have our stories. Different cultures just have different scripts.

Good to hear! I know Asia well and it's certainly different. But I never really gave Japan a chance (visited but the language barrier was too much), so I was curious.
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