an acute, often fatal, infectious febrile disease of warm climates, caused by an RNA virus transmitted by a mosquito, especially Aedes aegypti, and characterized by liver damage and jaundice

Whoops, wrong one.

yellow fever (noun) – the maddening sensation to go crazy for all peoples that is Asian

I might be paraphrasing Webster on that one.

And while that term can apply to both sexes, it definitely has more of a polarizing pull on the fellas.

Double And, might I add, while there is a wide spectrum of Asian, none of them receive quite the same attention as the Japanese. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and all the rest provide a sense of “mystery and intrigue” to some Western peoples. But I’d argue it’s because of the perceptions of Japanese media— the games, the shows, and yes the adult videos— that Japanese girls get fetishized the way they do.

I’ve been guilty of this myself.

My Yellow Fever Origins

Most of my generation got its gaming start with Mario on the NES or Sonic on the Genesis. I was no different, but I credit Pokemon for introducing me to the concept of slaving away for a game. As my first RPG, Pokemon to me had so many layers I never had to deal with before. It wasn’t just a one-track mission to save the princess or beat the bad guy, but a quest for self-improvement. You didn’t conquer levels. You leveled up yourself. Bond with your pals along the way, all in the name of becoming Pokemon Master.

The show took it one step further, “… to be the very best like no one ever was.” A quote that rivaled Bret “Hit Man” Hart.

I ate that stuff up. Maybe too much. I watched the dynamic between Ash and Misty on the show. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was a friend. A friend who secretly harbored feelings for the main character.

I couldn’t remember seeing something like that from my American cartoons, but I’m sure I was just oblivious. Being so involved in the world of Pokemon more likely skewed my view. From here on out, I started to wonder. Maybe this type of girl didn’t exist in America. Could it be a Japanese thing?

I branched out into watching other shows. All of which not only reinforced the idea that Japanese girls are different, but maybe they’re better. I soaked up the images in “harem” anime like Tenchi Muyo and Love Hina. And, it blows my mind to think I liked characters like Shinji Ikari who were super helpless. I guess I related to the weakling who could depend on someone else to show him the way. I appreciated the idea that there was another guy out there that had several hot babes wanting to love him no matter how fragile he was.

At this time, I was horrible at handling rejection. Never did I appreciate the mechanics of a game so much. I wished real life had a pause and resume feature– more time to calculate each move before I made it. If life was like a show, I could fast forward to a better episode.

Whenever I’d get “friend zoned”, I’d bury myself in games. I’d watch more anime. The anime obsession would eventually transition to watching Japanese TV shows, or jdramas as they call it.

These days Twilight gets a lot of flack for leading teenage girls on with the concept of “undying love”. But I let shows like Lunch no Jou and Nodame Cantabile feed me the same type of belief. Yuko Takeuchi and Juri Ueno became avatars of that ideal girl.

I became so absorbed in my fantastical perception of Japanese culture. I started reinforcing those ideas with distancing language. American girls are like this, but Japanese girls wouldn’t ever do that.

Japanese girls are the most passionate, patient, kind and caring beings on earth.

Eventually, I wound up with some idea that it was only Japanese girls who could really understand me.

Meeting My “Match”

“It’s like one of my Japanese animes!”

Sure enough, my first girlfriend would be Japanese.

We didn’t have chemistry. We didn’t have a spark. But thanks to my train of thought, I already committed to the belief that this kind of person is someone who I can fall in love with.

I will fall in love with this kind of person. And so I did.

I kept myself in a fantasy, and I turned myself into an anime character in the process. I relied on scripts I’d learned from my experiences in Japanese media. A lot of my conversation and gestures came off as forced instead of natural. I tried so hard to be the ideal boyfriend to match my image of the ideal girlfriend.

But, everything seemed awesome. I was riding that high of having my first serious relationship, so everything was perfect. This went on for three years. She did no wrong, could do no wrong, and would ne’er do a wrongily wrong.

Until she broke up with me. Bonus bummer: I found out she cheated on me.

You’d think that would’ve burst the bubble. There’s no way I would keep thinking that Japanese girls are the best. But alas, I held on.

The Blindness Begins to Break

From 2009-2012, I taught English in Japan. During this time, I started to notice how much other guys were going crazy over Japanese girls too. I wasn’t alone in my way of thinking, but by watching the people around me, I saw really ugly sides of people in the pursuit of a J-girl.

I taught at a senior high school, and so many guys would tell me they were jealous. They wished they worked at my school because so many girls were hot. Those words irked me. It was kind of gross.

This whole time I didn’t even think of ogling them. They weren’t just Japanese girls. They were my students. They had depth.

