Originally posted by kelpmermaid
...Anyone from Japan care to share thoughts on this?...
Well, I'm not technically
from Japan but lived there for a couple of years with my wife, who is. It took a lot of coaxing, pleading, and cajoling on my part to get her certified (she had a bad experience in her first OW class here in the U.S. and dropped out) but as of about two weeks ago we are both finally "licensed to learn" underwater with compressed air.
Maybe she is an exception in her lack of interest in diving, though I really think it was the requirements and boot-camp atmosphere of the first OW course. The wife of a Japanese couple we know locally is now very excited about signing up for an OW course after finding out that we did. She seemed really interested in being able to look at dolphins and manatees (neither of which are really do-able on scuba), so maybe it's an attraction to nature and/or animals? Her husband was not at all enthusiastic but seemed inclined to go along with it. BTW, we're helping them get signed up at the same place we did our course, Pro Dive in Ft. Lauderdale, great place and people.
I would guess that art.chick's idea is accurate. Young women in Japan still tend to live with their parents until they get married; this is socially acceptable (often encouraged) and obviously offers great pecuniary benefits, especially considering the high cost of housing and food. Even those working only part-time jobs have basically their entire pay to spend wherever they choose. They're probably what's keeping the Japanese economy from falling apart!
Incidentally, the average age of marriage in Japan has been slowly climbing (currently about 27) and more women are choosing not to marry. Many of my wife's college friends (all nearly 30 years old) still live with their parents while jumping from job to job. They have the flexibility in time and the income to travel and do what they want.
One of the reasons we left Japan was because of the working conditions. My wife and I both worked full time; as a foreigner, I could get away with taking vacation time without too much fallout, but it was really tough for my wife and she was often browbeaten into coming on weekends and staying late after work. Being married to a foreigner was often a decent excuse, though. However, for most career people in Japan, one just does not take vacations. My in-laws have probably taken a total of two to three weeks' vacation in the past ten years.
Well, I don't want to get into a long-winded explanation of how I think things work in Japan [oops, too late
ut:] but I think a lot of it comes down to who has the time and money to go diving? And the answer to that is, definitely, young, unmarried women.
Chris
