…..and on a lighter note.
Japan lets it all hang out in the Blogosphere (
Asahi Shimbun)
His wife is an untamable shrew, an
oni-yome “bitch wife” in the Japanese lexicon. She takes away his salary and feeds him bread crumbs rejected by his daughter. There is seemingly no indignity she will not suffer upon the 32 year-old salaryman who goes by the name of “Kazuma”.
But this victim does not keep his misery to himself. He is one of the most popular Internet bloggers in Japan. His blog – the term originated when someone squished the words “Web” and “log” together – is a haven for thousands of male readers who write in, to say their lives are just like his.
More incredibly, he has many female fans who aspire to be just like his wife. One can only smile, imagining these harpies-in-training reading Kazuma’s blog –
“Jitsuroku Oni-yome Nikki” (True story about my bitch wife) <yugure.ameblo.jp> to pick up tips.
Indeed, Kazuma’s blog is turning into a gold mine for the henpecked husband. In only four months, he’s nabbed 1,34 million yen in awards from his blog hosting service, and last month the diary-like blog was published in book form.
As possibly the most popular whinger in Japan, he has a legion of fans, and it is not unreasonable to expect they would want a hard copy of humiliation at the hands of his fear-inducing mate.
Kazuma’s success lies in the “everyman” quality of the posts that appear on his blog. The incidents are funny precisely because so many people can relate to them. Take the day the love of his life ordered him – after he’d put in a full day at work – out into a rainstorm, on his scooter, to pick up some vegetables at a faraway discount supermarket. She’d had all day. Why didn’t she go herself? Well, as Kazuma explained on the blog, the cruel one has an aversion to shopping on cold, rainy days. Well, who doesn’t? But in her case, it’s a non-starter – she won’t budge.
Like the freezing rain, the abuse simply pours down on our pathetic hero. He’s accused of alcoholoism because he goes drinking with friends. Not because he’s not with the boys every night, or even every week. Alcoholism is defined by the woman his readers love to hate, as three or four evenings out in a year.
In my email interview with Kazuma, he said, “I was amazed to find the same kind of things were happening in many families.”
Indeed, if the responses received are any indication, there is a massive tribe of cringing hubbies out there craving sympathy with guys in similar circumstances.