Culture Slap

Whiney and Origami Boy are not very well behaved. And that's not just from my American point of view, their parents have readily admitted it, somewhat apologetically.
Whiney, as you might guess, is the biggest crybaby I've ever seen. I don't care if he's only six years old. He cries when he doesn't get what he wants, when he gets what he doesn't want, when he's tired or even when people disagree with him. He's the master of the fake "I'm trying my very hardest to put up a convincing cry" cry. Hence the name.
Origami Boy doesn't cry, but he's still not very well behaved or respectful to his parents. Occasionally he seems to enjoy making life miserable for Whiney, such as kicking him under the table or stealing his food, which of course Whiney uses as an excuse to cry.
For all their irritating behavior and their parents awareness of it, I haven't seen either my host mom or dad ever punish their sons or take away a privilege. They don't even threaten to do so; they just scold them. Stop it, you're making a mess. Stop it, you're being so noisy. But of course, the sons don't really care. They get scolded so much they're probably used to it. "So what if it makes Mom mad, as long as I get another 10 minutes of Saturday morning anime?" This causes my host Mom or Dad to repeat the command, using a louder and more threatening and ugly voice. So the routine goes, several times a day:
"Whiney, turn the TV off and get in the bathtub. Whiney, TV. Off. Get in the tub! Whiney, did you not hear me? I said get in the tub! Listen to your mother! BATHTUB! NOW! WHINEY. GET IN! GET IN THE TUB THIS VERY INSTANT!" And so on and so forth until Whiney decides that he's ready to turn off the TV and get in the bathtub in his own sweet time. Combined with Whiney's whining, it's a lovely sound to wake up to in the morning.
I said that I've never seen the children punished. That's not entirely true. When one of the boys is being particularly rebellious, the parents will actually slap them on the head remarkably hard. Unlike most Americans these days, I'm not against the idea of spanking. But this head slapping makes my jaw hit the floor every time. I have never seen anyone hit a child so hard before. It's not that my host parents are physically abusive; I think head smacking is actually normal in Japanese culture, although used as a last resort. A quick Google search revealed that I am not the only visitor to Japan to have seen or be astonished by this behavior.
They don't tell you about this kind of stuff in the study abroad brochures.