It began with a light, deceptively superficial conversation on an evening soon after I started working. One of my fellow high school teachers, a Japanese man of about fifty, cleared his throat repeatedly at me.
“Uhrm, ah. Yes. Ehto. So, Scott-sensei, will you be attending the
enkai this evening?”
“Yeah, no problem. I just have to run home first, but I’ll be there.”
“Ah, you will be bringing your wife, yes? Ah, good. Yes, I… look
forward to meeting her.”
When I arrived at the izakaya later that night, my coworkers spotted me as soon as I stooped to get through the doorway. And then… “Good evening everyone, this is my wife Tess,” I said, and in steps a blonde, blue-eyed foreigner. The office ladies gasped a long “Hehhhh?!” while exchanging incredulous looks. The rest of the teachers squirmed in their seats, except for the two who had already met Tess before, who grinned quietly to themselves.
As the evening progressed and drink started flowing, everyone remembered to smile. I heard people starting to toss questions around the table. I caught the gist, but eventually they were translated into English and directly put to Tess and me. Naturally, there were the usual “gimme” questions, like “Can you use chopsticks?” (Of course. Ever heard of a Chinese restaurant?) and “Do you drink shochu?” (Buy me one and let’s find out.) I nodded and smiled, and so did Tess, privately filing things away to laugh at later.
But the subject arousing most curiosity turned out to be “Why did you come to Japan?” The tone struck me as being less curious than interrogatory. Glances thrown in my wife’s direction hinted at the real meaning of the question. It felt strange having to explain myself to my co-workers as if I had done something wrong. In a way, I suppose I had; I’d committed the sin of straying outside their frame of reference.
“Why did you [that is to say, you two married hakujin] come to Japan?” Whenever I’m asked this question in a serious way by a nihonjin, I explain that I became interested in Japanese martial arts during my college years, and both Tess and I are really into the culture and the language of this country. Almost everyone reacts as my coworkers did. I can tell them about the things I love here, like the food, the history, the folklore—their mouths smile, but their eyes don’t comprehend. Whereas if you’re a foreigner married to a Japanese woman, people think they already know why you’re here.
Often—though never when my wife is around, of course—the follow-up question is, “What do you think of Japanese women?” Well, mochiron, I think they’re quite lovely. And the person who asked (and it usually is a male) gets a gleam in his eye, as if my answer holds a hidden significance.
A few weeks after the enkai, a fellow teacher invited me to go on a trip to an onsen in the mountains. Teenage girls go there, he said, and you can see everything. It’s not the only such solicitation I’ve gotten. Seems that (who knew?) married men in Japan are expected to play around a little. The nodding, winking, elbowing brotherhood of philanderers gets pushed on me twice as hard. Not only am I married, I’m also a foreigner, and all foreign guys want a little native action. Right? To make matters worse, any foreigner knows that if you don’t socialize with coworkers, your office relationships can suffer.
Fortunately, in my situation, it’s easy to decline the more salacious invitations. During my time at the school, if I wanted to get out of ogling the under-aged, or even just avoid getting dinged ¥4,000 for unlimited salad, toast and bad beer at a boring office enkai, all I had to do was plaster a rueful expression on my face. “Sorry, fellas, the wife needs me back home early.” If I needed extra emphasis, I held two fingers up to the head to signify horns, and the reaction of masculine sympathy was immediate. Meanwhile, Tess would be home playing Soul Calibur IX or something, totally oblivious. She’s encouraged me to use her as an excuse whenever I want. In fact, she finds the entire situation hilarious, which is lucky for me.
One night after an English class, I was talking about Japanese language study with one of my adult students, a nice and respectable elderly gentleman from Dazaifu. Out of nowhere, he asked me if I had a Japanese girlfriend.
“You know I’m married, right?” I asked bemusedly.
He nodded. “But,” he said, “a Japanese girlfriend would be useful for the pillow talk. That would be very convenient for your language study, I think.” I’ll have to run that one by the wife. Dodesho?
by Scott Burke / American, Fiction Writer & Former Teacher
