Will Miss #466 - ease of getting hired

Yeah, that's not me. I'm pretty sure she could get hired easily in any country even if her only skill is gnawing on a block of ice.

In the previous post, I wrote that it is hard to get just any type of job as a foreigner in Japan. This is true, but, as an American female, I was a valued and somewhat rare commodity. If I wanted a job that required a foreign employee, especially as an English teacher, it was easier for me than nearly any other sub-group to get hired. This is because foreign women are not only rarer in Japan for various reasons, but they are also greatly more desired as teachers. Both male and female students tend to actively prefer women and North Americans in particular. 

In Japan, I didn't have to work so hard to distinguish myself by my skills because my gender, nationality, and hair and eye color automatically made me more appealing to employers. In America, I'm just another person trying to get a job based on her resume and personality. I miss the (absolutely unearned and unfair) advantages I had in Japan when it came to getting hired. 

Will Miss #465 - "high" (big) noses are beautiful

One of my (American) coworkers was talking to me about plastic surgery and I mentioned that, when I was  younger, I would have had a nose job because I didn't like what I considered to be my "big" nose. That is not to say that I have an enormous schnoz, but rather that like many young women, I craved a petit nose and would have like to have had it bobbed to fit into a particular aesthetic sensibility. I said that I was glad, in retrospect, that I didn't have the money to do it because, though I still think I have a big nose, I'm okay with it now. He remarked that the Japanese see noses such as mine as beautiful, and he was right. More than one Japanese woman has said that she envies me my "high" nose. Even though I heard this many times, it still shocked me as I think plenty of Western women would prefer the lesser bridge that many Japanese women possess.

Since I spent most of my life thinking my nose was unattractively too big, it was refreshing and somewhat gratifying to live in a culture which believed it added rather than subtracted from my appearance and I will miss that. 

Will Miss #420 - women who wear little make-up

Few women use this power as much as the woman in this ad. 

One thing that is the case by and large in Japan is that Japanese women don't wear much make-up. Occasionally, you see someone who is sporting enough maquillage to make a clown envious, but the general aesthetic is closer to looking natural. Most of my female students wear foundation and aside from those who go for spider lashes, they wear so little make-up (particularly eye make-up), that they just look normal. I think that this not only makes women look "real", but also reduces the pressure on all women to conform and wear more of it. It makes it that much easier on women like me who prefer to wear none at all most of the time.

I will miss how "real" and natural the vast majority of Japanese women look because they don't tend to wear much make-up. 

Will Miss #348 - being told I'm beautiful

I look absolutely nothing like this woman, but I think she's supposed to be actually beautiful.

I've read on some blogs and forums that a lot of the women who marry foreign men are actually considered relatively mundane or unattractive in Japanese culture. I've also been spontaneously told by Japanese men and women (even at the ripe old age of 46) that I am "beautiful". My sense about both of these situations is that beauty is culturally very relative and what is exotic and lovely in the eyes of one culture is quite "average" (or less) in another. I have no illusions about my appearance. I'm neither a great beauty nor someone who causes people to avert their eyes. I know that it is the relative rarity of my blue eyes and my blondish red hair as well as the value placed on my pale clear skin that is eliciting the compliments, not any measure of my true physical impressiveness.

Everyone likes to be told that they are attractive, and I'm certain it's something that I'll only be hearing from my husband (which I value greatly) after I return home. I'll miss being told I'm beautiful, even when I'm not especially so.

Will Miss #178 - pale is good

I'm fair-skinned, and red-haired. That means that I have three states - white, freckled, and lobster. There is no such thing as brown or tanned skin for the likes of me. Back home, that means my complexion is likened to such lovely things as beached whales, dead bodies, and geeks who live in their parents' basement. In Japan, white skin is seen as more appealing than that which has been nicely sun-toasted. I never received a compliment on my skin back home because Americans believe that tans are healthier and more attractive. I've been complimented by nearly every Japanese woman who has gotten to know me well.

While I believe that all healthy skin of any shade is beautiful, I will miss my tone being perceived as desirable rather than unappealing.