Prabhupada, January 11, 1977, India: ..Government taxation – people will be so harassed, they will leave their hearth and home and go to the forest. Cannot manage.
The Herbivore’s Dilemma
soshoku-kei danshi
Alexandra Harney, June 18 2009: A fertile new preaching field: ‘Japan panics about the rise of “grass-eating men,” who shun sex, don’t spend money, and like taking walks’.
Ryoma Igarashi likes going for long drives through the mountains, taking photographs of Buddhist temples and exploring old neighborhoods. He’s just taken up gardening, growing radishes in a planter in his apartment. Until recently, Igarashi, a 27-year-old Japanese television presenter, would have been considered effeminate, even gay. Japanese men have long been expected to live like characters on Mad Men, chasing secretaries, drinking with the boys, and splurging on watches, golf, and new cars.
Today, Igarashi has a new identity (and plenty of company among young Japanese men) as one of the soushoku danshi-literally translated, “grass-eating boys.” Named for their lack of interest in sex and their preference for quieter, less competitive lives, Japan’s “herbivores” are provoking a national debate about how the country’s economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men’s behavior.
Newspapers, magazines, and television shows are newly fixated on the herbivores. “Have men gotten weaker?” was one theme of a recent TV talk show. “Herbivores Aren’t So Bad” is the title of a regular column on the Japanese Web site NB Online.
In this age of bromance and metrosexuals, why all the fuss? The short answer is that grass-eating men are alarming because they are the nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption. Herbivores represent an unspoken rebellion against many of the masculine, materialist values associated with Japan’s 1980s bubble economy. Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country’s largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.
Japanese companies are worried that herbivorous boys aren’t the status-conscious consumers their parents once were. They love to putter around the house. According to Media Shakers’ research, they are more likely to want to spend time by themselves or with close friends, more likely to shop for things to decorate their homes, and more likely to buy little luxuries than big-ticket items. They prefer vacationing in Japan to venturing abroad. They’re often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they’re in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006.
Grass-eating boys’ commitment phobia is not the only thing that’s worrying Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese men, they prefer not to make the first move, they like to split the bill, and they’re not particularly motivated by sex. “I spent the night at one guy’s house, and nothing happened-we just went to sleep!” moaned one incredulous woman on a TV program devoted to herbivores. “It’s like something’s missing with them,” said Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife, in an interview. “If they were more normal, they’d be more interested in women. They’d at least want to talk to women.”
Shigeru Sakai of Media Shakers suggests that grass-eating men don’t pursue women because they are bad at expressing themselves. He attributes their poor communication skills to the fact that many grew up without siblings in households where both parents worked. “Because they had TVs, stereos and game consoles in their bedrooms, it became more common for them to shut themselves in their rooms when they got home and communicate less with their families, which left them with poor communication skills,” he wrote in an e-mail. (Japan has rarely needed its men to have sex as much as it does now. Low birth rates, combined with a lack of immigration, have caused the country’s population to shrink every year since 2005.)
It may be that Japan’s efforts to make the workplace more egalitarian planted the seeds for the grass-eating boys, says Fukasawa. In the wake of Japan’s 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law, women assumed greater responsibility at work, and the balance of power between the sexes began to shift. Though there are still significant barriers to career advancement for women, a new breed of female executive who could party almost as hard as her male colleagues emerged. Office lechery, which had been socially acceptable, became stigmatized as seku hara, or sexual harassment.
But it was the bursting of Japan’s bubble in the early 1990s, coupled with this shift in the social landscape, that made the old model of Japanese manhood unsustainable. Before the bubble collapsed, Japanese companies offered jobs for life. Salarymen who knew exactly where their next paycheck was coming from were more confident buying a Tiffany necklace or an expensive French dinner for their girlfriend. Now, nearly 40 percent of Japanese work in nonstaff positions with much less job security.
“When the economy was good, Japanese men had only one lifestyle choice: They joined a company after they graduated from college, got married, bought a car, and regularly replaced it with a new one,” says Fukasawa. “Men today simply can’t live that stereotypical ‘happy’ life.”
Yoto Hosho, a 22-year-old college dropout who considers himself and most of his friends herbivores, believes the term describes a diverse group of men who have no desire to live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women, their jobs, or anything else. “We don’t care at all what people think about how we live,” he says.
