Shall We Dance - Essay Example

Introduction There are two elemental places in Japan where people spend most of their time, home and the workplace. This is depicted in the Japanese version of the movie film “Shall we dance?” In Japan, people like a successful salary man Shohei Sugiyama, find managing everything right as essential thing to do in order to balance work and personal life. These people always find the opportunity to draw the line between the personal career and individual life. Japanese people are known to devote their time in the workplace and this is exactly what Sugiyama depicts in the movie film. As a successful salary man, Sugiyama or people like him might turn out having no other needs in life. However, as illustrated in the movie film, folks like him are trying to look something better for their lives, and this is what exactly is happening in the Japanese culture. People when exposed to the urban life have to strongly adapt the way the life must go in there. However, just like Sugiyama who lives in the suburb, way far beyond the very demanding city life, he must face the reality, and that is to create a balancing act between varying roles and the desired personal achievements. In this paper, the proponent tries to explicate the very point on how a built environment comes into existence on the basis of the movie film “Shall we dance?” For this reason, the proponent clearly elaborates the need to understand actual daily life’s activities and the places normally that have to be taken into account by the Japanese together with their existing culture in order to fulfill personal achievements and to go on with life. Substantial idea about the community environment, as a component of planning, is integrated in the discussion, prior to considerable understanding of the actual built atmosphere. Discussion Japanese people are known for their positive outlook, to make them move forward to ensure hard work with respect to their personal career and development. As a result, they need to face the demanding and challenging environment of the workplace. This is how they would respond to the way they should take everything. Job could have been so stressful for them, and as just what Sugiyama would want to point up in the film. They need to find something that could help them not to be exhausted by the very taxing nature of their work and working lifestyle conditions. As a result, Japanese people need to go around, not in an unproductive manner, but with full of sense just to release the tautness they must have acquired from work. For this reason, there are many places in Japan, especially somewhere in the urban areas where Japanese would call and find them as sakariba, the “zone of evaporation between work and home” (Hendry, 231-242). Men like Sugiyama must find for these places after work, where they take the plunge into the busy street and have a drink with friends just to release the weight created by a long day at work. However, instead of going to these places, Sugiyama finds his way to a dance studio, where he unearths himself fully in a relaxation mode. At this point, the dance studio must be the actual sakariba for Sugiyama, as it actually stands as the “zone of evaporation between work and home” for him. This means that the actual built environment must essentially address the existing needs of individuals. However, at first, there are some people who do not actually know what they need in life. Just like Sugiyama, his infatuation with a well-favored young lady, a dance instructor, seems to be the actual interest or need he has first in mind. However, as constant visit to his sakariba continues, Sugiyama has finally learned to understand his growing affinity for dancing. In other words, people’s change of mindset could be affected by the actual environment. In addition, people tend to create their environment based on their relevant needs. Sugiyama might have been looking forward to excitement in life because of the monotonous nature of his lifestyle from the start. This allows him to create his actual environment, and he finds it essential to do it after work, just before riding a train going home. Based on Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, Sugiyama might have addressed the needs for physiological, safety, love and belongingness, and esteem. However, there must be a missing part, as fulfilling all of these must suppose to result to the achievement of self-actualization (Feldman 255). Based on Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, it seems clear that Sugiyama is motivated to create a certain environment just to achieve a state of self-fulfillment. Just as how the Japanese would go to sakariba, the case of Sugiyama depicts the actual scenario on how a society and individuals created things around them based on their existing needs. May it be physiological, safety, love and belonginess, esteem, self-actualization or a combination of each, the actual needs would motivate an individual to transform his life by finding an environment that would help address prevailing needs. Conclusion It is clear that the built environments are initial outputs of some important factors that when combined together would successfully create a balancing act among individual’s roles, lifestyles and personal achievements. The case of the movie film “Shall we dance?” depicts all of these clearly in detail. The movie essentially promotes the actual Japanese culture and how it substantially forms an environment that would help address existing needs in life. Every built environment therefore should remarkably contribute a balancing act in everyone’s life. For this reason, it is clear that the Japanese culture could substantially stand as a tool to create a lucrative environment with associated functions, as to be created based on prevailing needs. In the movie film, the dance studio might not be the original sakariba in Japan, but in essence and based on the existing culture, it could stand as one from the point of view of Sugiyama, because this, for all intents and purpose could stand as the “zone of evaporation between work and home.” References Feldman, Robert S. Essentials of understanding psychology. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print. Hendry, Joy. Interpreting Japanese society: anthropological approaches. 2nd ed. London, New York: Routledge, 1998. Print. Read More