Yuko was at school yesterday to check on some things, and she met an old classmate she hadn’t seen in 7-8 years. He now works for Hitachi. He’s also an active mountain climber, and has climbed to the top of Everest. He was at the university to meet with students in the mountain climbing club. Being sempai (alum), it’s something he has to do periodically. They would have liked to talk some more, but because he’s now married, it’s generally not viewed in a positive way when a man has coffee with a “female” friend. In fact, it’s not rare to have a Japanese wife looking through the husband’s pockets after he comes home, as well as looking at his contacts on his mobile.
A while back he was working on a project at Hitachi, and his superior became angry with what he had done (not up to par or something). He ordered him to shave his head in punishment, which he promptly did.
Category: General
shocking. is that a norm of Japanese society? are you the only one who would be shocked at such behaviour?
I don’t think everyone is like that. My wife which is Japanese and her friends are not like that for sure.
Whenever I’ve been in relationships with Japanese women I’ve found them extremely respectful of privacy. Nobody would ever look through my e mail or anything like that, even if they suspected I was up to something.
As for the head-shaving, I do find that surprising. But I have little experience of working at Japanese companies. I mean, Sony Music Japan hasn’t asked me to shave my head because my songs aren’t earning enough money. Not yet, anyway…
I’m not saying this is for everyone, but from what I understand, it’s like this for a lot of conservative couples. Japanese girls that go out with foreigners, or who have a lot of foreign friends, tend to not be in that norm. I have to say that I wasn’t that surprised when Yuko told me this stuff, as I’ve heard of similar things in the past. The image I have a typical Japanese household is the wife as the head of the family, taking control of the finances, giving the husband a small allowance, etc. As for corporate culture, I’d never heard of shaving heads, but you often hear about punishments, psychological assaults, denigration, etc. Being a foreigner working in that kind of environment, you would certainly be exempt.
I guess the trick is to arrange some kind of situation where it is socially acceptable to meet. If you were to go with Yuko to meet the mountain climber, surely it’s okay, right?
I guess the next trick would be for you to cancel at the last minute, leaving Yuko to go alone.
Of course, this kind of ‘do-as-you-please’ (J. tekitou) bending and manipulation of social rules could make some people angry!
My wife looks through my wallet, business papers, phone contacts, interrogates my friends and bugs the apartment when she leaves to go shopping or whatever.She says that nearly all Japanese women do it but some men don’t realise it.