July 16, 2009 “Vegetarian” Japanese men

There have been quite a few articles in the Japanese media recently about “vegetarian” soshokukei Japanese men who are mild mannered, not ambitious, probably born in the 1970s, not very aggressive towards women, as opposed to the Japanese females in their peer group, who are “carnivorous” and more career oriented and aggressive.  I was talking last week to a UK recruitment agency specialising in placing people in Japanese companies, and they said quite a few “vegetarian” Japanese men have ended up working in the UK, often married to (carnivorous?!) British women.  Apparently they are often not so happy working as locally hired staff in Japanese companies here, although those are the kinds of jobs they can most easily obtain.