Many of Hosho’s friends spend so much time playing computer games that they prefer the company of cyber women to the real thing. And the Internet, he says, has helped make alternative lifestyles more acceptable. Hosho believes that the lines between men and women in his generation have blurred. He points to the popularity of “boys love,” a genre of manga and novels written for women about romantic relationships between men that has spawned its own line of videos, computer games, magazines, and cafes where women dress as men.
Fukasawa contends that while some grass-eating men may be gay, many are not. Nor are they metrosexuals. Rather, their behavior reflects a rejection of both the traditional Japanese definition of masculinity and what she calls the West’s “commercialization” of relationships, under which men needed to be macho and purchase products to win a woman’s affection. Some Western concepts, like going to dinner parties as a couple, never fit easily into Japanese culture, she says. Others never even made it into the language-the term “ladies first,” for instance, is usually said in English in Japan. During Japan’s bubble economy, “Japanese people had to live according to both Western standards and Japanese standards,” says Fukasawa. “That trend has run its course.”
Japanese women are not taking the herbivores’ indifference lightly. In response to the herbivorous boys’ tepidity, “carnivorous girls” are taking matters into their own hands, pursuing men more aggressively. Also known as “hunters,” these women could be seen as Japan’s version of America’s cougars.
While many Japanese women might disagree, Fukasawa sees grass-eating boys as a positive development for Japanese society. She notes that before World War II, herbivores were more common: Novelists such as Osamu Dazai and Soseki Natsume would have been considered grass-eating boys. But in the postwar economic boom, men became increasingly macho, increasingly hungry for products to mark their personal economic progress. Young Japanese men today are choosing to have less to prove.
Excellent …. best news I’ve heard in past three days.
Why do men feel the need to impress women with material possessions? My theory on that has always been that they were compensating for their personal lack of worthy attributes, be that physical, mental or spiritual. They may have part of it right here. Why buy things you don’t want to impress people who only want those things rather than you? Find what makes you happy, do it, and if others believe as you they will find you.
The Samurai: Protectors of the Cow
If I were to tell you, that once, no other country, save India, revered the cow as much as Japan, I could understand your disbelief. Today, we think of Japan as a meat-eating culture. However, this image is a product of the last 150 years of American influence. The traditional Japanese culture held the cow as the most sacred animal. What follows next is the true story of among the greatest protectors of the cow – the Samurai.
In The Footsteps Of The Buddha
When Buddhism left India for the Far East it had a profound influence on all of the countries it encountered including China, Korea and Japan. Buddhism entered Japan around the year 552 A.D. In April 675 A.D. the Japanese Emperor Tenmu banned the consumption of all meat from four legged animals including cows, horses, dogs, and monkeys, as well as domestic birds such as chickens and roosters. Each succeeding emperor would periodically reinforce this ban until by the 10th Century all meat eating had been eliminated.
In mainland China and Korea the Buddhist monks adhered to the principle of ‘ahimsa’ or non-violence in their eating habits but theses strictures were not placed on the population as a whole. In Japan, however, the Emperor was very strict in guiding his subjects towards the Buddha’s teachings of non-violence. The killing of mammals was considered extremely sinful, birds moderately sinful, and fish somewhat sinful. The Japanese did eat whale, which today we know are mammals, but at the time were considered very large fish.
The Japanese also made a distinction between animals reared in the household and wild animals. To kill a wild animal such as a bird was sinful. However, to kill an animal raised from birth was considered abominable – tantamount to killing a member of the family. As such, the diet of the Japanese was mostly rice, noodles, fish, and on occasion wild fowl.
During the Heian Period (794-1185 A.D.), the Engishiki, a book of law and customs, required a period of fasting for up to three days as penance for eating meat. During this period of penance one was not to look at the deities of the Buddha as a sign of shame.
In subsequent centuries the Ise Shrine passed even stricter rules – one who ate meat must fast for 100 days, while one who ate with someone who ate meat must fast for 21 days, and one who ate with someone who ate with someone that ate meat must fast for 7 days. In this way, three layers of pollution were accounted for through penance due to the violence inherent in meat.
To the Japanese the cow was the most sacred animal.
The drinking of milk, however, was not common in Japan. Among the peasantry the cow was used almost exclusively as a draft animal to plow the fields.
Among the aristocracy there is some evidence of milk consumption. There were instances where cream and butter were used for the payment of taxes. However, for the most part cows were protected for their own sake and allowed to roam around the royal gardens at peace.
