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Key points
- Previous research has found lower levels of fantasy play in children of Asian descent.
- In Japan, we observed firsthand that pretend play was scarce, even in play spaces designed for children.
- Japanese play spaces were highly themed, organized, and structured.
- We, therefore, found that play in Japan looked quite different from that observed in the United States.
In 2019, I was approached by the Office of International Education at the university where I teach and asked to design a course that would culminate in a trip abroad for the students. Given my interest in play and imagination, I decided to design a course exploring cultural similarities and differences in play and to take college students abroad to observe children at play firsthand. My first instinct was to travel to Asia, given an extensive body of research that finds differences in play between children of Asian descent and children of Euro-American descent.
Due to the travel restrictions that came along with COVID, my dream of taking a class to Japan did not come to fruition until this past spring semester (2024). We had some preconceived notions of what we might find based on previous research, some of which I will describe below. But we also learned a great deal about play among Japanese children while we were there, not all of which aligned with our expectations.
Previous research suggests that play looks different among children from Asian ethnic backgrounds. For example, Farver and Lee Shin (1997) found that Korean-American 4- and 5-year-olds engaged in less pretend play than Anglo-Americans. Similarly, Farver et al. (1995) found more parallel and less pretend play among Korean-American 3- to 5-year-olds and reported their play to be more highly structured compared to their Anglo-American peers.
In general, children of Asian descent seem to have less of a fantasy orientation than Euro-American children. Moriguchi and Todo (2018; 2019) found that children in Japan are 2.9 to 3.3 times less likely to have imaginary, invisible companions compared to children from Western cultures. If Japanese children do have imaginary companions, they are more likely to be personified objects than invisible friends, and even the likelihood of having a personified object as a companion was correlated with the child’s overall fantasy orientation.
Another cultural difference was highlighted by Ishihama and colleagues (2022). As opposed to several Western countries where outdoor play is more common (e.g., England, Scandinavian countries, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and even the U.S.), this Japanese study found that only 21.3% of 8- to 12-year-old Japanese boys and 11.4% of girls studied reported playing outside after school.
When we were in Japan, we were able to observe this lower level of fantasy play that was described in the research firsthand. Our itinerary included visits to several places intended to encourage play, including (but not limited to) theme parks, playgrounds, and a children’s museum. However, despite the child-friendly nature of most of these places, we observed very little (if any) fantasy play.
The large majority of the play we encountered among Japanese children was themed and structured. I will focus primarily on the destinations we visited in which the play was organized and themed for the children. For example, at the Anpanman Museum, all of the rooms and “exhibits” were designed around popular Japanese children’s cartoon characters.
There was a bakery and a sweets shop, a stage for shows, a “living room” type space with a squishy floor, and an open play area with a few climbing structures and large bouncy balls. Colorful characters decorated all the walls. The basement of the building consisted of themed shops and eateries. Around the main “play” floor, we observed that while the children could explore a bit with some slides, crawl spaces, and loose objects such as toy sweets or balls, there was not much room for free, imaginative play. The play was all centered around the show.
We found a very similar situation when we visited Sanrio Puroland, an indoor “theme park” designed to showcase its famous characters such as Hello Kitty and My Melody. Although the space is highly creative in its decoration and devotion to the characters, there was little space for children to play. The giant tree house that dominated the space was not a play space.
The side rooms had decorative themes from the show, but there was no place for the children to play or imagine themselves interacting with the characters. The main “attractions” included a boat ride, a mini-car ride, and a musical “parade” and show with song and dance. For a child, visiting here seemed to be more about observing the exhibits than it was about engaging in play.
Tokyo Disney Sea and Tokyo Disneyland, the two main Disney parks in Japan, are also themed in this way.
There were very few play structures or open play spaces. In each park, visitors can visit themed areas and ride rides, but there is not much room for free play.
In sum, the play we observed in Japan looked very different from the play in the United States. In line with previous research, Japanese children played in highly structured ways that did not involve much fantasy. Theme parks, children’s museums, and play spaces were themed and organized. While the designers of the spaces definitely must have been creative, the play spaces themselves did not seem to encourage much imagination. Whether this is a detriment to the Japanese children or something they miss is a question for future research.
