In this chapter, I try to make it clear that the main thrust of Japanese fairy tales is aesthetic rather than ethical. Japanese fairy tales convey to us what is beautiful instead of what is good. A boy is raised as a girl, and a girl, his sister, is raised as a boy. The girl herself pretends to be a boy, even eventually marrying a woman. With the exchange of sexual roles, the story implies that the clearcut division between manliness and womanliness is artificial.
Human beings have rich possibilities - one can be manly and womanly at the same time.
The story gives us suggestions to enrich our ways of life. In these chapters I compare some characteristics of Japanese culture with those of the West. I am afraid readers may feel I put too much value on the Asian side. In fact I think both are equally important. Until recently I had thought in terms of integrating the two, or of finding a third way somewhere between them.