Hi!  I have just received the following from the FFML:

Caroline Seawright wrote:

I've started reading a rather interesting book called "A Half Step Behind,
Japanese Women Today", a book that comes from a series of interviews with
many Japanese women, trying to find "honne" (deep truth) underneath all
the "tatemae" (surface truth) about women in Japanese society.

>From another book, A Japanese Mirror, I believe it was called, says that
Japanese mothers let the sons do _anything_ they want, and the only
punishment is to say that "Mother doesn't love you any more" if they get
too out of hand. The Japanese mother forges a very strong bond with her
son, by babying him all his life - except when she withdraws her love as
punishment. So many Japanese men end up doing _anything_ their mother
wants, to keep her love - even right into adulthood. Many men would even
do what their mother says, even over their wives.

Mind if I use some of your observations from the above books for the furture
episodes of my "Ranko and Kaneda" series, and state where I get them as well?

                                                        Adrian Wong