Legs

IT seems the Chinese waste just as much time on websites speculating about Japanese people as Western folks do, with roughly the same result: readers learn more about the writers than anything else.

Some Chinese language-fluent Japanese found a thread on a message board associated with the Baidu search engine titled, “Japanese women can really withstand the cold”. The thread’s original poster included photographs of younger women wearing short skirts on cold days. They thought some of the comments and interpretations were interesting enough to translate into Japanese, and here they are in English (along with a link to the photos).

* Japanese women wear school uniform skirts from primary school through high school except for physical education classes. Universities have no uniforms, so they wear skirts all year round to be fashionable. I don’t think it’s so difficult for them even when it snows and is very cold. In South Korea it was popular to wear long stockings above the knee, but the Japanese are very strict about enforcing the rule on socks below the knee. That exposes their thighs and knees to the cold. Aren’t Japanese women cold? Have they evolved to a level beyond the Chinese?

(N.B.: Most primary school girls don’t wear uniforms at all, much less skirts. The university I’m most familiar with does have a non-mandatory uniform for women. It’s an attractive black pantsuit with a white blouse. The fad last year was short cutoff jeans with long black pantyhose-type stockings. I didn’t have a problem with that at all.)

* They do that from the time they’re small. They’re probably cold, but they’re used to it.

* (Original Poster) Here’s the latest information! Japanese men also don’t wear many clothes. Most young company employees in the Kanto region don’t wear long underwear because they think it’s for old guys.

* They have really big legs.

* Japanese women have such big legs because they like to play sports from a young age.

* They’ll get sick when they get older. Like with rheumatism.

* Where I am the junior high school girls wear stockings. (I think that’s the usual practice.)

* It’s all culture. Generally, women who think they’re beautiful wear skirts. (Is that the general opinion?)

* They’ll have to be careful about arthritis. They shouldn’t damage their bodies just to try to look good.

(N.B.: If female arthritis is a problem in Japan, it’s escaped my notice.)

* Cold, cold! I’m cold just looking at them!

* They have big legs because they sit in seiza for a long time.

(N.B.: Not any more they don’t.)
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Here’s the Chinese page with the photos they were commenting on.

It used to be the practice of parents to have their children (until junior high) run around in short pants throughout the year because they thought it was a healthful practice that built up their strength. (At least here in Kyushu, where it’s not as cold as elsewhere.) That doesn’t happen any more, though short pants are the rule for boys at the one primary school in my city that requires uniforms. (Full-length dresses for girls.)
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Those thighs don’t look fat to me.