-Looking for what's kawaii? Interested in kawaii, cute fashion + goods from Japan, Japanese cuisine or language? Come look find kawaii shopping and what's more in Tokyo- Tokyo Kawaii, etc. Shop cute cool products or stuff and fashion clothing from Japan. Shop Japanese cute products, cute stuff and cute things. Find out this cute blog or cute website about Japanese pop culture. It's a blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

Japanese singles say that they want to get married but they cannot find a good partner. This is becoming a social problem today, and many of them work harder to meet someone to tie the knot. Work…what? Konkatsu! Activity for marriage!

According to the statistics, one out of 2 singles of the age between 30 and 34 is not married. In fact, many of my friends are serious about Konkatsu. Some take cooking classes, matchmaking parties every weekend, and always ask me to introduce someone to them. I have no idea why they have to struggle so much because they are all nice & kawaii girls to me.

Herbivore men may need to be more active to meet women. Some of them are too shy to talk to women. Anyhow Konkatsu-related businesses are growing in Japan thanks to those people. You know most of Japanese people are very shy and so they need someone to conduct the situation for smooth communication with strangers.

Here’s a sample video that introduces a man who takes a lesson “how to make Omiai (blind date) successful” at a Konkatsu agancy.

Konkatsu lessons

cooking lessons (@5,000yen)
styling fee (10,000yen/month)
party (5,500yen)…Usually men have to pay way more than women.

GREEN single’s bar (Konkatsu bar)

Major Konkatsu-matching agents
Onet
Bridal Net
SunMarie
Nozze
zwei

However, some women pay more attention to the requirements to her partner such as how much he earns yearly and they repeat hopping Konkatsu parties one after another to expect next one should be better. Well…it depends, but I think that marriage is give and take. A man and a woman help each other.

I have a friend about 40 years old who joins one or two of the above agencies. She dated several guys but she was so much disappointed to hear they asked her to stay at home, do things around him to support him so he can concentrate on his work. How outdated these guys are! They should stay with their mom forever~!!

Is Konkatsu sort of activity popular in your country, too?

I wonder when it was last that Japan was said to be a country of nondiscriminatory society. Time has changed and today many Japanese workers suffer from the difference between regular employment and irregular one. In Japan when we do the same job, our salary or social security is different whether we’re hired as regular employee or not. (Yes, this is very unfair!) In fact, many temp-workers have been fired and they turned to be homeless these days.

Japan used to be nicer to the poor and the weak of society but watch this video to see how these people are striving today. They are not lazy. They are doing as much as they can to make their living, but they can not get out of working poor. They are not anything special. Such people can be next door, and this can happen to anyone under such bad economy.

You may have strong image against Japan that it’s a country of Samurai and Harakiri.
Well that’s true if you discuss Japan of hundreds of years ago, but what’s new today?
One of my blog readers used to ask me to write about how Japanese people go dating. But before I write about that, there is something I should mention: something remarkable between men and women today.

Young Japanese men of 20s and 30s today are apparently different from current 40s or 50s were in that age. The uniqueness of Japanese men nowadays is called as “herbivore boy” and has been broadcasted here and there several times, because they are that unique.

As in the title, Japanese men are getting less interested in the things that they used to stick to.
For example, they are no longer interested in:
-hunting for girls,
-working hard not only to support his family but to get promoted to gain good position at his company,
-buying luxurious car or house to show off,
-drinking strong alcohol and staying away from sweets,
-eating well and working out at a gym to build a manly bodyline,
-competitions
and etc.

These are the things men used to think needed to be a man among men.
But young men never care about such things any more. They enjoy what they like, totally free from prejudice, competition, aggressiveness or whatever men used to pay much attention to.

Here’s what herbivore men care for:
-fashion and cosmetics to make them look good
-time they spend with family
-diet to keep a lean body and to save money
-cafe and sweets (These days sweets especially designed for men are available at convenience stores.)
-mild and modest character, just do things as his own pace

“飲む・打つ・買う” (meaning drinking, gambling, flirting with women) is a common way of expressing bad guy in Japan, but herbivore men are way opposite to this. They are no-drinking, no-gambling, and no-sex!

