Getting to the top of Mt. Fuji

Azami: Why haven't you gotten divorced yet?  

Rémy: It isn't that simple, really. It's awfully easy to get married here, but once your in the koseki (戸籍, family register), it's hard to get out; especially now that women have got it into their silly heads that they can not only sue their ex-husband for half of his assets but now feel entitled to it.

Azami: Yes, well why not?

Rémy: Many reasons. One, in many cases the woman did not directly have a hand in the success of her husband. If she did, well then that’s another story. And, two, you can't have it both ways.

Azami: I don't understand.

Rémy: You can't demand equal rights, the same opportunities as men, the same pay as men, the same career choices as men—all things I agree with—but then, claim that the men have the obligation to support you or to split half of their property and belongings.

Azami: You know, I never thought about it that way.

Rémy: You're not alone. Women also demand that we try to understand them, that we have a moral duty to do so, and what's more, they expect us to renounce our masculinity and act more like them, as if they are paragons of virtue worthy of emulation. But, you know what?

Azami: No, what?

Rémy: You're not. You're irrational and moody, capricious and unpredictable. You blame it on your period and expect us to just accept it. If we don't, we're called insensitive Neanderthals.

Azami: Anyways, when do you think you'll get divorced?

Rémy: Hard to say.

Azami: Honey, do you expect me to just wait for you forever?

Rémy: No. (The thought of another woman waiting impatiently for me to get divorced so that she could move in wasn't what you would call an encouraging prospect. Azami couldn't understand that I wasn't seeking a divorce so that I could be with her, I was doing so to be free again.)

Azami: Well, what am I supposed to do, then?

Rémy: You're a big girl, you decided.

Azami: I can't believe you said that.

Rémy: Look, I don't want to have an argument over this; it won't change anything.

Azami: But I want you to change. I'm tired of this.

Rémy: And so am I. More than you can probably imagine. 

Azami: So, what am I supposed to do?

Rémy: I've told you many times before what I must do between now and then. They have nothing to do with how badly I want out of the marriage, but everything to do with my life after marriage. Once those things have been dealt with, I can talk to her about breaking up.

Azami: Will you really get divorced? Sometimes I think maybe he won't leave her, maybe he still loves her . . .

Rémy: Don't be ridiculous.

Azami: What else am I supposed to think?

Rémy: I think the best way to explain this is for you to consider Mount Fuji. Yuko and I have taken a bus up to the half-way point. There wasn't any effort required to get there, and now that we're there we see that there's a long climb remaining till we reach the top. We're already tired from the ride. It's cold out and we're not quite prepared for the climb. Neither of us thought it would be so difficult. Tired as I am, I still want to get off the bus, and start climbing, but Yuko's having second thoughts. I have to convince her to go up the last 2 kilometers and make her understand that no matter how difficult the climb may be, once at the top we will agree that it was worthwhile. 

Azami: Hurry up! Get off the bus, honey!

Rémy: I am! I am! Oh shit, I forgot my boots. Hold on! I'm coming, I'm coming!

   I meant to add the above conversation to my novel Rokuban, but it didn't quite make the cut. Perhaps in a later edition.

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Rokuban - No. 6 and other works by Aonghas Crowe are available at Amazon.

Buyer Beware

   Yukiko, a woman in her mid-fifties, tells me that she went to a tôfu shop at the shopping arcade near her home Saturday morning to pick up some tônyû (soy milk) The shop tends to sell out early, so customers know to go early.

   Yukiko left home at about eight and went straight to the tôfu shop where she bought her tônyû. After picking up some vegetables at the greengrocers, chicken at the butchers, she went to a small fish shop which had not yet opened.

   The time at which the shop opens changes from day to day, depending on the situation at the morning’s fish auction. On that particular day, Yukiko had to wait until a little after nine before the owner finally arrived, his van laden with fresh fish packed in ice.

   The fishmonger raised the shutter to let in the small crowd of customers that had been milling about outside.

   No sooner had the customers entered than a sprightly woman in her seventies snatched up a tray of suzuki (sea bass). Yukiko, who had her eyes on the karei (flounder), was second in line after a much younger man who also seemed intent on buying the karei.

   The man, inexperienced in the dog-eat-dog existence of Japanese housewives, was at a disadvantage when competing against the fifty-five-year-old housewife. Mistakenly believing that his place in line afforded him an extra second or two to reconsider his needs before voicing his order, he was rudely cut off.

   “I'll take both trays!” Yukiko called out over his shoulder.

   The poor man couldn’t do anything but mutter, “Well, I-I-I . . .”

   I suppose that in the world of the middle-aged housewife, with its inherent dearth of stimulation, mini-battles at the post office, tussles at department store bargain bins and survival-of-the-fittest shopping like this at the fishmongers must take on a level of importance the average man cannot appreciate. It also helps explain—though never ever condone—the selfishness, pettiness and shamelessness which the Obatarian is capable of.

Canker Sores and Wedding Bells

   “How's your mouth,” my girlfriend asks.

   “It still hurts.”

   “Sure takes a long time to heal, doesn't it?”

   “Yeah, this time especially.” I’ve had a canker sore for two weeks and it’s now the size of a one-yen coin.†

   “I'm always worried about your health and you diet,” she says.

   “Thank you.”

   “You know, if we lived together,

   “Ah-hah!”

   “If, if we lived together, I'd wake up early and cook you a nice Japanese breakfast. Then I'd wake you up . . .”

   “No you wouldn't. You'd oversleep like you usually do and have no time to make breakfast.”

   “B-but . . .”

   “And because you hog the futon and grind your teeth all night long, I wouldn't be able to get more than a few short naps in during the night. My back would be so stiff and sore by the time morning came around, that only after you got out of the bed, I'd finally be able to sleep. You'd rush off to work, forgetting about me, I'd oversleep and wouldn't have time to fix myself even the simplest of breakfasts. No, if we lived together, I'd be tired and hungry. Who knows what kind of chronic illnesses I'd end up with?”

