BY CATHERINE HAGAR “I’m moving back to Texas.” This was my mantra for the first month after my relocation in Japan. My first year in Japan was a dating disaster. After a sexist salary man, playboy American, and a few unbelievably awkward first dates, I felt tired and defeated. A new city and a new [...]
BY FRANKI WEBB It’s daunting meeting your partner’s parents for the first time in any case, but I had never experienced a truly multicultural relationship before. Nothing could have prepared me for the first time I was introduced to my Japanese boyfriend’s parents. I nervously walked up to my boyfriend’s mother, who was adorned in [...]
BY KAREN CARMELI During this month of Valentine’s celebrations, people’s thoughts often turn to love, and not always in a happy way. When a long-term relationship ends people can often become reluctant to fall in love again, mainly because of having negative experiences and painful disappointments. People have so many preconceptions about men, women, love, [...]
BY ROSARIA This is part three of a three-part story (read part one here and part two here), where foreign woman Rosaria shares with us her experiences with a challenging relationship with a (married) Japanese man. It might not have the fairy-tale ending we grew up looking for, but still offers a unique look at [...]
BY ROSARIA This is part two of a three-part story (read part one here to catch up, and part three in a couple of days), where foreign woman Rosaria shares with us her experiences with a challenging relationship with a (married) Japanese man. It might not have the fairy-tale ending we grew up looking for, [...]
BY ROSARIA This is part one of a three-part story (read parts two and three in the next two days), where foreign woman Rosaria shares with us her experiences with a challenging relationship with a (married) Japanese man. It might not have the fairy-tale ending we grew up looking for, but still offers a unique [...]
BY AILSA WYLIE Find love in Japan? Ha! I had pretty much given up completely … OK, perhaps not completely. But I had just been through the most difficult period in my years in Japan. I had the blues and was in no mood for games. My expectations were at an all-time low. In the [...]
BY SABRINA OLIVIERI-TOZAWA “I want to go home!” Those were my first thoughts about life in Japan. Just arriving from New York, where life was easy and I was quickly able to acclimatise, I was all the more culture-shocked when landing in Tokyo. Struggling to find a place in this country, I learned a lot [...]
BY A’ISHAH LEVINE The amazing thing about my betrothal to a Japanese man is how normal our marriage is. As an American child from a Mexican mother and a Jewish father, I’ve had ample experience with multiculturalism. So, naturally the idea that I would probably marry a Japanese man in the end was always somewhere [...]
BY KELSEY AGUIRRE When asked what brought her to Japan, Lauren’s story starts like many others: “In college I majored in Japanese, and I came to Yokohama from Scottsdale, Arizona in August 2004.” As a child, she had been interested in Japan and loved video games. In fact, her interest in video games made her [...]
