Job Discussion Forums

[Capergirl]

[gmat]

[chixdiggit]

LOL! Now I remember why I stopped posting on this forum. I am from Newfoundland where the MAJORITY of people massacre the English language in the same way that Capers do. Personally, I am in the same boat as Capergirl and was merely poking fun at our own situation. Relax and check your analogies, to make sure they make sense, before posting next time. BTW I'm writing the GMAT soon in Shin-Yokohama, did you recently write it here in Japan? I would like to hear about the experience.

[Capergirl]

[shmooj]

Aaarrgghhhh... here we go again....

[gmat]

chixdiggit

Didn't mean to offend an Atlantic Canadian. It bugs me when an entire group of people (region, race, religion) are tarred with the same broad brush.

Besides, from your post I thought for sure you were an Upper Canadian and as everyone from the east and west in Canada knows, they are all a** clowns .....

Just kidding, of course.

edit ps
apologies to Beckerson for 'stealing' his word.

Oh, and I took the GMAT in 1989 (Canada) so I can't be of any help there. Good luck.

[ruggedtoast]

Im in Japan with my western girlfriend whom I love anyway so Im not "looking", but it sure hasnt escaped my notice in my voyages around Asia what a "Charisma Man" Ive become since I left Heathrow - pretty girls whose London equivalents wouldnt look twice at me now eye me up; and I teach a succession of lonely females who often dont miss an opportunity to pointedly explain to me that they live, sleep and eat alone and imply that they wouldnt mind me doing something about all or some of those things.

Its easy to lose perspective about it and I found myself even feeling a bit jealous of my friends and colleagues who seem to pretty much have their pick of willing ladies who dont even seem to bother them much for a relationship or any commitment (or at least dont complain if they dont get that) -

But then I realised that at best those guys dont seem to be any happier than me and many of them are quite a bit more miserable - even some of the guys who have long term Japanese partners here can seem pretty lonely and jaded and even refer to their marriages/relationships kind of like Id expect many people to refer to a business agreement.

Back home I had friends who would say "Ive got such a great girl - we're so happy together and we have such a lot of fun..."

Actually without exception Ive never heard ANY western expat in Asia say anything like this about their love lives.

I wonder why.

[Brooks]

I used to hear the phrase `go from a zero to a hero` to refer to foreign men in Japan. That is the way some foreign women see it when the gaijin is with the Japanese woman.


my relationship has good and bad things about it.
My girlfriend seems jaded on Japanese men. She definitely has a preference for foreign men.
One good thing I think is that Japanese women are trained to please Japanese men, and American men are trained to please American women. So when they get together it works: I find that I have had the best communication and we can please each other.
I don`t expect her to do all cleaning. I know I have to help her out.

I think Japanese women, like American women, want what they want, but they go about it in different ways.

My boss is pessimistic about his marriage. We were at a bar, and he looked over at these middle-aged obasans, and he said: middle-aged Japanese women just do whatever they want.

So it makes me wonder how relationships go.

In some ways race is irrelevant. As long as we talk, spend time together, and have similar interests, things can work. There will be fights, and apologies have to be said sometimes.

In some ways it is nicer to be with someone who shares the same native language as you. I find that in Japan I have to communicate and explain more, and that fights last longer because it takes longer to explain why we disagree.

[Mr. Ishihara]

Japanese women can be very, uh, satisfying.
Don't expect them to tell you what's on their
mind though. Watch the flowers in the Ikebana
carefully, and if they begin to be is disarrangement,
run!

[Glenski]

[Brooks]

well I tend to generalize but I stand by what I said.
For me and some couples that is.

I am used to accommodating women. My family was liberal and I had to help out around the house starting back when I was in elementary school. By the time I was in high school I would cook for myself too. My mother trained me at a young age. She probably gave up on my father who couldn`t be bothered.
In the end she filed for divorce. My mother said she would rather be poor and living by herself instead of being married to my father. At home my mom called the shots. My grandmother (my mother`s mother) is basically a matriarch. I am very used to feminists.

My girlfriend had a bad relationship that lasted a long time. Her ex was and is a traditional salaryman who doesn`t like to help around the house or clean, cook etc. He expected her to do it.
He would come home late on weeknights because he was out getting drunk with his co-workers and he would not do much on the weekends besides watching TV. He wanted a wife who would be a housewife and not have a career.
So she tried. She fulfilled her traditional role for years. She worked generally part-time. But after a long time she got fed up, like the way that some Japanese women do. She kept her accumulated grievances to herself, but at some point she got fed up with a bad marriage. She decided that being an English teacher was more important than just being a wife.
Her marriage was an arranged one. She got married because she was 25 and because it was considered time for her.
Her mother made her learn the tea ceremony and ikebana to make her marriageable.

So, both of us were trained to please the other sex in our respective countries. As we got older, we got sick of these roles.
But when we are together, it works. Sure we have our fights but in the end we can compromise and listen to each other.