†About the size of a one-pfennig coin.

On Royalties and Bath Plugs

   One of the reasons why I married my wife were the silly conversations we would have, like the following:

   Riko D: How much money do you think you'll make once you sell your book?

   Aonghas Crowe: How much does a book cost? One or two thousand yen? And royalties? Haven't got a clue, but they can't be high. Do you know?

   RD: No.

   AoCr: Well, let's say I'll get ten percent.

   RD: Ten percent, huh?

   AoCr: Yeah, so ten percent of fifteen hundred's a hundred and fifty yen a book. That's not a lot of money, but it adds up. So, if I were to sell two books, one for me and another for you, I'd make three hundred yen. Of course, if I were to write a second book, it might sell as many as ten copies . . .

   RD: Honey, be serious.

   AoCr: I can't. Especially when you ask me silly questions like that. Anyways, like I said, I don't know. I don't want to know.

   RD: Why not?

   AoCr: Because if I thought about how much money a book would make me, I wouldn't get anything done. I'd have all these dollar bills dancing around in my head, having a wild party and kicking up a helluva racket. “Keep it down, you guys!” I'd say, but you think they'd listen to a wet blanket like me?

   RD: If I were a writer, I'd know how much I’d get in royalties.

   AoCr: Oh, I'm sure you would know. What I want you to understand is that I'm not writing for money. That's never been the point. If I were writing for money, I . . .

   RD: I know, honey. But, but, but you must understand that I worry about the future and whether you'd be able to support me and our children. I worry that we wouldn't have enough money to buy proper clothes for them if the book you wrote didn't sell.

   AoCr: I don't know what's to worry about it. If it got too expensive to keep the three kids, we could always send one of them away. Take a hike, kid! Not enough food to go around for all of us. Oh, he might be sad and cry out to his mother, but that's life. Besides, think about how obedient the remaining too kids would be. They'd know that if Daddy's next book didn't sell well, why they might be the one who gets the boot next. “Mummy, Daddy, can I do anything for you today? Clean? Cook? Do the shopping?” They'd be petrified with fear every time they made the slightest mistake . . .

   RD: Can I tell you what my dream is?

   AoCr: Shoot.

   RD: I want to marry someone like Murakami Haruki. (She goes on to explain why she likes his writing, his lifestyle and success.)

   AoCr: I enjoy reading his stories, too. But, Murakami has never once made me look up from the page and think, Wow! Not like, say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.[1] Granted I've only read a few things by Murakami, most of them in English, so . . . 

   RD: Oh, he's very good at describing things and using metaphors. I read an interview of him once where he said that he considered himself a pretty useless person. He wasn't like the plug in someone's bathtub, he said. The plug's quite small and simple, but it does its job well, keeping the water from flowing away. I really liked that image.

   AoCr: I've always thought of bath plugs in terms of oppression: chained his entire life to the side of a bathtub, shut up in darkness most of the day, only to traumatized every evening when he's forced into a hole and made to bear the back-breaking weight of so many gallons and gallons of water. You think the plug wants to do it? You think he feels he's being useful? I doubt it. When he was just a kid, still the sap of a rubber tree, he probably had grand dreams of becoming the tire of a bicycle tooling about the countryside . . .

---

[1] Check out my Gabo tweets. Ninety thousand followers and counting!

If you are interested in knowing more about how authors are paid (or not paid), check out this site. Hope you like peanuts.

My friend, the call girl

   Yuko is visibly upset when she comes in and sits down across from me.

   “What’s the matter,” I ask.

   “My friend.”

   “What about your friend?

   “My friend is a . . .”

   “Is a what?”

   “She’s a . . . Oh, I don’t know what the word is in English.”

   I hand her my pocket electronic dictionary.

   “My friend is a call girl.”

   “Huh? A call girl?”

   “Yes.”

   “Your friend is a prostitute?”

   “A what?”

   “A prostitute is a shôfu.”

   “A shufu?”

   “Not shufu, a housewife. Shôfu, a prostitute.”[1]

   “Shôfu? No, no, no! She’s not a shôfu! She’s a call girl.”

   “Show me that dictionary,” I say. “Oh, she's a ‘coward’.”

   “That’s what I said!”

---

[1] Shôfu (娼婦) is another word for baishun (売春) which means prostitute. Shufu (主婦) means housewife.

It was a Man's Man's World

   Many Japanese women tell me they want to marry rich men. Sometimes I wish I could marry one myself, but, well, we know what the odds of that ever happening are. Necessity of my gender has forced me instead to try to become successful myself and be satisfied marrying a woman I can love and respect.

   If you suggest to these women that they might fare better trying to succeed themselves, they’ll look at you as if you are insane.

   “It's a man's world,” they’ll say, end of conversation.

   That begs the question of whether Japan truly is a man’s world.

   For one, there are more women than men because so many of you live longer than us guys. Call us the Weaker Sex, if you like.

   Maybe it just seems like a man’s world because you gals aren't trying hard enough.

   Then again, maybe you know what you're doing.

   The typical housewife in Japan controls the purse strings. The poor men work their arses off and what do they get? Complaints from their cold wives and a small allowance that barely allows them the luxury of eating at a fast food chain every once in a while. Meanwhile, their wives are dining with friends at French restaurants, going to their lessons, shopping. Kind of makes you wonder who really is in charge?

   Go into to town and who do you see? Women! Where are the men? Why, they are locked up in their offices working their arses off is where. Go to any culture school in the evening and who will you find? Women! In the department stores and fashionable restaurants, it’s women, women, women.

