Job Discussion Forums

[PAULH]

(Originally posted by Zzonkmiles)


Most Japanese women are NOT interested in dating foreigners. You have to remember, this country is 98+% Japanese. So there are a lot of people who are conservative in their thinking. There are a lot of people who think Japanese should stay with Japanese, and there are a lot of people who have no interest in learning/studying English and could care less about America or England or Australia (in other words, YOU).

Having said that, as English teachers in Japan, you'll likely encounter the subset of J-women who are open to dating gaijin. Usually, these women have several gaijin friends or have had several gaijin boyfriends before you. So if she talks about "how special" you are, you probably aren't. I don't mean that to diminish your appeal in this country. I say that because you are easily replaceable. If you don't want to give Yoko or Michiko your time, there's always going to be another gaijin who will.

Nonwhite gaijin will have a harder time finding a J-girlfriend than White gaijin. Although the Japanese tend to lump people into the two broad categories of "Japanese" and "gaijin," there is a hierarchy among the gaijin which usually has Whites at the top, Blacks a distant second, and other Asians at the bottom. There are very few Indians, Arabs, and Hispanics here, so I don't know much about their experience. Some J-women don't care about your race and are pretty open-minded. Some will date a gaijin, but only if he's White. And some, albeit fewer, are only into Black guys. Sometimes it's not easy to tell if the woman likes you for who you are or if she likes you simply because of your skin color or because you speak English.

Having said that, it is very easy to get laid in this country. A lot of times, J-women and gaijin trade sex for free English lessons under the guise of a "relationship" or "private teaching." And others, as was mentioned earlier, simply want the status that comes from having a gaijin boyfriend. They just want to show you off to their friends or be the focus of attention because it can be trendy to have a foreign boyfriend. Still, other J-women just want to live the "gaijin fantasy." The level of superficiality in this country is amazing. They think that dating a Westerner will be akin to dating an exciting rock star who will whisk them away from their life of misery in Japan to their home in paradise (England, Australia, the US, or whatever).

It's a bit harder to find an actual girlfriend who is serious relationship material, but that's probably true anywhere. Anyway, if your Japanese ability is not so good, you'll have a hard time having serious discussions with your girlfriend unless her English is pretty good. But if your J-girlfriend speaks good English, you're probably never going to learn Japanese because you'll be speaking only English at work and you'll be speaking English with your girlfriend (which is to her benefit and not yours).

Many J-women are a bit cautious about dating foreigners because they know they are not in Japan permanently. After one or two years, they will likely return to their home country. So these women might be reluctant to make things serious. And if they do, you're likely looking at marriage. J-women seem to throw the M-bomb around very early in relationships.

Oh, and a J-woman might date you and really seem to be into you, but good luck meeting her parents. If she refuses to let you meet them, it's likely because she knows her parents would never approve of the relationship, or the relationship simply isn't as strong as you thought it was. This is a culture based on respecting elders, group loyalty and not shaming the group. Keep that in mind, as you hear your girlfriend talk about how conservative her family is. And if her parents have already met one of her loser ex-boyfriends from Canada or America or whatever before, that'll only make things more difficult for you.

For better or for worse, Judeo-Christian hangups don't really exist in Japan. Cheating and sex-friends are a lot more common here. Even some of the innocent housewives you teach during the morning are getting their freak on. It's not just the drunk salarymen who "work overtime" every night. So in other words, you might think your girlfriend is into you, but a lot of other guys might be into her too, if you know what I mean. But then again, a lot of gaijin here do the exact same thing, seeing that Japan could be considered as a playground of sorts.

Unfortunately, if you live in the inaka/countryside, your opportunities for dating will be limited. You'll have fewer women in your age bracket, there are fewer places to hang out, you'll be dealing with a more conservative population, and a lot of people will be gossipping about you. There are more open-minded people in the cities, but also a lot more gaijin too, which means you lose a bit of your "specialness." The "gaijin card" doesn't work so well when there are so many other guys in the area who can use it too.

Oh, and believe it or not, it's possible to not get any action at all in Japan. If you're not sociable, if you stay in your apartment all the time, or if you're just an ass, you won't have much success at all. So many gaijin think they are the $h!t when they come to Japan just because they're a gaijin and then they get surprised when they find that the women are not throwing themselves at their feet. Being able to get a J-woman to laugh will go a long way.

