My Wife Makes More Sense

Kim was born in Korea and adopted by her Japanese mother and white father on Hawaii. On Oahu island she was raised by her 80 plus extended Japanese Hawaiian family with special influence by her traditional Japanese grandmother. I knew all this before we were married. However, not since coming to Japan has Kim made so much sense.

Kim never swings her arms when she runs. It looks like she is carrying some invisible heavy weights in her hands preventing her from lifting her arms from her sides. I think this looks hilarious and so did all her teammates when she played soccer and track as they jeered her throughout her athletic youth. Our first week in Japan we saw various joggers, old and young alike, running exactly like Kim, arms at their sides holding onto the invisible weights while scooting forward laboriously. She happy exclaimed, “I’m normal I’m normal!” over and over again.

Kim is a strong believer in horoscopes and the zodiac signs. She’ll explain to me matter of factly why she doesn’t get along with people from a certain sign or why other signs blend so well. In Japan many women and men read their horoscopes everyday and totally believe in the legitimacy of a factless generic fortune based on the month one was born in. Sorry I don’t know my sign and I forgot my blood type but apparently this will tell somebody exactly what kind of personality I have.

Like the Japanese Kim is a little bit of a clean freak. I don’t just mean taking shoes off by the door like the Japanese do but washing all the dishes within minutes of a meals completion instead of hours or days like I was used to in my bachelor years. She’ll get on her hands and knees to scrub the shower and toliet (in Japan they are separate rooms) at least once a week. I’ll watch the kids at school on their hands and knees cleaning the teacher’s room so diligently while I sit on my ass and do nothing. If only I could get away with it at home.

Dog’s butts are so cute! At least I’ve been lead to believe this since almost every dog in Japan has a curly or upturned tail to show off their adorable assholes. Kim will cry in excitement, “Look at that dog’s butt! It’s so cute!” at least once a day. Last week Kim was looking at Corgi Style magazine and half the pictures were of the corgi’s backsides framed by the figure of a heart to accentuate the animal’s heart shaped butt. Many cats in Japan have bobbed tails to expose their little kitty buttholes, but these cats are usually nowhere near as well groomed and magnificent as the dogs.

Just like the Japanese Kim will be very polite and nice to people especially coworkers and people she doesn’t know very well, even if she is boiling with rage and would really like to tell them off she smiles to their face. Mister Smiley meet my wife.

I can’t get up from sitting on the floor without either rocking back and forth to build up momentum or using my hands as leverage. Yet Kim can easily rise vertically while sitting in a perfectly straight Japanese pose with ease. All the Japanese kids at school sitting on the floor can do this too. I’ve noticed at restaurants that the foreigners all use their hands to get up but the Japanese don’t have to. How the hell is this possible? Much to the amusement of Kim I tried for a couple hours one rainy day to get up without rocking or using my hands and fell on my ass every damn time. They make it look so easy…

Kim likes very small and cute things that are nicely wrapped. According to the Japanese how well something is wrapped and in how many layers of wrapping signifies the quality of the present. Since I fail miserably at wrapping presents in general and usually bust out the gift bag instead it’s nice having a wife that loves to wrap. Unfortunately when Christmas, her birthday and Valentines day all roll around within a couple months of each other I’m screwed.

I believe I mentioned in the television post that the Japanese love food and traveling and half their shows on TV are of some celebrity personalities traveling to different restaurants and eating while shouting, “Oishi!” Guess who else practically lives for traveling and eating out at good restaurants? Then I read in a Korean travel book how Koreans like to go out to eat for every meal. I’ve since stopped trying to convince her to stay in when she wants to go to a restaurant. Why fight nature and nurture just to save a little money?

Japanese women and many many straight men carry around designer luxury purses and wallets. Kim’s philosophy is she would rather spend 600 dollars on something good that will last and she likes than some mid range out of style bag. It’s hard to argue with her when even the poorest Japanese woman takes out a $700 Louis Vuitton wallet out of her $1,500 Fendi purse to count out a few coins at the discount vegetable stand.

Japanese women are constantly in front of make up mirrors plucking their eyebrows and other errant hairs. Asian women are hairless and they like to keep it that way, damn it. But beyond that Kim likes sneak up on me and pluck my beard and neck hairs she thinks look ugly. IT HURTS! She’ll squeal with evil delight as I beg her to go away and stop her plucking. When I am too lazy or forget to shave female co-workers have commented on wanting to pluck some of my longer whiskers. What the hell. All Asian women need to keep me out of their hairless pluck fantasies.

While living in and around Los Angeles, the world capital of plastic surgery and breast implants, Kim was getting a little insecure about her small boobs on her small frame. In Japan large breasts are not a natural occurrence. I think the whole time I’ve been here I’ve seen a half dozen women with a C cup or bigger that weren’t obese. Even the overweight women will gain weight everywhere but their boobies. I’m happy because she feels much more confident that her body is in proportion and she is complimented on it often. Also, Kim is happy because the clothes in Japan fit much better, especially the wide variety of Japanese bras where, oh my god she’s a medium!

And finally Kim did what her mom did and what many other Japanese women would like to do, she married a white man. I’m not saying that most Japanese women want to marry westerners but for some women that want to escape the misogynistic culture of Japan and be a little different and worldly marrying a white dude like me is a dream. Also, the mixed hapa babies can be really cute.