   Young Japanese women spend their money like sailors on shore leave often because their parents are still supporting them. When they go on dates, the hapless male pay. If a man tries to live like a woman by wearing fashionable clothes and eating out at nice restaurants, he'll be criticized for being a spendthrift. Men in Japan are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

   And if that weren’t bad enough, this so-called Man's World is becoming increasingly off limits to men. There are now women-only hotels, women-only cars on trains, women-only busses, women-only floors in hotels and condominiums. Even some massage parlors and boutiques are off limits to men.

   The beleaguered Japanese male is increasingly being brushed aside and marginalized. No wonder so many of them have lost interest in sex: carnivorous women have turned them into herbivores.

Those Bloody Japanese

   "Sensei, what's your blood type?"

   I tell the students that I'm surprised they don’t already know.

   "You must be A-type," one of them says.

   "Why do you say so?"

   "Because you're so, so, meticulous and fussy."

   "Yes, I suppose I am."

   "I knew it!"

   The students leave believing that I have Type-A blood. They're convinced of it, in fact, and if I were to tell them otherwise, they would probably argue me down. Let them believe what they want to believe, so long as they keep coming back, I say.

   Now, I’m not such a bubblehead that I believe blood type determines one’s personality, but I have become convinced that for many Japanese merely believing that it does can have a big influence on their personalities.

   A person who has Type-B blood, for instance, will be constantly told that B-types have bizarre taste, are unique and out-spoken to a fault, and tend, much to the frustration of those around them, to do things in their own way. A woman with Type-B blood, having heard this crap throughout her formative years, can't help but give into the consensus and conclude: I am, what I am, and then, go off saying what she thinks, wearing what she wants—no matter how outlandish—and generally acting like a screwball. It isn't the blood type; it's the license everyone gives her to act as she likes.

   On the other hand, someone who has Type-A blood is expected to be a conformer, and, in general, he’ll stick to the stereotype.

   When I'm asked on another occasion what my blood type is, I ask the students what they think. One ventures a guess: being American, I'm probably type O.

   "Yes, agrees another. He is rather ‘O-ish’, isn't he?"

   I remind them that being American doesn't mean much; that my own family came from Ireland, originally. And, while most Irish also have Type-O blood, there are parts of the country, which had Viking, Anglo Norman settlements where Type-A predominates. And then there are quite a few gypsies in Ireland and they are known to have predominately AB-Type blood.*

   "Ah, that explains it," says another who's seen the light. "You have AB written all over your face."

   "ABs are intelligent, too," chirps yet another. "Sensei’s got a good head."

   Well, this isn't the correct answer, either, but if they want to curry favor with me by singing the praises of my intelligence, who's to stop them? They, too, leave as convinced as the other class was that their teacher has AB blood.

 

   A big part of this silliness stems from the fact that many Japanese are eager to act out the role they or others have chosen for themselves. I’ve written about this before, but when, for example, a Japanese takes up a hobby, he often does so by starting with the “form”, or what is known as the katachi.

   A surfer wannabe will buy a surfboard, get the right brand of shorts and drysuit, work his abs until he can scrub his laundry against them, tan his hide a golden brown, and grow his hair out. He might even buy a station wagon to carry all his gear. And he’ll do all of this before even hitting the waves.

   And so it goes with the katachi a person’s blood type dictates. Not sure how you’re supposed to act? No problem: the fashion magazines will show you the way!

   *To learn more about the distribution of blood types in the world visit this interesting site.

Good for Nothing

   It’s not unusual for a Japanese woman to have a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law, particularly when filial duty forces her to live with her husband’s parents in their home. It is far less common for the relationship between a man and his mother-in-law to sour, so I was surprised when I overheard Nobuko saying that she couldn't stand her son-in-law.

   Why not? I ask.

   Because he comes over to my house too often.

   That's great, I say. He likes to spend time with you. You should consider yourself lucky.

   No, she protests. I don't like it when he comes over.

   Why not?

   Because I have to cook for him.

   Have to? No one is pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to cook. You don't have to cook for him.

   But, I do have to cook for him; that's why he always comes over! My daughter told me he loves my cooking, so every time he comes over I end up spending the entire day in the kitchen.

   Why don’t you just get your daughter to help?

   That good-for-nothing daughter of mine doesn’t lift a finger. No, she just loafs in front of the TV the whole day.

   Well, with you buzzing around the kitchen like a worker bee, why would she? Anyways, how can you be so sure that your son-in-law actually likes your cooking?

   Because my daughter told me so.

   Nobuko, has it ever occurred to you that your son-in-law may not like your cooking all that much? The two of them may have figured that, judging by the way you scramble around the kitchen preparing meals, you must live to cook. They probably don't have the heart to hurt your feelings.

   No, never!

   You never know, Nobuko. It seems like everyone in your family is trying hard not to hurt each other's feelings, trying in their misguided ways to make each other happy, but all you’re doing is getting under each other’s skin. You resent your son-in-law because you think he wants to eat your food. He never asked you to cook for him, certainly not every Sunday. No, you did that out of your own free will. If you had been honest with yourself, your daughter, and your son-in-law, and refrained from cooking so much, you would all be a lot happier today. Life's too short to try to make other people happy at the expense of your own happiness. If you don't feel like doing something, then by all means don't do it.

   I have no choice, she surrenders.

   Why not?

   Because I’m Japanese.

Back to School

   The second (or fall) semester started up a week ago here and I'm trying to adjust to my new routine of waking at six and heading out the door by seven-twenty in the morning.

   It doesn't always work out as planned, of course.

   For one thing, there's our two-year-old son, Yu-kun, who is used to my being home most of the time. When I try to leave in the morning he insists that he has to work, too, and with tears streaming from his eyes, he begs me to take him. If I don't time my departure well--there's a window of opportunity when his favorite TV show comes on--the boy will escape down the hall in his diapers. He sometimes even climbs up the stairs to the seventh floor where I'll have to fetch him and bring him back, kicking and screaming, to our apartment. "I'm working, too! I'm working, too!" he bawls.

