The hubris of the nouveau riche Tokyo expat woman

Before you read this post, there is a disclaimer:  none of the examples that are stated below are completely real or related to any single person I have met.  The details are exaggerated or changed purely to make the point I am intending to make or may come from the experiences of someone else that I know.  And to the extent that they are drawn from my daily experiences, I muddled them up quite a bit and seriously exaggerated, and maybe I have been a little autobiographical, but will avoid boring you with the part where I had to eat crow.  To the extent that any reader may recognize herself as an offender, chances are I haven’t met you at all and that I may even be talking about me.  Frankly, I hope no reader of this post recognizes herself as an offender, and if she does, that she takes this post for what it is, a few words of caution, or uses it as a little bit of self-reflection and as a chance to not make the same mistake twice.   Honestly, I can’t say I’ve been completely innocent.  I’ve caught myself doing this, and I’ve had to stop and think about what I might be saying, but I generally only try to  make a fool of myself on the Internet these days.

Another disclaimer:  I am not bringing men into the equation because men seem to all know the size of each others’ packages, and if they talk about it over beers, that’s their business.  I seriously doubt they do.  Most men I know don’t discuss such things.  Further, I am removing working women from the equation as well because they are very rarely the offenders.  Obviously, I am writing about those stay at home women who talk too much about money.

Although times are tougher and companies are cutting back on expat packages or sending expats back home, there are still a good number of families here who are living the high life.  There are families who get the nearly million yen a month housing allowance, the big COLA adjustment to account for the weakening dollar, a 100% tuition allowance for all of their children to attend international preschools/schools, electricity allowances, cable allowances, one or two free business class flights back home a year for every member of the family, etc., etc.  In fact, there are still a good many of these families, and in certain neighborhoods, they outnumber the families who don’t receive the ”full package.”  Most women recognize that they are getting a really sweet deal with what may amount to a couple hundred thousand or even a half million dollars in additional compensation a year or more, and most are silent about it or if they need to talk about it express only gratitude for the windfall.   Okay, just writing about these families makes me envy the packages they receive, but I’d never say that in public to any of them.

There are a few women out there who are so arrogant that they act as though they are entitled to all the perks of living in Tokyo.  These women are the exception and not the rule, but they are not so uncommon.  There’s no set pattern to discern from where these women hail, some are Midwestern, some are New Yorker types, and a good number don’t actually come from the United States but from other parts of the world such as India or France or England or Singapore or…you get the point.  I’m not just picking on American women or singling them out.  The only thing these offenders seem to have in common is their need to be better than the others around them. 

I have to wonder what goes through the mind of one of these women.  Does she not recognize that the English-speaking expat community is small enough that there’s probably only a one degree separation for every member?  Does she not recognize that the woman about whom she complains to herself in the grocery store for accidentally bumping a cart may hear her and may be the wife of her husband’s most profitable client (or may be her husband’s most profitable client) and may recognize the wife from a photo on her husband’s desk?  Does she not ever consider that the mom on the playground to whom she is bragging that her son is a sure shot to get into a certain school because he is a “genius” or “gifted” may actually sit on the board of directors for that school or may be best friends or married to someone who sits on the board?  Does she not realize that the woman to whom she is gossiping on the playground about another person may actually know that other person and be close friends with him or her?  Does she not know that she may one day be stuck at a dinner party sitting next to that other person who knows all about what she said to her friend on the playground? 

Some oblivious women are actually harming their husbands’ careers or severely shortening their duration of living the “high life” and have no idea they’re doing it.  I may be just another expat housewife, and my husband is who he is, but when I go anywhere, I try to think about who I may run in to while I am out.  I have gotten in the habit of carefully tailoring my words so as not to do or say anything that could hurt my husband’s career in any way or alienate me from someone who may be married to someone or who knows someone who knows someone else who may in any way impact anything having to do with his ability to get along with the members of this community.  It’s way too small a community to not consider this every time I step out of the house.  It influences the clothing I wear when I go out, how I do my make-up, whether I’ve had a breath mint, whether I smile at the man on the escalator whose child screams uncontrollably while kicking me the whole way up because I never know if my husband, who is meeting me at the top of the escalator, will say “hey, so and so!  Have you met my wife?”  I never know what may offend someone, so I just don’t share anything other than pleasantries with virtual strangers because today’s stranger may be tomorrow’s thorn in the side.

