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Guidance for Grown-Ups
March 2007
Discover Japan

There's More to Japan than Meets the Eye
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This Discussion Guide contains the following Activity Sections:

  1. The Answers to Your Questions


  2. Problem Solving: Exploring Options, Giving Advice


  3. Make a Historical and Global Connection: Changing Options



I. The Answers to Your Questions

The purpose of this activity is to imagine life from the point of view of a teenage girl who lives in Japan.
  1. Lead the teens through a brief visualization of a day in the life of a young Japanese woman. First, ask the teens to close their eyes. Tell them to imagine waking up early on a Saturday morning in Tokyo. What did they sleep on last night? What will they eat for breakfast? Do they live in a home or in an apartment building? How will they spend their day? (They may be surprised to learn that in Japan, kids attend school on Saturdays.) What will they wear to school? How will they get to school—on public transportation, walking, or riding a bike? At school, what subjects will they study? Is it likely they have a boyfriend? What kinds of things could get them in trouble that wouldn't normally get them in trouble in the United States? What time will they get home from school? And how will they spend their evening? Now, before opening their eyes, ask the teens to consider the similarities and differences between life in Japan to life in the United States for teenage girls.


  2. To begin answering some of the above questions with real testimony, ask the teens to read Eri Mizobe's interview with five young women from Japan. If you want, the teens could read the interview out loud with a different teen reading for each interviewee. Next, build on the question that closed the last exercise: what are the similarities and differences between life in Japan to life in the United States for teenage girls? What most surprised the teens in your group about life in Japan? Were there customs or traditions that the teens in your group particularly liked? Any that they would adopt if they could? What customs sounded the most challenging for American teen?


  3. For an additional exercise, give the teens five minutes to write down another interview question for teen women who live in Japan. If there's time (and internet access) give them an additional five to ten minutes to research an answer online.

II. Problem Solving: Exploring Options, Giving Advice

The purpose of this activity is to gain additional knowledge about teen life in Japan and to present new information to a group of peers.
  1. Ask the teens to read the "Did you know?" statistics about Japan. Next ask them to choose from one of the following topics to further investigate and report back to the group: Fun, Fashion, Food, or Future.

  2. For fun, the teens could plan (fictional) recreation time with friends, if they lived in Japan. One idea is to check out the amusement parks near Tokyo online. (Also, you can suggest they read "Times to Celebrate".) For fashion, the teens could try to find photos of some of the trends mentioned in the Eri Mizobe interview or visit Japanese shopping malls online. For food, the teens could taste test sushi, or even try making some Japanese food and sharing with their peers. For future, the teens could learn more about education in Japan. You can suggest that they read "Taking Pride in Education", "Could a Woman Rule Japan?" and/or "Love Revolution". (See below for resources)

  3. Ask students to play the role of expert in their chosen area. Can they offer a brief summary of what they learned to the rest of the group? If they were writing a newspaper column about tips on teen life in Japan, what would be their top three tips? You can modify or expand this activity according to the frequency and duration of your meetings.

III. Make a Historical and Global Connection: Changing Options

The purpose of this activity is to evaluate how opinions may change after learning more about a place and its people.
  1. Ask the teens to respond to the following writing prompts: When I first asked you to close your eyes and imagine life in Japan, what did you see? Please describe in five sentences. Now take a few minutes to respond to the following questions in writing, too: What did you learn today that reflected your initial thoughts of life in Japan? What did you learn today that changed your thoughts significantly? What stereotypes exist of Japanese young women? What topic related to Japanese teen life do you want to know more about?


  2. Ask the teens to read "Could a Woman Rule Japan?" Next ask them to write a letter to the National Diet of Japan stating their opinion on whether or not a woman should be able to become Empress. As an added activity, can the teens find evidence of other Japanese teens' thinking on this topic? Can they identify other venues for sharing their opinion?


  3. As a bonus activity, structure a brief debate between two opposing sides on the issue of whether or not a woman should be able to rule Japan.
Have you used Guidance for Grown-ups with your class or teen group? Tell us which ones you used and what kind of success you had with it. Did you put your own spin on it? Let us know.

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