日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）【日本語ジェンダー学会ウェスタン・ミシガン大学研究例会発表論文】

A Marriage of Cultures:
An Online, Role-Playing Simulation for Japanese Anthropology

Laura Spielvogel

Abstract
In this paper, I will discuss a web-based role-playing simulation created around the narrative framework ofa cross-cultural wedding between an American man and a Japanese woman. This simulation helps students
experience learning as a goal-oriented process involving experimentation, practice, play, and problem solving. A
Marriage of Cultures requires that each student play a character in a 3-4 week, open-ended narrative that requires
collaboration to achieve a particular goal or resolve a cross-cultural dilemma. The learning process is accelerated
and enhanced in web-based role-play simulations when students are required both to successfully role-playcharacters whose profiles reflect the knowledge and expertise taught in the course, and when students
collaboratively apply theories and concepts learned in the classroom to real-life problems and processes. It is myhope that through using this simulation, students of anthropology, women’s studies, Asian studies, sociology, andother disciplines can better experience how culture shapes everyday human behavior by playing a character in a
dynamic, intellectually rich learning environment that unfolds through synchronous and asynchronous chat anddiscussion.

Introduction
As a Japanese cultural anthropologist, I have spent the past two years developing and piloting A Marriage
of Cultures designed to provide college students in both North America and Japan with a grounded andexperientially based understanding of the differences and similarities between the two cultures. This simulation
enables up to twenty-five students at a time to experience cross-cultural difference by anonymously role-playing
family members and friends of a Japanese bride and an Italian American groom in the weeks leading up to theirfictionalized wedding. Students engage and debate the meaning of love and marriage, parent-child obligations,work and domestic responsibilities, the importance of having children, and religious difference through three weeks
of experiential online role-play.
While its content on Japanese history, religion, kinship, gender, and education is equivalent to other cultural
anthropology textbooks, A Marriage of Cultures, embeds these extensive details within a fictionalized cross-cultural
wedding so that students must take an anthropological perspective to better practice and model the behaviors ofcultural relativism and to explore the tensions between structure and agency. Weddings present an ideal microcosm
by which to examine the holistic relationship of cultural institutions and the ways in which culture is a product ofconformity, conflict, and change. Family dynamics, gender roles, and metaphors of social adulthood play out

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

against the backdrop of the wedding (see i.e., Edwards 1990; Adrian 2003; Kelsky 2003). It is no coincidence that
popular film blockbusters such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding and underground favorites such as Monsoon Wedding
highlight the chaos, misunderstanding, stereotyping, and performance of cultural identity that characterize thesecross-cultural ceremonies.

Instead of reading about Japanese culture in an article or book or watching a

documentary film, students in A Marriage of Cultures assume a more central and active role in the narrative byplaying, for example, the role of a disappointed mother, a jilted salaryman boyfriend, or a corporate matchmaker.
Upon registering online to play the A Marriage of Cultures, players read abbreviated versions of twentyfive character biography sketches, select their top three choices, and are assigned a character by theirinstructor. Once assigned a character, players are taken to their private “My Character” page each time they log into the simulation. The My Character private user interface, inspired by popular social networking sites such as
Facebook and MySpace, provides individual players with the tools required to play the simulation and interact with
their community. Players can read their character’s detailed profile description, access a record of private
correspondence with other characters, and initiate relationships with other characters. The full character profile
enables players to view a comprehensive character biography, personality profile, and set of confidential
instructions, thereby providing each student with a complex, three-dimensional character identity from which toimagine and perform in the cross-cultural wedding.
After submitting his/her top three character choices, one student might be assigned the character of
Takahashi Tomoko, who is the bride’s older sister and has been married for eight years to a middle-manager
salaryman, who is not progressing in his career at a rate that pleases Tomoko. They live in a tiny company danchi
apartment and have been struggling to have a child since they first married. Tomoko feels that it is her sisterly duty
to remind her sister that “life is suffering” and that to simply pursue selfish desire will result in profound individual
unhappiness and shame for their family. Another student might be asked to play Father Giovanni, the groom’s
childhood priest who is disappointed about Tom’s decision to marry a Japanese woman, who not only is not
Catholic, but also is unabashedly vague about her religious upbringing and faith. Father Giovanni sees this marriage
as symptomatic of a larger crisis in Catholicism in America—the gradual loss of its members due to lapsed morals,
spiritual laziness, and not the least of it, intermarriage. He has heard the arguments that modern culture no longer
fits with Catholic traditional regulations on contraception for example, but he feels that it is modern society thatmust change, not the age-old teachings of the Catholic faith.
The simulation’s plot is driven by a series of events, such as an omiai, a rehearsal dinner, and even theuntimely death of a central character, leading up to the climactic wedding day. Each event acts as a springboard forstudents to debate some of the key issues that make cross-cultural understanding and recognition so challenging andnecessary. In one letter, for example, the bride’s mother asks if Aya would consider meeting with her ex-boyfriend(who is also Japanese) one last time before committing to the American for marriage. When engaging in thecorresponding chat room assignment, students are asked to debate the merits of indulging the bride’s mother’srequest and to consider how their character feels about the prudence of arranging a potentially damaging meeting
between the bride and her ex-boyfriend prior to the wedding.
A complete set of instructor features, meanwhile, enables teachers to easily create a customized experience
for their own classrooms, and facilitate the simulation as “newsletter editors,” which includes assigning characters,
coordinating the simulation schedule, creating and distributing assignments to players, and creating new newsletter,assignment, and glossary term content. Instructors also have the option of anonymously playing the simulation48
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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