As for their looks, there are a lot of very attractive women here with one or more of the following:

1. Very bad teeth (either stained from drinking loads of tea or teeth that are simply growing in random directions)
2. Very bad breath (Japan is the land of halitosis and poor dental hygiene)
3. Smoker's breath (are smokers in the majority in this country?)
4. The body of a 12-year old (interpret this as you wish)

***And lastly, stay away from the EIGO BANDITS (they just want to talk to you in English, even if your Japanese ability is stronger) and the WELCOME WAGONS (the sluts who sleep with all the new teachers). Also, STDs are more common here than people think. The lack of condom usage and the business trips to Thailand are partly responsible for this, I think.

[cafebleu]

Hmm - I know I am not a guy but I have to question a few thing sin zzonkmiles` post, things that actually can be related to the topic of what Japan is like for foreigner women. I am not criticizing zzonkmiles but am I correct in assuming he lives in the city somewhere in Honshu?

When I lived and worked here (I come back for visits like now and will be gone on Monday but sorry I don`t want to say where I live and work now as an English women with a Chinese husband is easy to identify where I live!) I found Japan to be anything but free in sexual attitudes in Kyushu. Particularly in the countryside.

Of course Tokyo is different but here in Kyushu I was repeatedly surprised by how sexually inexperienced many women I came across here were here - they lived with their families, didn`t have boyfriends, and sometimes were in their 30s never having had a boyfriend. I asked one of my friends about this and she said it was not unusual for Japanese women who were unmarried to have no relationships of an adult kind as they lived with their families and their mother would disapprove.

I can also say that in all honesty I never found anything approaching the free attitude towards relationships that zzonkmiles says. Perhaps for men, but then again it seemed a lot of the unmarried men I came across went to clubs for any activity and did not have girlfriends. It was not unusual for me to talk to male students from 20 to 30 who had never had a girlfriend - some lived with their families, some did not.

I and my husband were suprised by the puritanism of the supposedly guilt free, non Judeo Christian Japanese in Kyushu. Then again given that a few married women in their 30s and 40s told me that sexual relations with your husband was not really a priority in marriage and given that mothers have babies and have the children sleeping in the same bed with them, I am not surprised.

So ..... that is what we (my husband and I) found in Kyushu. It did help explain countryside people`s fondness for gossiping about `bad foreigners` whose crime was to have a relationship going on, staying the night at a partner`s house or even the ultimate crime, living with each other. To link this to the thread about women in Japan - Japanese women play a large part in perpetuating attitudes and behaviour that is out of date in western countries. Free spirits looking for sex friends they are not. Maybe there are some in Honshu but in Kyushu it seems very repressed - living at home scared that mother disapproves of adult behaviour when one is not married.

Sorry, but I and my husband found the Japanese women in Kyushu generally to be doing their best to avoid these kind of relationships. I am not saying all - I am just saying be careful if you are a man and think that somehow the Japanese women are unencumbered by guilt. They don`t have religious guilt but they seem fearful of what their undersexed mothers and neighbours think .... I say `seem`.

[Travel Zen]

[Synne]

Very true

Ill pledge to that whole statement, the illusive white man is actually not so illusive in Japan.

There is also the need to realize that most of the gorgeous, nice bodied 20 - 25 year girls here that most men are after are not interested in a relationship surrounded by a cloud of confusion at the fact that understanding each other is a labor every time someone opens their mouth, after all, no matter how great your Japanese is, theirs will be better. Nor are they interested in gaijin when they have droves of Japanese guys out to get them.

The High School girls here will tempt all guys, but they are not overly interested in a 22 + year old gaijin. They are out for the 18 + year old Japanese guy with a car and a boat load of friends to introduce their friends to on their ride to the nearest Disney Store.

[ThomP]

A lot depends on: your age & weight, their age & weight, your dress, the relationship each of you is looking for, *the distance from their home town*, her social class, your work � which company, *how public your relationship is*, your insistence on public displays of affection, your language ability & theirs, whether they have visited or lived overseas & how long, their image -vs.- understanding of foreigners/countries, where you meet, who you meet through, how you meet, how much time you've known each other, your commitment to Japan, how presumptuous you are, the percentage of alcohol in your blood, the proximity to your place/discrete locations, their attitude towards your place and especially discrete locations, the time of day that you are going �home�, personal hygiene, the attitude of the taxi driver who takes you back to your place, how receptive she is to the attitudes around her & your ability to control her exposure to them until your relationship has grown sufficiently, etc.

