Well I just wrote an entire post that took forever only for the entire thing to freeze up and lose it al....so...

We shall try again tomorrow.

Otherwise this laptop may have an untimely death.

How the impossible Happened...or how my father puts it...Finally! A man who is responsible!

My mother is recently laid off, but for the past three years she worked for a Japanese company in their American branch (clearly cause we're not in Japan). Anyhow, during these three years, off and on there came a young Japanese man who spoke flawless english and who my mother just adored. Also during these years, I was in two very abusive and very damaging relationships...so in her last year of work...I had closed myself off from the world, and entirely away from men.

The company that my mother and my now current Jman, is a massive food company, and from what I hear, is the number one food company in Japan. Anyhow, one night after work, I was feeling down and out, and decked out in my pink sweats when my mother called me and asked me if I would like to eat with her to test the new menu at one of the locations the company owned. To be honest, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I was sad, I was pretty sure I was getting sick, and I wasn't hungry. Those days, all I did was work out, go to work, and go to bed (I worked 12 hour days...so I used that as an excuse to all my friends on why I was in hiding...but truth was...I was completely broken and completely terrified of the world at that point).

Anyhow, it's an hour drive to my mother's, and I was living with her because...well...I had ran away from everything but work and my mother didn't think it was a good idea for me to live alone, or to live with anyone but her. (She was right about that now that I look back). Anyhow...the week before I had joined her for dinner with her two Japanese female coworkers (and now our best friends, but it was the second time I ever met them) and the topic came up on when I would start dating again. Everyone had been pushing me to date. I'm blessed by being easy on the eyes...and if I don't speak...or move, I come off as a very elegnant, doll like girl...however, when I do talk, or move, I'm clumsby and I'm very dorky and nerdy. Everyone who ever gets to know me tell me that I shocked them because I look so stuck up, until you finally say hi to me (cause I'm also shy) and then well...heels make me trip and Star Trek makes my heart flutter...and I'm usually always dressed up...so I'm sure I come off as a kid. I feel like a kid. I feel like most of the time I'm just pretending to be an adult, but that's a different manner. The point is, almost everyday of my life since I was 16, I get asked out. At gas stations, coffee houses, work, stuck in traffic on the freeway...and you'd think the attention would boost my esteem but I'm so frighten of people that I actually have a fear of crowds. So...my answer is always no. No dinner, no ice cream, no you cannot touch my hair, no I don't really work here, no I don't want to pull over, and no I don't want your number. However...when you're about to turn 26...everyone starts pushing you into the marriage stage of your life, and people were starting to ask me what was wrong with me.

Nothing was wrong with me. I was left at the alter at 20 by the only man I had ever been with, I had been engaged to a man who was already married, and then to a man who beat the abosolute crap out of me a week before he left me with nothing at the airport (except scars on my legs where he had stabbed me with keys and a fake engagement ring). And just a line of losers....so I was done with it. I had decided that I was just over it. My healthy relationships all ended due to my race...of combination of race I guess I should say. I was too American for a middle easterner and too middle easterner for an American...so I was just over all screwed and truly just had had it with men.

So whenever mother's friends were pushing me to go out there and be brave, I smiled and stayed polite, but I truly never ever wanted to be with anyone ever again. So it was an effort to get me to leave the house unless it was something dealing with work or family. So I unwillingly accepted my mother's invite (since it would help her with work) and went in my sweats from work to the little diner.

While we were at the diner, the conversation was brought up again on when I would start dating again..and my mother brought up once again, the young hot shot that worked with her. I told her that there was no way a Japanese man would be attracked to a woman who had a large ass and brown hair when suddenly, the guy came in! I, of course, had no idea who the guy was, but he walked on in with another Japanese salaryman and sat behind us. The entire time we were eating, the guy was staring at me, to the point that I started regretting my pink sweats and my lack of make up save for chapstick. I knew I looked like a kid. In fact, when he first saw me, he wasn't even sure I was out of high school because I have a very childish face unless I paint a more adult looking face (Which my Jman told me makes me look unfriendly, but it does help at work). So I couldn't eat, and I was mad at my mother until finally the guy got up and came to say hi to my mother. He came by, hands in his pockets, and rocked back and forth on his heels with a huge smile saying hellos to my mother, and then looked at me. My mother introduced me, and he said hello..and instead of saying something...I just waved because I'm an idoit.

