Obento

1. Appearance and Presentation

1.1. Bite-Sized Portions

1.2. Has to look as good as it tastes

1.3. Contrast is Desired

1.4. Nature Based

1.5. "The impulse to work and rework nature in these obentos is most obvious perhaps in the strategies used to transform, shape, and/or disguise food.

2. Japanese Schooling

2.1. "Children learn less about reading and writing than they do about how to become a Japanese student..."

2.2. Daily routines mark progress

2.3. "A person's subjectivity is determined by group membership..."

3. Eating

3.1. The obento has to be completely eaten.

3.2. The teachers placing such a huge emphasis on finishing the obento instead of other things.

4. Females in Japan

4.1. "...remained at and as the center of home in Japan and this message too is explicitly transmitted in both the production and consumption of entirely female-produced obento."

4.1.1. Sub Idea 1

4.1.2. Sub Idea 2

4.2. "...is a worldview in which the position and behavior an adult will assume has everything to do with the anatomy she/he was born with."

5. Mothers

5.1. "The obento is intended to ease a child's discomfiture and to allow a child's mother to manufacture something of herself and the home to accompany the child..."

5.2. Mothers take the time, effort, and planning to make these obentos. There are even obento magazines.

5.3. Their task in making the obento and balancing it with things the child likes to eat and doesn't like to eat is a challenge.

5.4. Mothers have to help their child. If the child is unsuccessful, the mother is blamed. She has to do everything right for the child.

5.5. "She is alienated in the sense that others will dictate, inspect and manage her work." But it is also what her identity is

5.6. "that being a mother in Japan means the exclusion of almost anything else."