| The story below is originally published on Mainichi Daily News by Mainichi Shinbun (http://mdn.mainichi.jp). |
| They admitted inventing its kinky features, or rather deliberately mistranslating them from the original gossip magazine. |
| In fact, this is far from the general Japanese' behavior or sense of worth. |
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| ※ この和訳はあくまでもボランティアの方々による一例であり、翻訳の正確さについては各自判断してください。 もし誤訳（の疑い）を発見した場合には、直接ページを編集して訂正するか翻訳者連絡掲示板に報告してください。 |
Japanese husbands whine as neglected Chinese brides do a runner 2006,04,07
Spa! 4/11 By Ryann Connell
Japan's increasingly prickly relations with China may have already captured headlines across the globe, but Spa! (4/11) reveals Sino-Japanese relations on a much more personal level -- marriage -- may be even more hostile.
And the weekly says it's Japanese blokes who're to blame.
While more Japanese and Chinese couples are tying the knot in Japan than ever before -- some 12,000 married in 2004 -- divorce rates are skyrocketing, with one in three Sino-Japanese marital unions ending in failure.
Many Japanese guys are quick to blame the women, but independent observers say it's not that cut-and-dried.
"Chinese women are, like any other women, interested in marrying and becoming happy.
They want their husbands to look after them.
They want them to serve them their rice and find time on their days off to go for a drive together.
They want praise and bright greetings when they wake up in the morning.
That kind of communication is vital in a relationship," Hiroyuki Yoshioka, head of Aobado -- a company that brokers marriages with Chinese women for Japanese male clients -- tells Spa!
Another broker, speaking on condition of anonymity, says sex is the key for survival of Japanese-Chinese marriages.
"Many of the girls coming to Japan have grown up in the country and have only ever done it once.
That was often with a guy they had been seeing for a long time, like half a year or so.
These women consequently place an enormous value on having sex.
After they marry, sex remains important as a way for their husband to physically express his love for her and, if there's no sex, trouble starts," the broker says.
"But Japanese guys get married and turn sexless.
Or, they can't get it up and want to use vibrators.
They've got to make an effort to do things that will please their wives, like falling asleep while cupping their breasts and stuff."
Japanese men's approach toward marrying Chinese women has also copped a blast, with many adopting the attitude that they were simply "buying a bride," according to Makoto Hinoshita, the president of Yokohama Bridal Service, tells Spa!
"There really are lots of people like that.
Some people come to me complaining that they'd paid a lot of money and their wife had run off on them.
Mind you, there was one case at another company where a guy whose wife left him after two years said:
'Well, if you figure it was like going to a brothel every night, then I got off cheap.'
There are also loads of guys who come to us with, shall we say, problems of the heart.
There are clearly some real mental cases.
Often, though, men simply don't try to understand their partner.
Loads of guys don't even try to remember a basic greeting in their wives' native language.
But the biggest problem of all is with guys whose parents live with them.
And in the countryside, parents almost always live with their eldest son."
Men in their 40s form the core of the international marriage brokerage business.
In Japan's boonies, where women are already sparse, marriage brokers flood single middle-aged men with advertisements for their services via direct mail, newspaper leaflets and on buses and taxis.
"There're absolutely loads of guys, particularly in the country, who turn to Chinese women because Japanese women wouldn't look at them.
Often these guys are being pressured by their parents to hurry up and get married and the guys respond by doing so at the first chance they get, for reasons like wanting to hurry up and produce a grandchild for their parents, or to produce a son of their own to take over the family business.
That's why you get 'Well, I've got the money, so I'll buy myself a Chinese bride' mentality," a member of a matchmaking club arranging international marriages tells Spa!
"If they're thinking like that, there's no way the marriage could possibly work.
But then, when the marriage fails, the guys blame the brokers for finding someone who wasn't right for them." (By Ryann Connell)
April 7, 2006