   The other day as I handed the crying boy to my wife, she said, "You must like this." I had to admit that I did. Even if his affection is usually expressed in a kick to my jaw while I'm sleeping, these tantrums he has when I try to leave do make me feel loved.

   Only once we manage to get the little animal back into his cage, can I finally leave. Often twenty minutes later than I had planned. (Oh well.)

   As I have mentioned in previous posts, I work "full-time" (four days a week) at a women's junior college and "part-time" (one day) at a university. The junior college is about forty minutes away by train and bus and it is usually during this commute that I catch up on the news, by either reading The Economist or listening to some left-leaning podcasts, such as Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill Maher and Best of the Left. I balance that out with podcasts from NPR, PBS, and the BBC. Thanks to my iPhone, the commute is usually over before I know it.

   At work, I try to get my writing done before doing anything work-related. Like a lot of authors, I tend to do my "best" writing in the morning when I'm most alert and have the fewest distractions.† Fortunately, that is not a tall order here at the college where most of the professors don't normally slink in until about noon. As most of my classes don't start until one or so in the afternoon, I could probably do the same, but that four- to five-hour block of uninterrupted quality writing time is more important to me than getting a few extra hours of sleep.

   Anyways, the reason I'm writing today is that at the beginning of every semester when I meet my students, many of them for the first time, I am blown away by how tall some of them are getting. In my freshman class at the university, there are six boys (out of 23 students), four of whom are either as tall as or taller than me. At 177cm, I am, admittedly, no giant, but I'm not pint-sized either.

   When I first came to Japan ages ago and would have to stand in a crowded train, I was more often than not the tallest person in the car. Over the past two decades, the heights (and weights) of both men and women in Japan, have changed so much that whereas I once had a clear view over the heads of all the other passengers, that view is now blocked by people who are, again, as tall as or taller than me.

   Interestingly, when I went back to the States two summers ago and was riding Portland's light rail known as the Max, I told my wife to take a look around at the other passengers standing near us. I asked her if she noticed anything odd. She replied that everything about Americans was odd.

   "Okay, okay," I conceded. "But look at how short everyone is. I am the tallest person on this street car."

   I realize it's anecdotal evidence at best, but I believe there is something going on. Japanese are without a doubt getting bigger--both horizontally and vertically--and Americans are getting shorter (but, alas, not slimmer).

   I have two students in one of my classes at the junior college who are Amazonians. One of them is 170cm tall. In heels, she's a good three to five centimeters taller than me. I asked her if her parents were also tall and she replied that, no, they were average height.

   So, what's going on then?

   My pet theory is the diet. And not necessarily what this current crop of 18-20 years old has been eating, but the kinds of foods their parents' and grandparents' generation also ate. There have been two, sometimes three, generations with "good" nutrition, diets that have more variety and meat in it. Increased consumption of both processed and imported foods probably has a lot to do with it, too. Hormones in imported meats may also have a hand in it.

   Incidentally, Japanese children growing up during and immediately after the Pacific War, when malnutrition was rampant, were considerably shorter than those who grew up before WWII, an average of three centimeters for boys in urban areas. (Dower's Embracing Defeat, p92-93. Worth reading.) The older generation of Japanese, those in their seventies and eighties tend to be quite small. It's not uncommon to find a great grandmother who is literally half the size of her great grandchildren.

   Below is a graph from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare which shows the change in the heights (brown) and weights (green) of Japanese men and women in their 30s. Height is given in cm on the left, weight in kilograms on the right. The upper two lines are for men, the lower two lines are for women. Average height for 30-year-old men in 1945 was about 160cm. In 2005, that figure was 172cm. Women have gone from an average of 149cm (teeny-tiny!) to 158cm (still small). I would think the figure for women today in their 20s would be even higher.

    When I was trying to find data on the height changes, I found some interesting statistics. In one survey of 19 countries, South Koreans were found to be the tallest among the five Asian countries studied. (Men, 173.3cm; Women, 160.9cm). This probably won't surprise anyone who has been to the country. At 170.7cm for men and 157.9cm for women, the Japanese came in second. As for the country with the tallest people, the Netherlands took that honor. Again, no surprise there: the Dutch (Men, 182cm; Women, 170cm) are feckin' huge.

   There is a lot of hand-wringing on the Internet, bloggers worried that the Japanese are no longer getting taller. The following graph shows the average heights of twenty year olds since the 1950s. 20-year-old men born in 1935 were on average 162.2cm tall; women, 150.6cm. Heights of twenty-two-year-olds apparently peaked at 171.8cm (♂) and 158.9cm (♀) in 1989 with those who were born in 1969. 

 †During the months that school is off I'll usually do this at coffee shops in my neighborhood.

Spectacular Specs

   In the spring of 2011 I wrote about the silly fashion accessories young Japanese women were wearing. A year on, the trend has weakened somewhat, but there are still quite a few women who still believe that big lenseless eyewear makes your face look smaller. Sometimes you get the feeling that women will believe just about anything.

   Incidentally, this trend apparently started in Korea a few years back. 

Onna

            Back when I was looking into the different ways the Japanese called their wives, I was reminded of how the kanji 女 (おんな, onna), which means “woman”, is used as a part or radical of other Chinese characters.

Onna (女) woman

Yomé (嫁)

“woman” + “house”

a bride, wife, daughter-in-law

Ané (姉)

“woman” + “market”

one’s older sister

Imôto (妹)

“woman” + “the end, youngest”

        one’s younger sister

Musume (娘)

“woman” + “good”

daughter, a girl

Fujin (婦人)

“woman” + “clean?”

a woman, a lady

Shûtome (姑)

“woman” + “old”

one’s mother-in-law

Mei (姪)

“woman” + “extremely, resulting”

niece

Hime (姫)

“woman” + “great, giant”

a princess

Muko (婿)

“woman” + “?”

son-in-law

There are, I believe, 100 kanji that contain the radical 女, including one that looks like it could possibly be the Chinese character for love sandwich:

Jô/Naburu (嬲)

“男/man” + “女/woman” + “男/man”

Naburu (嬲る), actually, means to “tease” or “mock” as in:

子犬を嬲る (koinu-o naburu)

tease a little dog

彼は友達から嬲られた (kare-wa tomodachi kara naburareta)

He was made fun of by his friends.

