First Year Seminar 2B Section 66

The Marketing Industry

2006-11-30T21:07:00.000-08:00

The C.E.O. of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” I found this quote three months ago when I was helping my friend’s homework. It made an impression on me because I could think of the interesting relation between people who want new and more convenient goods and companies that try to sell their products. In Chapter 5, White describes many ways in which the marketing industry tries to shape trends and to influence teenager to buy things. Since the book was written 10 years ago, the companies’ strategies have been changed a lot today. Nowadays, the most efficient and widely known method is using the “Internet.” The companies look for trends through people’s blogs and speculate what they want and need. It is quite interesting because people just want to express themselves decorating their blogs and posting comments and the companies get the information from there very easily. For example, I read an article that talks about a 21 years old girl who earns 1000,000 en every month. She owns a small online clothing shop and her main task is looking for random people’s blogs or homepages and getting ideas for the next season. She says it is the most important job for her company because she has to invest so much money to make new products. The companies always have considered what their customers need. Now, it is being easier and convenient to shape trends because of I.T. products and skills.

School in the Life of the Teen

2006-11-09T20:31:00.001-08:00

In the Chapter 4, White talks about a comparison of school life styles in Japan and the United States. This chapter is interesting to me because I had studied in Korea schools, which have similar programs to the Japanese systems and also went high school in America. Mostly, I want to talk about academic pressures in the three countries. I know there are some pressures in the states to get in good colleges or universities after high school students graduate. However, knowing several Japanese students, I realized that it is nothing compared to the Japanese college entrance system. They do not have a break at all. Not like SATs, they only have one chance to take the entrance test, so they spend their high school years going to cram schools and preparing for the test. It is pretty much same in Korea. All my Korean friends including some people, who attend Waseda with me, had to go through this torture. I did not understand how they overcame it with 3, 4 hours sleeping time per a day when they had the test in 3 months. I think Japanese and Korean students do not even know what they truly want to do in colleges but just study because everyone does. Also, I read a survey, which was asking the best moment of one’s school life to both Japanese and American adults and only 25 percent of Japanese adults chose for their high school years while American adults took over 60 percent. In addition, according to the book, there is a statistic table on Page 81 that clearly shows Japanese students have much more work to do than American students do. Even though the book was written in 10 years ago, I think it is still a quite true today. Educational systems reflect the country’s history, culture and future plans. That is why it is different everywhere. However, I prefer the American systems because it provides more freedom to students.

2006-10-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3

2006-10-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America mainly focuses on sociological differences between Japanese and American teenagers, covering such topics as friendship, school life, home life, and sexuality. The book includes several significant points, even though it was written more than 10 years ago. Chapter 3, “Family Time and Space,” talks about a comparison of family life styles in the two countries. One of the most interesting ideas to me in this chapter is “Pressures and Paradoxes,” because it pretty much exists everywhere in the world. Japanese and American parents may be overly strict with their children, because they want to make sure that their kids are on the right track. Of course, Japanese and American parents might ask different subjects to their kids for their own interests. However, it does not always include positive aspects: When they make these pressures or demands, mixed messages among parents and children might be occurred for their societal goals and the practical needs of nurturance and learning in both countries. For example, like we discussed in class, many adults tell their kids not to have sex until they get married, while at the same time, adults create pornographic films and sell them to teenagers. Furthermore, in my personal case, my dad has smoked for over 30 years, but he forces me not to smoke. That is the only thing he doesn’t want me to do. I do not think there is an ideal answer for these problems, but teenagers should understand where adults are coming from. They are also human beings, just having lived a couple decades longer. “Strong small families make a strong country.” It is an old phrase that represents how a family can affect society. Even though we cannot solve the “mixed messages” problem completely, each member of every family should try to make harmony, which will hopefully create a big change in society.

Hi

2006-10-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

I’m Hyonam Kang from Korea. I went high school in the United States and now I am in Japan for my undergraduate programs. I already have experiences from America but this is my first time to learn about Japanese teenager’s culture. I’m very exciting. Well, I hope we can get useful information for each of us from the interchange. Thank you.