It sounds peaceful when you hear “Herbivore men” but as to the downside of them, it is said that they can accelerate our social problem of low birth rate because they are indifferent to women. To be exact, they are not proactive or aggressive to make an approach to women. They may feel like dating if only they are asked by women. Yes, they are very passive! Moreover, the virtual girls available in the video game such as LovePlus could be better than real ones!! Being indifferent to expensive car or watch damages Japanese economy, too.

On the other hand, however, we can think that herbivore men have settled in that way under decades of Japanese bad economy. Being less offensive might have been the best way to cope with such gloomy economy. Or it could be Japanese women who created herbivore men. Unlike men, Japanese women have become strong. Women enjoy working very hard at the office, drinking well, shopping a lot, and are very aggressive.

TV or book catches trend faster. Otomen or Ojoman introduced herbivore male earlier.

Now I can clearly understand why one of my male colleagues acted like a woman when I was working at the office. He was around mid 30, single. He seemed to spend much time and money for shopping. He liked eating sweets at the office. He liked to talk with girls for sweets, hair care cosmetics, new shops, and etc. He was wondering what to wear to the event while non of other female colleagues didn’t care much about that. He said he wanted to get married someday, but he didn’t seem to be proactive against women. I was not sure if he had a girlfriend then, but he liked to keep doing things at his own pace, which means he didn’t even like his things touched or moved from the right position by his girlfriend when she came to his house. It was over 5 years ago, when I found he was very different from most of other men, but now I feel he was one of the herbivore guys! Herbivore guys are good to have as friends, but I’m not sure if I can fall in love with someone who I don’t sense “male”. (LOL) What do you think? Have you seen herbivore men around you? Or could you be one of them?

Today Japanese Yen hit strongest againt USD for the first time in 14 years. Yesterday’s big news was that 1USD was exchanged at 86 yen for the first time in 14 years, but today it broke the record.

Strong Yen is damage to Japanese economy, as it relies on exporting business. It’s said that we have to strengthen domestic consumption more and try not too much to be dependent on foreign demand.

Then what’s going on among domestic business?
I have to say it’s in the middle of deflation, unfortunately, which we can feel everyday even before we heard the statement from our government some time ago.

We’ve been soaked in deflation for a decade, and I cannot even remember what it was like to be inflation. (I’d say I don’t know inflation, because in the 1980s I was only a kid who didn’t know how adults enjoyed our bubble economy. Our economy has been bad since I started to work and nothing’s changed in a good way. Things are rather getting worse! ) In the past 10 years up until now, our salary is less likely to be raised, bonus is highly cut off, lay-off or bankruptcy is always, almost 0% of interests for the bank savings, and low prices are the only valid reason to attract customers.

*Disclaimer: The photo is quoted from g.u.’s PDF flyer from here.

Especially low prices, I’m afraid this trend is accelerating. Do you know that we can buy a pair of jeans for only 990 yen at g.u. (g.u. is cheaper version of Uniqlo) or for 880 yen at super market such as Aeon or Daiei, and even for 690 yen at Don Quijote today? As far as what I hear, the good thing about that is not “You get what you pay for.” I’ve never tried these things, but people say they are mostly satisfied with the price and what they can get. Thus, they get more than what they paid for.

I miss old days when people said “Everything is expensive in Japan” as now it’s apparently wrong today. When I am inside the deflation economy, my perception or judgment is based on Tokyo pricing. With such observing point, there’s no wonder I felt that eating out in Australia or Europe required too much money when I travelled last summer. But now I know that they are normal, as their economy is growing with healthy inflation. It’s not that they are charging too much, it was our problem. Our economy situation was very weird and something insane.

Everyone is happy about low prices, including me. On the other hand though, I am so worried about what’s going on in our country. I feel sorry for the situation of our economy that allows extraordinarily cheap things like under 1000 yen jeans. How do you see this?

