Japanese or American

I have weekly sessions with my school chaplain because I am an international student. Somebody had to make sure that my English was up to scratch and the job fell to him. During those weekly sessions we read newspapers and he asks if I know what this or that word means. Anyway, one particular week we were reading this article on Japanese and American couples (i.e Japanese woman, American man or vise versa) and how they were always having marital problems as they both expressed love in different ways.

According to the article, the Japanese believe that to say I love you and be over affectionate in the way you speak soils their ideal form of love and that saying it so wantonly and openly isn't befitting so it is hardly ever said. To them love is supposed to be shown more in their actions. Subtle things for example, washing the dishes when your wife is tired show love better than mere words.

The Americans on the other hand are all for expressing themselves even when they don't necessarily have to. The sentence "I love you" is said at almost every random opportunity they get.

When two people from these two cultures meet and marry their different back grounds create a problem. When the man says I love you to his wife she hardly ever responds as enthusiastically as he would want her to making her husband feel like she doesn't love him back. The chaplain went on to ask me what I was.

I said I was Japanese because the article gave me the impression that it was better to be Japanese. Anyway nobody wants to be the big mouth who goes around telling everyone how they feel about them and getting hurt. On further reflection though, I have come to the conclusion that I am a mixture of both. If I like someone (and to all of you thinking in the flesh, I mean in a purely platonic way) I will never actually tell the person in plain English that I like them but I go out of my way to show the person that I do. And I do it in such an obvious way. My means are so direct that on thinking back on them I realise that they still give me much reason to blush, and certainly not with pride. Oh well, we all have to be embarassed sometimes.

To end, what kind are you? Japanese, American or Japamerican.