Discussion History Main / YamatoNadeshiko

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") Sachiko, on the other hand, introduces suitors to Yukiko with all the proper formalities but is willing to compromise on their lineage. In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status. (And Yukiko both fits and subverts the trope description in that, although she is definitely \\\"silk hiding steel\\\", she uses her secret strength not in the approved fashion to further a husband\\\'s interests, but rather to avoid marrying at all.) So, to sum up, the \\\"yamato nadeshiko\\\" ideal is a \\\'\\\'particular\\\'\\\' collection of refined traits that are (or were) thought of as \\\'\\\'peculiarly Japanese\\\'\\\'.

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") Sachiko, on the other hand, introduces suitors to Yukiko with all the proper formalities but is willing to compromise on their lineage. In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status. (And Yukiko both fits and subverts the trope description in that, although she is definitely \\\"silk hiding steel\\\", she uses her secret strength not in the approved fashion to further a husband\\\'s interests, but rather to avoid marrying at all.) So, to sum up, the \\\"yamato nadeshiko\\\" ideal is a \\\'\\\'particular\\\'\\\' collection of refined traits that are thought of as \\\'\\\'peculiarly Japanese\\\'\\\'.

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") Sachiko, on the other hand, introduces suitors to Yukiko with all the proper formalities but is willing to compromise on their lineage. In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status. (And Yukiko both fits and subverts the trope description in that, although she is definitely \\\"silk hiding steel\\\", she uses her skills not in the approved fashion to further a husband\\\'s interests, but rather to avoid marrying at all.) So, to sum up, the \\\"yamato nadeshiko\\\" ideal is a whole collection of traits that are thought of as refined and peculiarly Japanese.

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") Sachiko, on the other hand, introduces suitors to Yukiko with all the proper formalities but is willing to compromise on their lineage. In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status.

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status.

As it happens, there\\\'s a little discussion of this in the novel I\\\'m reading , \\\'\\\'TheMakiokaSisters\\\'\\\', in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and \\\"bright and lively\\\" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and \\\"Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely\\\". She \\\"had a long, thin face and a very slender figure\\\" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he\\\'s looking for in a woman: \\\"He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty -- gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.\\\") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family\\\'s status (declining lately: \\\"To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.\\\") In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is \\\"purely Japanese\\\" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways.