Japanese Culture

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that individuals who attempt to achieve the highest possible socio-economic status tend to take education level into account when selecting their partners. In China too, education is associated with later marriage for Chinese women. Nie and Xing (2019) studied the pattern of assortative marriage in China since 1990 and its impact on income inequality, and found that there is an increasing tendency for men in China to marry women of similar education levels.

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do, thereby causing the other person trouble or harm. However, when neurotic patients said it, much hidden aggression was engendered by frustration of their wish to amaeru. In other words, Doi expressed it as a way of patients “forcing” others to cater to his wish by apologizing.

Among contemporary middle-class Japanese couples, it has been suggested that there continues to be relatively little psychological intimacy in the marital relationship for many couples (Roland, 1988). Although in the North American sample, many aspects of reported marital communication were related to marital satisfaction, it is not likely to be the case with the Japanese sample. It was reported that despite the desire for a more intimate martial relationship, it was difficult for some more educated Japanese women to have the intimacy from their husbands given their spouse’s long hours at work with their extensive postwork socializing.

Thus for many middle-class Japanese women, the relationship with their children and to a lesser extent, long-standing friendships with women who were former classmates, are the principal sources of intimacy (Roland, 1988). This may be the norm in Japanese culture, in the context of intercultural marriage it may cause serious conflicts. Actually one Chinese wife in this study reported that she had suffered so much because of her husband’s absence due to long hours of work in Japan, and she said she felt deeply hurt and these feelings cannot be forgotten even today. She described her husband as someone “who is very dedicated to work” and “can focus on work seven days a week”. This dedication to work and complete ignorance of her and her young child had made her suffer a great deal simply because she felt that as a wife she should support him; but this support had hurt her so deeply. She felt so helpless on a foreign land because she couldn’t speak the language, didn’t know anything about the culture and her husband who was the only person she could rely on was not there most of the time. So this norm to many Japanese women is a great challenge to Chinese wives.

Japan witnessed rapid economic growth from 1950 to 1970, followed by stable economic development until the early 1990s (Smits et al., 1998). Although traditional values in the parents’

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generation have persisted, the number of “love marriages” which value love as a basis has increased over the past four decade in Japan (Fukada, 1991). As one of the most ethnically homogenous populations among industrialized nations, the number of legal and illegal foreign workers in Japan is on a sharp rise due to the labor shortage caused by the nation’s low birth rate and aging population (Sakuragi, 2008). Walby (1990) argued that marriage is an institution of gender inequality, “mail order brides” or female labor migrants see international marriage as a means of getting secure and legal residence status. Because women have been marginalized in the labor market, this “marriages-of-convenience” may bring them a better chance of economic security. Piper (1999) examined labor migration, trafficking and international marriage by focusing on female cross-border movements in Japan, and noted that the evidence indicates that most of the increase in international marriages is to be accounted for by the importation of foreign brides (hanayome) by Japanese men who cannot find Japanese brides, therefore it is not surprising that the majority of international marriages in Japan are between Asian women and Japanese men. The increase in these marriages, particularly in rural areas of Japan facing “wife shortages”, has coincided with emigration pressures and rising demand for labor in gender-specific sectors of the labor market (Piper, 1997b).

Given the majority of (the diverse types of marriages) the research has been limited to white couples, and less research has examined marital trajectories among ethnically and economically diverse husbands and wives (Brown et al., 2012), more research studies focusing on more diverse cultural backgrounds have been increasing. Many of the recent studies on marriages in Asian cultures such as China or Japan have been either cross-cultural comparisons or intercultural marriages with the West (Dion & Dion, 1993; Sakuragi, 2008). Additional conceptual and empirical analysis of culture and close relationships will be needed to compare different individualistic societies and different collectivistic societies, respectively (Dion &

Dion, 1993). Markus et al. (1997) noted that all selves are culture specific; however, similarities

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between China and Japan, both as collectivistic cultures, are more frequently discussed than differences (Sueda, 2009). For example, the concept of face, which is important in both cultures, may function differently in the close relationships such as intercultural couples of Japanese and Chinese. Sueda (2009) suggested that “discussing face needs only within the individualistic versus collectivistic culture dimension may be too simplistic; the degree of positive-face needs may differ in different countries with collectivistic culture.”

Despite the fact that Chinese wives constituted the majority of foreign wives with Japanese husbands in intercultural marriages in Japan, there has not been sufficient studies examining marriages between Japanese and Chinese, in particular, Japanese husbands and Chinese wives.

