This will be an unusual diary, and if I'm violating any rules by posting it, please tell me.
Though the stories of the week are much on my mind, I won't be talking about them here. Instead, I'm reaching out to the community to find friends for a very special woman.
Follow me below the squiggle to meet her...
Masako is my wife. She was born in 1969 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. She trained originally as a nurse and now works as a freelance translator. She's really smart and is fluent in English. She loves film and reads widely and loves to talk about it all.
We've been married for eleven years, and have spent half that time living in the U.S. and half that time living in Japan. We currently live in Japan.
She also spent a lot of time in the U.S. before she met me, and she now has a rather unique problem as a result.
As you may know, Japan has a very closed and uniform culture. Everyone is expected to act, think, and speak in a certain way, and those who make waves are in trouble. In America, we say "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Here, they say "The nail that sticks out will be hammered down."
My wife has spent so long in the U.S. that she's developed an accent. As a result, almost every Japanese we meet here assumes that she's a foreigner. Thus, they treat her like an outsider. If she insists that she's Japanese, then the assumption is either that she's lying or that her parents are immigrants, which makes her a foreigner, too. Japanese citizens of Korean and Chinese ancestry are openly discriminated against here, and denied jobs and advancement opportunities. They are also socially shunned, at best treated like guests to be tolerated. In addition, my wife has political and social views that are way out of kilter with the norm in Japan today (i.e., she's not a right-wing historical revisionist nutcase). As a result of her speaking her mind on a few occasions, she's found any social opportunities she might have had significantly chilled. In short, it's very hard to find friends.
My wife is not a fan of her own culture, for this and many other reasons. She's also far from the States. We've been abroad for six years, long enough for her old friends there to move away or lose contact. In short, she's lonely. There's only so much a hubby can do.
So the point of all of this is that my wife is looking for penpals, for communication by e-mail, or messenger, or even skype if both sides want. I decided to ask Daily Kos, because I know that here we'll find people who are smart and who care about the same things that she does. Gender, race, sexuality, etc. are not issues, of course.
She's a little too shy to do this herself, so she asked me.
I'm not quite sure how to get the ball rolling... maybe kosmail me with your info if you're interested. I'm thinking that both sides can set up a free e-mail account somewhere like Yahoo or Gmail that's specifically dedicated to this penpal correspondence, so both sides can feel secure and not risk their regular e-mail.
So, Kossacks, what do you say? Thank you in advance.