I witnessed friendships crumble. Guys would be “best friends” until one would call “dibs” on a girl at a bar. They’d point fingers, but Japanese girls didn’t break those bonds. Those guys let themselves throw it away for eye candy.

I think they knew this sort of behavior didn’t work back home, but something about being in a foreign land changed that.

Of course, you had the flip side of the yellow fever concept too. Some people called it white worshiping, others termed it gaijin-hunting. (Foreigners in Japan were known as Gaikokujin, or Gaijin for short. And a Japanese girl who wanted one would be the hunter.)

Here it was again: the fantasy versus the reality. The mystique and intrigue of what wasn’t familiar, except this time it wasn’t wonderful. It was incredibly frustrating. The roles roles were reversed. I was an Asian guy being passed up for dudes who looked more “foreign”.

I’m not going to lie. It made me pretty bitter. When I was overseas, I worked hard to transform myself. And it was for real this time. I got in shape. Instead of sitting by and hoping I’d encounter someone by chance, someone that’d fall in love with me, I worked hard to build my esteem. I tried to be social. And I thought I was doing pretty good.

But no dice. The Japanese girls I bumped into just saw the surface. They already had their minds made up on what I could offer. Even though I was still a foreigner, they wanted to pick something that looked a bit more exotic.

Basically I was hit with some karma for being so shallow, but I still wasn’t able to see the connection between what they were doing and what I did.

The worst example of this idolization came from a friend. He fell in love with a girl at the clothing store. That’s no code for some seedy underground brothel either. She was just a regular girl working in retail.

But my friend just knew she was special. She was beautiful. She was good-looking. She was hot. She was cute. She was really hot.

She talked to him. And even though he couldn’t really understand what she said, nor could he properly express himself to her (they used an iPhone app to communicate, zoinks!) he was about ready to propose.

Maybe my obsession didn’t manifest itself in the same way, but my friend and I had been similar enough in our thoughts. His relationship didn’t work out, and he took it hard. I saw his dream crumble, leaving him a broken mess.

I’ve been there before, but this time as an outsider, I could see more clearly from the beginning. Things never really looked like they would work out. Connecting the dots, seeing the devastating effect it had on my friend snapped me out of my haze.

It wasn’t about race. It wasn’t about nationality. “Japanese girls” weren’t the best. I was typecasting an idea, but people are just that… people. Good and bad. Superficial and deep. Smart and dumb.

I’d been blind. I’d been pretty dumb. And for all my gaijin-hunter frustration? I had a friend unload on me, putting the final nail in the coffin:

All those girls who can fall for something like that… It’s your own damn fault for liking them.

Since the most common question I get in my email is usually a poorly written grammatical catastrophe that tends to be along the lines of “How I get Japanese gurls fast?” I thought it was only appropriate to start with the topic of men dating Japanese women, as I rarely get the opposite “How I get Japanese boyz fast?” question. Now, in this post I won’t actually be telling you “how get Japanese gurls fast” (that secret disappeared with the Jomon, long ago), but I will be going over what it’s like to date a Japanese girl, in general, based on around fifty people who responded to a survey I put out a couple months ago. There will also be some information that was gleaned from one-on-one interviews I conducted with people as well as some personal insight.

Alright. Are you ready to put on your imagination goggles? You’re a dude, and finally (finally!) after the forty-sixth Japanese girl you’ve asked, one of them has sighed and then followed that *sigh* up with an “okay, fine. Just this once, okay?” It’s a date! Later that night you shine your “Dispel The Foreigners” kanji tattoo, put on your fanciest cosplay outfit, and get ready for your first date with a Japanese girl. But then you realize, just as you’re about to knock on her door ten minutes early (boo boo) that you have no idea what you can expect! Don’t worry, we’re here to help.

Keep in mind that a lot of statements are generalizations. All people are individuals that do their own things, so use the following information with caution. We are not responsible for causing any injury, death, or heartbreak, kk?

Getting The Girl

One thing in particular for non-Japanese guys compared to non-Japanese girls (dating Japanese guys) is that it seemed a lot easier for the dude to find someone willing to date them. If you just open your eyes and look around Japan you’ll see this statement in action. Even outside of Japan this holds true. How many couples are there with non-Japanese guys and Japanese girls? Okay, now how many Japanese guys with non-Japanese girls do you see? Probably not as many. Perhaps none at all. Part of this could certainly be due to the fact that Japanese girls are more open than Japanese guys to the idea of dating non-Japanese people. Whatever it is, if you’re a guy you’re going to have a much easier time meeting and then dating Japanese people.

As you might expect as well, a lot of men met their significant other via some kind of English-related activity, whether it was English school, some kind of English practice circle, or even a girl just wanting to practice English on a train. Not looking Japanese has its perks in this case.

