A Simple "I Love You"

The National Chauvinistic Husbands Association, founded in 1999 by Japanese writer and editor Shuichi Amano out of Fukuoka, Japan, has garnered much publicity in the West in recent years with articles in the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, and coverage by CNN, among others. The group’s membership is up to 5,000 and has been instrumental in preventing a number of Japanese marriages from dissolving into divorce.

The still male-dominated society has contributed to the dissatisfaction that many Japanese women find in marriage and a divorce rate that has gone up, although one that is still low by U.S. standards. It has also contributed to the trend of younger women delaying or even foregoing marriage. So the formation of this small group and its consciousness raising among men is a good start toward making progress. "My wife says I have changed, that I am more sensitive," a member has been quoted as saying. "She even smiles at me, which she never did before."

In many Japanese marriages today the norm is still for the wife to have dinner and bath ready for her husband no matter how late he gets home from work. The man’s primary role is his job, which leaves little or no time for paying attention to his spouse and children, or helping with domestic chores. There has been a lot of recent lip service from the government and media pundits about work-life balance but, as usual, change in Japan can be slow to come.

To help men become better husbands and to attempt to repair the damage this culture has wrought upon their marriages, members of The National Chauvinistic Husbands Association are asked to reflect on the following ten questions:

-- Are you still in love with your wife?

-- Do you help with domestic housework?

-- Have you ever cheated on your wife?

-- Are you comfortable with a "ladies first" policy (allowing women to enter a car, door, elevator, etc. first)?

-- Can you solve a domestic problem with your wife in a single evening?

-- Do you hold your wife's hand when walking?

-- Do you seriously listen to your wife?

-- Are you able to say "thank you" without hesitation?

-- Are you able to say "sorry" without fear?

-- Are you able to say "I love you" without embarrassment?

These are all worthy questions, but the last one struck me most, perhaps because Valentine’s Day is around the corner (and did you know that in Japan, Valentine’s Day is celebrated by women giving chocolate to men? Yes, there is White Day on March 14, where the roles are reversed, but apparently sales statistics for White Day do not compare with those of February 14).

I met my Osaka-born husband in the San Francisco Bay Area, not in Japan. He’d been living as an expatriate in the U.S. for many years and there was a lot about Japanese society he could not tolerate, which fueled his escape. And, even though I’ve spent time living and visiting and studying Japan, its language, and its culture, it is safe to say that as an American woman I would have had a difficult time living with a traditional Japanese male. So we have been a good match and he has had no problem saying, “I love you.” In fact when we first got married, I found that he said it almost too much!

I’d heard stories about how hard it is for a lot of Japanese men to utter this phrase. Was it because in Japanese you often leave out pronouns such as “I” and “you?” I wondered. Or because so much of Japanese communication is “understood” or “assumed” without the need for crass explanation? I surmised that I’d have to leave this to the sociolinguists.

But I did find out one reason why my husband was so proficient and prolific with his “I love you’s.” He explained that before he went to the United States, his mother advised him that American women, unlike Japanese women, expect to be told “I love you,” and one could not say it enough. How did she know this? From many years of watching Audrey Hepburn and Deborah Kerr movies, I suppose.

She gave her son some good advice, but I wonder if she ever heard “I love you” from her own husband.

An African-American Wins "Best New Artist" in Japan

The first time I saw a video clip of Jero, the African-American who took the Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards on New Year’s Eve, I experienced a feeling of deja-vu. He was making one of his first appearances on Japanese television and a panel of Japanese celebrities sat in awe as they watched him sing traditional enka music in perfect Japanese. I’d garner this very same reaction among Japanese people whenever I sang in Japanese in the various contests and appearances I made, and two of the chestnuts Jero warbled were standards of the genre I learned years ago.

There can be a real disconnect for Japanese to see a person who seemingly has no Japanese blood, speaking or singing in perfect Japanese and, despite changing times and the supposed sophistication of Japan, this still attracts attention, both welcome and unwelcome. I have tackled this subject in my next novel, Love in Translation, which will come out this Fall.