So, as an expat woman who meets a lot of other expat women, and hears a whole lot, this is something we all seriously need to think about when we come over here.  Don’t alienate yourself within a week of being over here by acting like a complete ass.  Don’t brag about how much your apartment costs, don’t brag about the fact that you just shelled out a hundred grand to put all four of your kids into private schools when you didn’t, don’t brag about flying home twice a year business class, and don’t ever say that your family just won’t fly anything other than business class when everyone knows full well that the only reason you’re flying business class is because someone else is paying for it.  Don’t pretend that the money from the expat package that is provided to your family is in any way an entitlement.  In fact, don’t brag about anything in your or your husband’s expat packages.  Why?  Because about half of the families get big packages and find it completely distasteful to discuss them in public, and the other half don’t get anything other than a “thanks for coming here.”  You never know which you are talking to.  That otherwise put together woman on the playground may be struggling to come up with the $30,000 it takes to put each of her three kids into private school and may be thinking about how arrogant you are for thinking she cares that your kids all go to ASIJ on the company’s dime.  It’s all in the way you talk about things.  Don’t presume everyone is rich here, and don’t poor mouth either.  When you are obviously not poor, and you poor mouth, you just look foolish.  In fact, just never discuss money in public.  This is almost a rule of law back in the United States, so why is it forgotten the minute some women get off the plane in Japan? 

Wow, I didn’t mean to rant quite that much.  Sorry about that.

Plum Blossom time!

It’s February, so I’ve been thinking a little bit about hanami and when all the flowers in Japan are going to bloom this year.  Last year, I went to a few hanami events, and had a great time.  If any of you read my old posts – before the deleting incident – you know how interesting I find the whole flower viewing experience here.  It’s not that we don’t have flowers back in the states, but we don’t have elaborate after-work parties or giant picnics/drinking fests in honor of flowers.

So this year, I thought maybe I’d get the process started a little early and try to figure out when the plum blossoms bloom.  Last year, I just happened upon them in a park and mistook them for cherry blossoms, but of course quickly figured out that they couldn’t possibly be cherries, which I had been told didn’t bloom until March.  So based on that, I think I’m going to find some place to go look at the plum blossoms, maybe make a family picnic of it or something.  It’ll be much colder than when the cherry blossoms bloom, but who cares, right?  Picnics are fun!

This Winter has been quite mild, so the blossoms are starting to appear earlier than last year.  There’s a house near my window that has a plum tree in the back yard.  The area is secluded and blocked from the usually gusty winds that blow around my neighborhood, so it seems to be a few degrees warmer than the surrounding area.  This little tree has begun to bloom and looks so beautiful.  Plum blossoms, or “Ume,” are not as popular as “Sakura,” cherry blossoms, maybe because of the time of year that they bloom, I don’t know, but the fragrance is much nicer, and the parks are generally much emptier, so the whole Ume experience is just really pleasant.

In the Tokyo area, I’d recommend going to Koishikawa Kurakuen, a park that’s only about a 7 minute walk from the Iidabashi station on the Nanboku line.  Koishikawa Kurakuen is full of traditional Japanese and Chinese garden settings, and embodies the image I had of Japan before I moved here.  The entry fee is 300 yen, but it is one of the better places to view the blossoms. 

Ume Matsuri (plum blossom festival) usually begins in mid-February and goes to early March, depending on the weather.  (And to the horticulturists who may be reading, I know the photo is of a cherry blossom, I couldn’t find any I took last year of the plum blossoms.  Sorry.)

A couple things I really hate about living in Japan

The other day I posted about one of the things I like about living in Japan:  childhood innocence and low crime rate.  Now, some things I really hate.

Why is Denny’s a curry house?  Why can’t I get a grand slam breakfast?  Where’s the skillet meals, the sausage, bacon, eggs any way I want?  Where’s the hash browns, the little glass of orange juice (okay, you can get that)?  Every once and a while I want a good, cheap American style diner breakfast, and Denny’s embodies that.  It’s the place you go to with your 80 year old grandma on a Saturday morning in January to have coffee, the place where you go with your college friends at 3 am for eggs and french toast, the place you go to eat with your new husband when you only have 12 dollars between you.  But here, it’s curry, curry and more curry.  I don’t find Japanese curries all that appetizing.  They’re sort of blander, less flavorful, boring bastardizations of the much better Indian or Thai curries.  Maybe they’re an acquired taste, but not a taste I ever actually want to acquire, really.  But it’s a great thing that I can find some of the best Indian and Thai curries I have ever eaten, and these restaurants are all over Tokyo.  Just close your eyes, point, and you’re good.  But I really would like Denny’s to serve the Grand Slam.

