by Kyoko Mori
Hiroko shook her head. “It was a good job, I’m sure,” she said. “But Nobuko worked so hard every day. All she did was work—even her travels were for work. That must have been such an empty feeling—to have nothing but your work.”
It must be an empty feeling, equally, to be married to someone who wants a perfect wife to advance his career, but I could not point that out because that statement might apply to Hiroko, too. Hiroko had quit her job at an airline a few years back when her husband was chosen by his company to study for an M.B.A. in Chicago. To go with him and take care of him, she had to give up her job. He didn’t speak much English. Hiroko is bilingual. He couldn’t have lived in Chicago or done his homework in English without her help. Hiroko, too, was a perfect wife for her husband’s career.
To be that perfect wife, she had given up a lot. Now that they were back in Japan, she was having a hard time finding a job: when she applied for jobs, she was told that she was qualified but too old. One employer even asked her if she had a friend with similar qualifications who was ten years younger. In Japan, where companies can openly discriminate against people on the basis of gender and age, Hiroko’s chance of getting a good job didn’t look great. Under those circumstances, she must want to believe, all the more, that marriage is more fulfilling than a job. It wasn’t my place to contradict her and make her feel bad about herself and Nobuko. But I didn’t think either of them was happy. Hiroko said nothing about her husband except that when they traveled together, they sometimes ran out of things to say to each other. That didn’t sound promising at all. Hiroko was not an exception—all our friends from school talk in the same way about their husbands. They are intelligent and outspoken women, not at all the kind of people who expect little from life. Why do they put up with getting nothing from their husbands?
My friends and I—“nice” Japanese girls—had been taught that whatever we did for ourselves was “empty,” while what we did to take care of other people, especially a husband or children, was “fulfilling.” We grew up watching our mothers working hard as housekeepers, silent hostesses, and errand-women for our fathers, who never thanked their wives except by a begrudging nod or barely audible grunt. We never saw our parents hug, never heard our fathers compliment our mothers on anything. Maybe we were too used to seeing our mothers making sacrifices for nothing. Women our age don’t expect any more from their marriages than our mothers did.
In my generation, as well as in my mother’s or grand-mother’s, Japanese marriages don’t provide women with “happiness.” None of my Japanese friends have ever talked about the great conversations they have with their husbands, the emotional support they get from them in times of trouble, or even the fun they have together on trips. People in Japan often say that the marriages of Americans—which are based on sexual attraction, love, and romance—can only lead to divorce because sexual attraction and love can fade away so easily. Japanese arranged marriages are more stable, they argue, since these matches are based on suitability. Maybe it’s true that romance often brings together people who are not so compatible with each other—half of my American friends are divorced. But those who stay together do so by choice, trying to work out their differences because they love each other. I cannot imagine how a traditional Japanese couple starting out with nothing but “suitability” can feel the same motivation to be happy together when they turn out to be incompatible—which must happen to many couples since their “suitability” is based on family background, not personalities. I can only conclude that they stay together because stability is more important than the happiness of either party.
Whenever I talk to Japanese women, I wonder if personal happiness is an American concept. The concept of happiness as an emotional “high” or personal “fulfillment” seems foreign to my Japanese friends. To them, happiness means stability and family harmony, living day to day and feeling useful and valued rather than despised as a selfish person. Though all my friends come from upper-middle-class families, most Japanese women, regardless of class or education, seem to share the same sense of happiness-as-stability-and-hard-work-for-others. The only women who are allowed to have “fun” in a more American sense—doing things that aren’t useful but enjoyable—are widows, women who have put in their time at the duty of marriage. These are women who are assumed to be too old for sex, love, or romance, and their “fun” usually involves spending time with old friends who are also widows. Finally free from men, these women can find happiness in one another’s company.
A few days after I visited my friend Hiroko, I went to see Mrs. Kuzuha, a woman who had been a good friend of my mother’s. Our two families had been neighbors in the early sixties, when we lived in the company-owned apartment complex before moving into houses of our own. Even after our move Mrs. Kuzuha and my mother spent a lot of time together; my brother and I played with the two Kuzuha boys, the younger of whom was my age. Until my mother’s death, we were like an extended family with two mothers and four kids.
Mrs. Kuzuha made me dinner at her house up on a hill in Ashiya, where she lives alone. Her husband had died two years before from cancer. The boys had gotten married and moved to Kyoto and Tokyo.
“When my husband died,” Mrs. Kuzuha told me at dinner, “I was sad, of course. He was a good person for the most part, though all men are selfish from time to time.” She nodded in a discreet way and went on. “I don’t resent him now for anything he did, and I was sorry for him during his illness. But it’s good to be on my own now. I want to enjoy myself and be happy in my old age. I’m grateful to him for working so hard and leaving me comfortable.”
She told me her daily routine. Every morning, she awoke at five and listened to the English conversation program on the radio. Lying in bed, she would repeat the sentences after the announcer. She wanted to improve her English because she and her friends often go to Europe on cruises. After getting up and having breakfast, she drove to the gym to exercise. She was in a Ping-Pong league.