My Wife

   A month ago when I was doing some research into things men do that drive women up the wall, such as leaving the toilet seat up—it always bothers me when women forget to return it to its upright position—a Japanese woman told me she hated it when older Japanese men called their wives gusai (愚妻).

   While I knew that Japanese men used to say that their wives were ugly (and their children, stupid) when talking to others, I had never actually heard this word used by anyone before. Gusai literally means “foolish wife”. Other self-deprecating terms for one’s wife include: keisai (荊妻) or “thorny wife”, which, just between you and me, is a suitable term for my own wife a day or two before her monthly “Girls’ Day” arrives; and, sansai (山妻), literally “mountain wife”, which implies that one’s wife grew up in the countryside and might not be the most refined of ladies.

   There is no shortage of words for one’s wife in the Japanese language. Tsuma (妻) seems to be the most neutral, most common term. It’s the word what you’ll find in the dictionary defining all the other terms. It’s widely used in law and in the media. Men calling their own wives tsuma, however is a fairly new trend. In the Meiji Era (1868-1912), one’s wife was often called sai (妻).

   Oku-san (奥さん) is a moderately respectful, yet informal way of referring to another person’s wife or when calling out to an older woman. The more polite form is oku-sama (奥様). Oku-sama was originally reserved for the legally recognized wife (正妻, seisai) of a daimyō (feudal lord) or kuge (court noble) but became popular among the samurai and merchant classes. Oku (奥) literally means "inner part" or "the back".

   Kanai (家内), literally “inside the house”, is a somewhat polite term for wife and used when one is speaking to someone of an equal or higher position.

   Both nyōbō (女房) and kami-san (上さん、lit. “Ms. Above”) are rather informal, and both are used by men when talking with co-workers or friends, namely, people they can feel at ease with. These words can also be used when talking about the wife of someone new to a group. Personally speaking, I’ve never cared much for the sound of nyōbō, which is too similar to the Japanese word for urine, nyō (尿). Kami-san has always had a cute-sounding ring to it.

   Sai-kun (細君), which I have never heard myself, is a somewhat dated term used by men when talking about another person’s wife, particularly one who’s position is lower than their own. It can be used for talking about one’s own wife, but it’s not that common to use it in that matter anymore.

   Kakā (嬶) is a slang term for talking about one’s wife that conveys a sense of being constantly scolded or pestered by the wife.

   Yama no Kami (山の神, “God of the Mountain”) refers to a scary wife.

   Finally, hitozuma (人妻), which means "another man’s wife", can carry the lewd connotation of wanting to cuckold a man by having a sexual relationship with his wife. Google 人妻 and you’ll be introduced to a whole new genre of Japanese pornography, lots of entertaining photos and cartoons of randy buxom women.

   So, what do I call my wife? By her first name, of course.

   You can find some interesting data on this here.

   Another blogger has also written quite thoroughly on the topic here.

懐かしい、これ

I wrote this about six years ago at a time when I was writing a lot in Japanese. (I'll try to post a translation one of these days.) Enjoy. 

彼女がやって来る。グループレッスンなのに生徒は彼女しかいない。最近、こういうことが多くてときどき心配している。早く仕事を変えた方がいいといつも思っている。５年間そう思っているけど、まだちっとも動こうとしていない。僕はバカなのか怠けものなのかよく分からない。とにかく早く仕事を変えた方がいいと思う。

生徒の人数は特に少なくないけれど、確かに多くない。言うまでもなく多い方はいい方です。人数が多いとき、各クラスはにぎやかで楽しいから早く終わる。多いとき、収入がよくて、何でもする余裕がある。1か月、2か月間を休んでもまだまだ大丈夫です。今は、ながい連休をとるのが難しい。働かないとお金が入らない。

いつも一人の生徒しか出席しないとこういうことを考えている。

「今日もあなただけだよ」

「わい、ラッキー！」

彼女はラッキー。僕はどうやてもやし炒めをおいしくするのかを悩んでいる。

彼女が来たとき僕は氣志団のライブをDVDで見ていた。

「だれですか？」

「氣志団です。知っている？」僕は最近氣志団の大ファンになっちゃった。

「名前はしっているけど。初めて聞いてるけど。先生、どうやって『初めて聞く』をいうの？」

「It's my first time to hear them.」

「そう、そう。ファストタイム」

「It's my first time to hear them.」

「そう、そう。ファストタイム」

僕は紅茶とお菓子を出して、彼女と一緒に座る。僕のレッスンはかなりやすい。その上、紅茶とインポートスナックなどをだしてあげる。教室の雰囲気も抜群。生徒が多くなくてとてもへん。6人が坐れるテーブルに二人が座ってる。デートみたい。

彼女は20代後半で、顔は悪くない、スタイルはすばらしいほど、グラビアモデルだったらビックリしない。そういうレベルの女です。お互いに付き合ってる人がいるから僕は手を出すのを考えていない。実は出したいと思わない。でも、こういうとき、二人きりのとき、手を出したら、どうなるだろうと思ってしまう。でも、したくない。時間もないし、生徒も減ってきてデートをする余裕もないからです。

