July 8, 2004
The other night, I was driving my girlfriend's car. She was sitting beside me, and we were on our way to her house after dinner.
I've finally gotten used to driving on the left side of the road. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be, it only took a little bit of practice. But usually, I accidentally hit the windshield wipers instead of the turn-signal owing to how the controls on the steering column in a Japanese car are reversed from what I'm used to.
It was a good dinner we had, there's a rather smashing yakitori restaurant we like to frequent. And since I was the designated driver this evening, Haruna uncharacteristically had a bit of alcohol inside her. A single mouthful of wine is enough to give her the giggles, so she rarely drinks anything.
"I heard a joke at work." Haruna said to me, her face nicely pink. "And I wanted to ask a question..."
"Okay, what was the joke?"
"The best kind of life is to have an English house, an American salary, a Chinese cook and a Japanese wife."
"Uh huh." I smiled inwardly. I could tell where this was going...
"And the worst kind of life is to have a Japanese apartment, a Chinese salary, an English cook and an American wife." She continued.
"Yes, I've heard that one."
"I know why it's not good to have a Japanese apartment. And I know why it's not good to have an English cook, even though I didn't really mind the food when I was a student back in England..."
"Uh huh?" I nodded as I stopped at a red light.
"But why is it so terrible to have an American wife?" She asked.
I stifled a laugh. For about three long seconds I looked at the intersection silently. An entire galaxy of possible responses were flooding my mind. And all of them would've been about equally valid, too.
"Honey, it's a hard question to answer. Maybe too hard." I smiled and sighed. How do you say 'hectoring, implacable soul-suckers' in Japanese?
"Why?" She asked again.
"Er... um... well... it's hard to say this without sounding mean." I sighed, picked the best answer and cleared my throat. "But the instant you marry an American woman, from that day forward you will always become wrong about everything. You'll never win another argument. Oh, and you can guarantee that there will be plenty of arguments, but you'll never win a single one. You'll always be on the losing end of any compromise. Nothing you do will be satisfactory, everything you do will be inadequate. If you cook for them, they'll say 'I don't like this, I don't like that'. If you give them a present, they'll say: 'it's the wrong color, I don't like it, get me a new one'. If you put two feet on the ground, they'll say you're doing it wrong. If you breathe, they'll say you're doing it wrong. If your blood circulates through your veins, they'll say you're doing it all wrong. An American wife will constantly rip you down and give you a constant earache and make you pray for an early death." I turned to look back at her. "So that's the short answer. And maybe it's the kindest answer, too."
"I see." Haruna laughed. "So is it true that Japanese women make good wives?" She put her head on my shoulder and gazed adoringly up at me.
"There simply isn't a fair basis for comparison, honey." I shrugged and focused my eyes at the intersection. "It's like comparing a bottle of champagne to a bottle of radioactive fart-gas." The light turned green and I drove-off.
In hindsight, the most difficult thing about answering her question was simply choosing one answer out of so soooo many.
And you know what the saddest thing is?
Whenever you say bad things about American women to people outside the U.S., hardly anybody disagrees with you.