Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Marriage in Translation: What if Your Martian is From Japan?


I think we can all agree that it’s pretty much an established fact that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. It can be a big challenge for a couple made up from these two disparate outer-space cultures to get along, find common ground and make a go of a successful marriage. But what if your Martian is from Japan and you’re from North America or Europe or Australia? How the heck do you deal with that?


This is a topic I tackle in my new e-book, Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband where I interview fourteen Western women (including myself!) married (and one divorced) to Japanese men born and raised in Japan. While you’ll find lots of pairings of Western men with Japanese women, the opposite is still rare today despite world shrinkage, globalization and the proliferation of the Internet and social media.


Western women’s values, their gender roles and their desire for individuality can clash with what’s expected from them in an island nation that on the surface seems the ultimate in modernity yet is steeped in thousands of years of ancient traditions, and offers a language with sentence structure and hidden nuances that seem the polar opposite of straightforward, in-your-face American English.


And when you’re trying to adapt to a foreign culture it often feels that nothing quite fits and everything you know is wrong. And then there’s the case of women who met their Japanese husband on their own home turf who end up seeing their fun-loving man “turn Japanese” on them when they go to live in Japan. As one woman puts it, “When we were in Australia my husband was carefree, crazy and spontaneous. But after we’d been living in Japan for a couple of months he turned into this grumpy conformist.”


Yet what comes out over and over in these very poignant, candid and sometimes quite funny interviews is that the key to a successful cross-cultural marriage is often made up of the same attributes that will pave the way for success in any marriage: patience, flexibility, acceptance, compromise and a sense of humor.


And, of course, the importance of love and mutual affection, which can transcend any clash of cultures, intergalactic or not.


Wendy Nelson Tokunaga is the author of the novels, Midori by Moonlight and Love in Translation, both published by St. Martin’s Press. Her latest book, Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband is available as a Kindle e-book for $2.99. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem! Just download a free Kindle app for your smart phone, iPad, PC or Mac. Fifty-percent of the proceeds of this book go to Red Cross Japan Relief!


Follow Wendy on Twitter: @Wendy_Tokunaga and check out her summer online writing class for Stanford University’s Online Writer’s Studio - Just Like a Movie: What Novelists Can Learn from the Silver Screen.

11 comments:

  1. Wendy, the book sounds fantastic. And it reaffirms to my romantic soul that love can conquer all, including cultural differences and traditionalist attitudes.

    In our house, it's more like, "Men are from Vulcan, Women are from Earth." Er, my husband is rather logical and Spock-like, and I'm the overly effusive Captain Kirk. ;-)

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  2. Your class sounds fun, Wendy. I just wrote a paper on using screenwriting techniques to write a novel.

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  3. Wendy, I love that this NF title is a play on your fiction one - very cool!

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  4. As you say, all successful marriages are made up of the same attributes. There is also the determination of both parties to make it work, which primarily stems from that 'mutual affection.'
    It would, however, be very difficult to have your partner change as did the 'grumpy conformist' when returning to his home country. That would certainly require an extra dose of patience and understanding.

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  5. You have chose interesting topic for writing. The translation is so simple and explain the true meaning of summary. It also depends how you elaborate things in best manners. This will enhance writing more and more.

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  6. It does not matter actually that two different people of different language wants to get married. So translation fact does not effect much in here. visit the website to know more how to get quality writing services.

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  7. When there is love here between them so there are no worries because of them just understand each other first and then take the most important and crucial step of their lives to become a single jewel of the life.

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  8. Glad to know this information.

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  9. Wow nice translation we can see in here in Japaneses language. I know every one like this job and they can learn so more from here. punctuation corrector online provide us more information about this learning.

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