English edition: Kathelijne Bonne
Spanish edition here.
Today I’m talking about housewives, expatriates, and the lives of these women who are of little interest to visitors to Japan. I defend them and take refuge in the literature that has given us beautiful images of this group that is still so undervalued by society and national accounts.
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Seeking conversation in Japan
The other day, I was laughed at while having lunch because I went to see a three-hour Georgian film followed by a discussion. Of course, these are things you do in Japan for various reasons. The main reason is that any encounter in a language you can understand is pure gold. If it’s even remotely interesting, then go for it. Whether the movie was good or bad is not the point. The cultural act of going to the movies still has a charm that is not lost. Especially for a housewife like me who leads a highly conventional and bourgeois life. The husbands of these women, of course, are less likely to deal with such ideas of amusement, and I understand that. They already have their quota of meetings and events in languages they can handle. And on top of that, they get paid for it. And on top of that, some of them complain.
I invite men who complain about these things to look for less interesting and less profitable alternatives, such as doing the chores. Few will take up the challenge. Many even think that the lives of these housewives are enviable. In a sense, they could be, but the market tells another story: if that were the case, people would be queuing for these jobs and fewer for their husbands’ jobs in Tokyo.
A job that has no prestige, no pay, and no pension benefit will never be a coveted job, whether in Tokyo or Buenos Aires. In many countries, people are still fighting for the work of housewives to be valued in the market and for their work to be recognized in national accounts, divorces, and retirement benefits. I have talked about these things in Feminist Economics: A Literary Perspective.
Housewives of all kinds
Much has been written about domestic life. I like Natalia Ginzburg’s portrayals of the work of peasant women in southern Italy in Domingo (Acantilado, 2021)[1]. These women are the breadwinners for entire families, even villages. They are true heroines. They die young. They sacrifice their whole bodies. I also like the housewives and bento factory workers portrayed by Kirino Natsuo in the Japanese noir Out[2]. These women work night shifts in the bento factory because during the day they have to take care of their families. No one hires them during the day because they have to take care of their children. Men work overtime and in many cases are rewarded with better jobs.
It makes sense. Being able to afford to work overtime is a privilege. Natsuo’s novel portrays this very well. It means you have someone at home taking care of your family. No one asks these men in job interviews, “Who will take care of your children?” We have reached a point where working and doing overtime to get a promotion is a luxury that not everyone can afford. The women like the ones in the bento factories have none of that. They have to work at night to keep the household running and they have to be home in time to make breakfast for their husbands. So, suddenly, they decide that cutting up corpses for the yakuza is how they empower themselves as women.
Reading these stories, you feel, of course, like an idiot and, at the same time, lucky for the life you have.
The woman who offers dinner parties
There are also some more terrifying portraits, such as that of Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa has to prepare a party. She has a social life, but there seems to be no conversation that transcends small talk. The beginning of this novel is devastating, suffocating, worse than any gory scene in Japanese noir literature. Clarissa dwells on every detail, and her mind is constantly wandering.
“As she watched the taxis, she had the constant feeling of being far, far away at sea, alone; it had always seemed very dangerous, terribly dangerous, to live, even if only for a day.”[1]
In Japan, I meet many women who have become experts at throwing parties. It’s not my specialty, but if I have to entertain people, I do so gladly. Not so much for the preparation, but for the somewhat strange sensation of talking to people who are over ten years old and don’t just take care of their homes.
One no longer seeks erudite conversations, or even interesting ones, or friends. The bar is set so low that in the end one just wants to be able to communicate in any language possible. Montaigne said that conversation “is the most fruitful and natural exercise of the spirit.”[2]
I have nothing against housewives; some are very interesting and have an inner universe that many men do not have. The thing is that expatriate wives end up being a bit alike, especially those who have been doing this for a long time. They like to talk a lot about school, multiple passports, embassy receptions, the arrival of the container, skiing, their Zumba classes. I’m not criticizing them. But looking closely, you see that there is much more.
I like the parachutists. The ones who ended up in Japan by chance. The ones who still look at all this with some perplexity. I also like women who are a little crazy and say outrageous things.
The other day I was talking to another woman who insists on going to every event she can.
Don’t you regret not being able to communicate in Japanese? I ask her. I like her skill at making small talk. She knows how to move with elegance. Sometimes I want to be a little like her. She says she doesn’t mind staying outside Japanese culture.
The only social life we can aspire to is in diplomatic and expatriate circles, I tell her. She seems to be fine with that. In this category of women who host dinner parties, you would find those who feast on their husbands’ connections. I don’t criticize it, and I even understand it if there is no way to talk to outside those circles, but even that seems problematic to me. You will never stop being “the wife of.” And that’s not why one comes to Japan.
A housewife is someone who takes care of her home. Regardless of whether she also works outside the home. Advertisements in the 1950s were particularly sexist.