「What's new?」と聞くと「この前、友達のパーてイーに行った」と彼女が答える。

「You went to your friend's birthday party?」

「はい。」

ホワイトボードがださいからホワイトボードのかわりに真っ白のMacデスクトップを使っている。部屋にぴったりです。真っ白のイタリア製カーテルテーブルと白いデンマーク製のアーンヤコブセン椅子とよく似合う。この部屋のインテリアにお金をかけ過ぎた。４つの椅子が使われていないとき、そのことを痛感する。マックに「I went to my friend's birthday party.」を書くと彼女は「I went to my friend's birthday party」と言う。

「Where did you go?」

「いつ？」

「No, where?」生徒はこれをいつも間違われている。どこでやったかときくといつやったのを答えて来る。いつやったのかを聞くとどこでやったのを言う。生徒さんがわざといたずらをしていると他の説明がない。クラスが終わったら、皆がエレベーターの中「うふふ、先生を悩ませたね～」といってるちがいない。日本語で話す時、５とか４とか６言うと相手はときどき僕が何を言ったのか聞き取れないみたい。電話番後は．．．８０４５ですが、相手は６５？と確認する。８０４５と再び言うとまた相手は６５を聞き間違う。どうやって４と６が紛らわしくなったのか理解できない。つい最近の現象なんです。「When」と「Where」もこの一年間の問題です。耳はもともと良くなかったから、原因は僕かもしれない。これを考えるとやっぱりこの仕事をやめた方がいい。早めに。

「あ、すみません。ソリー」

「So, where did you go?」

「プロバンス。ケヤキ通りにある。プロバンス知っている？」

「Do you know Provence? or Have you been to Provence?」これもマックにタイプをする。

読みながら、彼女は「Have you been to Provence?」と聞く。

「No, but I want to go. How is the mood?」

「食べ物ですか？おいしかったです。スープが本当においしかった。」

「Not food. How was the mood? 雰囲気、ムード」

「あ、ソリー。よかったです。It was very nice. でも、あたしはふじわらの方が好き。」

「I like Fujiwara better.」

「先生も？」

「No, no, no. I've never been to Fujiwara. Not, me, you . . .」

「I like Fujiwara better.」

「Really? Why?」

「ケーキが美味しいから」

「The cake's good?」

「そう、グッドケーキ。」

「You like strawberries?」

「うん、大好き！」

「Today's your lucky day」と僕が言って、冷蔵庫からイチゴデニッシュをとってあげる。

「今日もラッキー。先週もラッキーでした。サンキュー、サンキュー。」

二人でそのイチゴデニッシュを食べる。ときどき、僕の仕事はなのかわからなくなる。僕はそもそも何の役割を果たしてると頭をかく。僕はホスト？喫茶のウエーター？ロンリーハートの仮／臨時ボイフレンド？それか悩み相談のカウンセラー？僕は何をやっているかわけわからないけど、きっと／確かに英語の先生じゃない。彼女はここまで過ごした30分の間、殆ど英語使ってない。これは未解決の神秘です。なんで、日本人は英会話のレッスンを受けるけど、日本語ばかり話してる？

僕はまだまだ日本語のレッスンを受けてる。12年間かけて勉強してきたが自分の日本語に自信がないから、今までも週１、２回学校に通ってる。先生に「お元気ですか」と聞かれると「Fine, thanks」と言わずに「ぼちぼちです」とか「あまっし」とか「おい、聞かないでよ」と答える。でも、僕は自分の生徒に「How ya doin'?」とか「How are you?」とか「How's everything?」など聞いたら「元気だよ」とか「まあまあ」とか「今日はとてもブルーです」生徒は言う。生徒さんたちはいつも「なぜあたしの英語が上達しないの？」と零してる。もちろん日本語で。

Low Water Mark

    Half an hour after work ended, Kei called to say that she was in the neighborhood. I told her to come on up, but she insisted that we meet outside. Whatever. I hung up the phone and clomped down the stairs where I found her at the entrance of my building. She was in a colorful skirt and jean jacket, her soft brown curls resting on denim shoulders. A warm smile appeared on her pretty face.

   "It's been a long time, hasn't it," I said.

   "Yes, it has," she replied with a quiet, girlish laugh.

   We hadn’t seen or mailed each other for almost a month and a half. The last I had heard from Kei was a short mail warning me not to contact her because her husband had become suspicious. And then two days ago she called and told me she wanted to meet.

   Kei asked me to take her to a restaurant I had mentioned several months earlier. When we arrived, however, the “restaurant”—no larger than my own living room—was full, so we went to another restaurant two blocks away.

   We took a corner table that faced the open doors of a fifth floor balcony, overlooking a desolate parking lot, the quiet Kokutai Avenue, and an ugly mishmash of condominiums and apartment buildings beyond. Not much of a view, but then I had really come to enjoy the scenery outside.

   Even before our conversation had begun, I could sense from her nonchalance that what she had written to me in the e-mail had been a lie.

   "Your husband never did suspect anything, did he?” I said after our drinks came.

   “No.”

   "And he's gone now? He's at the dorm studying?"

   “Yes.”

   Her husband was supposed to be sequestered in a dorm in the countryside to study for a promotion test. When Kei first told me half a year earlier that her husband would be out-of-town for two months, my mind filled with tantalizing possibilities.

   “He’s been gone all this time?”

   “Yes, but he comes back next week.”

   Each confession was like a soft punch. I had been looking forward to her husband’s absence for six months, eager to spend an entire night with Kei for the first time in our three-year-long affair.

   I slouched down in my seat, defeated. I never imagined that Kei could be so dishonest to me.

   "Don't you think it was a clever idea," she asked.

   "What on earth do you mean?"

   "I thought for days and days about what to write to you . . ."

   "You know, I got that mail while I was still in Thailand. I was having a damn good time until I read it. Ruined my fucking trip, it did. "

   "I'm sorry."

   "You're sorry," I replied lighting a cigarette.

   "Please don't smoke."

   Ignoring her, I took a deep, slow drag, let the smoke drift from my mouth to my nostrils.

