Brazilian And Caribbean Wax

My first cultural hostión

Oh, Japan, land of geeks fills you,

abnormalities absolute and cultural chasms,

but this time ... I've spent three villages.

Today I tell a beautiful story of cultural differences between Japan and the rest of the developed world.

Well, for starters I will say that I have a few coleguillas in Tokyo, why not say, are almost all women. But this is nothing more and nothing less, they are more likely to talk to strangers, in Finland the same thing happened to me.

At this point, I will tell you one of those people have family in Nara, ie 15 minutes from my house. And he came because he had a family meal. In fact I had a weird name, but of course, here, everything has a name (even have a single word to greet new year ...).

Anyway, the chick is leaking a little from the standard Japanese mentality is much more open since who has been living a couple of years in France, and like it or not, it shows a lot. In fact, the reason he is living in Tokyo is because you do not like the archetype of the people of Nara, that is rural (And that Nara should be of major cities in the Kansai area in where cities such as Osaka and Kyoto).

The girl I really like because it seems a English Japanese put in a body, in fact, told me things like that on his return from Europe, the same thing happened to me with Japanese food, or I try to explain certain eccentricities of their culture (the rest of the Japanese when you do not know how to explain something, it just says "is that it is an island country "or" is that you are a foreigner and do not understand "and it is as if to say irrefutable universal truth and change the conversation touches on how stupid the answer.)

The fact is that when the family ended with a desire to scoot came back to Tokyo impressive, and even gave us time to drink coffee as in many other occasions, so I decided to accompany the train to Kyoto (here the train for free while you do not leave the station), so you can Habar with it (because the felt supernerviosa).

In the train, I felt very sad, and I was having a funny conversation that he did not think in "their problems", but it was obvious he needed to tell what happened (as here in Japan people do not have anything, they eat their rolls and end up exploding and killing themselves in many cases).

• understood my email.

• Yes, of course, you came to eat with your parents.

• Yeah, well .. but is that the food was ....

As I said these words, his eyes filled with tears, but did not cry, at least not made public. The Japanese do not externalize their feelings, can not eat them with potatoes. And one that's not an idiot but what seems ...

• What's wrong?

react

She takes a second, swallows, deasvía look and tell me with crystalline eyes full of tears ...

• is a man I've ever met.

• Oh well, what?

• who wants to marry me.

Right now, my face showed up stoned, because the last time I saw this girl was in the end of the year, and if I remember had no boyfriend or anything resembling it. And I thought to myself .. Fuck it like the Japanese curran so little time! Nothing, nothing! A cheer for the girl, but there was something I did not square with what she said:

• food with my parents was to introduce me to my potential husband.

• Mmmm ... "Arranged marriage? ... Do not mess around!

• Si.

• And what do you think ...

• is that my parents ... I have not been denied.

tearful eyes were nothing more that she did not agree to anything to get married, let alone a person who had just met.

She began to laugh to see my face in absolute amazement.

Then she started telling me details of the ceremony. His parents, because the chick is 28 and not married or had a boyfriend, decided to arrange an appointment series (meals where you have a viable partner they choose in advance) and that are eaten where you face to face with your possible future partner (because, fortunately, both must agree), but you see, family pressure makes the girl, not yet wanting, say yes.

Those who've seen this series of Lost (what the guys who hit a piñazo on a plane on an island superchunga), there is espisodio that tells the story of a Japanese father which makes same.

She is a girl who has triumphed in life. He has been living in France studying at prestigious design schools. Does your small apartment rented from just 20 square meters Rapongi (the very heart of Tokyo (in fact, is an area of \u200b\u200bembassies and business centers), and has a salary that allows you paid all that, their little quirks, and Finally, be independent (which many of us dream in Spain or in many other parts of the world. His only problem has been overcome the barrier of 25 years without being married, and his father is the chairman for the Kansai area of large Japanese corporations lesas macro whose name I can not remember nor do I care (though I think it was ... "Mitsubishi? Who cares.)

