The full title would be closer to “having a Japanese spouse whose views on his or her native country are so contradictory that it would make your head spin”, but that wouldn’t fit.
I’m a British citizen married to a Japanese lady, and happily married at that.
My wife seems, on balance, to like her country of birth, but now and then she’ll come up with something that makes me wonder. Today I mentioned in passing that one of my work colleagues is from another Asian country, but did their PhD in an English-speaking country, so said colleague’s command of English is extremely good.
To this, my wife casually commented “so what’s your colleague doing working in Japan?”
The subtext here is that (in my wife’s worldview), the best of the best go and work in America, and the dregs and scum end up everywhere else. She literally can’t conceive of why a highly accomplished person would want to live and work in Japan. (I’m not highly accomplished – I’m the very definition of average, so I fall outside this paradigm).
Now, she does have a fairly unbalanced view of the USA, as far as I can tell; she seems to consider it the greatest place in the entire world because it has the biggest economy, and the number of times she brings up the American *gaijin tarento* on TV / other media, I start to check the mailbox every day for divorce papers.
So, to those here who are married to a Japanese citizen, do you ever get whiplash from the speed at which their takes on Japan change?
35 comments
She wants to be in your country. A different country. She doesn’t want you getting ideas of staying here
Same as I tell everyone how I hate Canada to make sure that I’m not picking up someone who thinks I’m going to bring them back
I like Canada. Great country.
I’m not going back there. We aren’t getting together if you want to live there.
Seems she was late on the pickup on that.
That’s my guess
That seems like a totally innocuous question that you’re projecting a ton onto. Why *are* they in Japan?
Grass is always greener on the other side.
You said your colleague is obv smart (phd) and speaks great English. The 2nd part in particular would seem to tally with ‘why japan?’ as that has potentially more leverage elsewhere.
I’ve had situations like this come up a lot, and it does make me question a number of things.
Personally, I don’t like the superficially of some of the judgements made in the discussion. I personally don have a favourable view of the UK for a number of reasons, but I can understand my prejudices are rooted in some very personal issues.
As for my partner, yeah I get ‘I hate Japan’ / USA everyone is positive thing going on a lot, what frustrated me is the pride and sense of traditions she has. I find incongruous to be so against a country yet put every effort to keep up it’s customs.
Anyhoo..
My girlfriend who is also Japanese and living with me for the past 2 years also seemingly hates Japan but complains anytime we go anywhere remotely dirty or people don’t give high customer service. I try not to laugh at the contradictions but she would not last more than a year abroad, I’m sure.
US is where the money is at. And Japan, while wonderful in many other ways, has an absolute shit work culture. I’m with your wife on this one.
A lot of japanese men and women who marry foreigners have this kind of attitude. Especially the ones that specifically look to marry foreigners for the sake of them being foreigners (Not that this is your significant other though cause nobody knows enough about your personal life to make that judgement). I am just talking about in general.
Actually kind of similar to many Americans who come to Japan with the “Japanese culture is superior to western culture” attitude that specifically look for muh very traditional and honorable Japanese men and women to marry.
It comes from a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side type attitude and dissatisfaction with their lives which ends with them projecting their ideals unto the “other”.
I love parts of my country but I also shit on it constantly. It’s normal.
This is also one of the reasons why some people assume foreigners who live in an Asian country are losers in their home country. There is a lot prejudice in others and in themselves (“There’s no way local industries are that good, so my country is a downgrade.”)
I have encountered a few Japanese people, while living in the US, exhibiting the same attitude. They have an imbalanced worldview and an invisible country tier list in their minds.
Women are more likely to hold such prejudice, because some women believe they have less promotional opportunities compared to their male counterparts, whether perceived or real. Therefore if there’s any proof a person has real talent, she “must” want to get out of Japan if there’s any chance to stay in the US. They think in Japan you get beaten up real good in many ways.
It is not the best place on the earth but the best talents going to the US is true. I don’t think it is Japan-hating.
You can show her something like crime rates or infant mortality rates statistics, that put the US in the middle of developing countries though.
I had a dentist back in the US with this attitude….but, well, I mean he went to the US and become a very wealthy, successful dentist. Can’t say I blame him.
Maybe if you bring her to San Francisco, she’ll get a different look on the US.
So basically, your wife is a Japanlifer?