Visitors to Japan don’t want housewives
Returning to the lack of conversation in these countries with difficult languages, one would think that with the number of people coming to Tokyo, one would encounter a pool of interesting visitors. Well, no.
In Japan, those who come to do something specific are only interested in connections that will yield fast results. Visitors to Japan are people who are pressed for time and have high expectations. I understand: they come from far for a short time, they have spent resources and money on a long and exhausting trip.
They cannot waste time on relationships that do not offer some kind of immediate reward. Even in cases where everything is paid for, they have had to make an effort to cough up the money, which they will then have to repay in the form of dinners, compliments, conversations, shopping trips, or even sex. There is no time for anything else. They do not practice waiting because they are in a hurry. This is the profile of scientists, artists, researchers, athletes, writers, and anyone with a moderate level of education.
There are also people looking for a place to stay in Japan who suddenly kindle relationships or probe you to see if they can get a room. It makes me laugh when this type of people appears out of nowhere. This category would include: friends from elementary school you haven’t seen in ages, third-generation nephews and nieces, old flings. My goodness, Japan awakens many things in people.
In search of the perfect housewife
The question remains, who is willing to communicate or form some kind of bond in such a closed country? Housewives. Because at least they don’t ask for credentials of any kind. They are not in a hurry. They don’t care who you are or who you are not friends with. A good housewife is a gold mine of stories. And they have a quality that makes them unique. They are always available. What’s more, their job – which at the same time is their misfortune – is precisely to be available. Housewives are the element that adapts to the urgencies of others.
Their work is thankless not only because it is unpaid, but also because it has no tangible results. Often, it consists solely of waiting for things to happen or hoping that they don’t happen. It is like the work of a firefighter: they may have a quiet day with no incidents, but they must be available and drop everything at the slightest emergency. They cannot go far. They cannot make plans because they may have to cancel them due to an emergency. They are like an on-call doctor without pay. A housewife is a very unreliable worker for a company. At any moment, she must drop everything.
In this context, housewives don’t do anything that is a priori interesting. And they can only be attractive to other housewives. And here lies the paradox. A good housewife welcomes everyone to her table. Anyone can sit at her table. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, students, unemployed people. These women show astonishing versatility. But it is rarely the other way around. A housewife is never welcomed, unless she is accompanying her husband, in circles other than those of other housewives.
But the thing is, even plumbers get tired of talking to plumbers and sometimes need to chat with an electrician.
There is also a kind of discrimination among women themselves. I have tried to get closer to Japanese housewives. I am very interested in them. But they don’t want to, they cannot, they’re not interested. Another Latin American housewife tells me: Korean women don’t want to either.
There is another subgroup within housewives, namely those who temporarily left their profession to accompany their husbands. This can work, but sometimes it does not. It occurs especially when you have professional aspirations in the host country and these are not fulfilled. I know women who have taken up studying. But in the end, it ends up being exhausting and lonely.
Finally, there are those who decide to return. They leave their husbands and go back to their own country. Perhaps they are the most weathered. Or they have already been going through the miserable experience of being “the wife of” for a long time. I know of many cases of women who abandon this ship, especially women who already have grown children. And I think that perhaps it is the best path at a certain age.
Men fool around at will.
And so do their wives.
Japan forces you to change your mental outfit
All this has led me to change my behavior a lot. I spend much more time on the street and am more receptive to any kind of curious character. It was from this spirit that my dialogue with Saito Tettyo emerged. A hikikomori guy from Chiba who started writing in Romanian. Talking to him was wonderful for me because I was able to access a little bit of that Japanese soul.
Another great moment was getting into the house of Keisuke Oka, the Gaudi of Tokyo. I never would have thought I’d end up in his wonderful building called Arimasuton Biru. In this case, I confronted the guy and practically demanded to be let in.
There are more moments, but there isn’t always time to recount them all. I do these things because, otherwise, there is no way to escape the toxic and harmful circle of expatriates.
Of course, there are exceptions, as everywhere else. Suddenly, you find special people, or rather normal people, but they are like precious stones that appear very occasionally and confirm the norm. They are there and make my life in Japan happier.
At the moment, I have two trips to look forward to. Osaka and Hiroshima. The mints await me. I’m sure there won’t be any housewives or expats there.
I remember some words by Patti Smith: a room of one’s own is not just a room of one’s own. It is one’s own mind, that territory that is yours alone, a place of complete freedom. Where no one enters and no one rules except yourself.
In this spirit, I escape. I run away.
I always walk far away.
Very far away.
[1] Woolf, V. (2020). Mrs Dalloway. Penguin Classics.
[2] Montaigne, M. de. (2004). The Complete Essays (M. A. Screech, Trans.). Penguin UK.
[1] I don’t know if there is an English translation.
[2] Kirino, N. (2004). Out (S. Snyder, Trans.). Vintage Books.
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