Kelly Azuma

Last night started out good and turned crappy. I made an old favourite, sausage curry, and vanilla rice pudding for dessert. Yasu is not really a rice pudding kinda guy but he did have some and said he liked it.

Just after he came home at 8pm I started to feel queasy. That feeling increased, and about 10pm I headed to bed with Yasu to see if I could start to feel better by lying down. Therein I entered some kind of delirious state and was seeing people and things that really weren’t in the room.

I woke up from that state about 12pm and went to the toilet and started throwing up projectile like for 20 minutes. That was a horrible feeling. I started sweating and had back pain and shoulder pain.

The funny thing was that Yasu slept through it all. Even while I was vomiting in our ensuite. I’m sure that guy could sleep through a war!

I got up and got some panadol for the pain which started to fade away, but I still had some stomach cramping. I kept drinking water and I eventually took some chinese medicine which started to make me feel abit better too.

At 3pm I looked at the clock for the last time. I must have fallen asleep because Yasu woke me up at 8am when he was going to work. I slept another 2 hours until my mum phoned me at 10am.

I haven’t felt so great today though. The acid from all the vomiting hurt my throat and it’s really sore. I pretty much stayed around here today.

I am going to my spiritualist church tonight, hopefully to get a bit of healing and maybe a reading too. I know singing the songs always lift up my spirit as well. Songs like Abba’s “I have a dream”.

I can’t even look at food today. Except when I reviewed the Tirol chocolate on my other blog.

I haven’t blogged for a while as we’ve been having a series of ‘misunderstandings’ lately and ended up fighting. It’s all language-related misunderstanding though, Yasu thought I said something that I didn’t, or didn’t understand what I said properly.

It ended up with Yasu giving me the silent treatment for 3 days as he was so angry he just didn’t want to talk. Finally we sat down and hashed it all out and found that both of us were thinking things completely different to what we each thought the other one had meant.

Yasu took me out to dinner at Sinabro on Saturday night. It’s a Korean steam boat buffet but it has recently changed so that you can both bbq the meat and have a nabe at the same time. There is a hot plate bowl in the middle with soup and around the outside, slightly underneath, is a ringed grill that you can grill whatever you want, seafood, meat, veges. It was really nice, and we were surprised about the change, but it made it better for us, as we like both. They have a variety of foods you can cook, and also pre-made items like Korean sushi, fried rice, savoury pancakes, salads, fried chicken, stir-fry, bulgogi etc. I really enjoyed myself and so did Yasu. They have dessert of fresh fruit which was really refreshing and the fruit was so flavourful!

We came home and spent the rest of the weekend making up ;)

My mum came over yesterday, as it was a long-weekend for ANZAC Day. We had lunch at KFC, then went for a drive. The area we live in is Heritage country, so at the back of us is bush, and the darling ranges mountains, and there are alot of historical sites to visit, plus galleries and art cafes. We ended up finding a place we didn’t know existed, the Churchman Brook Dam. It was huge and we did alot of walking up and down hills, but it was nice. We sat at the edge of the dam and talked for a while, then made our way down again. When we came home, I made a pot of tea and a cheese & fruit platter, and we sat outside on our decking and talked and ate. It was really nice!

At 4pm mum went home, it starts getting dark about 5pm here now, and it takes her about 45 minutes to get home by car. I cooked chahan for dinner and Yasu tried to call okaasan but it seems she was in the bath. I think he’ll try again tonight.

That’s about it really. It was a nice weekend, and now Yasu and I are both back on track with each other I feel loads better.

I think Golden week must be coming up in Japan this week?

Summary of the past few days: Saturday had acupuncture in town, Yasu drove me and we stopped an oriental supermarket afterwards and bought a few Japanese groceries. Sunday we lounged around at home and didn’t do much of anything. Monday I worked at my friend’s cafe, which was really fun. Tuesday I stayed home and cleaned the house, totally boring but had to be done.

Today I’m going off to see my mum, really looking forward to that. It’s going to be a mild, sunny day, so I’m sure it will be nice. :)

Among my friends there are quite a few Japanese women. All of these Japanese women have one thing in common – they are married to, or are in a relationship with an Australian man.

I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with how they are treated, or how they let themselves be treated.

I have a friend, let’s just say her name is Keiko. I met Keiko through an online penpal website. She was trying to make friends in Perth after just having moved here with her husband, and Australian guy she had just married.

This relationship was doomed from the get-go. Firstly Keiko cheated on him early in their courtship, but the Australian guy found out and threatened to kill the other guy unless she married him. Of course, Keiko decided to marry him because she felt intimidated, and the Australian guy bought her all these fancy Louis Vuitton handbags to try and win her over. He was really aggressive but also afraid of losing her in some twisted way. So, lured by the thought of endless LV handbags, Keiko married Bob.

Once they got married everything changed. The LV handbags dried up, and Bob revealed he had a daughter by his previous wife – a fact he didn’t mention before they got married, and Keiko never bothered to ask. Bob’s daughter came to live with them, and he started paying more attention to his daughter than Keiko, and when Keiko needed new clothes and a haircut, Bob ignored her and bought his daughter an $800 playstation console.

