I’m trying to sign up for men’s #cooking #lessons here in #Japan to placate my busy #Japanese wife. While she was away, I made this cheese omelette; beginner’s luck! A #community center has me on a waiting list, or I could spill for more upscale lessons. It is astonishing and unJapanese that single-person #households are approaching 40%. #Single #men of all ages have a poor #diet, which exacerbates the #lifespan gap with #women. #Loneliness is also a #health hazard. Many men are #widowed, never #married, or their #wives #divorce them, often after the children become independent and the husband is useless around the house after a busy career. Single men, or married men interested in cooking or helping their wives, possibly fearing their wives’ pent-up anger, can find #companionship as well as #survival #skills in cooking lessons. Men’s classes start from zero; women #cook and #socialize.

Comments?

#psychology #sociology #food #gerontology #aging #elderly
@psychology @sociology

  • Japanned Steve McCarty@hcommons.socialOP
    1·
    1 year ago

    @kerstinsailer@sciences.social @sociology@a.gup.pe Prof. Sailer, thank you for your comment - from a different world than here in Japan. Regarding cultural and family values, Japan is the archetypal contrasting culture to the West, but there are individual differences such that some men like to cook or be helpful to their wives.

    I envy your having daughters, as we have two sons, very successful in Tokyo but not very concerned about us. We do have a granddaughter, 3/4 Japanese, who is getting cuter and cuter, but Japanese are so private that I can’t show photos of her. In my Intercultural Communication class I emphasize the public self vs. private self dimension, partly because the difference is so great between my family and myself as a public person: publications and projects bared at https://japanned.hcommons.org/