And another thing I hate about Japan are women who mistake generalized and often thoughtless politeness as a come-on.  Okay, so maybe it’s just a couple of them, but they annoy me to no end.  There are women who think if a Western man glances or makes any sort of eye contact or polite smile on the street then that man must find them really attractive.  Not true.  Fact in point, Western men are raised to be polite to women, even if they never intend to see that woman again, and even if that woman bears a striking resemblance to Quasimodo, which might likely induce more stares, glances or awkward smiles.  It’s sort of ingrained in them to politely glance and smile at women when they move over on a sidewalk or hold a door.  Again, even if the woman hit every branch of the ugly tree on her way to the ground, Western men still do this.  When I went back to America the last time, I couldn’t count the number of times a strange man said hello, nodded, glanced, smiled or merely gruffed when he glanced and moved over on a sidewalk or held a door for me.  It’s not that I am the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet – I am not of course – but it is that I am in fact a woman.  I could describe what I look like, but it is unique enough that my identity would be revealed to many people who know me, and yes, I can say that I used to be quite the looker in my former life, enough so to have attracted the eye of a current A-list movie star while sitting in a bar in NYC (I have witnesses, and I hope they don’t read this blog, because they could guess who I am based on that fact alone).  And I think there is something about how American men are trained by their fathers to do this that subconsciously sticks with them the rest of their lives.  I seriously doubt most of them even know that they’re doing it.  Japanese men are always nodding and smiling at me on the sidewalk, and I seriously doubt that every one who does this finds me attractive.  I have no illusions or delusions – what have you.  But of course, if I make mention of this to a Japanese woman, she would likely dismiss me as a liar.  No, it’s just that I look different than the others in the crowd.  I may actually be attractive, but it’s more likely that I simply bear no resemblance to the people around me, and that automatically will catch the eye. 

Another thing I have a hard time tolerating is the over-abundance of gossip.  For the most part, I am highly gossip-averse and change the subject when someone tries to either prod me for information or try to share something with me about another person.  I don’t care and certainly don’t want to hear about whether Joe in Accounting is interested in sleeping with Megumi in Marketing.  For all I know, poor Joe may have just been seen holding the elevator door for her (something poor Joe may not know is a clear indication that he is sexually attracted to Megumi).  But there are women out there who find it life’s ambition to smear Joe through the mud with all the girls in the office and besmirch poor Megumi’s character in the process.  And to make matters worse, Megumi, who probably knew the rumors would ensue, may actually think Joe is attracted to her now and may not be providing him the proper business support necessary to make his job easier, and may now be uncomfortable around him and may be avoiding him entirely.  Of course, pointing out that Western men will hold elevator doors for anyone coming in the direction of an elevator doesn’t go over well.  Something about the gossip’s mind can’t seem to get around that little fact.  And nobody has clued poor Joe into the fact that he should never hold the elevator door for any woman with whom he works.  Of course, the other problem is that the gossip never thinks that she has caused any great problem or made herself look worse in front of her Western colleagues, who now all presume that she is likewise spreading inappropriate innuendo about them in the office.  This sort of behaviour is condoned and expected in Japan.  While it occurs in the US as well, I’ve never seen anything quite as bad as here.  Apparently, the general practices of Japanese men in their relations to Japanese women are so kata-ized that to step outside of the unspoken boundaries that are not even known to Western men results in a lot of false crap being started by nosy and bored office ladies who really should get back to typing and setting up dinner reservations for their boss and his wife.  After having tried to make friends with some of the women in my husband’s office, I have decided that it’s a really bad idea, and I wouldn’t generally recommend it.  Of course, that is, unless the woman actually has some understanding of how Western men think and act around women in general.  They may be okay, but I’m still wary. 

I have a small handful of Japanese women friends.  All of them are married to Western men or Westernized Japanese men. It isn’t by any conscious choice that I’ve managed to only befriend these sort of women.  It’s just so far, I’ve liked these women and haven’t found any other Japanese women, either single or married to Japanese men, with whom I have anything in common or who won’t stop with the idiotic gossiping and prodding for personal information.  They tend to not want to be friends when they find out I am not going to give them any intimate details of my personal home life or to be very interested in the nasty gossip they want to share.  Maybe it’s just that I have really bad luck with only having met the worst possible potential friends, or that I am somehow afraid to step outside of my “enclave” as one such gossipy troublemaker recently told me in an unsolicited email.  I know there have to be friendly, kind, and genuinely likable Japanese women out there with whomI have enough in common to actually be friends.  But so far, I’m coming up snake-eyes.