One milk product we know the Japanese used was called ‘daigo’. The modern Japanese word ‘daigomi’ meaning “the very best part” is derived from this milk product. It is meant to evoke the feeling of deep flavor and pleasure. Symbolically it was seen as the final stage of purification towards enlightenment. The first mention of daigo is found in the Nirvana Sutra with the following recipe:
“From cows to fresh milk, fresh milk to cream, cream to curdled milk, curdled milk to butter, butter to ghee (daigo). Daigo is the best.” – Nirvana Sutra
Another milk product was ‘raku’ said to be made from sugar mixed with milk boiled down until it became a hard block. Some say it was a type of cheese but from its description it sounds like a form of burfi. In an age before refrigeration this enabled the transport and preservation of milk protein. Shavings of raku were sold and either eaten or added to hot tea.
The Foreign Arrivals
On August 15, 1549 Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Jesuit Catholic order, along with Portuguese missionaries, arrived on the shores of Nagasaki, Japan. They began to preach their Christian faith.
Japan at this time was politically divided. Many individual lords ruled over territories and various alliances and wars were taking place. One Samurai, Oda Nobunaga, though born of peasants, would go on to become one of the three great unifiers of Japan. He was also notable for giving accommodation to the Jesuits for their preaching and supported the establishment of the first Christian church in Kyoto in 1576. Many believe his support was a way to undermine the power of the Buddhist priests.
Initially the Jesuits were cautious observers. In Japan they found an alien culture that was highly refined and developed. They noted that the Japanese were obsessed by cleanliness bathing every day. This was unusual at a time when Europeans would bathe only once every few months, if at all. The Japanese also wrote from top to bottom rather than left to right. And while they had a strong military order, in the Samurai, they still fought with swords and arrows.
The King of Portugal did not financially support the missionary activities in Japan. Instead the Jesuits were allowed to engage in trade. After converting the local Daimyo (lord) Omura Sumitada, the small fishing village of Nagasaki was given to the Jesuits. In time Christian missionaries found favor throughout southern Japan and converted the Daimyos of Kyushu and Yamaguchi regions.
All manner of trade began to flow through Nagasaki and merchants were becoming very wealthy. There was particular interest in Portuguese guns. However, as the missionaries expanded they began to introduce meat eating. At first it was as an “accommodation” for the foreign missionaries who “needed meat to be healthy”. But the slaughter of animals and the consumption of meat spread wherever people converted to the new faith. We see this evident in the Japanese word for meat ‘waca’ derived from the Portuguese ‘vaca’.
There was one social class called ‘Eta’ (literal translation “an abundance of filth”) that were considered unclean as their occupation was to dispose of dead carcasses. Today they are known as the Burakumin. No cow was ever to be killed. However, they were allowed to make and sell leather goods from a cow that died of natural causes. Because they were engaged in unclean activities, at the bottom of the social ladder, many converted and were engaged in the growing meat industry.
But the spread of meat eating was only the beginning. The Portuguese were one of the main merchants of world slavery at the time. The Jesuits facilitated this slave trade through their port city of Nagasaki. This became known as the “Nanban” or “southern barbarian” trade. Thousands of Japanese women were enslaved and brutalized around the world. There is in fact correspondence between the King of Portugal Joao III and the Pope listing the price for this exotic fare – 50 Japanese girls for 1 barrel of Jesuit saltpeter (gun powder).
As local lords were converted many forced their subjects to convert as well. The Jesuits saw weapons trade as one means to shift the balance of political power between the various warring sides. They supplied arms to Christian Daimyo and used their own military forces to advance their influence. Many lords would convert knowing they would gain military advantage over their rivals.
Within a few decades it is estimated there were over 300,000 converts. Caution was now replaced by confidence. Ancient Buddhist temples and shrines were now being desecrated as ‘pagan’ and ‘unholy’.
Observing all of this was the Samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Like his master, Oda Nobunaga, he too was born a peasant and grew to become a powerful General. He became suspicious of Jesuit motives when he saw the Spanish conquer the Philippines. What he saw happening in Japan made him disgusted……………
Taken from https://www.bvashram.org/the-samurai-protectors-of-the-cow/
Note:
This is an amazing piece of research. Where and how will one find stuff like this article? The answer is nowhere. Within ONE article all questions about World situations are explained, from 2000 years ago until now. WOW!!!
AND ITS ALL ABOUT MEAT EATING, ALWAYS, SO SIMPLE – SO EFFECTIVE – WHAT A STRATEGY…. KALI’S STATEGY, IT ALL STARS WITH MEAT EATING AND KILLING COWS
Yep, right back to Maharaj Pariksit sparing, but banishing Kali some 5000 years ago!