Turns out Jero (born Jerrold White in Pennyslvania) is 1/4 Japanese and learned these songs from his maternal grandmother who was from Japan. He now has a contract with JVC Records and a hit song under his belt, as well as his aforementioned award, and an appearance on the Kohaku Uta Gassen, the prestigious New Year’s Eve live television program that brings together many of Japan’s most popular recording artists on one stage. On that show, which I watched via the local San Francisco Asian TV channel, Jero pulled all the typical sentimental stunts, paying tribute to his grandmother (she died three years ago, missing his success) with her picture emblazoned on his shirt while his mother sobbed in the audience. His eyes were brimming with tears by the time his performance was over.

But the real brilliance of the marketing of Jero is that he dresses in a way that Japanese expect black people to dress—in hip-hop regalia of jaunty caps, baggy pants, and bold necklaces, and not the kimono or traditional suits many enka artists wear. It is claimed that he has brought a breath of fresh air to stodgy enka, which has been compared to American country or blues (but that really doesn’t do it justice), as well as youth, to a genre where most of the singers are in at least their thirties, and more often in their fifties and older. Jero is just twenty-three.

Can Jero have a long-lasting career in enka or will he only be a novelty like so many mixed-race or non-Japanese singers often become in Japan? And will he ever win the coveted final performance slot on the Kohaku as another young enka singer (albeit Japanese born and bred), Hikawa Kiyoshi, did this year (and who wept profusely at the honor)? It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Jero.

A Novelist Looks at the Overwork Problem in Japan

Every so often the Japanese government takes a look at the problem of overwork in Japan, which in some cases can lead to death—known as “karoshi.” They even earnestly examine “work-life balance,” a common topic in the West but one that is relatively knew in Japan. Although Japanese workers are entitled to an average of 17.7 days of paid time off annually, but they generally take much less. Statistics show that in 2006 they took only 8.3 of these vacation days, which adds up to 46 percent of their entitled days off. There is a Child Care and Family Leave Law that lets both women and men take parental leave, but only 0.5 percent of men took advantage of this in 2005. Many of these enacted laws are merely lip service, and end up accomplishing little if any changes in societal behavior.

In a recent article in the Mainichi Daily News that examined overwork in Japan, the paper let renowned author Kaoru Takamura give her views on the topic. Winner of the Naoki Prize for her novel “Marks’ Mountain” and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for “Lady Joker,” Takamura is right on the mark with her comments. Takamura is 55 and worked as a company employee before becoming a writer. She states that the solution to the problem is not implementing more systems such as men’s childcare leave, but getting to the root of the problem by examining the basic responsibility structure of organizations. She says, “In an organization where the authority-responsibility structure is unclear, employees are unable to make their own decisions and must constantly refer to their superiors. But because these superiors are also unclear about their own authority, they can’t make responsible decisions. Problems just get shuffled around and everyone ends up working longer hours. Because individual authority and responsibility are left unclear, the criteria for evaluating an employee’s work performance are also unclear. In a situation where it’s unclear and you need to merit praise, it’s impossible for employees to work efficiently. An ‘all for one and one for all’ mentality becomes the focus.”

Coupling this with the typical “nail that always sticks up must be pounded down” philosophy so prevalent in Japanese culture it’s little wonder why change in ideas about overwork are so slow to come.

Adult Girls Around Thirty

When I lived in Japan for about a year in the 1980s I was struck by the various “rules” I perceived for women in regards to clothing and age. During one’s teens and early twenties, youthful fashion seemed acceptable, like what might be found in the Harajuku or Shibuya shopping districts. But once a woman hit her mid-twenties and, especially if she was married, she seemed to turn into some kind of unfashionable Stepford Wife, becoming a drudge in nondescript skirts, sometimes accompanied by thick nylons and overly sensible shoes. These women still looked young (and I often marveled at how, overall, Japanese women seemed to defy their real age much more so than a lot of American women), but it seemed as though they made an all-out effort now to look older. And once they became mothers, it got even worse, even though they still managed to keep their pert figures. And for those who were hitting thirty and still unmarried, it was more than time to give into the “obasan” (auntie) look since, after all, they were washed up now, doomed to be old maids.

According to recent reports, this is changing. You have to take these trend articles with somewhat of a grain of salt, but things look promising among the atmosphere of the newly liberated single woman over thirty who finds little in the way of marriageable men and has decided to live without such conventions. These new trends have names like otona gyaru (the Japanese word for “adult” and the Japanized English of “girl’) and arasa, which is a characteristic abbreviation of the shortening of the Japanized English term, araundo sa-tei (around thirty) and coyly depicts anyone in the thirtysomething age range. The picture on this blog of a cover of Story magazine even has a headline that says in rough translation: “Your 40s: Have One More Go at Love.”