I’ve had students asking the same thing about me once they learned my wife is not Japanese. They were like, “Then why does Nemo live in Japan?” It’s a valid question and I don’t think it’s worth looking that much into.
Thankfully, my wife, like me, absolutely hates America, and basically said if I ever even suggested us moving back to America together she would divorce me on the spot.
So I’m good
I don’t know about the US, but academia in the U.K. is notoriously precarious and that’s even for people who do have PhDs. Many people working in Japanese academia do so because there’s a higher chance of finding secure work. It is still possible to get a permanent position with a Masters, language skills and experience.
I can’t say the US has ever appealed to me as a place to live, but I might be missing something. I certainly don’t think it’s as simple as “everyone who succeeds goes to the US”.
“Why in the world would you move from Europe/America to a country with shit salary like Japan?” I get this comment all the time from japanese people. This also includes Japanese people who have lived or are living abroad as well so it’s not always ignorant grass-is-greener types.
I love living in Japan but sometimes I also get the thoughts of “Japan is an economically doomed sinking ship”. I agree that the salary is not up to par here and needs to be raised but there’s more to life.
In the end people will complain about anywhere so I wouldn’t read too deeply into it.
17 years here in Japan for me originally from Chicago.
My Japanese wife lived in LA for 5 years and definitely wants to go back to America and talks about it all the time. She keeps pressuring me to go back.
But I keep having to tell her that LA is not America.
So I don’t know what to do.
What’s contradictory about her views? Everyone tends to be able to view good and bad points about their home country?
If she’s talking abt career she’s right, in many industry states do provide best wage for top level positions, that’s why there are tons of Chinese in silicon valley while they hate everything abt America big time, a person I know working for Adobe is paid 500k or 700k something usd yearly, she can never get paid that much in Japan, or pretty much anywhere else, for those Chinese IT guy who want to work in developed country Japan is normally their last choice unless they really like Japan, it has wage gap with English speaking countries.
It’s HEALTHY to have a less than rosy view about the country you live in. From a systemic point of view positive changes don’t happen unless we can identify problems. From a personal point of view, being overly bullish about your own country seems to me, an indication of a lack of critical thinking.
I lived in China for years and the people who loved their country but recognized its flaws were way way open minded than those that were sure they were living in the Middle Kingdom / center of the world.
I’m Canadian and I love my country too but the people who honestly believe they live in the best country ON EARTH are exhausting. These are the same people that would never put a washlet in their house cause it’s not how we do things in Canada or accept without question slow ass trains that crawl into Union or insanely expensive mobile rates.
You should be grateful your wife has a guarded disposition about her own country. To me, it’s an indication she probably has a head on her shoulders. (Though the US will probably disappoint her one day)
My husband has very realistic views. He understands that no country is perfect and every country has its pros and cons. He doesn’t think any one nation is the best. As a whole, he’s a bit less impressed with America – at least, that’s the take I get from him. He says it’s okay. He also says Japan is okay. He seems to have a preference for Europe but thinks living in countries with cheap cost of living is the best option where our money would take us further (for retirement).
Personally, I would never live in America again if I can help it. I can’t stand car dependency – I think it’s absolutely shit and totally anti-people. It’s so much nicer when you can get around without a car; walking, cycling, public transport. Primarily, I like it best if you can walk and cycle and then occasionally take a train or tram between city centers or some such. Having nice, walkable cities with good greenery and keeping people separated as much as possible from cars is very, very good for your mental well being imo. I recognize not everyone will agree but that’s my take.
> The subtext here is that (in my wife’s worldview), the best of the best go and work in America, and the dregs and scum end up everywhere else. She literally can’t conceive of why a highly accomplished person would want to live and work in Japan.
> Now, she does have a fairly unbalanced view of the USA, as far as I can tell; she seems to consider it the greatest place in the entire world because it has the biggest economy
If your goal is to make as much money as possible and you have high-demand, high-value skills then your wife is right. The US has the best salaries in the world, relatively low taxes (especially in states with no income tax), low taxes on capital gains, lots of tax loopholes in general. Live in a gated community and socialize with other rich people and you won’t have to deal with 99% of the social ills that plague the US.
My wife regards Japan as a place to visit as a tourist, but not a place to live. She says she done living here and wants to leave. There’s no subtle hints about it.
