Marriage hunting in Japan
September 10th, 2009 by James
CNN’s Morgan Neill takes a look at the konkatsu craze that’s currently sweeping Japan:
Nozomi Okabe, the woman featured in the video, is seeking a husband who is taller than 180 cm and has a good job. The average male height in Japan is 171 cm, so most of the men at the konkatsu event probably failed her test immediately.
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I can understand a woman looking for a man who is taller than her. But why 180cm? What if she found a good looking, successful, and kind man who was 178cm tall? Would she turn him down?
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I’d marry her if she got her hair cut
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Well with those conditions, no wonder she has to resort to these methods to find anyone. Plus, the tall rich guys she’s hoping to meet probably wouldn’t need to resort to these marriage hunting arrangements as much as the short broke guys, so the chances of prince charming dropping in get slimmer and slimmer…
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She’s aiming a little too high for herself.
I think she needs to buy a mirror and then re-evaluate what she wants.
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her eyeballs were about to drop.
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She should eat tonkatsu, not sirloin steak.
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My bf is Japanese and he is 180 while I am 175 so I guess I lucked out. WHile living in the south part of Japan it was hard to see a guy who was over 180 but in the north of Japan I often find myself dwarfed by taller Japanese men. Marriage hunting is not just in Japan but this craze has hit the world as many people are paying hundreds of dollars to find the “one” with a real connection in a world that is increasingly turning digital.
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Male from Finland here, I’m “only” 175, well I don’t like tall girl anyway so.
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But seriously, she needs to look in the mirror. That hair is crazy.
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To be honest, this doesn’t strike me as any different from other countries. We’ve got people paying just as much (if not more) to these agencies in hopes of finding “the one” and some of them are just as particular as this woman.
Don’t watch CNN online vids, but my guess is she’s still in the starry-eyed search mode and will adjust her standards to mildly more realistic levels when she realizes how few men meet her current criteria.
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The Japanese woman’s ideal marriage partner must possess the three Aitches: High education, High salary and High tallness.
These criteria were operating in the 1980s, so it is not a new thing at all.
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>The Japanese woman’s ideal marriage partner must possess the three Aitches: High education, High salary and High tallness.
One of the nice things I always thought about Japanese people, and women in particular, was the *lack* of importance they placed upon body type, especially aspects of body type which can’t be changed, such as height. So long as you make an effort with your appearance, you don’t have to be 6ft tall or have film star looks. It’s a shame if Japanese women are adopting the same prejudices as women in the west.
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Since when was this true?
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please dont even mention western women being shallow
i have lived in Japan for 10 years and yes japanese women place a higher importance on how people look.
i think people here in japan are more shallow then in the west…..thats why anorexia and bulimia are huge problems in japan.
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Nice……One
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I’m tall, but I’m broke.
Luckily I can lie.
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I’m really tall, built like Apollo, and a billionaire.
I can lie too….
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If we accept the konkatsu concept’s sad assumption that the goal of marriage is for a woman to become financially dependent on a successful man, then a woman who stays unmarried into her 30s and whose looks start to fade really can’t afford to be choosy. I am not trying to be sexist but it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve done some rough estimations over at my blog and once you start attaching conditions the pool of available men who will marry you falls to a few dozen.
http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/03/25/a-hard-bargain/
If man her age with a good job and solid income isn’t married, he probably won’t be looking for an older woman.
One reason for a woman to get married early (again based on the sexist konkatsu premise) is to get in on the ground floor with a man who might not be successful now but will be in the future. This whole konkatsu phenomenon has a kind of sad overtone that these older women lose most of their value to society if they stay unmarried for too long.
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It still is a goal of many Japanese women to marry and give up work. There are several cultural reasons for that, one of which is the woman-unfriendly Japanese corporate culture.
Men of course want to marry too, and may not be averse to keeping a housewife if they can afford it.
Sadly, any man wanting children needs to think before he marries a woman aged over 35 no matter how attractive she may be.
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Why is that?
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万国共通 {bankoku kyōtsū} (Universal Truth)
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Reality check, quick!
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What’s wrong with the traditional way for desperate women to get married: Get knocked up.
And seriously, marriage? Fool’s game.
Play the field, sister.
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“And seriously, marriage? Fool’s game. ”
For the man, you mean….
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The smartest, most vibrant women I have ever known never got married. So I’d say it’s a fool’s game for everyone.
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Well said! The worst thing I ever did was got married. It crippled me academically and financially, leading to divorce and by the time I got myself together (now 46 years old) it was too late really to (biologically) consider having any more children. Many women think marriage brings security: have I got news for them …. think again!
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Huuuuungry eyes…
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There are lots of women that are aging, not dating much, have these dumb fantasy conditions in their head, and suddenly they are in their 40s. It’s like a broken record. And we have to hear it (and see it) over and over again. The next “dating craze” ain’t gonna fix those broken records.