It seems many of these women are no longer paying attention to the age police and celebrating their youth at any age. It reminds me a bit of the fashion scene in the United States where things have also loosened up for those who want to take advantage of it. Stores like Anthropologie seem to be vague on age, although they say their customers are in the 30 to 50 range, yet the clothes are fashionable and seemingly “ageless.” And a store like H&M, while seeming to cater to teens and young professionals, professes that it does not target its customers by chronological age or dress size as much as mental age and the desire to dress fashionably.

It can be a mistake to attach too much significance to this possible change in Japanese women, especially when a recent poll states that nearly all Asian countries have around 80 to 90 percent of businesses boasting women in senior positions, except for Japan, which has a rate of only 25 percent. It is still obvious that Japan has a way to go in its cultural perception of management roles for women, and things change very slowly there in general, but I think it can be a good first step when women feel freer to express themselves and by doing so get rid of some of society’s restrictions.

Children, Childish Husbands -- No Thanks

A recent article in the Washington Post describes the current thinking of many Japanese working women—why should I complicate my life by getting married and having children when my husband won’t help me raise them? Japanese women have been complaining about the poor quality of family life for years and years, and have dealt with it in a number of ways, including resignation (the stand-by Japanese phrase, shikata ga nai, which means there’s nothing one can do about it).

Karen Kelsky, in her book, Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams, wrote in 2001 of young Japanese women escaping Japan, and moving to foreign countries, often marrying Western men as their ticket out of a straitjacket society. This book and other observations were in part the inspiration for my novel, Midori by Moonlight about a Japanese woman who impulsively becomes engaged to an American English teacher and moves to San Francisco with him, only to find herself dumped a few weeks later. Other Japanese women who choose to stay in their native country are delaying marriage and postponing childbirth. The reason this is news now is because of the plunging birthrate in Japan and the graying of society. According to the article, Japan, with the world’s second-largest economy has the lowest proportion of young people under 15 and the highest proportion of people 65 or older.

Unlike some women in the United States, very few Japanese women want a baby at all costs and will simply not have one if they can’t find the right guy to marry. Out of wedlock births and adoption (whether by a single parent or husband and wife) are quite rare in Japan. Women basically have two choices: having a career and being financially independent, but remaining single and without kids, or getting married and becoming a full-time mother (to both children and husband). Throw in the classic overworked Japanese male and you have a recipe for disaster when it comes to keeping the population humming.

Prime Minister Fukuda (who just resigned the other day, but that’s another story) put together a task force last December on “work-life balance” that hopes to pressure companies to send their employees home at a reasonable hour to improve the quality of family life, finally addressing Japan’s addiction to overwork.

It’s a noble effort, but knowing how slowly things move in Japan, I don’t hold out much hope that anything will change this depressing situation anytime soon.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

I once was deluded enough to think I could be a translator of Japanese into English. I’d studied Japanese in college, lived in Japan for a year, visited many times, and had acquired various sleeping dictionaries in the form of Japanese native speaker boyfriends and husbands. But it was not to be. My feeble attempts at translating technical documents and even a magician’s handbook gave me nothing but headaches. And the tedious hours I spent trying to complete this work had me making the equivalent of about twenty-five cents an hour.

Translating dry, technical material was difficult enough, but I could never imagine translating a work of fiction; not only getting down the accuracy of the story, but the unique voice of the writer. Of course I have read all of my favorite Japanese authors—Haruki Murakami, Junichiro Tanizaki, Banana Yoshimoto—in English translation and have been grateful to the wonderful and talented translators who have presented their work so I can access it.

Even more daunting is the translation of poetry, which brings me to a beautiful book of poems translated from Japanese by Shogo Oketani and Leza Lowitz, called America & Other Poems. With their exquisite translations, Oketani and Lowitz have brought the Japanese poet Ayukawa Nobuo, who up until now has not been well known in the U.S., to a whole new audience. Ayukawa was born in Tokyo in 1920. As the son of a man who published a nationalist newspaper, he always had a longing for democracy and a fascination with America. Through his poetry he took the social responsibility of expressing an anti-war sentiment, and believed Japan should accept responsibility for its actions in World War II. Many of his poems reflect the conflict he felt in being sent to Sumatra in 1943 as an unwilling soldier of the Japanese Army.