“It isn’t a league just for old people,” she bragged, laughing. “There are men and women in their forties or even thirties. I have a pretty good serve. Once at a ski resort, I played with some college kids and won.”
A few times a week, she also took karaoke-singing lessons. This was the first time I had ever even heard of lessons for karaoke.
“Oh, it’s very popular,” Mrs. Kuzuha said. “Singing is good for both the body and the spirit. It clears your head and makes you feel more cheerful. To sing, you have to stand up straight and take a deep breath. It’s hard to feel depressed or lonely while standing up like that.” She demonstrated by straightening her back.
We were having a typical Japanese dinner, at which the hostess gets up every few minutes to make more food. Mrs. Kuzuha had first prepared stir-fried vegetables and tofu. Halfway through that course, she got up to cook a Japanese-style omelette for me; then it was time to put together a green salad, to cut up some fruit, to make coffee, to offer me a slice of cheesecake. Offering food is how a Japanese woman shows her love. Mrs. Kuzuha was waiting on me as she had waited on her family all her life, while talking about how much she enjoyed being on her own.
“I only regret that your mother didn’t live long enough to enjoy her old age,” she told me. “Our husbands died within a year of each other. We could have been widows together. It would have been so nice to travel with her.”
Being a Japanese widow is like being honorably retired. It is the only way a woman can be independent without being considered selfish.
I wasn’t at all surprised to see Mrs. Kuzuha enjoying her new independence. I know some widowed women in the States who are very active and happy. In the last ten or fifteen years, many of my friends have lost one of their grandparents or parents. When someone’s grandmother or mother died, the grandfather or the father often remarried right away or else got sick. When a woman was widowed, she tended to stay single. Though some suffered like the men, many became very independent. My friends’ grandparents and
parents came from the generation in which men’s and women’s duties were strictly divided. While the men were helpless around the house (cleaning, cooking, choosing the right things to wear), the women didn’t know how to balance checkbooks, arrange for house repairs, or travel on their own. Some of my friends’ mothers didn’t know how to pump gas at self-service stations. About half the women continued to depend on their children and neighbors, but the other half began to relish their new responsibilities and skills. I admired these women and was happy to see that Mrs. Kuzuha was their Japanese counterpart.
As a typical Japanese housewife, Mrs. Kuzuha was much better prepared to be alone than the American women I know. Mrs. Kuzuha never relied on her husband to make decisions about cars and finances. More than that, she did not expect her husband to make her happy or give her a lot of companionship, so his absence does not leave a big hole in her life. Now that he is gone, she does not think, I wonder what my husband would have said about this? or I wish he could have seen that because he would have laughed. She can say in a dry and matter-of-fact tone, “My husband was a good man, but I am happy to be on my own to enjoy my life. I wish my best friend were still alive so we could have been widows together.” I cannot imagine any American woman saying that.
Mrs. Kuzuha can be cheerful and matter-of-fact about her husband’s death because she is a Japanese woman. Her frankness is not shocking to anyone around her; it’s her widow’s privilege. But her position in society is not the only reason for her independence. She told me that when she was in her early forties, my mother’s death changed her life.
“I knew that your father was having an affair,” she said, “because I was your mother’s friend and she confided in me. But even my husband knew. He was in the office when someone said, ‘Mr. Mori’s wife just died.’ Another man who was there said, ‘Which wife?’” She paused and continued. “I was angry at my husband even though he wasn’t the one who had made the comment. All those men. They bragged to each other about their mistresses; they made me sick. Your mother’s death changed everything for me. When I saw her in the coffin—she was so smart and beautiful and this is how she ended up—I said to myself, ‘No man is going to drive me to this. I have to be strong and never depend on any man.’” She shook her head and sighed.
“Back then, I had no choice but to depend on my husband,” Mrs. Kuzuha continued. “I didn’t have any skills. I couldn’t make my own living. I had to stay home and raise our children. It wasn’t as though I could leave him and be on my own or go back to live with my parents without embarrassing them. Until your mother’s death, I had been resigned to all that. But my feelings changed. After your mother’s death, I made a resolution. I decided to expect nothing from my husband from then on, even though I stayed married to him. I knew I had to be happy on my own.”
When I visited Mrs. Kuzuha, I was already feeling unsure about my own marriage. After I got back to Green Bay, I often thought about my conversation with her. I kept remembering my mother’s funeral—the large bouquets of yellow chrysanthemums, the white incense smoke, the black and white drapery signaling death. Surrounded by these colors of mourning, Mrs. Kuzuha and I had made the exact same resolution. Seeing my mother in the coffin, I, too, had said to myself: I will never depend on any man to make me happy, I will be happy on my own. I was twelve then. I planned never to marry.
Twenty-four years later, I was married to a perfectly nice man. We had promised to make each other happy. And yet when we started disagreeing about where to live or how to spend our time together, I couldn’t try to work out our differences because I had never put aside my resolution from 1969. Even though I was married, I still considered myself to be on my own: I didn’t want to give up anything for anyone else—nor did I expect anyone to give up anything for me. Married or single, I believed, all of us are basically on our own through life.
