Finding My Tribe

I never imagined that I’d have to move to another country in order to discover my people, and that I would then get to know many of them only online. I had no idea that by marrying into another culture, I was also joining a kind of sisterhood of women around the globe who had already done the same. But am I ever glad I found them!

I was five months into my new life in Japan with my husband-to-be, three weeks away from getting married, when we found out that his company was going to transfer him to Manila for five years. I had been expecting this news (without knowing the exact destination); indeed, one of the reasons I chose to move to Japan when I did, was so that I could live there for a while before we had to start a new life in a third culture.

Knowing very little about the Philippines, I went online to look for resources for expatriates and stumbled across a website for women in intercultural relationships. I joined the discussion forum, introduced myself, asked a few questions, and received a warm welcome and very helpful advice. I soon found myself checking in once or twice a day to read the other women’s stories, to share small talk and fun, and to vent my frustrations when dealing with bureaucratic red tape (usually Canadian, not Japanese!) or when life in a foreign culture became overwhelming for me.

I’d never made friends online before, but I was soon meeting up with these foreign wives in Tokyo, in Osaka, even as far away as Kagoshima in southern Japan. They were just as kind and just as fun in person as they were online, and in befriending me they took away some of my loneliness at being a very temporary but deeply rooted foreigner in Japan. Not to mention the fact that it was comforting as well as eye-opening to realize that I was not the only English / Western woman married to a Japanese man!

Although they are all very different people, they share some common characteristics that I deeply admire: the sense of adventure that led them to travel beyond the boundaries of their familiar and conventional worlds; the openness required to live daily in another culture (or with someone from another culture), even when there are aspects of it that you dislike or find frustrating; the kindness and helpfulness with which they reach out to other women in similar situations; and the sense of humour that may be the only thing that sustains them at times, and that has helped preserve my sanity on more than one occasion.

It’s hard to imagine what my sojourn in Japan would have been like without the friendship of those women. For the move to Manila was cancelled, and I ended up spending another ten months in Tokyo before my husband was transferred to London, where we live now. Two of those months I spent alone as a “trailing spouse,” but thanks to the members of my tribe, I never felt isolated. There was even a member in London who provided wonderful advice and was my first contact in this new city that I am learning to call home.

As strange as it may sound, I think of these women more as family than as friends, for we put up with one another’s foibles and accept that we have different perspectives on love, marriage, home, work, child-rearing, in-laws, politics and the countries in which we live. We don’t always see eye to eye, but we listen ear to ear, if I may coin a phrase. I’ve never gone to this group with a problem that didn’t receive helpful advice and words of support and comfort, with a frustration that didn’t invite huge amounts of empathy, with a celebration that didn’t meet with echoes of joy and delight.

As much as I want to live my life in such a way as to focus on the positive aspects of intercultural marriage and life abroad, these women more than anyone understand the constant negotiations and compromises and losses that this life entails, the way that living in another culture full-time – even if it may seem as close as England is to English Canada – can be exhausting and sometimes even soul-destroying. I don’t need to apologize to these women or explain why sometimes I just walk around feeling grumpy about having to operate so consistently outside of my comfort zone. They get it.

And because a number of them share their daily lives with me through their blogs, I guess in a way I am beginning this blog for them. Because their stories inspire and comfort and sustain me, and let me know that I am not alone in this crazy adventure. I hope that my reflections will in some small way do the same for them.

Rock on, sisters! Foreign wives rule! :-)