Along with these moving poems (which are not all about war), in the preface and afterward written by Oketani we learn about Ayukawa’s life (he died in 1986 in Tokyo while playing his favorite Super Mario Brothers video game), and the possibility that one reason why Western scholars of Japanese poetry of the past were not attracted to his poems was because Ayukawa’s images are concrete, more in a European style, as opposed to subtle and vague, which is more the style of traditional Japanese poetry.

Oketani also describes the painstaking process of translation he employs with partner Lowitz. He first translates the original poem from Japanese to English, then Lowitz reworks this into a more natural English. He writes: “I then explain the nuance of each word I want to change and discuss the words she has decided to change, and we try to find the best word that captures the spirit and sense of the original in the target language, English. I also read each poem aloud in Japanese so that she can hear the rhythm and music of the words. Finally, we edit each sentence of the poem again and again.”

America & Other Poems was the winner of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. The book can be ordered from your favorite bookstore or purchased on Amazon.

Culture Shock: Japan Discovery Challenge

A new Web TV reality show starts on Sunday, December 16 at e-bukatsu.net. It's called Culture Shock: Japan Discovery Challenge and has Japanese and American high school students teaming up in groups (two Japanese and two Americans)and competing to produce short films about Japan. Each team has a bilingual leader and from the trailer that you can watch on the site I could garner that the typical communication and cultural problems arise with people from two disparate cultures have to work together who don't know each others' language. Looks like it's going to be quite an interesting show and already there are snippets you can watch that have some great location shots of Akihabara, Asakusa, and Shibuya, which are districts in Tokyo. Twenty-four segments will be shown weekly from December 16 through February 17. By the way, "bukatsu" means extra-curricular activity and many Japanese school children are often saddled with bukatsu as well as "juku" (study schools outside of regular school). Taihen desu ne (that's tough!).

Karaoke Kichigai (Crazy for Karaoke)

Karaoke (singing popular songs to pre-recorded backing tracks) was invented in Japan. It means “empty orchestra” and is pronounced as kah-rah-okay, not karey-okie, as has been adopted in the United States.

I first discovered karaoke in Japantown (Nihonmachi) in San Francisco in the late 1970s. I was a frustrated vocalist who had performed for peanuts (and less) in a number of bands. And I was also a rabid Japanophile who couldn’t get enough of studying Nihongo (the Japanese language). So I jumped at the chance to be able to learn Japanese pop songs (J-pop) and perform them without the need for backup musicians who were often either too messed up to play or plain just didn’t even show up for a gig. Singing in Japanese was easier than speaking it, and it was fun to pretend to be fluent for the duration of a song. I honed my skills at karaoke bars in Japantown and even briefly worked at one as a singing bar hostess. Soon I was performing in Japanese karaoke recitals and contests, usually the lone female Caucasian in the group, and racked up a few trophies and prizes.

At that time I was singing songs by the pop idols of the day—Akina Nakamori and Seiko Matsuda. I also tried my hand at learning enka, a more traditional type of singing and did songs by Masako Mori and Sayuri Ishikawa. When I moved to Tokyo I appeared on a wacky television show that was a karaoke contest for foreigners (gaijin) (see picture). I even had my own backup dancers, way before Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku Girls.

I continued singing in Japanese and when I returned to California I eventually even got my own home laser-disc karaoke set. But laser discs fell out of favor and died along with eight-tracks, Betamax, and the Apple Newton. Now there were “karaoke boxes,” establishments that supplied small rooms rented by the hour where you could sing your heart out, choosing from thousands of songs; there was no need to buy your own.

In 2002 I auditioned for NHK TV’s “Nodo Jiman” (“Brag Your Throat”) program when it came to San Francisco. I was one of the twelve finalists and performed Teresa Teng’s “Kuu-koo” (“Airport”), broadcast live by satellite all over the world from Bill Graham Auditorium.

Now, promoting my debut novel, MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT, I am still singing in Japanese. My heroine in the book, Midori Saito, ends up working at a karaoke lounge in Japantown and we want to give readers the opportunity to hear some Japanese music. So at some of my book events my husband, Manabu “Stokemaster” Tokunaga backs me up on electronic keyboard and I perform “Shura no Hana,” a Japanese song made popular in the Quentin Tarantino film, “Kill Bill,” and sung by Mieko Kaji, as well as other Japanese favorites.

Otanoshimi!