So he went back to his table and I bolted with my mother back to our cars. As we were getting into our cars, I could see through the diner window that he was watching us leave...and I'm sure he saw me hit my head on my steering wheeling because I was cursing the fact that I waved and totally ignored his offer to shake hands.

A Different Point of View

I've spent the past year searching around for people on and offline who are American born and raised women of non-Asian decent...with a born and raised Japanese man...of pure Japanese decent (which is pretty much all of them). Well....I hardly found anyone...and the ones I did find I found extremely depressing, or selfish, or rude or just plain stupid. So....welcome to my blog. I'm currently living (for the past year) with a Japanese salaryman, who is 25, fluent in english, and is working at a Japanese company here in California til 2013 in which then we will move to Japan. We plan on marrying in October (or sooner, eloping is seeming more and more appealing as we're realizing the cost of everything)...and no, I have yet to set foot in Japan. (So I'm sure that'll be fun to read...massive culture shock I'm sure). I am a 26 year-old American woman, of German decent (thanks to my blond, blue eyed mother who did the match making with the Jman I'm with) and of Persian decent (my father...so I'm like a lighter, saner version of Kim Kardashian).

I'm raised pretty evenly with western and eastern ideals...I've been engaged to both American men and middle eastern men...and had a guess a long fling with Saudi royality which ended with me throwing a packed suitcase at his cheating head...so my point is...I'm not inexperinced in men, nor am I a push over....however...I am a traditionalist. I do believe in male and female roles, but I also believe that women should always work (since bored women turn into evil trolls) and I do believe that relationships are a partnership and if the man is working 14 hours a day, it's a piece of cake to have a decent meal and a bath ready for him. I don't see any shame in that. If the roles were reversed, which at times they were, I know for sure he would do the same for me.

The point of my blog is to show women that Japanese men aren't these selfish, backwards, womomaziers that almost everyone is claiming them to be (however rarely any of them have evidence of this, nor do I see any true abuse). And since I've had true abusive relationships (with Saudis) and have had beatings, and have been unaccepted by familes and have been kept secret and abondoned at airports...let me say something....Japanese men are pretty damn nice guys.

I think a lot of western women have issues with Japanese men because most of us are not use to cooking, cleaning, keeping our manners even when we're boiling, waiting for him to come home, and things like that...but that by no means is THEIR fault. It's just different. Persian men are the same. My father worked around the clock and when he came home, there was dinner, and I would usually come and rub his feet or give him control of the remote...and that's not letting go of feminism...that's allowing the poor man to rest! Think about it...if someone in the household is busting ass to provide...then everyone else should join in the hard work too. Be it...kids making the beds, or wives cooking dinner...or not yelling at the poor guy for missing dinner cause he was trapped in a meeting...things like that.

Now that's if you trust the man, if you think the guy is lying and his meetings happen to be at strip clubs (which happened to me at the start of my relationship) then by all means it's time to lay down the law. But if he's whinning cause he wants to be mothered or if he's sad because his job seems hopeless to him...then don't critize the poor guy...he's had enough of it.

I'm a horrible cook. I am. But God knows, when I see my man come home, tired with his heavy briefcase...I'm sure as hell learning to do my best. And that's what I'm getting at...just because Japanese men aren't very expressive doesn't mean they aren't trying just as hard as you are...believe me they are...and I'm sure it's very hard to adjust to a western woman just like it's hard for us to adjust to an Eastern man..but I believe it's completely worth it because the kindest men I have ever met in my life...the kindest people...are Japanese people.

So..with that said....I'll write a few entries on how we met, and what our lives are like and the adjusting of it all, but the entire point I want to make is....give the guys a break and try to accept some sort of balance between gender roles.

Of course I could be eating all of this up once I go to Japan but who knows. The thing I want to do is try to record as fairly as possible my relationship with my Jman...or whatever...haven't decided if I should use his name or not.