I will admit that it was a little boring for me this time around, but I believe that it was because I was expecting more of an anthropological perspective than a historical perspective when I started reading this book. The way it was introduced made it start out with her experiences and maybe going into other people’s experiences but in the majority of the book we are slammed with historical facts and long and winding histories about seemingly unrelated topics to the main focus of the book. Maybe this was me expecting too much of a different take and not enjoying it because of my expectations but at the same time I feel that anthropology is more about the people behind the culture rather than the history of the culture. Yes the history is important but the definition of anthropology is “The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.” Humans is the main component of this definition and I feel as though Susan Brownell forgot the human aspect of anthropology. Once again this is just my opinion. I do understand why this book was picked out for us to read but I feel because it is more historical rather than anthropological the essence of which we are supposed to get out of it is taken away. I have stated my dislike for the novel but there were parts I did like about it and that did strike me as interesting and made me curious on the subject.

One of these subjects was her little section on “Homosexuality and Complementarity” (pg. 230). This section was interesting because, in the time period she was in, it was very true that Western society had strict gender, I do not like using the word sex as that seems more biological than a social construct, perceptions compared to many of the other countries in the world. To read about the intensity of skin-ship was not a new concept for me but I was interested in her thoughts on the matter. As a large devourer of foreign media, mainly Korean, seeing skin-ship is not weird for me. However when I show my friends the same media their reactions are usually one of discomfort or not understanding why it is normal. It made me think as I was reading this section that while we have accepted a wider variety of gender constructs or roles we still hold on to a ‘boys do not hold hands’ and ‘girls should not sit in each other’s laps’ mentality.

I have two tentative topics right now as I really don’t know which one I am more into right now. My first is on weiqi and the poetry. I don’t know where I want to go with in yet but weiqi and it’s poetry interest me greatly. The second is homosexuality with in sports. I want to focus on the west for this one and like the previous topic I do not know the exact direction of it yet but I hope to choose soon.