We met at a 合コン, essentially. It was a dinner for girls who wanted to learn English through my company. -anonymous

I met her at a Japanese/English language exchange event in my city.  -ぺんぺん

I was an English teacher in Japan for a few years, then when I returned home to Canada, I wanted to keep up my Japanese language skills, so I joined a Japanese-English Language Exchange program at a local university. One day the group was sitting in a circle, and there were cute Japanese girls on either side of me. I made a quick decision that I wanted to talk to the girl on my right, so when they said to start talking, I turned towards her, introduced myself, and the rest is history.  -James

Second girl introduced herself to me, in flawless English, on the train from Tokyo to Mito one night. -Dale

That being said, a lot of non-Japanese people go to Japan to teach English, so of course there’s going to be a lot of English-teaching-related relationships going on. Maybe teaching English / speaking English has nothing to do with finding someone. Maybe most non-Japanese people are doing English-related things already, so of course this story comes up more often! That’s definitely possible, but I wouldn’t know unless I talked to more Japanese girls dating non-Japanese guys about it. But, there were some other “first meeting” places mentioned a decent amount as well. “At a bar” and “online” came up fairly often, so if  English isn’t really your thing then those two alternatives exist as well. Though, “English” does come up later in the “communication” section of this article, so perhaps there is something to it?

Expectations Of The Man

We’ll talk more about this a lot more in the “What It’s Like To Date A Japanese Guy” post since I think that perspective is more interesting here, but let’s take a quick look at what you, the dude, is expected to do.

First of all, you’re going to be paying for everything… that is, except purikura (actually part of a story I’ll put in the opposite version of this article), because girls can pay for that on their own. If you go out on a date for dinner, be prepared to pay for the food. No splitting the bills or BS like that, because you’re the guy and you’re going to pay. Of course, there’s exceptions to this “rule” and there will be girls out there willing and asking to pay for date-related things, but that’s not the norm.

That being said, if you end up living together or visiting her home, you won’t be expected to do any of the housework or cooking. There were a couple exceptions to the cooking rule (where the guy really loved cooking and insisted on cooking), but for the most part it’s expected that you’re going to let them do all of that.

There will also be some interesting cultural differences, depending on where you’re from. Expect more gift-giving to happen from girls. This is one thing that seemed to pop up in the surveys that surprised people a lot, for some reason. Japan is a very gift-giving culture so it makes sense, but just be sure to be ready for it. My favorite quote has nothing to do with gift giving, however, and has to do with going on a movie-date.

[W]e were on a movie date and she refused to let me hold the popcorn bag. She actually held it there for me for over 2 hours. Also, she has given me several little gifts pretty early on. Typically I wouldn’t expect that here. -ぺんぺん

The expectations of “what a guy is supposed to do” and “what a girl is supposed to do” are going to be different from culture to culture. I don’t want to spoil too much from the girl’s perspective article though, so I’m going to stop here. But, the above should give you an idea of where to start at least, should you find yourself in the position of dating a Japanese girl.

Showing Affection

Affection and how you show it tends to be a bigger topic on the “girls dating Japanese guys” side of things, but we’ll go over some of the bigger points here (and you’ll have to wait for more of the stories and such in the next article).

In general, Japanese people don’t show as much affection towards each other in public (or in private, for that matter) compared to Western couples. This surprises a lot of people at first. There’s a lack of hand holding, hugging, kissing, and so on in public places. Some people even complained that “the first kiss” happens way later than you’d expect, though others said that sex tends to happen sooner than they expect. I suppose both of those statements could be true at the same time, though.

There were some Japanese girl perspectives in the survey I ran and thankfully a couple of them talked about this topic as well as the topic of physical affection.

It’s more important to understand each other than it is to show how much I love someone through touching. -anonymous

Sometimes it’s nice when thoughts are difficult to understand. It adds some mystery to the relationship. -anonymous

Less physical contact makes physical contact more special when it happens. If you always touch each other, then it’s not special anymore when you do. -ち

In Western relationships you’re expected to show physical affection in private and in public. It’s how you show you love someone, right? In Japan that’s not the way you do it and “understanding of the other person” becomes more important. This was also brought up a lot in terms of non-physical affection. One complaint I saw a lot was that non-Japanese guys had trouble knowing what the girl was thinking and feeling. It’s certainly the Japanese way to not come out and directly say how you’re feeling about something, so this has caused a few problems in respondents’ relationships.

In Japan, you’re expected to be able to read and understand people and how they’re feeling, even though they’re not showing it or telling you. That being said, Japanese people spend their entire lives learning how to do this whereas in the West we tend to just say what’s on our mind so this “skill” never really develops. A lot of people in the surveys thought their girlfriend was being cold to them, but in reality they were just being normal and the guy was expected to know what was going on. Or, when the girl was upset about something she wouldn’t really say it, and it would become a problem when the guy didn’t realize. It’s safe to say that you should pay extra close attention to noticing cues she may send out. If you miss them you may not think it’s a big deal, but after a while she will think you’re selfish and mean. Communicating and talking about this issue has also proven helpful to some.