I’d like to share with you about Japanese working hours, which is requested by one of my blog readers, Leonard the other day from his comment. (Dear My blog readers: Please feel free to send me your request that you want me to write about! Thanks!! )

When we go to Europe, we are surprised to find that stores close at 6 pm, and they also close on Sunday. It’s also a surprise they don’t have convenience stores around.

How is Japanese working hours? Most office workers have Saturday, Sunday, and national holidays off. They work from Monday to Friday 9 to 5. But it’s very rare that we are free from overtime work. As I mentioned in my post about Japanese working environment the other day, Japanese companies do not like to hire more employees, which is because they want to eliminate extra expenses they have to spend for every employee for their commuting, insurance, pension program, and so on. As it turns out, every company has as small numbers of employees as possible and makes them work longer hours instead of filling with additional employees. I wonder if there are any employees these days who leave office at 5pm, because many of them work up until 9 or 10pm, and there are even those who work up until 1 or 2am next morning to cover his or her workload. (It doesn’t mean they can have next day off or start working from noon or something.)

Of course there are employees who can leave office at 5pm but that’s because their job is easy and simple. They can be easily replaced by someone else who works for cheaper wage in the future.

When it comes to service industry such as real estate, they may close office on Tuesday and Wednesday and they open for weekends and national holidays because that is the time they can expect more customers. It’s tragic when you work for service industry and your wife works for non-service industry, because your holidays never meet each other. You can never have holiday together!

How about shops? Shops usually open from 10 or 11am to 8 or 9pm. Small shops have a day off once a week, but big shops such as fashion department store will be always open except 1st of January. I remember they used to have Wednesday off, as they are considered service industry, but for the past 10 years and today I see them always open, almost 365 days annually. Let me tell you one big difference. When I was shopping at a store in Venice, Italy, I was told to go out of the store because they are closing in 2 minutes. In Japan, even when they are closing, they say “We are closing the shutter now, but please take your time. We can wait until our last customer checks out. We never make you rush. Please never mind our closing and enjoy your shopping as usual!”

If you doubt, go to Marui department for example and stay inside the shop when they are closing. You’ll hear this announcement all over the building.

There are even shops that open 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
Convenience stores and some super markets are open 24 hours. Especially convenience stores are everywhere, and in that way we will never miss something to eat and drink even if we forget to buy them. Major discount store such as Donkihote, bookstore or video rental store such as TSUTAYA, dry cleaning stores, hair salons, beauty salons, restaurants….so many places in Tokyo offer services for 24 hours. It’s not only Tokyo, (but I guess there are many in Tokyo) you can check it out from here, if you read Japanese.

When do they take days off? Those who work for shops and restaurants can have only 8 days off a month, according to my friends who have worked for shops. 8 days means national holidays are totally skipped, and of course they have to avoid Saturday and Sunday as much as possible. They would take turns to have weekends off and so it’s not that every weekend they can be off-duty.

I think Japan is very convenient and functional place for customers, but if you try to work here, you know how much sacrifice we have to make to support our customers. “Customers are GOD!” Things like this is spoken as a matter of course and without even a bit of hesitation in this country. It’s so crazy!

That’s why there are arrogant customers who take advantage of their superiority against employees. “Are you saying that to your precious customers? You’ll never know how much inconvenience I had to have because of you.” Nasty customers would even make the employees apologize so many times. In other countries, the employees would say, “Sorry for that, but it’s not my fault. The computer made mistakes.” or whatever. But in Japan, it’s not possible to answer to your customers like that. Even if it was not your fault, you have to apologize because you or your computer or your coworker or whoever that belong to the company is representing the company. I think Japanese people put emphasis on apologizing more than appreciating something. I’m sure we hear “sumimasen” （すみません）a lot more than “arigatougozaimasu”　（ありがとうございます）.

Even while I am writing this, I feel so sick of this supressed society.
But I’m telling you the truth. This is another true story of Japan.
I can tell you this because I’ve seen it and lived in it as Japanese.
I’m fed up with this, but only being a customer, it’s so easy! (Sometimes I’m totally mad at what employees say to me: it’s not my fault! and then I realize how much I was spoiled in Japanese society!!)
Is this only in Japan? How are the things in your country?