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Sounds pretty superfluous to me. Somewhere between like, having a crush and love, I don't quite see a place for "premonition of love." Given no other culture h

Sounds pretty superfluous to me. Somewhere between like, having a crush and love, I don't quite see a place for "premonition of love." Given no other culture has it (as far as mentioned), I'm tempted to believe it's a cultural quirk or a tradition, rather than a universal phenomena.

csa 9y ago
I lived in Japan for about 8 years and I have studied and worked with its culture for many years longer. I think you're comment is overly dismissive. First, other cultures probably do have it, but it's just not named as a phenomenon. I personally don't believe the nihonjinron theory. That said, the language and culture is very linguistically and sociologically distant from the west, so some terms don't translate naturally or easily. Second, you will see this phenomenon in cultures and subcultures that are more collectivist than individualistic. Most countries in the west trend towards individualistic, while most in east Asia trend towards collectivist. Note that how this individualism and collectivism manifests themselves is a fascinating topic, so exceptions are easy to spot depending on the granularity that one looks at a given culture. Third, the Japanese concept of love can be a bit different than that in the west. Many Japanese marriages are more like brotherly/sisterly love than "romantic" love -- in fact I find that these marriages are often the most stable I have ever seen (this has a lot of caveats, but I'm typing on my phone). Other Japanese marriages are based on a principle of something like "good enough" -- that is, they set a reasonable bar for want they want, and they will happily take anything above that bar. This is a pretty healthy approach imho, as long as the bar is not regularly set too low. A lot of what is wanted is pretty health stuff like a pleasant disposition, empathy, self-confidence, etc. I think people in other cultures wan this, too, and in many situations they can and do get it. That said, sometimes other competing values in the west get in the way of otherwise healthy relationships or marriages from developing. Anyway, i encourage you to look into this more. It's a fascinating topic, and it's not nihinjinron propanda, imho.
- starchild_3001 9y ago
  Arigato, for the thoughtful reply!

csa 9y ago

I lived in Japan for about 8 years and I have studied and worked with its culture for many years longer. I think you're comment is overly dismissive. First, other cultures probably do have it, but it's just not named as a phenomenon. I personally don't believe the nihonjinron theory. That said, the language and culture is very linguistically and sociologically distant from the west, so some terms don't translate naturally or easily. Second, you will see this phenomenon in cultures and subcultures that are more collectivist than individualistic. Most countries in the west trend towards individualistic, while most in east Asia trend towards collectivist. Note that how this individualism and collectivism manifests themselves is a fascinating topic, so exceptions are easy to spot depending on the granularity that one looks at a given culture. Third, the Japanese concept of love can be a bit different than that in the west. Many Japanese marriages are more like brotherly/sisterly love than "romantic" love -- in fact I find that these marriages are often the most stable I have ever seen (this has a lot of caveats, but I'm typing on my phone). Other Japanese marriages are based on a principle of something like "good enough" -- that is, they set a reasonable bar for want they want, and they will happily take anything above that bar. This is a pretty healthy approach imho, as long as the bar is not regularly set too low. A lot of what is wanted is pretty health stuff like a pleasant disposition, empathy, self-confidence, etc. I think people in other cultures wan this, too, and in many situations they can and do get it. That said, sometimes other competing values in the west get in the way of otherwise healthy relationships or marriages from developing. Anyway, i encourage you to look into this more. It's a fascinating topic, and it's not nihinjinron propanda, imho.

starchild_3001 9y ago
Arigato, for the thoughtful reply!