tame tigers?

I read a nice article in Japan Times introducing the blog Geisha Interrupted by Lea Jacobson. Of course I was curious and wandered over there. I also realized that I use my blog more as an open journal, but hey no one reads this anyways and I am just a scientist who gets bored sometimes and blogs to vent into the void.

But she had a great comment that just rings so true. I will reqoute and reference her. It was within a post about translating an anime

After discussing her [anime character's] dilemma with Japanese friends over the past few months, I may have finally discovered something interesting from all this. That is to say, I no longer believe that the "ideal" Japanese woman need be dumb and submissive. No, no, it`s more difficult than that. Instead, she has to be naturally capable of great things, yet filial enough to sacrifice every ounce of her potential for the sake of her husband and family. For more proof of this, just look at Japan`s crown princess Masako.

I have always had a similar confusion about Japanese women's roles. Every one of my Japanese girl friends is incredibly smart and clever, aware of everything, incredibly strong, but yet are always so proper and controlled and subordinant and obedient for lack of better words. Never in my experiences have I believed that Japanese women strive to be percieved as dumb. Only if one looks at them with western eyes and at external behaviour would one think "dumb" is the goal.

I think Lea has helped translate this really well. It is strange but it is also what my Mother has been trying to teach me my whole life. It is about being strong, being the rock and foundation, and supporting. But I don't think it is about "sacrificing every once of potential" but more like pouring that potential through support and teaching into her family or group. I am convinced that women have always been this and the best societies understand this. It is not the western way of pushing down women and making them feel inferior, making them dumb, making them weak. It is about a society that understands womens power, builds up its women as strong as possible but supportive.

I had dinner with a friend last night who has said something many times that I think I understand better now. She says that if she works for a Japanese company overseas, she will likely need to behave Japanese, but if she wants to learn how to work for a western boss then she will need to eventually work for a western company. Then when she comes back to Japan she can work for either a Japanese or Western boss. It is not about escaping Japanese roles and seeking "freedom from oppression" as a westerner might think, it is about becoming even stronger and more flexible and skilled.

I have been searching for an english word to capture this idea and I can not find one, and maybe that is why this is such a hard concept for westerners to understand. It is not about "being submissive to the will of others" nor obedient, nor docile, nor easily controlled, nor tractable. The closest words is either amenable or tame (present tense not past tense as in 'has been tamed'). It is about women who strive to be strong, who strive to grow stronger, and about a society who supports and encourages this strength and tries not to break its women (test them, but not break them). But at the same time which has very strong rules of behaviour and self control.

I am convinced that Western society tries to break its strong women while eastern societies try to keep their women strong. But I also think this difference is why westerners have so misunderstood eastern women and where this mix of obedient surface but strong, critical thinking, core is misunderstood and where the wrong idea of Dragon-lady comes from. To tame a tiger without killing it; because a tiger will never stop being a tiger and even a tame tiger is only tame because it is choosing to behave not because it is broken.