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  3. These days lots of young Japanese do omiai, literally, "meet and look." Many

These days lots of young Japanese do omiai, literally, "meet and look." Many

游客2024-05-10  11
问题     These days lots of young Japanese do omiai, literally, "meet and look." Many of them do so willingly. In today’s prosperous and increasingly conservative Japan, the traditional omiai kekkon, or arranged marriage, is thriving.
    But there is a difference. In the original omiai, the young Japanese couldn’t reject the partner chosen by his parents and their middleman. After World War II, many Japanese abandoned the arranged marriage as part of their rush to adopt the more democratic ways of their American conquerors. The Western ren ’ai kekkon, or love marriage, became popular; Japanese began picking their own mates by dating and falling in love.
    But the western way often found wanting in an important respect: it didn’t necessarily produce a partner of the right economic, social, and educational qualifications. "Today’s young people are quite calculating," says Chieko Akiyama, a social commentator.
    What seems to be happening now is a repetition of a familiar process in the country’s history, the "Japanization" of an adopted foreign practice. The Western ideal of marrying for love is accommodated in a new omiai in which both parties are free to reject the match. "Omiai is evolving into a sort of stylized introduction," Mrs. Akiyama says.
    Many young Japanese now date in their early twenties, but with no thought of marriage. When they reach the age — in the middle twenties for women, the late twenties for men — they increasingly turn to omiai. Some studies suggest that as many as 40% of marriages each year are omiai kekkon. It’s hard to be sure, say those who study the matter, because many Japanese couples, when polled, describe their marriage as a love match even if it was arranged.
    These days, doing omiai often means going to a computer matching service rather than to a nakodo. The nakodo of tradition was an old woman who knew all the kids in the neighbourhood and went around trying to pair them off by speaking to their parents; a successful match would bring her a wedding invitation and a gift of money. But Japanese today find it’s less awkward to reject a proposed partner if the nakodo is a computer.
    Japan has about five hundred computer matching services. Some big companies, including Mitsubishi, run one for their employees. At a typical commercial service, an applicant pays $80 to $125 to have his or her personal data stored in the computer for two years and $200 or so more if a marriage results. The stored information includes some obvious items like education and hobbies, and some not-so-obvious ones, like whether a person is the oldest child. (First sons, and to some extent first daughters, face an obligation of caring for elderly parents.) [br] What do we learn from the third and fourth paragraphs?
选项 A、A Western love marriage tends to miss some Japanese values.
B、Less attention is paid to the partner’s qualification in arranged marriages.
C、Young Japanese would often calculate their partner’s wealth.
D、A new arranged marriage is a repetition of the older type.
答案 A
解析 根据题干中的the third and fourth paragraphs将本题出处定位到第三、四段。第三段提到，但是西方的方法常常被发现在一个重要方面有不足之处：它不一定就给对方提供一个在经济、社会和教育条件上都合适的人选。由此可推断出，日本人注重寻找条件相当的对象，而西方的自由恋爱模式却不注重这些，即在一些方面不符合日本人的价值观，故答案为[A]。不关注对方的学历是西方的恋爱模式，故排除[B]。[C]是针对第三段末句calculating(精明的)设的干扰项。根据第四段首句可知，新式的包办婚姻是外国做法的日化，并不是对旧式包办婚姻简单的重复，故排除[D]。
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