My spouse kinda does this too. Most of his beefs with Japan are pretty legit and I agree with… corruption in politics, garbage work/life balance, draconian drug policies while the rest of the world seems to finally be coming to its senses about the devil’s lettuce…
Yet the second you start comparing Japan to other Asian countries, all of a sudden Japan’s a great place to be lol
My Japanese S.O. said Japan is a prison for Japanese people and most foreigners just don’t realise it.
My current boyfriend isn’t very much that way, but many of my friends and my ex-boyfriend were. I find a lot of Japanese people who attend college tend to have a more complex love-hate relationship to Japan compared to Japanese people who don’t.
It might be because, at least in my experience, a lot of Japanese universities do a lot of classes comparing and contrasting foreign countries to Japan which means students get into the habit of constantly comparing Japan to other countries which can quickly get you into the “grass is greener on the other side” mindset. I’ve legitimately attended multiple hours long lectures just comparing Japan to America and in what way American xyz thing is better than Japan’s. It really does shift your view of your own country when you spend hours on end going through all the negative aspects and never really look at the positive aspects much (in my opinion you should look at both, not one over the other).
I find my current boyfriend who attended 正門学校/vocational school or my Japanese friends who have didn’t tend university often have very different views and natural responses to negative aspects of Japanese culture than my university friends. Ofc, my boyfriend does talk about things he resents in Japan like the shaming culture/social pressure, but he also seems to lack that more “Japan is inherently lesser” kind of thought.
Ofc I can’t say if this is an accurate generalization to all cases and it’s just my personal theory based on my experience, but from what I’ve seen a lot of the people who do date foreigners tend to be more middle/upper class individuals with college educations, a fairly strongly developed view of the world outside of Japan (probably because of access to English media, my boyfriend and a lot of my non-Japanese friends also don’t really speak much English or consume non-Japanese dubbed foreign media), and typically a desire to engage with foreigners (hence why they managed to fall in love with one) which might contribute to shaping a different worldview.
HA! My ex-wife in Saitama was furiously anti-Japan. Exactly like this but she verbalized how much she ‘fucking hates Japanese’ quite often. I think she married some retarded dutch guy though. I say that because he was fucking moronic enough to marry an insane person who has two kids and lives with their older brother.
(Secretly hope he’s a redditor and one of these days he makes a post like this so I can laugh my ass off)
Imo as somebody who was born and raised in Japan but lived most of my life overseas, I can kinda relate. There are times I love my home country, but there are also times when I absolutely LOATHE it. The same goes with the west at times. My parents tell me that I should live in Japan, but I honestly don’t think I’ll enjoy living there, particularly working there and the relationships I have to make…
My father left Japan because he HATED the working conditions and the general life. Being a woman in Japan is especially hard if you don’t fit into the kind of cookie cutter expectations people have of you. I honestly get where she’s coming from.
I would consider myself lucky. The opposite (all-japan-praising) is extremely toxic and would make you feel pretty bad as a foreigner
Japan has one of the lowest gender quality rankings in the world (125/146 nations according to the world economic forum). Japanese women see marrying foreigners/leaving Japan as a path to a better life. Which leads to misalignment on marriage life goals as foreign men seek wives that will pamper them.
Me and my Japanese wife love the UK and Japan almost equally. I spend time in Japan as I live here and see stuff happen back home and thank the lord I live in Japan.
On the other side of the coin though, I just returned from a trip to the UK in which I appreciated actual warm human interaction for the first time in a long time, pubs, not a spitting salary man in sight, English countryside and nice huge houses, real bacon, affordable cheese and thought ‘hmmm. I could live here!’
We feel lucky to be in love with two places.
That’s how we stay positive.
Surprised to see that no one asked about your lifestyle and opportunities in Japan currently. If someone acts trapped, are they? Does she feel that she doesn’t have opportunity in her field in Japan? Does she feel that you are artificially restricted from advancing due to being a foreigner? Does she want to improve her quality of life in terms of home ownership, vehicle ownership but sees that as limited in Japan? Until we know the material facts then maybe she is just sensibly viewing other places as having opportunities that aren’t available to her.
Also, it’s wild to see people swing from the potential “anti-Japanese” sentiment of a Japanese person to the “anti-American/Western” perspective of “LOOK AT THIS CRAPPY CITY IN AMERICA AHHA, SAN FRANCISCO HAS HOMELESS. TELL YOUR WIFE SHE’LL GET ASIAN HATECRIMED IMMEDIATELY” Get a grip weirdos.