So I’m married to a Japanese lady. I believe that this gives me good authority to comment on general behavioural traits of Japanese ladies. As the saying “happy wife, happy wife goes”, these are things I avoid to preserve harmony with my other half.
- Don’t invite friends home without her permission
I may be the head of the household but she is the chief of my home. A typical Japanese woman sees it as her duty to keep the house spick and span, especially so if she is a full-time homemaker. So if I invite friends home spontaneously, she would be embarrassed to reveal her home in a less than pristine state and even fear that your friends may judge her for not upkeeping her house well.
- Don’t let your friends eat from your rice bowls
Rice is indispensable to the diet of the Japanese, so my Japanese wife regards the rice bowls used by us as sacred and precious. Some women may even liken this act to letting people wear their undergarments, so I do myself a flavour and serve my guests other bowls.
- Don’t leave the washroom wet
Japanese people are a stickler for cleanliness, and it makes them rather uncomfortable if you use the washroom and leave the floor/basin/toilet seat bicho bicho (“soaking wet” in Japanese). So I take extreme care not to spill water all over the place.
- Don’t mess around with her kitchen
There is a phrase that refers the kitchen as an “onna no shiro” (woman’s castle). My wife painstakingly arranges all the cooking tools in designated places to facilitate her movements when she is cooking. I don’t make the mistake of using the kitchen and then putting back things in their “wrong” places!