Soon Keiko was pregnant, and after a couple of years she had two children by Bob. Bob still favoured his all-Australian daughter over his two new half-children, and when the babies cried he smacked them around a bit to shut them up. If Keiko complained, she now got beaten to within an inch of her life, and told that if she were to leave, he would keep the kids.

Keiko now regrets ever marrying Bob. Now her children are nearing school age she was thinking about returning to work, but Bob put an end to that because he wants her at home, where he can control her. Keiko can’t go shopping, and if she sometimes is allowed, it’s only for buying the kid’s presents or clothes.

On the occasions when it is possible to go shopping for herself, Bob comes along and picks out what she can have and what she can’t. He also does the grocery shopping and controls exactly what they eat.

I am one of the only friends that is allowed into Keiko’s home. When Yasu and I do visit, Bob ignores us. In the beginning, Bob was friendly to us, but now his true colours show.

Keiko often talks about leaving, and I used to offer help, but not anymore. As much as I want to help, I can’t. Change and courage come from inside, not from me. I can’t push her to do something I know she lacks the courage for. So all I can do is be a shoulder to cry on when Bob comes home and hits her for not cleaning the house properly, or for not cooking the right meal, or for just being Keiko.

Another lady I know is in a similar position. Masako is in a relationship with an Australian guy. They live with his parents. He regularly hits her and abuses her in front of them and they don’t do anything, in fact they encourage it. They have a prejudice against Asians so they always say that Sam should “hit some sense into her” or “beat her into shape”.

Masako is a prisoner in his parents home. She is not allowed to go out at all. If she does go out, her Mother in law tells on her, and then she will be beaten. She is locked in, in the morning, and she doesn’t have a key. I have visited, and Sam has gone out and locked us in and I have had to wait until he gets home so I can go home! Sam is over 6ft tall and well built. He’s a professional boxer, so no one I can mess with.

Once again, Masako doesn’t have the courage to go to the police.

Another girl I know, Rie, is in a situation where her Aussie husband expects sex every day. When he doesn’t get it, he takes it anyway. The next day she wakes up and there is a parcel waiting beside her bed with a brand new designer handbag inside. Only on the day after she hasn’t been willing though.

He also makes it known that he has other Japanese girlfriends, he often leaves his computer on in view, so she can see the numerous emails he gets from the girls. He often goes out all night and never accounts for his whereabouts. He says he doesn’t have to. Though Rie is not allowed out by herself, or even with her friends. He wants to accompany her at all times, so now her friends do not bother contacting her, because he is a total arrogant pig, and often tried to sleaze onto her friends. We now keep in touch by email, because I can’t stand the guy, as much as I love my friend.

These are a few stories. I know many more.

I often ask myself, why do Japanese women let themselves be treated like this? In this vast land of opportunity that is Australia, why come here and let yourself be treated as a prisoner? Surely that is not love. You deserve so much more. Every woman does!

Is it just a bad choice, or are Australian men just pigs? Is this some kind of fatal attraction towards the rotten apples? I know a great many men who are nice, respectable men. I never knew any guys like the ones these girls are going out with until I started meeting Japanese woman in a relationships with one.

As a very strong-headed woman, I could not ever imagine myself in this position. I don’t let Yasu boss me around. He never says when I can or cannot go out, he knows I wouldn’t pay attention. He can’t keep me like a pet. On the same token, I don’t tell him when he can or can’t go out either. I believe that we are equal and we have the same rights and opportunities.

I had an idea that these women won’t complain because they are now on a visa in a foreign country. The men hold this over them to keep them in line. Ultimate punishment is losing your visa and being sent home.

My husband has permanent residence now, but even when he had a visa, there would be no reason for me to ever use that against him. Never would I! To use a visa as a bargaining tool is so low, I can’t contemplate it.

I think basically, these guys are society’s outcasts. They are the guys that usually stay at home and hurt small kittens, watch nasty video’s and play shoot ‘em up games on the internet. They know they have know hope with a normal Australian women due to their over-aggressiveness/controlling ways/violent tendencies etc and the only way they can ever have a relationship is to lure Japanese women with expensive gifts, then imprison them after marriage so they don’t run away. Really, they are scared, weird guys who have no confidence in themselves.

Somehow, in the hope of moving to foreign lands, and the prospects of marrying a rich Aussie guy, these women walk into a trap. I know 7 Japanese women married to scary Australian guys who have taken away their freedom and now treat them like dogs. I know 1 Japanese woman who married a nice, respectable guy, who loves her and treats her well.

If any Japanese woman who reads this is considering marrying an Aussie guy and there is something ‘just not quite right’ about him, or he gets angry really easily, please reconsider! Please don’t throw away your freedom so lightly, please don’t entrap yourself in a violent relationship! Please walk away now!!

I noticed last night that the water in all our sinks goes down the drain anti-clockwise.

This is because Okaasan asked us what way our water goes down the sink. In Japan hers goes down the drain clockwise. She saw it on a show, and it made her curious.

I heard it can go either way depending on the drain/sink you have. But all ours go down anti-clockwise.

Reading on the net it seems the consensus is: Southern Hemisphere – Clockwise, Northern Hemisphere – Anti-clockwise.

Is there any truth to all of this or is it some kind of urban myth?