“Nothing against my husband personally,” I often said to friends, “but I don’t ever want my marriage to be the most important thing in my life. I would have been just as happy if I had never married him. My life would have been different but as good.”
It was, I had to admit, an odd thing for a married person to say. I wondered if Chuck ever felt hurt to hear me say it. Many of the statements I made, I began to realize, must have sounded insensitive, even though I had only meant to be honest. When Chuck bought a motorcycle, I told him—and all my friends—that I was never going to ride on it because one of my childhood friends had died in a motorcycle accident and I had vowed never to drive or ride on one. When my friends asked me, “So how can you let your husband drive his motorcycle?” I answered, “I don’t think it’s my place to make decisions for him. He’s an adult. He can make up his own mind. What he does is absolutely none of my business.” What I said was fair—I expected to give and receive a lot of freedom—but in a way, I was saying that he was free to hurt himself or even die.
Once, Chuck asked me a question that surprised me. We were talking about his grandmother Alice, who had died of cancer two years after her husband’s death. “I think my grandmother didn’t want to be alive without my grandfather,” he said. “She didn’t want to be left all by herself. What do you think? When we get old, do you feel like it’s better to die first or to be left alone?”
“That’s kind of a morbid thing to ask, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It’s just a theoretical question. What do you think?”
“Is this a trick question?” I began to laugh because the whole thing seemed absurd.
“It’s not a trick question,” he insisted.
“If I don’t die first, my health is going to be OK and I’m going to have enough money to retire on and all that, right? Being left alone doesn’t mean being sick or poor.”
“That’s right,” he said.
By this time, I was laughing so hard that I could scarcely answer. I managed to say, “Of course I don’t want to die first. If I’m going to be healthy and have enough money, why would I want to die rather than be a widow?”
“What about because you would miss me and you wouldn’t want to be alone?”
“You must be kidding,” I said. “Sure I’d miss you, but not enough to want to shorten my own life. I hope you’d feel the same way yourself.”
He was quiet and he wouldn’t look at my face, so I knew he was offended. Even then, I thought it was because I had unintentionally insulted his grandmother. “Listen, I wasn’t saying that your grandmother was a weak person or anything like that,” I offered. “She came from a different generation. I understand why she felt she didn’t want to live without her husband. But we are different. We have no reason to be dependent on each other.” Chuck just shrugged, so I thought he was telling me that he’d accepted my explanation. We started talking about something else.
I now understand why Chuck felt hurt. He was saddened by my refusal to love him in a traditional way. Chuck is not a dependent or needy person at all. But even he believed in conventional romance and love—men and women wanting to die together rather than lose each other. It hurt him that I dismissed this ideal as irrational and even pathetic.
If I had been more thoughtful, I would not have sounded so insulting. I don’t think the romantic ideal of eternal love is pathetic. I shouldn’t have laughed when Chuck seemed to be advocating it. But I still would have told him that romantic and eternal love is like a religion I cannot believe in. When I meet someone who is deeply religious or in love, I can see why people have always talked of devotion as a kind of light: men and women with strong faith or love have eyes that shine or faces that look radiant. I can admire the beauty of their ideal from a distance, but it isn’t for me. Wanting to die for love strikes me as an irrational wish.
Maybe this is my legacy from Japan: I can be only as practical about love as I am about the body. Even though I did not want a Japanese marriage, which I consider oppressive, I never trusted the American ideal of romance and love that is forever. What I wanted was something different from both
of these traditions, something more practical but also fair.
If marriage can be compared to a car trip, a traditional Japanese marriage is a journey in which all the destinations as well as the routes are decided by society. The couple is handed a detailed itinerary they must follow. The man provides the car, the food, all the necessary supplies. Having done that, he can sit in the passenger’s seat and sleep, never saying a word. It is the woman who navigates and drives all the way in every kind of weather. No matter how tired she is, she can never ask the man to take over and let her rest; she just keeps driving, scarcely stopping to sleep or eat. This trip, obviously, would not be “fun.” I can’t imagine why any woman would want to get into the car except that standing on the side of the road, without a car, gives her a deep sense of shame and fear. She would rather be inside a car, where she can believe that she is secure.
In an ideal American marriage, the man and the woman jointly decide where they want to go, how to get there, and what to do along the way. They share the expenses and the driving and have fun together, but if they disagree about where to go or what to do, one of them will have to give up something he or she wants. If the trip works out, both parties are happy even though neither got everything he or she wanted. This is a trip I can understand as being worthwhile and good, though not for me.
The marriage I wanted—and had with Chuck for thirteen years—was one in which both the man and the woman had his or her own car. We would still travel in the same direction and stop along the way to meet—to share our experiences, to have fun, and to decide where to get together again. So long as we made it to our meeting place at the agreed-upon time, each of us was free to pick his or her own route and to do what he or she wanted. This marriage worked for us, but it didn’t prepare us for the time when we began to have serious disagreements about the direction each of us wanted to travel. The only logical solution was simply to go our separate ways, which we were prepared to do since both of us were used to being on our own. That isn’t to say that we do not miss each other’s company or the familiar routine of meeting along the way to share our stories. Splitting up was hard. It was sad. But it wasn’t anything like dying or wanting to die.