alongside their students, an experience with the potential to productively reconfigure teacher/student hierarchies,
especially when students adopt character personae with more power and responsibility than their teacher’s character.
In the spirit of an open Web articulated in Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds (2004), the collective wisdom of acontent community has the potential to produce dynamic content that will result in an emergent and potentiallymore inventive, relevant, and educational textbook than an author’s initial publication.
Finally, A Marriage of Cultures provides evaluation features that allow teachers to assess student
participation and learning outcomes as they relate to the specific content and the general themes of identity
formation, the contextual nature of cultural understanding, and systemic thinking. Teachers, for example, can track
and print a qualitative and quantitative report of players’ asynchronous and synchronous communication, which
includes forum and chat entries as well as private letters. The evaluation features also allow instructors to issue andtabulate peer evaluation scores and surveys, as well as distribute, upload, and grade quizzes and exams provided by
the software or customized by instructors.
Some instructors might prefer to limit their evaluation of student performance in the simulation to students’quantity and quality of participation, which could be weighted differently depending on whether the course isoffered in traditional, hybrid, or online format. I have piloted the simulation in these three distinct types ofclassrooms at Western Michigan University, and just last semester successfully completed ten instances in a 250person introductory anthropology course. In my experience, A Marriage of Cultures has been used with equal
effectiveness in all three classroom formats. In traditional classrooms in which students and instructors meet faceto-face for all class meetings, the simulations are typically assigned as homework; in these instances, class time isoften used to debrief about the simulation experience, and teachers can choose to either let students reveal theidentity of their character early in the process to enable frank and open discussion about character motivations andbehaviors, or conceal those identities to promote more freedom and creativity within the simulation.
In hybrid class formats in which classes are more or less equally divided between online and in-classmeeting time, students typically participate in the simulation from a remote campus location or computer lab during
designated online meeting times, while portions of class time are used for debriefing. Students seem especiallyeager to creatively embrace the world of the simulation in online courses that typically provide few opportunities
for sustained synchronous conversation. Debriefing within the software has posed some challenges, however, so I
have used a supplemental course management system such as Blackboard to facilitate these conversations.
However, I am in the process of working with a computer scientist to create a separate interface within the simulationthat will allow players to navigate back and forth between their characters’ simulated environment and their own
debriefing context.
Objectives for Learning
Simulation and role-playing exercises are not recent pedagogical inventions, of course, and their use canbe traced to ancient times when games such as chess were introduced to simulate battle strategy and tactics between
two opponents. Many educational simulations today utilize variations of a virtual reality gaming model establishedby the computer gaming industry. Virtually rendered educational simulations are typically single-user games inwhich players adopt the personae of an avatar or onscreen character and attempt to solve a problem or accomplish
a particular goal as defined by the computer’s programming calculations. While virtually rendered worlds borrowed
from the genre of computer games attract younger generations familiar with computer games, the virtual reality