Just remember that Japanese women are people, human beings, not objects to be played with and cast away, unless that is the relationship both of you understand it to be.

[PAULH]

By Bennett Richardson
�2004 The Christian Science Monitor
December 6, 2004

TOKYO - The Japanese government wants women like Taeko Mizuguchi to get married and start doing something about the nation's plunging birthrate. But she's not interested.

At least, not if her prospective husband is Japanese.

A growing number of Japanese women are giving up on their male counterparts, and taking a gamble that looking abroad for love will bring them the qualities in a partner that seem rare at home. Mr. Right, as the hope goes, is often an American or European, a man appreciative of a wife's career and more of a partner in daily tasks.

"They treat you like equals, and they don't hesitate to express mutual feelings of respect - I think Western men are more adept [at such things] than Japanese men," says the 36-year-old Ms. Mizuguchi, who works at a top trading firm. "They don't act like women are maids - I think they view women as individuals."

Underscoring that Japanese women are losing hope with the local boys, dating agencies to help snag a Western husband have sprung up in Tokyo, some with branches in the US and Europe. Such companies rigorously vet their clients, screening for education, family background, occupation, and life goals.

The kind of women who sign up for such services include doctors, lawyers, and other professionals - women who have delayed marriage to concentrate on careers and who aren't keen to give up hard won gains to become a housewife, as many Japanese men expect.

Japanese women have come to consider traditional marriage roles as "disadvantageous in terms of time resources - they have to carry the burden of domestic chores as well as lose their free time," says Chizuko Ueno, a professor of sociology at Tokyo University.

Normally, married Japanese women have not only to look after their own parents during old age, but also to care for their parents-in-law. When it comes to raising kids, "they can't expect much cooperation from their partner" because of the long work hours required at many Japanese corporations and because of established gender roles that assume that the woman does the child-rearing, Ms. Ueno adds.

A generation of women who are now entering their 30s don't want to give up single life unless prospective partners are willing to break from traditional gender roles.

Government polls conducted to find out why women have put off marriage until well after 25 years of age - known as a woman's " 'best before' date" - show that economic independence is key to the change. As most Japanese women have their own income, marriage is no longer a financial necessity and women want to find companionship in a husband.

That is where Japanese men have come up short. There is "a wide gap in men's and women's attitudes and expectations toward marriage" vis-�-vis traditional gender roles, says Sumiko Iwao, professor of social psychology at Musashi Institute of Technology in Yokohama. For instance, coming home later than your Japanese husband is a no-no.

Having ruled out an old-fashioned Japanese husband, many women here think the solution is a Western man. Indeed, some seem so enthralled with the idea that they are willing to spend thousands of dollars to inspect the wares personally. Of the more than 2,000 women on the books at one large matchmaking agency, about 200 travel to the US or Europe each month to meet prospects.

Sentimental projections have recently been extended to Korean men also, due to romantic Korean soap operas.

In 2003, Japanese women marrying American or British men outnumbered Japanese men marrying American or British women by 8 to 1. The total proportion of Japanese marrying foreigners each year has crept up from around 3.5 percent in 1995 to just over 5 percent. Japanese men are actually more than three times as likely as the women to take a foreign spouse, but this is mostly rural men marrying less well-off Chinese and Filipino women. "Such cases are elderly farmers not popular among young Japanese women," says Yuriko Hashimoto, a local government employee in the remote northern prefecture of Iwate.

To be fair, not all the blame for female angst here can be laid on Japanese men. The government has been slow to enforce equal opportunity laws, and both pay and the glass ceiling in most Japanese corporations remain low for women. Recession has hampered longer maternity leave and other family-friendly policies.

As Japan's fertility rate drops to new lows - at last count it was 1.29, well below levels required for population replacement - the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is anxiously drawing up plans to make it easier for young couples to raise children, through such measures as the provision of cheap public housing.

� Sanae Benisty contributed to this report.
Mixed marriages in Japan

Japanese men marry:
Chinese 10,242
Filipinos 7,794
Koreans 2,235
Americans 156
British 65

Japanese women marry:
Koreans 5,318
Americans 1,529
Chinese 890
British 334
Filipinos 117