Walked into a different kind of women’s world
Today was my first foray into a tai tai luncheon. Well, not really, but most of the women who attended followed their partners to Japan, like me. But the similarities stop there.
Let me give you a bit of history here: Recently I started volunteering for a social work organization to do some proofreading for a book they are translating. It was interesting work and the coordinator in charge also organises events for foreign women and Japanese women who are married to foreign men. She asked me to join them for their monthly cooking class. I thought, “I like to cook and if I have something in common to talk to these women about — cool.”
I was all for it because I wanted to meet other women but in a more natural scenario. I am so totally over going to these expat events where you introduce yourself to strangers in a bar — it feels forced and you can’t really make friends because it feels like a rotating socializing wheel where everyone is hungry to talk to as many people as possible. Call it friends musical chairs at a frenzied pace. Plus, a spiel that involves a boyfriend gets you quickly dropped from the menu, let me tell you that. Or those “international parties” where most are on the FFF Hunt — Find, Fuck, Fuck-Off.
Back to my original story. So it wasn’t really a cooking class. The coordinators cooked for us. Today’s meal was okonomiyaki, which I like and was keen to learn. We sat at a long table and chatted. Some were regulars and some were new and who helped out in the proofreading project.
It was fun, don’t get me wrong. They brought out cans of beer which relaxed us all. But the topics of conversation revolved around children and international schools. One American lady, Erin, just got pregnant and another Japanese woman brought up a snippet about her experience giving birth in London, “They gave me champagne and wine with dinner everyday. Even the nurse was drinking on duty! In Japan, this is absolutely forbidden.” So this South African lady, Martina, was like, “Yes, just relax. Enjoy your pregnancy. I drank wine and ran till I gave birth.”
The anecdotes were hilarious by these spunky women but it was a world so alien to me. Which international schools are co-ed or single-sex? What Japanese food do kids like most? Kids pick up foreign languages like a sponge and all of them agreed their children speak better nihongo than them. Part-time work is the most they can cope with two tots and a busy corporate warrior hubby. The one thing I could relate to was that the kangaroo also travels three weeks in a month, and even when he is in Tokyo, he’s so busy, I hardly see him either. It was refreshing not to have people look at me in sympathy when they ask me where my man is.
In the end, I felt a bit strange — like I walked into a completely alien world of nappies, cars, morning sickness and babysitters. Weird.
Do they have a group for gals who are not married but have a significant other without kids who work freelance and have flexible hours?
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