I have no idea why Japan has this reserved culture though. Does anyone know where this came from?
Not a specialist on Japanese cultural history, but from what I've read, the Japanese society is generally extremely conservative, having been a rigidly regimented hierarchy isolated from the outside world for centuries prior to the (very recent) modernization. The country has been (nominally) liberal and equal-opportunity for less than 80 years (3-4 generations) at this point, so a lot of everyday interactions between regular men and women are still governed by old traditions or at least preconceptions, like that a woman must marry (a man, natch) before she is 25, so the only reason she enters the workforce is to find a husband. Despite all this pressure, traditional courtship rituals assign to her a strictly passive role, so a mixer is in a opportunity to signal her availability without violating "propriety" (i.e. to avoid slut-shaming) by hiding behind a collective presence (that's why it's a group event) and to give the men ample opportunity to initiate courtship during or after the event.
From what I've read, however, even this doesn't really help the Japanese society at large to keep the marriage and birth rates from falling. It's almost like an abundance of obsolete social rituals and norms produces endemic neuroses that make it hard to emotionally engage with other people, let alone with people of the opposite sex...
last edited at Nov 17, 2021 8:14AM