Good Japanese Daughters

Several guys I work with have married their wives in their home countries but have come to Nippon to live indefinitely. They all give the same reason for leaving their jobs and starting a new adventure here in Nippon: their wives have aging parents and they want to help out with the family business or farm, but mostly they want to be close to their family.

Japanese daughters are all expected to live close to home. While many young Japanese women have chosen to embark on careers, and even work abroad, they still make the customary trip back home as often as they can. A lot even take care of their parents indirectly, as can be seen in this article.

There is a Japanese saying that goes like this, good daughters should live close enough that when they take a bowl of miso soup to their parents, it should still be warm. It got me thinking about all the Japanese girls I know. While still single, they still generally live with their parents. The only real move they make is from their parents’ home to their shared home with their husbands. It’s a general viewpoint in a lot of Asian countries, too, I heard.

I really think Japan has done well to keep their traditions intact. But when I come across articles like this one about adult children sponging off of their parents, I often wonder if maybe sometimes it’s a little too much…