Alumnus responds
to lecture on
cross-cultural relationships |
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| Clockwise from top left:
Mathew Porter '99, Professor Itsuko Kamoto, Professor Susan
Long and Mariko Stephens. |
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Mathew Porter '99 returned
to John Carroll yesterday (Sep 8) to add his own observations to a
presentation on "Cross-National Marriage and Changes in the Postwar
Japanese Family System" by Professor Itsuko Kamoto of Kyoto Women's
University.
Porter taught English in Japan for 3 years, falling in love with the
country, its language and its people -- including one young woman
in particular. Together they earned master's degrees from Kent State
(he also holds an MA in Japanese translation from KSU) and he is now
looking forward to her return from Japan. "I think her English is better than my Japanese, but we speak a mix of both when we talk
to each other."
Also giving her response to the lecture was Mariko Stephens, who is
married to an American. "The number of women who marry Western men
is influenced by the number of women who speak English," observed Professor
Kamoto, who once attended high school in Canton (OH). Her lecture dealt with changes in the stability of the Japanese
family system which had supported Japan's high economic
growth of the 1950s and 1960s.
Professor Kamoto explained how the increasing rates of cross-
national marriage in Japan represent a complex mix of changing
aspirations, a declining birth rate and the effects of
economic boom followed by recession.
The event was sponsored by East
Asian Studies and the Department
of Sociology and moderated by Professor Susan Long. |
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