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Audrey Pellerin

01/17/99

Mr. Gardner

Japanese Visual Culture

Smith and Beardsley. Japanese Culture. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962.

The authors, who are anthropologists, dig deep into the depths of Japanese history in the describing the country's culture. The book covers a wide range of the culture from a nurse's, who care for the elderly, regime to the merging of outside countries to the Japanese society. The book is written for students studying in the field of social sciences and in anthropology.

The book is difficult to understand because it was written by professors whose purpose was to educate undergraduate students. Surveys and graph are printed in the book to demonstrate the different views the Japanese have on certain issues. The issue of primogeniture was an interesting topic. Different Japanese villages polled differently when asked if they approved of primogeniture. Another topic of fascination was the high rate of suicide among the Japanese. The graph of Japanese suicide is U-shaped. The rate of suicide is highest below the age of thirty and above the age of sixty. No western country has such a suicide graph and it is wonder why the Japanese are so apt to kill them selves. Also females commit suicide more often then males in Japan. In Western countries there is a four to one ratio of males suicides to females suicides. At the end of each part of the chapter there is a bibliography of all sources used, which is more inefficient when searching for a reference on a specific topic.