Joy Hendry

Re-imaging Japanese women

Contributors: Anne Allison Nobuko Awaya Gail Lee Bernstein Millie R. Creighton Sally Ann Hastings Margaret Lock Susan Orpett Long Robert J. Marra John Mock Barbara Lynn Rowland Mori Andrew A. Painter David P. Phillips Glenda S. Roberts Nancy Rosenberger Patricia G. Steinhoff

Marriage in changing Japan : community and society

1. Historical Context 2. The Community 3. The Household and Married Life 4. The Mechanics of Making a Match 5. The Union: Ceremonial and Celebration 6. Further Ceremonial: Some of the Wider Implications of Marriage 7. Conclusion: The Pivotal Role of Marriage Appendix: The Pre-Gregorian Calendar and Some Implications for Marriage

An ethnographer in the global arena: globography perhaps?

In this article Hendry addresses the difficulties and apparent contradictions of applying the qualitative rigour of the ethnographic research method to fieldwork carried out in a global context. While pursuing a discourse evidently shared by people indigenous to many different parts of the world, the author reflects on why she feels the work she is doing still draws on elements of the qualitative strength of the method first developed by her own discipline of social anthropology. This subject is now somewhat unfashionable for reasons precisely associated with the discourse she is following, namely a status inequality seen as implicit in the representation of ‘other’ peoples. In the article she argues against throwing the baby out with the bathwater, however, and seeks to demonstrate how the value the ethnographic method gleaned from social anthropology offers an important contribution to understanding local aspects of global issues.

Kindergartens and the Transition from Home to School Education

Although kindergartens are not part of the compulsory education system in Japan, most parents are able to send their pre-school children for one if not two or more years to a professionally-run establishment. Academic activities are not necessarily emphasised. The early acquisition of basic skills such as reading and writing is encouraged by mothers themselves, and some private kindergartens reinforce their teaching, but the more universal expectation of early institutional education is concerned with other aspects of a childs preparation for school. It is the aim of this paper to describe and explain the nature of the concerns involved [1]. Kindergartens in Japan have developed in parallel with the rest of the modern education system, although less rapidly attracting such avid attendance. The first was established in 1876 but, along with the other early ones which followed, had a largely upper-class clientele. By the beginning of the Second World War, there were over 2000 kindergartens catering for some 200,000 children (Ministry of Education, 1981:19), but in the post-war period these figures have mushroomed to 15,190 and 2,193,000 respectively in 1983 (Statistics Bureau, 1984). Almost as many children are taken care of in over 20,000 day nurseries, which for the two years preceding school entrance provide facilities and activities very similar to those of the kindergartens, except that the former operate for longer hours to cater to the needs of mothers working outside the home [2]. Except where specifically distinguished, reference to kindergartens in this paper may also be taken to include the two top classes of day nurseries as well.

Interpreting Japanese society : anthropological approaches

First published in 1986, Interpreting Japanese Society became something of a classic in the field. In this newly revised and updated edition, the value of anthropological approaches to help understand an ancient and complex nation is clearly demonstrated. While living and working in Japan the contributors have studied important areas of society. Religion, ritual, leisure, family and social relations are covered as are Japanese preconceptions of time and space - often so different from Western concepts. This new edition of Interpreting Japanese Society shows what an important contribution research in such a rapidly changing industralised nation can make to the subject of anthropology. It will be welcomed by students and scholars alike who wish to find refreshing new insights on one of the worlds most fascinating societies.

Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America.

Margaret Lock explicitly compares Japanese and North American medical and political accounts of female middle age to challenge Western assumptions about menopause. She uses ethnography, interviews, statistics, historical and popular culture materials, and medical publications to produce a richly detailed account of Japanese womens lives. The result offers irrefutable evidence that the experience and meanings--even the endocrinological changes--associated with female midlife are far from universal. Rather, Lock argues, they are the product of an ongoing dialectic between culture and local biologies. Japanese focus on middle-aged women as family members, and particularly as caretakers of elderly relatives. They attach relatively little importance to the end of menstruation, seeing it as a natural part of the aging process and not a diseaselike state heralding physical decline and emotional instability. Even the symptoms of midlife are different: Japanese women report few hot flashes, for example, but complain frequently of stiff shoulders. Articulate, passionate, and carefully documented, Locks study systematically undoes the many preconceptions about aging women in two distinct cultural settings. Because it is rooted in the everyday lives of Japanese women, it also provides an excellent entree to Japanese society as a whole. Aging and menopause are subjects that have been closeted behind our myths, fears, and misconceptions. Margaret Locks cross-cultural perspective gives us a critical new lens through which to examine our assumptions.

Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation, and Power in Japan and Other Societies.

Wrapping Culture is concerned with problems of intercultural communication and the possibilities for misinterpretation of the familiar in an unfamiliar context. Starting with an examination of gift-wrapping, Joy Hendry demonstrates how our expectations are often influenced by cultural factors which may blind us to an appreciation of underlying intent. She then extends this approach to the study of polite language as the wrapping of thoughts and intentions, garments as body wrappings, constructions and gardens as wrapping of space, and even to the ways in which people may be wrapped in seating arrangements, or meetings and drinking customs may be constrained by temporal versions of wrapping. Throughout the book, Dr Hendry considers ways in which groups of people use such symbolic forms to impress and manipulate one another, and points out a Western tendency to underestimate such non-verbal communication, or reject it as mere decoration. The ideas she presents should be valid in any intercultural encounter and demonstrate that Japanese culture, so often thought of as a special case, can supply a model through which we can formulate general theories about human behaviour.

Becoming Japanese: The World of the Pre-School Child

The children are more than mere pictures. They tell us the truths about Japan. So wrote a visitor to Japan at the turn of the century and this view underlies the title of this book. The first few years of a childs life are vitally imporant for preparing it to be a member of the society to which it belongs. Japanese methods of childcare are consequently directed towards taking advantage of the receptivity of the early years. They are also different in many ways from Western methods and much of the colorful detail in this book will be of great interest to mothers everywhere--from family beds and toilet training to the elaborate religious ceremonies of childhood. Joyn Hendry looks at customs and traditions, at rewards and punishments, and at the day-to-day life of children at home, at school, and in the wider world. Joy Hendrys research involved working with Japanese mothers and other care takers, and with kindergartens and day nurseries. She has drawn on the work of sociologists, psychologists and educationalists in English and Japanese, but the theoretical framework for the study is drawn from social anthropology.