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The personal log of Peter Payne, owner of JLIST.com, the home of "wacky things from Japan"

Friday, December 12, 2008

On Wedding Kimonos and Gaijin

In my city there's a bridal shop that sells the most beautiful wedding kimonos for happy Japanese brides to wear, and on the outside of their shop they've got a large sign showing models wearing the kimonos that they sell. The funny thing is that the models are all foreigners, something that always surprises me when I drive past -- if the company is selling products to Japanese women, why use gaijin models? The answer is that the Japanese have a rather deep complex about Westerners and seem to perceive them as being superior to Japanese on some unconscious level, just as Europe and America are considered more advanced politically and socially than Japan, despite our many faults. As a result it's effective to sell certain products by associating them with foreigners in some way. While beauty may be difficult for you or me to define, the Japanese seem to have no problem in this area: for a woman to be considered really beautiful she needs to be very tall (at least 175 cm), have an 8:1 ratio of head to body, and have a "high nose" (meaning a nose that juts out at a bold angle rather than being flat against the face).

6 Comments:

Blogger aldo said...

This post has been removed by the author.

11:42 PM

 
Blogger aldo said...

I happen to run into three different weddings by chance when I visited earlier this year. One woman seemed very happy, http://tinyurl.com/5a38to, and her dress was really beautiful.

You might find this video interesting: http://current.com/items/89610631/japan_robot_nation.htm. About the population issue in Japan, along with the racial culture and building robots. Perhaps they'll eventually replace all the gaijin models with "beautiful" Japanese robot ones!

11:45 PM

 
Blogger PeterD said...

8 to 1 ratio of head to body? What does this mean?

2:12 AM

 
Blogger Peter in Japan said...

It's called Hattoshin 八頭身 and it means the "perfect" body would be tall enough so that the size of the head is 1/8 of the total height. I think I am 1/5 if that ^_^

2:48 AM

 
Blogger Hinano said...

LOLOLOL that's why on the man bra ads they have gaijin mans xDDD

3:35 AM

 
Blogger josh said...

5'8" is the ideal beautiful height for a Japanese woman? I don't think I've met a Japanese girl above 5'4"... Wonder if there's a male version of the idealized form in Japan with unusual height requirements, or if the more male centric society didn't find it too necessary to draw that up. LOL.

5:06 PM

 

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