{"id":8159,"date":"2009-08-19T12:23:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-19T16:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=8159"},"modified":"2009-08-19T12:24:31","modified_gmt":"2009-08-19T16:24:31","slug":"jet-alum-david-radtkes-understanding-japanese-women-reviewed-by-rick-ambrosio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/19\/jet-alum-david-radtkes-understanding-japanese-women-reviewed-by-rick-ambrosio\/","title":{"rendered":"JET Alum David Radtke’s “Understanding Japanese Women” reviewed by Rick Ambrosio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"understandingjnwomen\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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From the Summer 2009 “1\/4 Cheap Trick” Issue<\/strong><\/a> of <\/em>JQ (JETAA NY Quarterly) Magazine<\/strong><\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Like Japanese Girls? Then You Need This Book<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Rick Ambrosio<\/a> (Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There I was again, outside my apartment, in the car with Hitomi. Again, at this awkward moment where we both fidget and she puts the Toni Braxton CD in.\u00a0 This is of course, about 10 months ago now, back in Japan. Even after living in Japan for a year and a half, I still had moments like this; social impasses as I liked to call them.\u00a0 We both didn\u2019t know what to say, what to do. Well, in reality, I<\/em> didn\u2019t know what to say or do. This was before I understood what \u201cnan demo ii<\/em>\u201d really meant, before I could fully understand all the silent cues.\u00a0 This was before I read David Radtke\u2019s<\/strong> Understanding Japanese Women<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I know I know, you\u2019re thinking, \u201coh no, not another pick-up line book. Not another cheesy how-to.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s what I feared before I started reading it, too. However, I was delightfully surprised that the e-book was instead full of very useful tips for interacting with Japanese women. No pick-ups or tricks, just a lot of hard-won information from a lot of trial and error. Also, the mystifying question, \u201cwhy do I see so many attractive Japanese girls with super dorky Western guys?\u201d was finally answered!<\/p>\n

David J. Radtke graduated from Wayne State University in 1995 and was a JET in Shiga prefecture from 1995-1998.\u00a0 While there, like many other JET males before and after him, he did some dating and eventually settled down, married and had two genki<\/em> kids. After a few years of marriage, he began a Web site for other foreigners trying to understand Japanese women. It was here that he began doling out the wisdom he and others had gained from years of dating and marriage to help Westerners dealing with the confusion and frustration that one often encounters when dating women from another culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning there were only about 15 articles, and yet I began to receive e-mails from quite a few Western men (and even some Japanese women) about the content,\u201d David said. \u201cEach e-mail contained a battery of questions that the Web site had yet to cover. Many of the same questions kept popping up, but questions about problems that I had yet to experience were also included.\u201d\u00a0 Thus began David\u2019s research.<\/p>\n

Using Craig\u2019s List to swap questions from men across the globe and conducting interviews with Japanese men and women of all ages and stations, David began to piece together the main cultural roadblocks that existed not only for many Western men dating Japanese women, but also the issues andview points of Japanese men as well.\u00a0 \u201cThe more I talked with Japanese people, the more I found the same answers popping up,\u201d David said.\u00a0 \u201cThere was consistency. There was stability in the advice they gave me. And that was what I wanted\u2014solid, reliable advice to solve the problems Western men were having in relationships with Japanese women.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book tackles an assortment of issues from multiple angles, one of which I found interesting was confidence. This section of the book contained some guidance I felt would be found in other advice books; how to gain confidence and why it\u2019s important. Unlike other books, he then builds upon that by helping us understand the concept of confidence through the Japanese lens, and how it\u2019s displayed and perceived by Japanese men and women.\u00a0 It\u2019s these cultural insights from the book that are invaluable, and frankly, I wish I had known about before I went to Japan. The e-book takes situations that have left many a Western man furrowing their brow, breaks it down, explains the cultural significance from both the male and female perspective, and then suggests a thought-out way to deal with the situation.<\/p>\n

David isn\u2019t done, though. \u201cRight now I\u2019m doing the research for a second book on relationships with Japanese women [provisionally] called UJW – Marriage and Beyond<\/em>.\u201d His next e-book will cover the adjustments one needs to make when in an interracial marriage, from dealing with communication issues and raising bilingual children to in-laws and divorce.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s too late for me since I\u2019m back from Japan now, and those awkward silences in the parking lot with Hitomi are long gone, but Understanding Japanese Women <\/em>gave me some nostalgic flashbacks as well as a bunch of \u201cOOHH!, so that\u2019s why!\u201d moments. The e-book puts into writing many abstract concepts I tried explaining to my Western friends in America about dating in Japan. Many embarrassing situations could have been easier navigated had I read the book years ago. If I were in charge of JET (read: probably not a good idea) I\u2019d think about make it a required reading for single male JETs. It would certainly ease grassroots international relations and allow clearer perceptions of each other\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

I bet you\u2019re still wondering, \u201cWhat about the geeky guys and the cute girls!?\u201d\u00a0 Well, I suppose I could tell you, but I figure you\u2019ll just have to read the book to find out. (I can\u2019t spoil everything!) As for me, armed with all this new and useful information, it\u2019s about time I give Hikki Utada another call.<\/p>\n

David Radtke presently lives in Shiga and is working on his second e-book. His current publication is available online through his Web site at www.japandatingtips.com<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

************ From the Summer 2009 “1\/4 Cheap Trick” Issue of JQ (JETAA NY Quarterly) Magazine: Like Japanese Girls? Then You Need This Book By Rick Ambrosio (Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08) There I was again, outside my apartment, in the car with Hitomi. Again, at this awkward moment where we both fidget and she puts the Toni Braxton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[73,4,40,9,25,58,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-humor","category-interviewprofile","category-reviews","category-uncategorized","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-27B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8159"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8165,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions\/8165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}