Meeting Her Family

“Meeting the family” seemed to be one of the things that a lot of people were initially nervous about then figured out that it wasn’t so big of a deal. Most families are nice, accepting, and won’t try to kill you in your sleep because you’re dating their precious Japanese daughter. Almost everyone had a great experience meeting the family… that is except for one respondent, who has an awesome story. Keep in mind, this is probably not the norm. Also note that this Japanese girl also grew up partially in Japan and partially in LA (will make more sense as you read it):

Mom loved me, and even told me I was chotto sekushi sugi, with a frighteningly lecherous wink. Dad was old school Nipponjin and hated my guts. At oshogatsu time, my girlfriend invited me over – I was off work with not much going on, so I suppose she didn’t want me to feel lonely (or call any of her friends back). New Year’s Eve day, and of course their cleaning the house, for company the next day. I didn’t understand oshogatsu protocol very well, and didnt think this was a big deal. I wanted to help clean, but of course they wouldn’t hear of it, and sat me down in in front of the TV while they worked. In retrospect, I see how,this,was tough – manners dictated they treat me like a guest, but at the same time they wanted/needed to do the family house clean. I was just getting into watching The Highlander without subtitles when I heard a row starting in the kitchen through the shoji that separated it from the room I was in. My girlfriend was defending my being there, and Dad was berating her for bringing an Ameko (yes, he used that word) into their house on such a family day. At this point, i asked mom if i should leave. she assured me in very polite Japanese that it was ok to stay. Girlfriend stomped off from dad into the room I was in. Dad followed her very mad at this point telling her how a respectful Japanese daughter should never walk away from her elder when she was being talked to, and he slapped her face. Like any young woman who had reached maturity in L.A., and very unlike a respectful Japanese girl, girlfriend acted out of reflex when she was slapped and kneed him hard in the royal regalia. He went down like a ton of bricks. At this point mom leaned over, and still in very polite Japanese, suggested that now might be a good time to leave, after all. About 30 minutes later, girlfriend rode her bike over to my apartment with 20,000 yen her mom had given her, and we partied for the next couple days with mom’s blessing. -Dale

Despite the story above, this seems to be one of the things you least have to worry about. In fact, there seemed to be more problems with the Western parents, because usually they were afraid their child would never come home again after marrying a Japanese girl (sometimes they were correct in this assumption).

Communication?

Another topic that I thought might come up more but didn’t actually pose much of a problem was the issue of “communication.” Despite having two separate native languages, respondents communicated well with their significant others. I have a couple theories on this.

One involves an idea brought up earlier in the article in the “affection” section. Communication is often unspoken in Japanese culture (not due to bionic implants, sadly) and you’re supposed to read the other person to know how they’re feeling and to know what they want. Perhaps those who have had longer and more successful relationships realized this earlier. Or perhaps the Japanese significant other met the non-Japanese partner half way (in being more direct).

The other theory involves English. Of course, the non-Japanese person often learned quite a bit of Japanese, and that helps too. But, since so many of the “meetings” of these couples had to do with English (school, meetups, practice-attempts, etc) it is safe to assume that the Japanese girl had an interest in English already which means they would be more likely to learn English well  compared to regular Japanese girls. Same usually goes for the non-Western guy (with Japanese), which means they learn each others’ languages pretty well.

One story in regards to using Japanese/English in their relationship really stood out to me.

My wife and I used to use Japanese when we argued , because it’s more polite than English. The worst insults are rather silly: “your mother has a protruding belly button,” that sort of thing. We used to argue a lot, and it kept my Japanese language skills sharp. But after 26 years, we hardly ever argue anymore. So my Japanese language skills are fading. -Ira

It’s funny because it’s true. The Japanese language is inherently set up to be more polite. I wish I could have seen their arguments.

So like “meeting the family” I think there’s less here to worry about than most people might think. Communication can occasionally be an issue, but usually like-minded people will find a way past any problems and make it work without issue. If you’re not meant to be with each other then sure, maybe communication could hurt the relationship. But, if you’re good together then the issue of “communication” will hardly make a drop in the bucket. If that doesn’t happen, though, I guess we can look forward to a future of bionic brain implants.

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I hope you enjoyed this post. Also, please no more “Can I haz Japanese girl?” emails, please.

Next up (Friday), Mami is going to take us through some of her experience, being a Japanese girl who married a non-Japanese guy. Please be sure to look forward to that article if you enjoyed this one. I’ve skimmed it already and it’s really interesting!