Intimate Encounters: Filipina Women and the Remaking of Rural Japan

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Intimate Encounters: Filipina Women and the Remaking of Rural Japan is a culmination of professor Lieba Faier's fieldwork in the late 1990s in the Nagano region of Japan, specifically Central Kiso. For a few years, Faier lived in the area, interviewing both the Japanese natives and the Filipina women who came to Japan under entertainment visas. The Central Kiso area had a particular phenomenon: a surprising number of foreign brides from the Philippines either met their husbands at the hostess bars where they worked or through mediated marriages.

Faier discusses the two mentalities surrounding these Filipina brides: first, many Japanese thought they came from a poor and inferior country, and were looking for rich husbands; on the other hand, others viewed these brides as ii oyomesan, Japanese for “good wife.” Filipina brides who were viewed as ii oyomesan possessed “Japanese” qualities, such as being dutiful towards their husbands and in-laws. When interviewed, these women revealed that they were following their Filipina values.

Even though many of these women came to Japan searching for a better life and a way to support their families back in the Philippines, many found obstacles. While their visas were for cultural performances, the majority worked in hostess clubs, where they were expected to please men and get them to drink. Many of the women performed sexual services, though it was a violation of their visas. If a Filipina woman did marry a Japanese man, she faced the disapproval of Japanese in-laws. Faier recounts stories of Filipina brides who ran away from their husbands, working underground when their visas expired.

Faier's fieldwork is incredibly extensive, covering both Japanese and Filipina points of view. She does an excellent job portraying the different reasons these women came to Japan, and the various difficulties they went through. Intimate Encounters is an enjoyable read, not only for students of anthropology, but also for those interested in either Japan or the Philippines.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, December 28th 2009

Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:02:00 +0000

By Rochona Majumdar

Duke University Press

Rochona Majumdar's firmest statement in Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal is that the Western conception of arranged marriage is dated. The portrayal of arranged marriage as immoral suited the Western sense of superiority over the “Hindoos,” despite the fact that Western courtship was riddled with its own problems. Arranged marriage is obviously the creation of a certain cultural condition and sought to fulfill certain perceived needs. After cautioning her audience against a lens of liberal progressivism, Majumdar narrates the evolution of arranged marriage into modernity.

As culture changed and the expectations and ideals of family changed with it, urban society and the escalation of technology impacted arranged marriage in no small measure. Majumdar's discussion of the matrix of influences that impacted arranged marriage is a fascinating study in the modernization of customs.

Majumdar begins by describing how the ghaktas—traditional matchmakers—became seen as antiquated and irreputable and were replaced by early “personals” in print. She continues on to discuss how this format reflected other cultural trends, such as the increasing fluidity of the caste system. Of special importance is the impact of the dowry on the economy. A woman's appearance, accomplishments, and social standing all factored into the negotiation of price, which could be enormous. At the peak of cultural anxiety over this issue, a young girl, Snehalata Mukhopadhyay, committed suicide rather than see her family ruined. In her discussion of the dowry and the maelstrom of controversy over Mukhopadhyay 's death, Majumdar proves especially interesting; the suicide became a symbol for the direness of a woman's circumstances, and was used as a rhetorical device for feminists and other reformists generally.

The marriage flux became a matter of crucial moral and legislative importance. As arranged marriage was modernized, certain segments of the population began to rebuke marriage as “degraded” from its original, “pure” incarnation. The ideals of marriage, it was claimed, were lost amidst all the economic concerns. As dowries and wedding costs became extravagant, the rituals performed in the ceremony itself became a matter of critique. Rituals were a forum to discuss the proper role of women within marriage and society and to discuss matters such as women's modesty, dress, and duties to her husband.

Throughout this period, too, was the influence of the English conception of individuality and love. Many tried to find means to incorporate this into a traditional picture of married life—literally so in the form of the portrait, an invention which, Majumbar claims, shows the couple's new centrality to family life.

Ritual has its legislative consequences as well, and Majumbar also discusses two crucial moments in the history of Bengali marriage: the first civil marriage act in India, which ignited a debate on wedding ritual and recognition by law, and the Hindu Code Bill, which addressed issues of property and who set the tone for India's cultural development into postmodernity.

Moral commentary is beyond Majumdar's scope, as is a consideration of the role of ethics in anthropology in general—though she touches on it briefly in the conclusion. However, good anthropology tends to invite reflection on one's own cultural moment, and—if we believe the hype—we are in a similar moment as that of colonial Bengal; we are also concerned with the “purity” of marriage, its impact upon the economy, its uses of technology like the Internet, and traditional ritual's relationship with legal recognition. The debates on marriage in colonial Bengal are, in many ways, our own.

Written by: Eirene Faust, August 9th 2009