No one likes somebody who looks at race negatively, but encountering one in the wild provides a unique opportunity to really try, at least, to teach them a lesson.
OP is living in Japan with her Japanese husband and is enjoying the culture and living abroad, despite all of the differences from living in the States.
I’ve been living in Japan for a little over two years with my husband. He was born here and we decided to move to his hometown. It’s a small city, but there’s enough to do without getting bored.
I’d describe us as an AMWF couple (Asian man, white female for those who don’t know). It’s not so common in western countries, and it can feel like we are some rare shiny Pokemon as AMWF in rural Japan-lots of staring, occasional secret picture, or even small chats if an old lady is brave enough to approach us. It can feel uncomfortable eating at a restaurant because kids will turn around in their seat and stare at us the whole time with an open fish mouth.
Coincidentally, there’s a small U.S. military base located in this city. The closer you are downtown, the more American families you see. I’m constantly mistaken for being military by Americans and Japanese which is understandable. Besides myself, I only know 5 other interracial marriages here.
It’s always locals who ask about my ‘American husband’ when I’m out alone, which I respond in Japanese “Watashi no otto wa nihonjin desu. Koko ni sunde imasu” (My husband is Japanese and I live here) or something along those lines.
Americans never ask about my marriage as they assume my spouse is American. When we are together in public, we do abnormal couples behavior such as holding hands (no, couples rarely hold hands in public, let alone say ‘I love you’).
One day they went together downtown, which is when they were confronted by a military wife and a couple of her friends.
We don’t go downtown too often since it’s all pay to park and it’s a nightmare to find a place. It was a beautiful warm day for the first time in months, but we decided to battle for a spot and walk around the shops. The crowd was heavy since the weather was great and winter was ending. The season for new American families to move here just finished, so I’m sure this was many peoples’ first time to leisurely walk and shop outside.
We find a parking spot and made our way to the outside shops. Of course, we are holding hands and casually talking and laughing.
“WOW.”
I hear this from an American woman about 10 feet behind us. You should know that a Japanese stereotype against Americans is that we are rudely and obnoxiously loud. And this ‘wow’ was loud enough for me to turn my head around at the noise. She was with 2 other moms who had like, 3 kids each. They were staring at me, but perhaps we just accidentally had eye contact at the right time.
“Seriously, another little homewrecker is doing this in PUBLIC?” Chill woman, you’re so loud even I can hear you. We find a table nearby at the Starbucks outside. We are enjoying our drinks when the same group of women approached us with their strollers in tow. They definitely had some sort of purpose with something to say to us. Let’s call her Onna (woman in Japanese).
Onna: “Excuse me, but you need to keep whatever you’re doing in your messed up home. Doing that in public in front of families to see is disgusting and immoral. My kids don’t need to see such a bad display of marriage.”
It took OP a few minutes to figure out how they had offended the woman, until she finally realized she thought OP was cheating on her husband…with her own husband.
I’m SO confused, as was my husband who can speak English. Who knew drinking coffee outside was a crime against humanity and marriage?
Me: “I`m sorry? What…did we do?”
Onna: “You know exactly what you’re doing.” *She points to my wedding ring*
Me: “No, I don’t….”
Onna: “Good lord, does your husband know about this? Is he on a ship right now? That’s soooo like a dependapotamus!” Her friends laugh. In case you don’t speak military, a dependapotamus is slang for a military wife who stays at home all day, doesn’t clean, uses their spouse as an ATM, and looks like Jabba the Hut.
It dawns on me; she thinks I’m a military spouse and I’m cheating on my American husband! I started laughing because she’s suggesting I’m cheating on my husband, with my husband!
OP laughed and corrected the mistake, but the woman didn’t believe her. She even went so far as to demand her military ID.
Me: “This IS my spouse. I’m actually not part of the military community and have a Japanese visa.”
Onna looks at my significant other up and down. The two women behind her apologize, but the Onna didn’t believe it.
Onna: “No one would voluntarily WANT to live in this little town. Nice lie, but you’re not representing the military community. You make all of us wives look like ******! Who is your husband and what’s his rank? Also I need to your dependent ID. MY husband is a high rank so he’ll make sure your husband is aware of your infidelity.”
She pulls out her phone to probably type my response. I’m offended since this is actually a nice place to live and very open to foreigners.