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

gaming model may not effectively fulfill pedagogical objectives as well as other, much less expensive text-basedrole-play simulations like the one described here (Linser and Ip 2005; Vincent and Shepherd 1995).
Students’ imaginative capacity is not dependent on having access to ready-made, virtually renderedenvironments (ibid.). Although both visual and text-based narratives can stimulate identification with characters,that connection is not determined by visuality. In fact, single-user computer programmed virtual worlds can restrict
students’ engagement with one another and their teachers, and limit their decision-making to options prescribed by
the simulation’s program. As Linser and Ip suggest: “Identification with the character in a role-play simulation
requires learners to be intellectually and emotionally active in the construction of the role. Rather than providing
learners with ready-made, out-of-the-box possibilities, learners engage their own imaginative capacity (rather thandesigners' capacities) to create the character and consequently a deeper emotional bond is established with thecharacter” (ibid.:4). On balance, I feel that this text-based simulation, driven by a concern for student learning andmotivation instead of just visual realism and entertainment value, will capitalize on some of the generic features ofcomputer gaming that make them popular with young adults, but ultimately will be informed by sound pedagogicaland research practices.
Serious games across a variety of subgenres offer this potential for experiential learning, including
epistemic games (Shaffer 2005), multi-user virtual environments (MUVE), role-playing simulations (Linser et al,2008), and game-informed learning processes (Begg et al, 2005), all of which have been used with increasing
frequency to integrate entertaining gaming features with learning objectives. In this way, simulations can provide
a sense of “collateral learning” whereby students cultivate profound identification and empathy for socioeconomically and historically marginalized and diverse peoples by alternating role-identities between the self andthe perspective of one’s avatar, or character (Thomas and Seely Brown 2007).
In-depth character profiles are created to reflect the multitude of cultural and ideological perspectives thatstudents would encounter in this cross-cultural exchange, thereby permitting players to express and empathize withthe simultaneity of those voices that can be given abstract and dehumanizing treatment in traditional ethnographiesor textbooks with omniscient authors. The purpose, then, is not to use avatars mimetically, but as a creative formof identity exploration that can promote a profound sense of “being” or deep immersion within a digital space thatis difficult to achieve in print-based books, and can provide invaluable motivation for students to access, digest, andquestion the more abstract and often complex details and concepts contained in textual narratives. For students, theprocess of creating meaning from a written book or article is usually undertaken as a solo activity, as students
purchase their own individual copies of books that they privately read, annotate, and highlight. While solitary workand reflection is an important aspect of students’ intellectual development, many learning theories, including
constructivist (Piaget 1952), problem-based (Hmelo-Silver 2004) and situated learning (Wenger 1998), argue thatcollaborative or peer-to-peer learning provides the realistic feedback, cognitive motivation, and engagement needed
for students to seek and construct knowledge as active learners.

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

Simulations enable collaborative or peer-to-peer learning by actively involving students in the collective
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of issues, theories, and problems germane to the discipline. In A Marriage ofCultures, students embody four unique experiential subject positions or roles—student as reader, student as
performer, student as author, and student as collaborator. While print media has traditionally permitted only oneof these four roles for students – that of passive reader –digital culture creates an opening for students to play central
roles within textbook narratives, while still retaining an unalterable narrative foundation rooted in a knowledgeable
scholarly voice. Although students traditionally have come together to exchange ideas through formal study
sections and informal conversations, the print media neither encourages nor rewards collaborative work. Throughrole-playing, students do not learn alone, but rather experience a dramatic shift in perspective when they are put
into dialogue with characters of vastly different backgrounds, ideologies, and opinions.
A central component of study within the field of anthropology has been the issue of identity. Gender, class,race, ethnicity, religion, age, and sexual orientation represent some of the affiliations that shape one’s identity andserve as “filters” through which people create and interpret shared meaning. For anthropologists, one’s identity
serves as a standpoint or perspective from which people interpret experience and view and construct the world
around them. The study of identity is also an analysis of empowerment; marginalized voices, for example, have thecapability to effectively critique dominant beliefs upheld by those whose identity reflects the status quo. Regardlessof subfield or area study, an awareness of how identities are constructed, negotiated, and reified remains a centralcomponent of anthropology scholarship and pedagogy.
Inculcating in students an awareness and appreciation for the diversity of identities and their impact on
cultureis animportantyethardly straightforward