   If only I had had some coke to smoke, instead.

   "You're sorry." I told her how much I had worried about her safety, how I had gone by her home to look for signs of life only to find none, and how I hated myself for having been so selfish. "I've always tried to tell you the truth, Kei. Always. Even when I knew that doing so might hurt my chances with you."

   The words came out slowly and painfully. My heart clung to each syllable unwilling to let them go, unwilling to let myself admit that this woman I had loved for so long could inflict so much agony.

   "I was honest, so that you would understand me and love me for who I was and not for someone you thought I was or someone I wanted you to think I was. I opened myself to you, and in the end you lied. I never thought that you could be so cruel."

   I lit a third cigarette. Smoke flowed in a long, twisting trail from my lips.

   "When you told me that you had a new girlfriend," Kei began to explain, "I was very jealous. I couldn't sleep for days."

   It amazed me how this woman could continue to try to possess me and yet at the same time keep me at a safe distance. It was unnerving at the best of times.

   "I'm very possessive," she continued. "I want things only for myself."

   I had heard this the previous summer when I told her that I had started seeing a doctor. Suddenly, Kei couldn’t see me enough. We were meeting sometimes twice a week, making love more often than ever before. And it had the desired effect: the doctor soon faded out of my life. But once Kei had me twisted nicely around her finger, she stomped on the breaks.

   "You're an only child," I replied. "What do you expect?"

   "So, when you told me that you had a new girlfriend I considered trying to make it difficult for you to meet her, to call you up at all times, so that she would end up leaving you . . ."

   "That, I have to admit, would have been a hell of a lot better that this."

   "I was also angry because you had told me that you weren't interested in other women . . . You know, I was so happy when you told me that last summer."

   It was still true. Even when having sex with Ryô, I still thought about and wanted to be with this stupid woman before me now.

   "The reason I started seeing Ryô,” I said, “was because the last time you and I made love, you worried so much about getting pregnant that you cut me off. Don't you remember? You said that if you ever did get pregnant, you wouldn't be able to see me again. It was just a matter of timing, is all. I wasn't really searching for someone—I was happy with you, difficult as this arrangement has been—but, someone found me. I was still looking forward to this summer and being able to spend time with you again like we did last summer. I was counting the days until my birthday when the two of us would travel to the countryside together . . . "

   "Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “I thought about what to do and decided that lying to you was the best way."

   "The best way? You're joking, right?"

   "I though that not seeing you for a while would allow you to start a new relationship. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I'm sorry if you were hurt by it."

   The impulse to jump off the balcony to the hard asphalt five floors below clouded my thoughts. But knowing that I'd just end up in a lot of pain rather than dead caused me to slouch deeper in my chair and light another cigarette.

   "And there's another thing," she said hesitantly.

   "Hmph."

   "I'm pregnant."

   "How many weeks?"

   "Seven. I'm due in January."

   Seven weeks. We had had sex only ten or so weeks before. That the child might be mine was met with a tired indifference. I said nothing.

   An achingly long half an hour passed in silence as I drank and smoked the last of my cigarettes.

   "You haven't looked at me," she said. "You haven't congratulated me either."

   "Congratulations," I offered flatly, then left for the restroom.

   I stood before the vanity staring at my weary face and wanting to cry for the years of frustration and false hope that I had endured since meeting Kei. But I couldn't; I haven't been able to really cry for years. After regaining my composure, I returned to our table, to my drink, and after twenty minutes of awkward silence asked her if she wanted to go.

   She nodded.

   We went back to my apartment where I gave her the presents I had bought for her in Thailand.

   "Where's the basket?"

   "Huh?"

   "I asked you to buy me a basket," she said.

   "I didn't have the space, and besides there weren't any good ones. Bali's the place for that kind of thing, not Thailand."

   "Yes, but you bought all kinds of things for yourself..."

   "Of course, I did," I replied, irritation rising. "Christ, you can be incredibly selfish at times."

   With this Kei bolted out of my apartment. I chased after her barefoot down the hallway and drag her back as she kicked and slapped me. Once inside, we hugged, tears falling down our cheeks. I looked at her face, her soft almond shaped eyes and kissed her chapped lips. We dropped slowly to the tatami floor and held each other for a while, but I knew this was the end. We were writing the epilogue of a book that had already gone on far too long.

   With one final kiss and a long hug, she left.

 

   The next day, Saturday, was a busy day for me. Two lessons in the morning followed by a short break, then four more lessons in the afternoon. Saturday, which had once been my lightest day of work, one I could manage even after a long hard night of partying, was now no different from my other ball-busting workdays: lessons bumper-to-bumper for hours and hours on end. The only difference being that today the drudgery was broken up by a midday tryst with Ryô who came by, fucked me hard, letting me cum the very last drop of my strength in her mouth, then left.

   By evening, I was exhausted mentally and physically. But with my first Sunday free of work for the first time in weeks, I wanted to party, to go to some bar and find an easy lay to help alleviate the ache in my bones, but no one was out on the town tonight. Instead, I dug into my bag of tricks, pulled out a small Ziploc bag of psilocybin mushrooms, and watched videos until dawn.

   After a few hours of sleep, I woke, then left for a four-hour long exam in Japanese listening comprehension that ended up being much easier, and as a result more disappointing, than I had expected. (Despite nodding off in the middle of the test, I still managed to score in the ninetieth percentile.) Ryô met me in the evening for dinner, after which I tied her up and screwed her for an hour before conking out. When I woke the next morning, I was alone, the ropes I had tied her up with placed neatly at the head of my futon.

   The following Tuesday, Ryô and I went to a local amusement park for the day where she ended up blowing me on the Ferris wheel.

   If it weren’t for the distraction Ryô was providing me, I don’t know how I’d manage. Kei was right all along: the timing for us to finally part after so many frustrating years couldn’t have been better.