Me: “Look, my husband’s name is Rei (not his real name; I don’t want to reveal personal info) and he’s sitting right here. I’m not going to show you my military ID since I don’t have one, and you’re not the police. As proof, you can obviously see our wedding bands match and here’s a picture.”
I show her a photo of us in traditional Japanese clothes on our wedding day.
Her eyes became huge at the picture. Her two friends and their spawn have already started walking away.
After some gross race-based statements OP and her husband decided to leave.
Onna: “Why are you in a relationship with HIM? You should be in a normal relationship and start having a family with American kids.” She says some other statements which I’d consider ****** against the Asian race. It’s so ironic because we are in JAPAN, and she’s fussing about me being married to a Japanese man. My husband has been quiet throughout the whole exchange and says to me we should go. I agree and stood up.
Me: “STOP. The things you are saying are extremely offensive. I was part of the military community myself some years ago and what you’re doing is against spousal conduct.”
She smirked. “Go ahead and tell people what I did, then. My high ranking husband is an E-7, and everything will be swept under the rug no matter what happens. You can’t touch me.”
OP mentioned the encounter to a friend of hers who worked on the military base, and a couple of months later those chickens came home to roost.
Note, this is a small military community. Someone does something minor and it’s talked about between wives like chickens. Later that day, I run into my friend who works on the base and she’s well known in the community for being one of the main event coordinators. I don’t miss this chance to comply with Onna’s demand, and explain to my friend about the exchange and how it made my husband extremely uncomfortable with her remarks. She asked me if this person looked like so and so, which I said yes. My friend rolls her eyes.
Friend: “She just arrived a couple months ago and is already causing problems with rumors and drama. Looks like we have a ******, too. I’ll make sure what she said is passed on.”
It’s been half a year later and I didn’t hear anything about Onna again since I distanced myself from making military friends here. I’ve only been in my new city for a little over 2 years and experienced more drama from military families than I have my whole high school career. That is, until now. Last week, I ran into my friend who’s getting ready to leave back to the United States. We had a little discussion about her moving and my family planning, and dropped a bombshell.
Friend: “Do you remember Onna, who accused you of cheating on your non-existent military spouse and called your husband a ***** name?”
Me: “Of course! I haven’t heard anything from her since.”
The lady lost out on working on the base and, oddly, also got busted cheating on her own husband.
Friend: “Well, I mentioned we were already having problems with her not long after she got here. I told my boss that there’s a person who was bothering and threatening civilians and asking for IDs which isn’t allowed for someone with her status.
My boss was extremely interested after I mentioned her name because Onna was scheduled for an interview in my department! I suggested we look at her social media accounts from her past behavior, because we don’t tolerate ******. It was easy to find her Twitter and Facebook, particularly Facebook since we have many mutual friends. Her SNS was SHOCKING.
While she set her Facebook to private, her Twitter was littered with malicious Tweets and reTweets. This included ****** slang for many nationalities, colorful language, and using her husband’s military rank to bully others.
She made it very clear that she ‘wants to see her current city burn to the ground’ and ‘why would anyone want to learn Japanese since it’s sounds terrible’. We printed some of the more extreme things she posted and we still invited her to the interview.
“Oh, and did I mention my boss is JAPANESE?!!”
“So she comes into the interview which I was part of. I asked three good things about her which is she says ‘dependent, gets things done, and friendly.’ My boss just looked at her for a second before he pulled out her Tweets and asked her to explain how she can friendly serve the local community if she hates it so much.
Onna was FLOORED and said someone hacked into her account, despite there being at least 3 years of slanderous Tweets. We thanked her for coming and said we can’t accept an employee with this conduct. As far as I know, she’s still not working because some spouses found her Twitter not long after the interview and was shared in all departments. No one will touch her application now.”
Me: “So all of this was discovered because I told you about her accusations?”
Friend: “Yes! Oh, and she’s kind of an outcast socially right now because she cheated on her husband a couple months ago.”
There you have it folks. Because one person couldn’t mind their own business, they lost a potential job and had their social media exposed. Super ironic since she became the dependapotamus and adulterer-the same thing she was accusing ME of.
Does Reddit approve of this excellent revenge? Let’s find out!
The top commenter is not sympathetic…for the other woman.
It’s a hard life.
They say those who are casting stones…
This person tells OP she is definitely not alone.
Apparently this is not uncommon with some military spouses.
Why do people think like this?!
I do wish I was more surprised, though.