The conditions don’t change with age. They just become crazy and more stubborn.
Knowing that the aging ladies most likely will be racked with mental issues is why most guys aim for the marriagable age.
And i’ve meet j guys that also have huge mental issues.
And most of the foreigners in Japan get married. Either foreigners are too stupid to develop mental issues or foreign culture doesn’t push these high conditions on a marriage partner.
@William George
Getting knocked up assumes the girl is even having sex. In Japan, that’s a big if.
@Eddie
She’ll never re-evaluate her conditions. Lost cause…Move on…
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I know ALOT of mothers in my mansion that got married because they were knocked up, four out of the group of eight, one one was 7 months pregnant at her wedding. a girl having sex is not a big “if” it is quite common. Even my husband’s brother got married taht way, baby first.
As for single unmarried women, I know of quite a few. They are not picky nor do they have dumb fantasy conditions in their head. The three women that I know are wanting to get married and are in the their mid thirties just have no time to meet anyone. All they see are people from work and family, a continuous cycle. Most have to be set up on blind dates (if it can be scheduled) or have friend’s introduce them to other friends. That’s how my in-laws got married and seems to be the tradition. Also, I introduced my close Japanese friend to my husband’s best friend (who is far from the “ideal” image)and before i knew it, she was pregnant at her wedding. That happened in a period of six months of dating too. Most Japanese women I speak to (that are married)tell me they did not marry for love or money, they married because their husband was kind.
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well im poor, 185 tall, defacto virgin, not gay and almost 40 years old male.
aside that most women in this world marry because their husband was kind to them and an arsehole to other people around. 70% of them did it with him because he was running around like a sex-crazy rabbit and was driving cool looking car of his dady. the love was mostly over 1-2 years after the first child. then it was to late and to lazy to change the partner or the living situation(devoted people love to repeat that “even greatest arsehole has positive on him”).
when i was jung i met very nice girl. she told me i was poor, so she married rich old dude who is beating the crap out of her and their children now and spend his money for prostituion and presenting himself as a greates gift to this world. what should i say? i hate this woman now. she hurt me very hard and she never gave me a chance.
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Comment by RMilner
2009-09-10 21:07:46
Sadly, any man wanting children needs to think before he marries a woman aged over 35 no matter how attractive she may be.
Comment by Togu
2009-09-11 04:09:29
Why is that?
(Comments wont nest below this level)
The reason is that women’s reproductive capability declines significantly around the age of 40. Various kinds of problems are more likely than with younger women.
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It’s funny …
Yet sad
Now if the men were …well, men
the women would be giving signals all over the place.
At this rate the island wil be depopulated in less than three generations.
Long term real estate investment anyone?
长期不动产投资任何人？
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Milk takes a blame for Japanese women’s heights. Milk did not enter the Japanese market after Japan lost the war to America.
A great excerpt from a “notmilk.com” article ( http://notmilk.com/deb/072698a.html ) :
“What happened to young girls and the impact of milk consumption on puberty is even more dramatic. In 1950 the average twelve-year old girl was 4′6″ tall and weighed 71 pounds. By 1975 the average Japanese girl, after guzzling a daily diet of milk and dairy products containing 59 different bioactive hormones, had grown an average of 4 1/2 inches and gained 19 pounds. In 1950 the average Japanese girl had her first menstrual cycle at the age of 15.2 years. Twenty five years later, after a daily intake of estrogen and progesterone from milk, the average Japanese girl was ovulating at the age of 12.2 years, three years younger.”
My comment:
Milk sold during 1990s and 2000s was even worse. 20 years ago in America, many young women were not so tall. But today their heights are much higher (many are as tall as 180 cm. Some are even taller. – Yes! Women!). This is because that they are consuming rBST-infected milk (rBST residues in milk). Men? Some are pretty giants. They need to worry about hitting doors’ maxmium heights, espcially homes. FDA approved the rBST product in 1993. Anyone born later than the mid 1980s is likely to be affected.
In 2009, American consumers wanted no rBST (artificial growth hormones / recombinant bovine somatotropin – rBST) in milk. It caused most of milk products to go rBST free.
Not only rBST can increase an animal’s size, but it can also cause cancer.
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What does this have to do with marriage? Also, I’m Nikkei with a solid history of dairy protein in my diet and only 155cm tall.
Nutrition is some of it, but certainly not all of it.
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from the expression on her face in the pic, you just know that she’s a little bit wacky.
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she isnt even pretty, she looks like she is crazy…..its kind of funny how she is so picky and she is far from perfect!
Its ok to have standards but to base everything on how tall a person has to be to marry is kind of messed up?? . She should be happy she even can get a date.
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Did i mention she looked freakin crazy……
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