   Ryô called me a few days later.

   "Why were you born?" she asked.

   “Why was I born?”

   "Yes, why were you born?" she asked again.

   “I, uh, I . . .”

   "To love me of course."

   And to think I had always thought the reason I was born was to feel the pain of solitude.

   “So, I was. So, I was.”

   “I love you,” she said.

   “Thank you.”

These Charming Men

   Teaching English in Japan I come across Anglophones from all over the globe who are engaged in the same trade of linguistic orthodontics as me. I also come across a large number of Japanese students who have very fixed, yet often mistaken, notions of national character. 

   One of the first questions I am often asked by prospective students, particularly those with an intermediate or above level ability in English, is: "Where are you from?"

   When I tell them that I am American, most are happy. Some, however, hoping for an Englishman can't quite hide the disappointment in their voices. They ask a number of other questions, but for the most part they have made up their minds and are already looking at the phone number they will dial next. 

   To these women--it's always women, especially women of good upbrining--your average American may be friendly, but he just doesn't have the cachet of the English. Besides, they don't want to speak American English. Heavens no. They want to speak the Queen's English.

   These women will fawn over any man who resembles ever so remotely Hugh Grant. They'll insist on watching only British or European films, too. Four Weddings and a Funeral is one of the perennial favorites. They'll have a fondness for Baroque music and furniture and preference for English tea in European porcelain over a cuppa joe. And on and on. 

   Funny thing is, I have yet to meet this prototypical Englishman. Most tend to be as rough around the edges as yanks, or, heaven forbid, the Australians, and quite a few have mouths that would embarrass a sailor. 

   Several years ago, I was listening to a English reporter of African descent talk about his experience covering the United States. One of the things that stayed with me is that in America the British accent adds fifteen or so points to a person's perceived IQ. I think the same can be said here in Japan. Have a English accent and the Japanese will perceive you as more intelligent and cultivated, a more gentle gentleman.

   So, it amuses me whenever I come across an Englishman who does or says something that is, for lack of better words, just plain dumb. 

   Take Nigel (not his real name). Nigel and I play soccer together on a pretty strong team composed entirely of university professors. (I am the second-weakest link on that team, by the way.) Nigel and I often take the train into town together after practice and talk about life.

   One of Nigel's recurring topics is how little sex he and his wife have been having. "I suppose I shouldn't really complain: compared to the average Japanese couple," he said in that languid cadence of his, "we do make love more often, but still . . . "

   "Oh, with me it's the opposite," I replied, half-jokingly. "My wife is insatiable. You know, sometimes I just want to be . . . held."

    "Sometimes, a young girl will come into my classroom, and she'll be so beautiful that . . . " he said with a shy smile. "Here I am forty-one years old and a girl of eighteen makes my heart go pitter-patter."

   "It can't be helped," I said. "We're biologically wired to feel that way. Personally, I'm surrounded by young beautiful women because of my work, but I'm so busy and tired all of the time I have no interest in making a move. Of course, if one of them ever deigned to make a move on me, well, I would have no choice but to acquiesce. It is, after all, what Jesus would do."

   Changing the subject, Nigel told me he was reading an excellent book and, fishing it out of his duffle bag, showed it to me. 

   "Ah," I said, taking his copy of Confessions of a Yakuza (浅草博徒一代 Asakusa Bakuto Ichidai) and checking to see how far he'd gotten. "I've read this four times already."

   I asked Nigel if he had read any of Junichi Saga's (佐賀純一) other works. He hadn't, so I recommended Saga's first work, Memories of Silk and Straw (田舎の肖像, Inaka no Shôzô) which has a chapter on the gangster whose life story would be retold in Asakusa Bakuto Ichidai and later masterfully rendered into English by John Bester. "Anything translated by Bester," I told Nigel, "is a sure bet."

   Talking about the yakuza and novels, Nigel asked me if I had read anything by Mifune.

   "Mifune?"

   "Yes, Mifune," he replied. "He was a right-wing radical, committed seppuku in the seventies . . . "

   "I don't think that's Mifune, you're thinking about . . . "

   "No, it's Mifune. I'm certain about that," he said. "Mifune, Mifune, Mifune. What's his first name again. Mifune."

   "You know, I don't believe it's Mifune. It's, it's, it's . . . Mi-something. Oh, this is frustrating."

   "Yoshio Mifune!" Nigels said triumphantly.

   No sooner had we parted ways than the name of the author came to me: Yukio Mishima. 

   A few days later I was at a friend's Irish bar, The Craic and Porter, when another Englishman came in with a friend and sat down at the table next to mine. Let's call him Graham. 

   Graham has been in town for nearly as long, if not longer than, as I have. We have seen each other easily a thousand times (nodded to each other several hundred) over the past two decades, but never spoke until that night. 

   "You play tennis often," I asked. I had seen him playing at the same courts in the ruins of Fukuoka Castle where I myself played once or twice a week.

   "I try to get a game in now and then," he answered.

   "Me, too. Me, too."

   I've been playing tennis for about five years now and am only moderately better than when I started. When I mentioned this Graham contradicted me: "I've watched you play. You're not half bad."

   "You're either too kind or have had too much to drink."

   Anyways, Graham and his friend went on to chat about this and that, their conversation eventually making its way to music. 

   "Do you know that Bob Marley song "No Woman, No Cry", he asked his friend.

   "Yeah."

   "You know what that means?"

   You gotta be feckin' kidding me, I thought to myself.

   His friend supposed that it had to do with not having a woman in your life and . . . 

   "No," Graham said, "that's what I used to think, but I was at Allen's place, Xaymaca, the other day and he told me that it meant . . . "

   "No, woman, don't cry," I interrupted.

   "Yes! That's right!" Graham said, turning to me. "How did you know?"

   Good grief. "Well, if you listen to the lyrics . . . "

   "Yesh!"