Jun 6

Justin’s Japan: Interview with Author Wendy Nelson Tokunaga on ‘Marriage in Translation’

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"I think it’s a gift to experience living in another culture, and if everyone in the world could have the chance to live in another country for a time, the world would probably be a better place." (Photo courtesy of the author)

By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his page here for related stories.

A “certified mad Japanophile,” San Francisco-born and bred writer Wendy Nelson Tokunaga has lived her whole life in the Bay Area, save for a stint in Tokyo in the 1980s after winning a songwriting contest sponsored by Japan Victor Records. Since then, she has penned two Japan-related novels, Midori by Moonlight and Love in Translation.

Her new book, Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband, is a series of illuminating interviews conducted by the author with Western women who talk candidly about the challenges in making cross-cultural marriages work both inside and outside Japan, and the joys and frustrations of adapting to a different culture. Tokunaga explores the theme of why some people feel the need to trade in their native culture for a new one, revealing new insights about Japan and married life. I caught up with the author in this exclusive interview.

What made you decide to write about this topic?

I’ve dated Japanese men and am now married to a Japanese born and raised in Osaka. I’ve always noticed how there are many more Western man/Japanese woman couples than the opposite. Even today, with the Internet and social media and the world shrinking, this pairing is still relatively rare and I think the reasons why are intriguing and fascinating.

The book originally started out as blog entries. When did you get the feeling that it deserved to be a book?

These series of interviews elicited a lot of interest from my blog readers and I got contacted by a couple of small publishers asking if I wanted to make it into a book.

Why did you choose to publish it as an eBook?

I’ve had experience with a traditional publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for my two novels, Midori by Moonlight and Love in Translation. I know how long it takes to get a traditional book published and I wanted to get this book out into the world while the interest was still high. I also wanted to dip my toe into the burgeoning world of eBook publishing and thought this would be a great opportunity.

The list price of $2.99 is certainly attractive. What’s your impression of the sales so far?

I think my sales have been pretty good thus far, especially when you take into consideration that I basically have only marketed this book via Twitter and by doing a bit of other online publicity. It’s a niche book for sure and I’ve also been donating 50% of the sales to Japan Relief. I certainly am not in it for the money!

You said that your husband Manabu felt he never “fit in” in Japan. Would you say this is a common trait among Japanese men who settle down outside of their home countries or cultures? Do you think this might hold less true for Americans who move to Japan?

This is another big question! I don’t have statistics to prove this, but through my own anecdotal evidence and observations over the years I have found that not many Japanese end up moving abroad permanently. There are many reasons for this. First, they don’t have the economic issues that many other immigrants face, and of course there is the tendency to feel that Japanese society is “unique” and can’t be duplicated anywhere else, so why leave?

So I would assume that for a Japanese man to move away from Japan there has to be some pretty compelling reason, especially since they also don’t tend to marry foreign women (though in Japan there are more Japanese men married to non-Japanese than Japanese women married to non-Japanese men. However, these women are usually of Asian ethnicity).

As you probably well know, an American man’s experience in Japan is often quite different. He can be seen as exotic and desirable (at least in the honeymoon stage of his stay) and even though he might undergo a lot of culture shock, things can be quite comfortable for him. Of course I have no choice but to generalize, but I have to say that the differences in experiences between an American man moving to Japan and a Japanese man moving to America couldn’t be more striking. There is nothing special about a Japanese man here in the States, but a gaijin in Japan still causes excitement to this day. On the other hand, to briefly open another topic, we certainly know of the quite different reasons why Japanese women would want to leave Japan. I explore that theme in Midori by Moonlight.

At least one of the interviewees served as a participant of Japan’s global exchange initiative, the JET Program. Tell us about the personal value of living in another country as a young adult compared with being a bit older and moving there with the intention to raise a family.

Well, for one thing a person coming to Japan on the JET Program is usually only going to be in Japan on a temporary basis and, from what I understand, the program purposely hires people who know little about Japan. So they come with no expectations and quite often leave with a wonderful experience. The Western woman coming to Japan to raise a family with her Japanese husband is in a much different situation. And I think the experience will have its differences whether she has been interested in Japanese culture all along or only came into contact with it by meeting her husband abroad. Either way, I think it’s a gift to experience living in another culture and if everyone in the world could have the chance to live in another country for a time, the world would probably be a better place.