Well, my computer is back. Yay! It only took 6 weeks to fix. I really won't complain much if it is truly fixed this time. I just hope it really is fixed, since I had so much trouble with it breaking repeatedly.

Today I found myself once again pondering the mysteries of Japanese relationships. We had a class where the students were supposed to ask one question to about 7 girls and 7 boys. However, the students almost totally refused to talk to members of the opposite sex. These students are 14 and 15, so you'd think they would be pumped full of hormones and desperate to talk to members of the opposite sex. Instead, they have no interest in talking to each other at all. In fact, they often seem afraid of each other.

Some of us were talking once, and someone commented that it is a miracle that the Japanese ever manage to have relationships, much less children. I don't know at what point things change, but at some point they seem to start liking each other. I've been told they don't really associate very much in high school either, which is even stranger. Victoria and I have observed college students mixing in public though, so perhaps that is the turning point for many Japanese people.

However, even after they are older and in relationships, very traditional gender roles are still quite dominant. It's likely that the modern woman has a job, but also has responsibility for all the cooking, cleaning, and some of the child care. Grandmothers tend to fill in the child care roll during the day if a woman has a job. Many women in Japan are quite surprised that I cook dinner. I guess single men just eat out all the time.

It doesn't seem to be changing much with young people. Many 25-year old women talk about how they really need to be married, and that they are getting ugly so they can't get a husband now. Getting a husband seems to be the most important thing for many women. It's not really a good state of affairs, in my opinion.

Western men are generally highly estimeed as boyfriends, or at least have a reputation for being good boyfriends, because they have less traditional ideas. In fact, one of the high school teachers at a good high school asked her students why they wanted to study English. Most of the girls responded that they wanted to snag a Western husband. Crazy, huh?