fountainhall
November 20th, 2016, 10:10
Japan’s mono-cultural society has often led to what others see as quirky behaviour. In the 1970s and 80s, it was wives being “happy” for their salarymen husbands to spend their evenings doing what Japanese culture demanded - drinking and bonding with their colleagues and bosses, often returning home blind drunk on the last trains. The quid pro quo was that the wives got the pay packet and had the right to look after the children.
Then it was the huge luxury good boom in the 1980s. By the time the recession of the 1990s came along, it was no longer acceptable for ladies to wear their gross diamond rings or their mink coats. So department stores, eager for the sale of such goods to continue, instituted weekly evenings exclusively for these ladies to parade around in their finery without concern for others’ feelings.
The OL phenomenon – office ladies who made good salaries but continued to live with their parents and so had a lot of disposable income – resulted in huge numbers travelling to places like Hong Kong and wait in queues outside Louis Vuitton stores for the latest bags and fashions. The amount they saved by not buying in Japan more than covered the cost of their flights and hotels!
Lately, the huge concern has been the drop in the birthrate. It has been going on now for some decades and has governments worried about how to pay for a rapidly ageing population. Now there’s a related worry. Many young Japanese have little interest in relationships – with real people, that is. Falling in love with the fictional characters in online and video games is now the in-thing. Virtual dating.
According to an Observer report today, 30% of single women and 15% of single men aged between 20 and 29 admit to having fallen in love with such characters. Worse, new figures show that 70% of unmarried men and 75% of women have never had any sexual experience by the time they reach 20. These figures drop by 50% by the time age 25 is reached, but what is left is still a huge number. Now hotels have spring up
According to Professor Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Chuo University in Tokyo, who has coined the phrase “stranded singles” for the phenomenon, the rise in virginity rates is matched by a rise in the lack of interest in having any kind of “real” relationship . . .
The development of the multimillion-pound virtual romance industry in Japan reflects the existence of a growing number of people who don’t have a real-life partner, said Yamada. There is even a slang term, “moe”, for those who fall in love with fictional computer characters, while dating sims allow users to adjust the mood and character of online partners and are aimed at women as much as men. A whole subculture, including hotel rooms where a guest can take their console partner for a romantic break, has been springing up in Japan (https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan) over the past six or seven years.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/20/japan-stranded-singles-virtual-love
Hopefully this will not spell the end of those host bars with the incredibly cute hosts. Or it is merely the merely photographs customers take to their hotel rooms?
Then it was the huge luxury good boom in the 1980s. By the time the recession of the 1990s came along, it was no longer acceptable for ladies to wear their gross diamond rings or their mink coats. So department stores, eager for the sale of such goods to continue, instituted weekly evenings exclusively for these ladies to parade around in their finery without concern for others’ feelings.
The OL phenomenon – office ladies who made good salaries but continued to live with their parents and so had a lot of disposable income – resulted in huge numbers travelling to places like Hong Kong and wait in queues outside Louis Vuitton stores for the latest bags and fashions. The amount they saved by not buying in Japan more than covered the cost of their flights and hotels!
Lately, the huge concern has been the drop in the birthrate. It has been going on now for some decades and has governments worried about how to pay for a rapidly ageing population. Now there’s a related worry. Many young Japanese have little interest in relationships – with real people, that is. Falling in love with the fictional characters in online and video games is now the in-thing. Virtual dating.
According to an Observer report today, 30% of single women and 15% of single men aged between 20 and 29 admit to having fallen in love with such characters. Worse, new figures show that 70% of unmarried men and 75% of women have never had any sexual experience by the time they reach 20. These figures drop by 50% by the time age 25 is reached, but what is left is still a huge number. Now hotels have spring up
According to Professor Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Chuo University in Tokyo, who has coined the phrase “stranded singles” for the phenomenon, the rise in virginity rates is matched by a rise in the lack of interest in having any kind of “real” relationship . . .
The development of the multimillion-pound virtual romance industry in Japan reflects the existence of a growing number of people who don’t have a real-life partner, said Yamada. There is even a slang term, “moe”, for those who fall in love with fictional computer characters, while dating sims allow users to adjust the mood and character of online partners and are aimed at women as much as men. A whole subculture, including hotel rooms where a guest can take their console partner for a romantic break, has been springing up in Japan (https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan) over the past six or seven years.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/20/japan-stranded-singles-virtual-love
Hopefully this will not spell the end of those host bars with the incredibly cute hosts. Or it is merely the merely photographs customers take to their hotel rooms?