Hajimemashite

As the world gets smaller and more connected everyday, it's hard to imagine yourself being alone in a situation anymore. When something changes in your life, you can always just google it and find hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people who have been in your shoes. I've gotten so used to just googling my problems to find sources of comfort and explanation that I've forgotten what it's like to be unique anymore.

Not that my situation is all that unique. I guess it's just not as documented as I had hoped it was this week when I really needed to read about people who may or may not be able to give me some insight on what I'm feeling and why. So I've found myself a niche in the blogging world, and I've decided to give it a try. Even if it doesn't help answer my questions, hopefully someone will come across it someday when they need to know that someone has been in their shoes before.

Wow, this opening seems so dramatic and depressing! My "situation" is neither - it's wonderful, actually. I am an American woman, married to a Japanese man. We met almost four years ago, and have been married about a year and a half.

I guess I started searching for someone else who may have already started a blog about married couples like us when my husband kept referring to all these message boards and websites with information for Japanese people married to Americans. All the information on those sites is in Japanese, and is to meant to help Japanese spouses understand American culture and customs, but is of little use to Americans who already recognize they way they do things (hopefully!). When I tried to find sources for Americans about international couples, it didn't help that what I really wanted was information on Japanese-American couples. And when I searched specifically for those, I found message boards with American men bragging about how much hotter/skinnier/more domestic and all around better their Japanese wives were than American women. Yes, good for you - your wife cooks for you AND gives you blow job every night! But that's not exactly what I'm looking for in relationship advice.

Basically, when my husband and I don't see eye-to-eye on something, we often just shrug it off as a cultural difference, despite our extensive experience in both Japan and the U.S. It's almost a scapegoat now : "What honey? You're upset that I lent money to my friend without telling you? It's not MY fault - I'm Japanese!" It's getting harder to tell what are just our differences in personalities, and what're our differences in culture.

And so, the blog. I hope to write about the real us - our ups and downs, our revelations, our dreams, our darkest hours. I hope to be a source for other women like me, who are looking for people that have been in their shoes and can offer some perspective. Names, and perhaps some dates and places, will be changed, but the stories will be real.

Yoroshiku!