Patricia has lived in Japan for the past ten years. Originally from France, she brings a lot of interesting insights about cross-cultural marriage and the philosophy one needs to practice in adjusting to living in a foreign culture.
What brought you to Japan?
I first came to Japan in 1998. I stayed for three months working for a language school, and then returned to France to graduate from university, where I’d been studying to be a French teacher. The next year I returned to Japan to stay and have been here ever since. When I arrived I had no working visa and no job. So I spent the first three months looking for a job where I could get sponsored to receive a working visa. I did find one—three weeks before my tourist visa was to expire.
But, truthfully, ever since I was a child my dream was to go to Japan. One reason was because it seemed nothing like Europe. I grew up in a very small town in the South of France. It was so boring and such a narrow world. The distance of Japan fascinated me and I longed to live somewhere very far away. So I read books, watched movies, and even started to learn the language at university where I made some Japanese friends. Although I was no “Japan freak” before I came here, I had formed an image of Japan from all of this. How could it be otherwise?
But I did have a more realistic attitude about Japan once I got here. I’d tried living abroad once before. I had fantasized about London and set off to live there in 1991 when I was 21, and ended up spending one of the worst years of my life there. So by the time I came to Japan I’d already experienced the clash of dreams and reality. I now came equipped with a different, more mature attitude, having become what I would call a “grown-up” migrant. I was able to let go of the images I had in me about Japan and could embrace the place plainly for what it is and nothing more.
Sometimes this process can be painful, but if you don’t do the work, your acclimation to the culture may take a long time or even become impossible. You’ll search too much for something that cannot be. Still today I keep this attitude with me and my knowledge of Japan does not come from books. It is first-hand knowledge. This is what I trust the most. Of course, when there is something I want to dig into, I do enjoy reading books, essays, etc. But reading and intellectualizing only come later.
Where and how did you meet your husband?
I met him in Tokyo. He’d put an ad in the magazine “Metropolis” for a language exchange. He was looking for someone to teach him French, and I had decided to start studying Japanese again after a two-year break. I’d done many language exchanges in the past and was expecting to meet another bunch of weirdos, as had been the case so many times before. But this time I got lucky!
Did you marry right away?
After about four or five months of dating, we moved into a house together and lived there for about a year before we got married. Looking for our first place together was fun, but at the same time, it brought with it the first real cross-cultural fight in our relationship.
My husband believes in Japanese astrology, which is known as kigaku. When deciding to move, kigaku will indicate the best physical direction to go to so that your life in general will benefit from your move. I’d heard about kigaku before, and actually one of my Japanese friends had tried practicing it. At the time it sounded very cool and interesting. But when it came to my having to adhere to the dictates of kigaku for finding a place to live, it didn’t seem so cool anymore!
The best direction for both my future husband and me led to a very tiny spot on the map of Tokyo, especially small since Tokyo is such a big city. I couldn’t believe this was to be our only choice. And what’s more, I didn’t like this particular area of Tokyo and couldn’t picture myself living there. I was so infuriated at this prospect that we finally were forced to agree on a compromise. I decided we’d live in the best direction for him and the worst for me. This wasn’t to please him, but only because I liked this area much better!
After we married and had our daughter, we moved once more, again according to the dictates of kigaku. I got used to the idea and accept it now. But I am not sure if I can truly believe in kigaku. I suppose time will tell.
What are the challenges of living in Japan?
That’s a difficult question to answer. After living here for ten years, and speaking on a general level, I honestly don’t know anymore.
Many of the things that used to upset me in the beginning don’t upset me any longer. This is mostly because now I have the keys to my questions, a better understanding of Japanese society and some tools I can use to react. When I was a newcomer to Japan, it was like being a baby. All I could do was cry, pester and get angry. Cultural communication was a nightmare and so energy-consuming. All I had in my head were questions, but no answers. And of course, you fall into the trap of comparing everything with how it is in your home country, and of course everything being better there obviously. But then little by little, with time and experience, my ways of dealing with the challenges of living in Japan grew more complex and subtle.
Anyway, I’m done with criticizing every aspect of Japan. Some people still do that a lot. But now that I am irrevocably linked to this country, I cannot possibly do that anymore—not if I want to give myself a chance to be fully happy here. And for that I need to find ways to be at peace with Japanese society and deal efficiently with the frustrations that sometimes come with being a part of it.
I think I have finally carved out a place for myself where I feel comfortable. I have also found out that being married to a Japanese man has increased this level of comfort. Being with my husband allows me to immerse myself in this society and explore it in a way that I’d never been able to experience before. Having him by my side makes me feel secure; not because he’s a man but because he is from here. It’s an incredible asset and it feels wonderful.
I do have to say, though, that being a mother in Japan has brought new challenges. For example, when I became pregnant and had to go through the rounds of medical checkups, communicating in Japanese became overwhelming with so much new terminology to master and having to deal with it in real time.
And becoming a mother here disrupted my life in ways I would have never have had to think and worry about in France. Even though I know now I shouldn’t compare, I resented the fear that rose inside me of possibly having to lose my job, the lack of flexibility in the system and the little choice women have to really choose on how they want to do things. Just finding a clinic that would offer an epidural turned into a nightmare (and this is in Tokyo so I’m assuming that women in the countryside have even less choice or no choice at all). And then I discovered that this clinic did not also offer the choice of natural childbirth. Having to decide such a thing in the early stages of pregnancy put me under a lot of stress.
Stay tuned for Part Two of Patricia's interview!
—Wendy Nelson Tokunaga conducted this interview. She is the author of the novels, Love in Translation and Midori by Moonlight. Get more info at: http://www.WendyTokunaga.com
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