Your ideal partner

"match.com" is the world wide largest online dating site. I found a little bit old but very interesting article about the trend of Japanese women on the Japan match.com. In the Bubble days, Japanese women's prerequisite for a partner was "Sanko"(三高). Sanko means "three high levels." These were high income, high educational background, and high height. Haughty? Yeah, everything was bubble. The Bubble had such craziness, right? But after the Bubble, Japanese women tried to survive in a dwindling economy for about 13 years and their ideal partner changed into "Santei"(三低). Santei means low posture, low risk and low dependency. It means that he adopts a low profile (the lady is first, of course ), he has a stable job and he can take care of himself. Still haughty? I may agree with them, sure :-). But they talk about a new nice trend too. It's "Sanshu" (三手). 手(shu/te) means hand, Sanshu means helping each other, taking each others’ hands and holding hands with each other. Hmm, it sounds very nice, but too mild. I think women will be more severe :-P

As a recent report of match.com was the trend of 2006, they said there were two big trends. One was the increase of love refugees. Late 30s guys can't get married and get to be parasite, career women tend to choose being single, and only Internet matching sites support those single people. And another trend was community perception of remarriage.

Anyway economically  "the bubble"  caused serious damage for Japan. But in a cultural line, Juliana, nopan shabu shabu, Onelen (one length hair), Bodicon (Body conscious)　etc,. everything was funny now. The new movie  "Bubble he go" (go Bubble) is such a movie, going back to the Bubble era by time machine and trying to stop the breaking up Bubble. Here is the trailer. Hiroshi Abe matches the main character.

Comments

[Stephen]

Love the blog. And yes, agree with everyone else...your English is fine. It's YOU! Hey, do you know anything about La Parler? We are researching it in work - Japanese men at the beauty salon!?!??! That would make an interesting entry!

[Mari]

Hi There
Interesing part is we hardly see the list of guys. As if guys are always passive role.

[Ken]

It's interesting how Japanese women's preference for men have changed over the years. Is there a similar list for Japanese men?

[James Hart]

That's interesting, Mari!
I will ask my wife whether I was Santei or Sanko....
This reminds me of a quote from Jerry Hall (wife of Mick Jagger - Rolling Stones).
She said it is "simple to keep a man, you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom."
Maybe that is the female equivalent for Santei or Sanko?!

[Fatlimey]

I have been enjoying your posts for a while now, and I just wanted to say Thank You for putting so much interesting stuff into your blog! This is all valuable information for me, and it was you who introduced me to Train_Man.

Keep up the good work!