Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

The "Love Bra" Hits Japan
Friday, May 11, 2007

When I was teaching junior high school in Japan 20 years ago the country was undergoing a size crisis: Young people were considerably taller than their parents, largely because they ate more protein. Those post-war years in Japan saw a lot of rice on the dinner plate (and a lot of stomach cancer as a result). One question being considered: Should chopsticks be longer, since they are said to have been designed to be proportionate to the size of the hands.

The WSJ checks in on this trend and though it doesn't mention the chopstick situation, the reporter points out that my former students, especially the girls, have grown up and now have hips and breasts that are several sizes larger than their mothers. One impact: The Love Bra, a new product that pushes up and out and needs no padding.

The cleavage craze took off in 2003, when a young pop star named Kumi Koda appeared in ads around Tokyo wearing a barely-there metallic bra and not much else. In one image, she wore coconut shells over her chest. Then, two years later, she performed at the televised Japan Record Awards wearing thin tape-like gold satin straps over her breasts that revealed nearly everything when she danced. The 24-year-old star has become the champion of a new "If you've got it, flaunt it" attitude among young Japanese women.

These are the facts:

Today the average Japanese woman's hips, at 35 inches, are around an inch wider than those of women a generation older. Women in their 20s wear a bra at least two sizes larger than that of their mothers, according to Wacoal. Waist size, meanwhile, has gotten slightly smaller, accentuating many young women's curves.

The average 20-year-old is also nearly three inches taller than she was in 1950, according to government statistics, and the average foot has grown by nearly a quarter of an inch.

The physical changes are largely the result of an increasingly Westernized diet, say nutritionists. Meals that used to consist of mostly fish, vegetables and tofu now lean heavily toward an American-style menu of red meat, dairy and indulgences such as Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Cold Stone Creamery ice cream.

All this extra protein and calcium has led to longer, stronger and fuller bodies. Shinichi Tashiro, an endocrinology professor at Showa Pharmaceutical University, says the intake of extra fat tends to go to either breasts or hips in adolescent girls.

Labels: Japan

Posted by B Feiler at 7:01 AM 0 comments
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"I Thought He Was A Little Out of His Mind"
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

A reader writes:

I have just finished your book, Learning To Bow : Inside the heart of Japan, for my world geography class and I wanted to let you know how much I truely enjoyed reading it. When my professor told us that we were going to have to read for geography I thought he was a little out of his mind. Reading about the different culture in Japan, as you had spoke about in your book, was truly a shock! To think that their beliefs on strict schooling and regime was so disciplined was beyond what I could ever imagined. I had no idea how truely diverse they were from the American way of living. I have to say that the chapter that mostly surprised me was where the boy had committeed suicide. I really never saw that coming and have to say that it was a little scary. I know how kids in American society talk about suicide and usually its just a means for attention, but for that child to jump off the balcony of his third story classroom was defintely surprising to me. Overall, I loved reading about the wedding, their different envelopes, and many other cultural things that they do in Japan that we do not do here in America. I will defintely be reading some more of your books, but on my own time instead of class assignments.

Thanks for sticking through the assignment! I would guess over the years that LEARNING TO BOW has been assigned to more classes than any of my other books, though ABRAHAM is probably catching up quickly.

Labels: Japan

Posted by B Feiler at 8:00 AM 0 comments
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Reporter Who Broke Pearl Harbor Died -- On December 7
Thursday, December 28, 2006

One of the odder ironies of living in Japan for many years is that, with the dateline, December 7th has no resonance in that culture. It was December 8th in Japan when the attack on Pearl Harbor occcured. I was thinking of that when reading this story -- for some reason datelined to my hometown -- that the reporter who phoned in news of the attack died this year. On December 7th.

Labels: Japan, Savannah

Posted by B Feiler at 10:44 PM 0 comments
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