The problem of Japanese society is that they work absorbs a lot of time, travel by public transport last that long, but it closed are groups of people (you have as friends those people that have a common bond, that is, your friends are your colleagues, and if you're lucky to do anything but as a club of something, these people. If you change jobs or city, you lose your friends to beat the previous the new work or club, others become mere acquaintances. It's sad, but it is.).

try to play the thing, talking, laughing, but really I was thinking about how to approach it. Seeing her tears betrayed actually did not want that, I started to have what I thought about it with complete candor. I talked about this sort of thing, are legacies of the past, which today have no place, that while he understood that until 50 years ago could be acceptable today may not be admissible in any way. She could not accept she was forced to make an important decision. Told that she was the mistress of her life, she could only make their own decisions.

She told me that could not be denied by family pressure (or so I understood) that their parents had known in the same way that as they had done well, and since his father retires next year, because they wanted to before the retirement of his father, who was already married or in order to do so, since its younger sister was already married.

To which I refuted that his company had was the ruling that they had been taught to obey and be quiet, to just follow the decision of their leaders, family and seniors. Nobody called into question their decisions, and no one expressed what I really wanted. For parents, the happiness of his daughter went to see her married, when in fact, that his happiness was going to continue doing your life. I spoke to him that although cost him much, he should do to see her parents of her life, not theirs, that she must make their own decisions, without conditions, without pressure (meteis parents too much pressure, and wrong is that you not perceive account, but somehow I see it normal, is actually the love for us.)

I told him that he must live in harmony with his heart and his head quietly, and sometimes this meant confronting the people she loves and wants (in this case confront their parents), I would not give his arm to twist, because in the end was his life, not theirs. And they pursued their dreams at any cost, at whatever cost, because Finally, those who love it, if you really love, would finally understand it, accept it for her.

I told my struggle to come to Japan, the discussions with my mother for wanting to leave work cojonudo next to my house, the endless discussions under the title "and that want to go to Japan?" For days, months , years ... three years I have been slow to come to Japan. Three years, and finally, my mother noticed, accepted, and gave me the most important and expensive, it was she who gave me the ticket to come to Osaka. Actually she was the one I completed the piece I needed to fulfill my dream, she, the person she refused come to me. Now is the person to whom I owe more grateful for everything.

I told him that he must listen to others, their parents, their friends, but take those words as mere points of view, what they would do, but only and only she could make a decision that will influence the insurance rest of his life, especially seeing how sexist Japanese society is (here is the woman to the kitchen, keeping house, children and husband).

And finally I said, she was self-sufficient, did not need anyone or anything, and if I decided to share his life, was because they had decided, chosen, and accepted for himself. But who knew that modern society in Spain, people do not home as much as before. I even told him that I personally spent time getting married because it is more beautiful (live in sin every day) in a way that you know you have to take care of the family every day, because you have nothing with it, you have that currártelo every day, and if you marry, you trust, because total ... she will continue to be your wife ...

When I finished speaking, I looked into the eyes directly. They were not crystal clear at all. What's more, were more open than usual. They had a special glow, and his face relaxed with a slight smile.

He said he had given a morale boost, I would ignore. He added that he liked the way the English thought, and hated to have been Japanese. Obviously, I told him that was what touched him being that his company had many bad things, but also many many good, just like mine, but was just fighting with other weapons, to know how to fight. Quiet sleep that night thinking of nothing, and that upon waking, the first decision that will pass through the head on this subject, what she really wanted to do, which is the response of your subconscious, and abide by that decision cost what it might cost him if he did not care a decision someone else, who dropped a coin. But always, in any decision to take, your heart is warm and calm and cool head to think straight.

I gave him a kiss on the cheek like a father gives a son, I smiled, nodded, and got on the train back to Nara.

I think she is no longer getting married, but more importantly, for her, since today is the starting point for a new life that will finally make their own decisions, no longer accept decisions taken by others in her life, she is self-sufficient.

Have you started the rebellion in the minds in Japan?

luck in life, Kyoko.