My journey from lawyer/lobbyist to shufu (Japanese housewife) started 8 months before ever boarding a plane to Japan. My husband and I were sitting in the front seat of our SUV in the parking lot of a surgical center. My 4-year-old daughter was inside having her tonsils and adenoids removed. After four years of runny noses, coughs, sore throats, and sleepless nights; we were hoping some relief would come from this surgery. It was already her third surgery in her short life. She had been at the same surgical center twice before having tubes put into her ears and having one tube removed.
While we were familiar with the “sitting in the parking lot drinking coffee waiting for the surgeon to call” routine, this time was different. My husband, Aaron, and I were deciding whether we were going to accept the offer from his employer to relocate to Utsunomiya, Japan for two years. There was a lot to consider. Not the least of which was that being on the opposite side of the world would make communicating with family and friends difficult, including my aging grandparents whom I love and know I am extremely fortunate to still have in my life.
Five months prior to this point, I had started a new job as the Vice President of Government Relations for an association in Ohio. The title sounds fancy, and since I had been working as a lawyer for the past 12 years and a successful lobbyist for the past five, I thought I deserved the fancy title. But, the job was not fancy. If any job tells you, “We need you to hit the ground running,” you should hit the ground running away. I have come to believe this phrase is code for “we need you to take on the workload of someone who has been doing this job for years while learning the job.” Meaning you will be working nonstop. That wasn’t the only problem, despite the fantastic title and promise of advancement, I was a glorified administrative assistant. Long story short, I was unhappy – ok even miserable at times – and I wanted an excuse to run away.
My husband was also looking for a change at work but had no intention of quitting. He has been working for the same Japanese company, the company offering to send him to Japan, for over 15-years. The man is incredibly loyal - a great trait in a spouse – so he will likely finish his career at this company barring some shocking unforeseen circumstance. Back in May, 2023, during the time we were sitting in the parking lot of the surgical center, my husband was working as a manager of engineers. He wanted to get back to technical work. The move to Japan would allow him to transition away from management.
However, a few years prior to the offer to temporarily relocate to Japan, we purchased a beautiful home in the Columbus, Ohio area. We got really lucky and bought our house before the COVID 19 pandemic and before housing prices and interest rates went through the roof. Based on unsolicited estimates we would get from companies like Zillow and Redfin, our house was now worth approximately $200,000 more than we paid. Thus, buying a similar house in a similar neighborhood upon returning to the US would be utterly impossible. Since I would not be working in Japan and our family would be losing my income, we needed to find renters in order to pay the mortgage on the house while away. As a bonafide clean-freak and newly minted germaphobe (thanks COVID) the idea of people living in my house caused me profound anxiety.
Neither my husband nor I took a gap year after high school. Neither of us studied abroad in college. We never backpacked through Europe. In fact, we are not particularly well traveled. Further, we don’t speak Japanese. In particular, I knew nothing about Japanese language or culture. I had never been there or even desired to vacation in Japan. Big eyed anime characters freak me out, and I am apathetic regarding ninja and samurai. (It turns out Japanese culture is about a lot more than busty anime characters and ninja.) However, like all parents, we want more for our daughter, Franny. We want her to speak a second language. We want her to be adventurous. We want her to be curious. We want her to be brave enough to take her place in the world. For all these reasons and more, sitting in our SUV at the surgical center, we decided to pack up our lives and move to Japan for two years. Thus began a stressful eight months of working full-time, Japanese language lessons, packing, house tours, logistics, secrets, and goodbyes.
My daughter and I arrived in Japan at the end of January 2024, two weeks after my husband’s arrival. Living in a foreign country where you do not speak the language is like being a toddler again. Despite six months of lessons, I cannot understand basically anything I hear. While I learned the Japanese alphabets of Hiragana and Katakana, everything in Japan is written in Kanji so I can’t read anything either. Unlike a toddler, I am an adult with many responsibilities. Living here is a marathon of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and enduring embarrassment. My daughter dealt with the transition by acting out and being rude. Eventually she calmed down and claimed that she had been kidnapped by an evil twin named Lordy who kept the real Franny locked away. She informed us she had escaped her jail, and now she was going to be nice again.
In the four months we have been living in Japan we have been jet lagged. We have been sick.1 We have cried, many times. We have even been robbed - technically our stuff was stolen in America before we left, but we didn’t find out about it until we got here. I’ve asked countless strangers to speak into Google Translate on my phone so I can communicate with them. And I have had one horrific and humiliating visit to the gynecologist. More on that later. I have struggled with living a life that is almost entirely in service to my husband and daughter. I have realized I have no hobbies. I am stressed about not having a job or making money. Perhaps relatedly, I also miss suits. I miss having a reason to buy them and wear them.
Of course, there have been some amazing adventures as well. We have seen waterfalls, mountains, bamboo forest, ancient art, amazing flowers and gardens, Minnie Mouse, and we saw the most populous city in the world from the top of the Tokyo Sky Tree. We’ve made pottery, pet a giraffe, and stood under wisteria trees that are older than the United States. We have eaten some of the most delicious and yet affordable food imaginable. As a personal victory, I have learned to be a mom who packs bubbles and extra snacks to share for the playground. I have started meditating and exercising again. While I miss my suits and high heels, like a lot; I am enjoying not being angry all the time and having more conversations with my daughter. As a clever, funny, and emotionally mature child, she has already inspired two children’s books that my mom is currently illustrating.
I hope you find my Substack regarding our life in Japan enjoyable, a bit funny, and maybe even relatable.
Fortunately, Franny’s illnesses have been minor thanks to the the aforementioned surgery.