Some studies focused on marriage migrations where women cross the borders to seek a more secure life by marrying men in rural areas of Japan; however, very few focused on those who have higher education backgrounds. Situations such as the rapid social and economic developments in China and the One Child Policy have influenced to a great extent on perceptions of marriage and gender roles of couples, which remain to be explored. Face, a key concept in both cultures, has not been fully examined in marital relationships. Although more and more communication scholars have been examining marriage from various dimensions, studies of the West have been dominating, with many research samples targeted on the whites or in relation to them. Quantitative research method such as survey have been widely used as the major tool to examine the variables, with only a limited number of studies employing qualitative methods. Even though there is a shift from Western European cultures to Asian cultures, a majority of studies have attempted to apply the western based theories on a macro-level, very limited studies focused on examining the diverse cultures from an emic perspective in Asia. Given the diversity and unique characteristics of Asian cultures, it is important and urgent to study in their own cultural frameworks and perspectives. This study has filled this gap by examining Chinese and Japanese cultures in the context of intercultural marriage. By

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interviewing the Chinese wives on their perceptions of their marriages to their Japanese husbands, some important similarities and/or differences of these two “collectivistic” cultures have been examined from an emic perspective.

This study has reported some findings which support and challenge the results of existing literature on cross-cultural and intercultural marriage in Asian.

First, the results of this current study has confirmed the difference between Chinese and Japanese in their extent of collectivism, as indicated by Hofestede’s (1984) the Country Individualism Index (p. 158). It is reported that Chinese culture ranked high on both institutional and in-group collectivism, whereas Japanese culture ranked higher on institutional collectivism than in-group collectivism. The Chinese wives reported stronger interdependency between them and their perceived in-group members than their Japanese husbands, which is in accordance with Hofestede’s index that Chinese and Japanese are different in their collectivism.

The results also prove that notable conflicts may occur if the wife an egalitarian view of marriage and her husband a male-dominant one (Hardy & Laszloffy, 1995). According to the Chinese wives, their attitude to marriage in egalitarian, and they seek equality and mutual respect in marriage, meanwhile expect to be independent as individuals. Many of them are also the only child in their family, and they have been taken great care of by their parents. Most of them have never done any housework before they got married. However, in Japan the traditional gender roles are still dominant, and women’s role of being as a good wife and mother is in clear contrast with Chinese women’s perceived gender role, this big difference is reported to be one of the causes of conflicts between the couples of Chinese wives and Japanese husbands.

Different from Murray and Kimura’s (2003) result that the Japanese couples value individual happiness and personal freedom, the Chinese interviewees reported a common attitude of equality and mutual respect. Similar to the result of Gibbons et al. (1996) that

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individuals in individualistic cultures such as the U.S. are free to make their own decisions based on what is best for them based on the other party’s individual qualities, the Chinese wives also placed great emphasis on selecting their husbands. This result also challenged Dion and Dion’s (1993) suggestion that in more collectivistic societies such as China, traditionally, love and intimacy between a woman and a man were less important than other factors as a basis for marriage because most Chinese wives reported that they married their husbands because of love.

This indicated an emergent individualistic change of Chinese in choosing their spouses that differed from the traditional feature.

The individualism can also be found in the Chinese wives’ perceived self-identity. All of the interviewees in this study view themselves as independent individuals both financially and mentally. All participants do not wish to be housewives, but instead want to have their own career as working will help them find their values, improve themselves, make friends thus add meaning to their lives. Collectivistic traits are strong with in-groups, as the Chinese wives reported in their strong interdependency with their zi ji ren such as family, relatives and friends.

However, the same extent of interdependency is not shared by their Japanese and in-laws, who seemed to be rather independent from each other, which caused them confusion and stress.

It may be true that obtaining a stable a marriage might be a particularly salient index of personal success and familial solidarity, as Cao et al. (2017) suggested, and divorce will make individuals and their families lose face, thus should be avoided as much as possible. However, the participants also emphasized on intimacy, happiness, and personal fulfillment which were reported as a feature in Western marriages (Amato, 2009).

Education also appears to be relevant to marriage. The results of the study reveal same tendency as a few existing literatures reported. In this study, no participants got married before they finished their university, most of them got married after a few years of working. When they chose their spouses, they tended to choose those who have same educational levels or

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above. This is in alignment with the following studies by Smits et al. (1998) and Nie and Xing (2019). Smits et al. (1998) suggested that individuals who attempt to achieve the highest possible socio-economic status tend to take education level into account when selecting their partners. Nie and Xing’s (2019) studied the pattern of assortative marriage in China and found that there is an increasing tendency for men in China to marry women of similar education levels.

The concept of yuan is also mentioned in the interviews. As one participant explained the reason she broke up with her former boyfriend, she concluded as “no yuan at all”, which indicated a deeply rooted belief in daily life of China, a unique Chinese response to personal relationships (Goodwin & Findlay, 1997). Despite many challenges that the Chinese interviewees had to face, they tried very hard to cherish their marriage. This is reported in Chang and Holt’s suggestion that marital relationship must be tolerated and cherished because “yuan”

has brought them together (Chang & Holt, 1991). Different from the Westerners’ view of relational outcomes as primary dependent on communication, Chinese consider the people whom they associate with to be very special and important because of yuan. And it has a binding function in close relationships. accordingly, Chen’s (2009) examination of the influence of

“yuan” on the perceptions of romantic relationships also revealed a positive correlation between participants’ believing in yuan and relationship satisfaction. The result indicated that with highly satisfied couples they argue less and perceive frequent arguments more positively which may be enhanced by their belief in yuan.

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