challengeforteachers intheanthropology

classroom. Understanding various standpoints or views of the world rooted in identity can require a great deal oftime, empathy, and perspective taking. Instructional resources rooted in print-based epistemologies may constrain
this task. Textbooks, for example, often offer only one subject position for students – that of passive reader – while
an author’s unique voice is disguised behind an authoritative narrative topically organized around central theories,
concepts, or ideas. Textbooks also typically reflect a behaviorist theory of knowledge; students’ measurable
behaviors are observed by giving standardized tests based on a textbook’s vast constellation of core concepts andtheories, and the resulting test scores provide positive or negative reinforcement for students about what they havelearned.
While appropriate for teaching basic skills (e.g. memorization of mathematical formulas) and foundational
subject knowledge, the textbook’s behavioral assumptions reinforce a passive model of learning that makes itchallenging for students to engage in the empathy and perspective taking needed to understand issues pertaining to
identity construction. Digital spaces should engage students as readers, but online learning should not use content
simply to create passive readers charged with the task of memorization; rather, educators who understand that young

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

people use the digital media for collaboration and enjoyment, and not just to access information, will shape theirpedagogy to provide students with more participatory roles within learning.
Identities are constituted through communities of discourse; students provided with opportunities foranonymous networked collaboration, therefore, are equipped with the freedom, responsibility, and creativity needed
to cultivate those identities. One student reflects upon her experience playing the simulation: “The best part of thissimulation was getting to be someone else from a different culture, and actually being heard. Having an opinion
that was agreed with by people from my own country was great. Sometimes it was difficult to know what to say
and what side of the situation I should be on. Takahashi Yukari was my character and because she was a mother, I
could very clearly see the differences in families in Japan and the U.S. Yukari helped show me the kind of woman
I’d rather be when I’m married and have children. I don’t want them to be my life, like her daughter was hers, andher poor marriage is something I’ll try to avoid.”
Teachers using simulations have the potential to play an active role as collaborators without replicatingclassroom power dynamics that can inhibit both students’ roles as active, empowered learners as well as authentic
peer-to-peer learning experiences. In the simulation, teachers are given the option of remaining actively involvedin the anonymous role-playing narrative as characters themselves, thus repositioning their relationship to students,
especially when students are given more influential roles to play within the narrative. Teachers can still maintaintheir role as subject experts in conversations that take place outside of role-playing, but the anonymity of theexperience can create a healthy disruption of traditional classroom dynamics that can make teachers more aware of
their students’ potential as active learners in authentically egalitarian peer-to-peer learning contexts.

Applications for Anthropology
This type of experiential learning can improve pedagogy in a number of fields, but is particularly criticalin the discipline of anthropology, where one of the key challenges of both teaching and writing is the act of culturaltranslation and representation.

An anthropologist conducts extensive fieldwork and writes a case study or

ethnography in an effort to make one culture understandable in terms that students and readers from another culture
can understand. In this way, anthropology strives to make sense of differences between people, as well as to uncovercross-cultural similarities. The study of human culture also points to the often times unrecognizable strangeness of
our own culture and the familiarity of lives initially believed to be worlds apart. To convey the lives and meaningsof other cultures, anthropologists have relied on "thick description" or richly detailed depictions of other lifeways.
As Clifford Geertz so eloquently writes: "The ability of anthropologists to get us to take what they say seriously
has less to do with either a factual look or an air of conceptual elegance than it has with their having actuallypenetrated (or, if you prefer, been penetrated by) another form of life, of having, one way or another, truly ‘been
there’" (1988: 4).

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

Although professional anthropologists and many graduate students have regular opportunities to become
deeply immersed in other cultures through direct fieldwork experiences, the vast majority of undergraduates do not.
One challenge for professors who teach anthropology and other courses on cultural diversity is to find ways to help
students “walk in the shoes” of others who share different ethnic, geographic, racial, gender, and/or class identities.
Grounded ethnographies, replete with quotes of local people and thick description, coupled with ethnographic films
that give viewers a visual image, can be effective ways to allow students to imagine and engage with other cultures.
But what if, with the touch of a mouse, students could be transported to another cultural realm? What if students
themselves could actually simulate the experience of "being there"?
This simulation encourages students to grapple with key anthropological issues in a unique way. Althoughlearning outcomes from the simulation will vary based on the course, instructor, students, and discipline, there arethree primary anthropological learning objectives that have informed the development of the simulation.
1.

