But I would have to say the biggest obstacle to having children these days is that many young people just don't have a healthy interest in getting married anymore. I recently read that 60% of unmarried young men and nearly 50% of women of the same age weren't dating. I think male/female relationships are just too difficult, as Japanese women and Japanese men don't seem to be from the same country. The women here have been very influenced by foreign travel/study, foreign movies and foreign men. They want deep communication, intimate relationships and help around the house like they think Western women are getting (not cowgirls, but women living in the Western hemisphere). On the other hand, as one Japanese man told me, he was brought up to believe that his wife and other close relatives should understand how he feels without having to be told. So he and most other Japanese men never tell their wives/girlfriends, "I love you." Sounds romantic.
Well, there is a marketing idea in all of this un-marital drama but this post is too long, so I will write about it next time. 'Til then remember, men, your wife can't read your mind and neither can your potential customers. Here at Kondo Communications Factory, we build better communications...in Japanese www.noah-digital.co.jp/english/.
I am leaving a comment here as a native Japanese. Mindreading is a part of Japanese communication in both sexes and not having to say I love you IS indeed a sign of loving someone truly in Japanese culture. You need to know saying "I love you" verbally in Japanese is not a way to express love but it is most loudly expressed in many different non-verbal ways. I hope you will observe more closely how people communicate in Japan by NOT using the American yardstick to evaluate phenomena that you see in Japan, or you will never understand what people really are thinking, what is really going on in their communication, and people always look ‘stupid’ and you always need to ‘teach them’ something. I was born and raised in Nagoya (Nakagawa-ku), have lived in the US for many years, many men here in the US also complain about women wanting romantic gestures too much that they really don't care. I think it is a "Mars and Venus" thing that they often talk about here. Women wanting more communication and men not communicating but rather going with guys for watching sports and having booze are a universal phenomenon. There is a reason for Japanese men's non-communicative ways, and women are also less communicative, if I am allowed to use your American (I would rather not say Western… for example, Brits are more subtle in their communication than Americans, Swedish are very qujiet people, too, compared to Americans) standard of communication, but there is a cultural reason. You have to understand the Japanese culture and people more deeply to understand all of these things. As I read your blog, I see you evaluating things at their face value most of the time, but Japanese culture is like an iceberg. You need to know and understand what is behind things that are apparent. So thinking that Japanese men are simply incompetent of communication is misunderstanding, it is not that simple and it might even sound like an offensive and disrespectful remark about them. Maybe there is much more you need to learn before you think about teaching them something.
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