Interracial Relationships
 

Hey! I'm a new face on this forum but I wanted to start out my interaction with a bit of a difficult question. I'm an African American woman and I plan to move to Japan in 2011 to "make a new start" first teaching and then moving on to other positions. I don't plan to come back to the states for quite a while to say the least. haha I know that there are more interracial relationships between Japanese women and foreign men, but what about the other way around? What are the chances that a Japanese man will date and marry a girl of African American decent? Any success stories?? Please share them!

Thanks in advance for all of your comments on this matter. I hope there are many!

I do not think you need to hear success stories to encourage you. It may depend a lot on where you live, but if you are sociable and outgoing you should have no problem. I do think being able to speak Japanese well would help though.
One think I would take note of though is that men may face different social pressures from their families than women, which could make it hard for some to go outside of what is expected of them. Personally I feel this is a big reason for why it seems that so many more Japanese women than men seem to be interested in studying abroad and learning English (from what I have seen).

Why so many people outside of Japan keep blindly believing this myth is a big myth to me. The truth is "the other way around" wins by a landslide. In fact, there is even no comparison.

If you read Japanese:
"同じく2009年人口動態統計年報によれば、国際結婚の相� ��の主な出身国籍は、配偶者女性（夫が日本人）では、� ��国（12,733）、フィリピン（5,755）、韓国・北朝鮮（4,113 ）、タイ（1,225）、ブラジル（273）、アメリカ（179）、� ��ルー（93）、イギリス（56）、その他の国（2,320）であ� ��、配偶者男性（妻が日本人）では、韓国・北朝鮮（1,87 9）、アメリカ（1,453）、中国（986）、イギリス（367）、 ブラジル（290）、フィリピン（156）、ペルー（90）、タ� ��（58）、その他の国（2,367）である[6]。
"
Quoted from Wiki.

It is because it is mostly westerners (women) that ask this question.

So you're saying that there are way more Japanese men that date and marry Western or non-Japanese women? This is definitely the first time that I've heard about that, although I'm not complaining I guess. :vsign:

Western women, like me for example, ask that question a lot because what I see when I walk out of my door, turn on my T.V., surf the web, even when I was in Japan (although I'd get hit on by the occasional Japanese guy), is Japanese women and foreign men. I do know of a few couples that are the other way around (even African American woman and Japanese guy) so I know it can happen and does happen sometimes. But, to me, it just wasn't very common. Or, at least, I didn't think it was.

I'm still looking on my Japanese language skills but from what I could make out from the Wiki clip, that's very interesting indeed. Was that just dating or marriage?

No, he was saying that there are more Japanese men in international marriages, but the majority of those marriages are with other asian women. Chinese, Korea, Filipino etc.
The women dating the Western men far out number the men dating Western women.

Some men, if they aren't completely intimidated by you, will see you as a huge status symbol, a trophy gf/wife.
What you need to ask yourself is if you're comfortable being with a stereotypical Japanese man, because while he may not behave like one at first, it may come out as he gets older/lazier/pressured-by-friends.

Oh, and by the way.
There is only one race. The human race. :cool:

This is because for one, the figures are for those continuing to live in Japan, and secondly because I think it is pretty easy to see the relatively low number of marriages between Japanese men and women not of Asian descent.

In international marriages where one side is from a "Western" country, it seems the overwhelming trend is to move to that country. This is doubly true when the "international" side is the husband - there is quite a flow of Japanese wives to other countries... Japanese husbands - not nearly as many.

I am a member of a few communities for 国際結婚 (not really an active participant... but that is beside the point) - It is very easy to see the difference between the numbers staying in Japan and leaving based upon where the non-Japanese partner is from, and which side is Japanese.
In the case of one side being from a "western" country, I would say about 80% of the Japanese husband couples stay in Japan... While about 30% of the Japanese wife couples do.

What I am trying to say is that those figures end up more truly reflecting about 90% of the marriages between Japanese men and foreign women, but only about 30% of those between Japanese women and foreign men. (Marriages registered outside Japan tend not to be included, but are recognized in the case of later residency in Japan. As they are not registered in Japan, they don`t appear in the figures.)

Even if the percentages weren`t incredibly skewed - there are still nearly 10 times the number of marriages between non-Asian men and Japanese women.

I know several women who eventually moved to other countries after getting married, and they tell stories of huge communities of Japanese wives - and the amazement when they encounter a Japanese husband as it`s just so strange and out of the ordinary.

Do you think there are Japanese men in Japan who would see an African-American woman as a "trophy wife"?

Does that concept even exist in Japan?

Yeah I have a few friends here who ask me if I have black (women) friends they could go out with.
I'm not 100% on the trophy concept, but at times it does seem that way, I could be wrong honestly.

EDIT:
I just want to add that given how few black women are in Japan, it doesn't take much of a fraction of Japanese men to be attracted to them to completely create a deficit of women lol