Explore the holistic relationship of cultural institutions and the tension between structure
and agency: Because a wedding functions as an ideal metaphor for the holistic relationship ofcultural institutions, students will be challenged to confront how, for example, family
dynamics, gender roles, the relationship between families and corporations, and ideals of loveand romance both impact one another and generate conflict between institutional constraint
and individual freedom of choice.

2.

Employ ethnographic field methods: Because the wedding scenario simulates an initial
cross-cultural encounter, students will have a chance to practice methods used by cultural
anthropologists to build rapport and trust with peoples of other cultures, to learn local customs,
and to adapt to different cultural expectations and constraints.

3.

Experience cultural relativism and challenge ethnocentric views: Because the simulation
enables students to learn about culture as an everyday act or performance, it can contextualize
cultural behavior and therefore serve as a useful vehicle to help students understand that othercultural behaviors have as much validity and logic as their own. Additionally, because students
have an opportunity to “perform” an identity different from their own, we are confident
students will address, confront, and hopefully challenge the blinders of ethnocentrism, racism,
ageism, and sexism.

This project enables students to grapple with questions of stereotyping, ethnocentrism and cultural relativity
in a unique way, even playing with students halfway around the globe. One American student who recently played
the simulation concluded:
I think the most rewarding part was just being involved in the simulation and learning about the Japaneseculture through the unique interaction between the two families. Each side brought out some characteristics
in each other that would usually be hard to understand solely through reading and studying them … After

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日本語とジェンダー第10号（2010）

a few days of chats and discussion boards I started being able to look at all of the events through a Japaneseperson’s eyes. I would read a letter and react like a Japanese person would instead of an American … I
would even look at some of the American responses and start to question the American ways.

Another student claimed:I very much enjoyed playing my character. It was a refreshingly unique and also a fun way to study
Japanese culture in the classroom. The anonymity of our roles added to the excitement of playing acharacter. I was able to really play the part without worrying what other students were thinking about how
I acted. I was quite caught up in the plot of the simulation and in my character, and I frequently gave myroommate and boyfriend “updates” on Tom and Aya’s relationship.

A Marriage of Cultures is not meant to replace study abroad in Japan, as the invaluable experience ofliving in another culture cannot be duplicated, but rather is intended to serve as a prerequisite or an enticement toliving in a culture outside of one’s own. Furthermore, I am aware that a simulation that positions a Japanese family
against an American family in chat rooms and the like may have the unfortunate potential to exaggerate crosscultural difference and reify stereotypes. The instructor, however, far from assuming a passive role, remedies thiseffect by actively playing a character, moderating chat discussions, and leading in-class debriefings that stresscultural relativism and tolerance. Also, I should note that I took great care to create a cast of complex characters
who defy stereotypes by reflecting the heterogeneity of both cultures.
I would like to conclude by stating that I certainly have no interest in disparaging print-based resources.
Books can and always should remain a central part of a student’s intellectual growth. In fact, as I have illustrated,
A Marriage of Cultures draws heavily upon the printed word, and requires students to conduct extensive reading ofprimary documents, original content, glossary terms, and extended character biography sketches. New forms ofsocial media can motivate students’ pursuit of learning and improve learning outcomes in anthropology and otherdisciplines if text is embedded within engaging role-playing narratives whereby students access, analyze, critique,and apply that information as actively engaged readers, performers, authors, and collaborators. In this way,
traditional print content will serve as an invaluable supportive layer of information that students must thoroughly
engage in order to successfully rehearse the learning behaviors that comprise successful communities of practice. I
firmly believe that the simulation experience will fundamentally change how students conceptualize cross-culturaldifference, stereotyping, and ethnocentrism, and fulfill the promise technology offers as a vehicle for inspiring
creative, collaborative, and intellectually rigorous forms of learning.

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References
Adrian, Bonnie. (2003). Framing the Bride: Globalizing Beauty and Romance in Taiwan’s Bridal Industry.
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Begg, M., D. Dewhurst, and H. Macleod. (2005). Game-informed learning: Applying computer game processes
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Edwards, Walter. (1990). Modern Japan Through Its Weddings. San Francisco: Stanford University Press.

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Spielvogel, L. (2003). Working Out in Japan: Shaping the Female Body in Tokyo Fitness Clubs. Durham andLondon: Duke University Press.

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(Laura Spielvogel Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Western Michigan University)

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