Translation Exercise: 「ご主人は、私よ」

「ご主人は、私よ」, from 『女のセリフ１２０』 by 伊藤雅子 ( 未来社, 1995)

"I'm my own master!"

Even among the younger generation, there are still many people who use the word "master" (shujin) to mean "husband." I often hear of people who say they don't call their own husband "master" but end up using the term for other people's husbands (goshujin). 

The female historian Yamazaki Akiko told me that when she is asked "And what about your master? (Goshujin ha?)" she answers, "I am the master of myself." A firm and sound reply.

I recently heard this from a newlywed friend: "When a new friend asks me something like, 'How is your goshujin today?' and I answer, 'I'm my own master!' they say, 'Oh, you're right!'"

This friend has a husband who is still a student. In their household, she is the "breadwinner." The meaning of the word "master" rings all the more true in her mock-rebellious reply when asked this kind of question by someone who knows this background information.

The following words have been heard in the mouths of my single friends.

"You have to be careful when hanging out with a married woman."

That is, it seems that when meeting with someone who does not earn their own money, whether it's for dinner or a short trip, one must take care to note that person's personal limits.*

"Going out with someone who works is fine, but I end up hesitating when it comes to people who use their 'master's' money. It's partly because of the so-called 'housewife money sense'. So what I always do is have them decide ahead of time, and then just go off of that."

I wonder what these married women would think to know that they're being seen this way by their own friends.

*「自分自身の稼ぎを暮らしていない人とつき合うとき、[略]　どれくらいのランクがその人の許容範囲なのか気を遣うのだそうだ。」

Return to Translation Exercise: 「すぐ、女は幸せにされてしまうから」

"Hey, there hasn't been a translation exercise in a long while. She's probably doing them but not posting them."

No... No... I've just... I've just been not doing them at all...

your reaction

I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! 

ごめんなさい！

 I'll start again! LIKE RIGHT NOW!

 「すぐ、女は幸せにされてしまうから」, from 『女のセリフ１２０』 by 伊藤雅子 ( 未来社, 1995)

"Women are made happy."

I heard these words more than ten years ago at a colloquium I headed. The theme was "My Issues as a Woman." The notes from that discussion were published afterward in the book "The Housewife and The Woman."

25 housewives looking deeply into themselves, delving into their problems. It was a painful, earnest kind of discussion. Truths spilled out like sighs, but among them all this utterance is one of the few that I cannot forget.  The words did not have to be pressed free - they rushed out, and the speaker seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she had said something important. 

One often hears that women are constantly deceived about the things happening right before their eyes; that women are easily pigeon-holed into the mold cast by this common idea of "a Woman's Happiness"; that women are always made happy by someone, instead of making their own lives with their own hands. The sentiment has ample occasion to be said.

During the discussion, I was often struck by the perceptive self-reflections amongst the women's innocent revelations:

"It's so easy since I had a kid. I guess because I don't have time to think about myself anymore."

"I'm alone with my child all day everyday -- I can only speak baby-talk now."

The self-portraits that the women drew with their words that day were not painted in the brightest colors, but I would like to believe that this self-reflection is the starting point for something more. 

Translation Exercise: 「わたしが殺せないところまで成長した子供よ。ありがとう」

「わたしが殺せないところまで成長した子供よ。ありがとう」, from 『女のセリフ１２０』 by 伊藤雅子 ( 未来社, 1995)

"Thank You, My Child, for Growing So Big I Can't Kill You"

The rest of Hoshiko Kanazawa's poem, "Kisetsu", continues: "To protect you meant that I could kill you - what a weight to bear."

Agata Hikari's short story, "The A-Ha-Ha Expedition", features similar words: "Newborns... seem like they could be smashed to pieces by the slight pressure of an overeager embrace. I shudder to think that death is, in reality, so near at hand - my hand  could bring about such horror."

She continues, "I wonder if I could properly embrace them, if I could hug them without suffocating them."

But Yuriko Oka expresses a different point of view in  "I Am 12 Years Old": "What plagues me most since the death of my son is the thought that I didn't hug him tightly enough."

These words run completely contrary to each other, but both strike a chord in a mother's heart. You fear holding them too tightly, you blame yourself for maybe not embracing them tightly enough. A mother who has devoted herself to the upbringing of her child  is always wavering between these two extremes. 

The weight of the child in my arms is the weight of that life. Or perhaps, for this mother who hangs her own life on that of her child, it is the weight of self-judgement.

Translation Exercise: 「女には名前なんていらないんですね」

「女には名前なんていらないんですね」, from 『女のセリフ１２０』 by 伊藤雅子 ( 未来社, 1995)

"Women Don't Need Names, Do They?"

I started listening to older music in high school, and I couldn't stand to think about all of the women of the dynasty whose true names are unknown, who remain for posterity with only descriptors like "General Michitusna's mother."

What reminds me most of this is the heavily underlined obituaries column of the newspaper I read everyday. Most of the names belong to men, but when you do occasionally find a woman she is almost always referred to as "Mother of Mr. X" or, "Mr. X's Wife." Her real name is practically a shadow. And once you come to this realization, you begin to recognize that even while alive women don't have names.

I was left momentarily speechless when a woman told me, "I'm always called "Little X's mother" or "Mr. X's wife," so it makes me happy to hear my own name when I come to the community center." That was almost twenty years ago, but even today women rarely hear their names. On the contrary, women themselves seem to be forgetting that they have names.

I've heard that at the public library, women signing for their library cards had to be asked, "Isn't this your husband's name?" And that women attending a quilting exhibition tried to give the receptionist their husband's names when asked to identify themselves. Women: although they fill the seats at PTA meetings, the names on the attendance roll are all men's; when they buy something and have it delivered home, the package will naturally be addressed to their husbands (no matter if the package contains women's clothes).

Just what do women gain by throwing away their good name?

Translation Exercise: 「私は会社と結婚したのに」

I stopped by the used bookstore today. I found The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1988), A book of short stories by "Japanese Women Writers" translated into Japanese, and a book of 120 short essays by a woman named Masako Itou. Each one is only about two pages. I thought they would make for good translation exercises. Here is the first:

「私は会社と結婚したのに」, from 『女のセリフ１２０』 by 伊藤雅子 ( 未来社, 1995)

"But I'm Married to the Company"

You may think the words above were uttered by a person resolutely sacrificing himself to his work, but these are the words of a wife, upon hearing that her husband, an employee at a top-level company, had decided to quit and open his own business.

The husband smiled wryly. "Well, you're half joking." But whether they are an exaggeration or the truth,  the wife's words very eloquently describe the true form of what we call marriage. I may even say that her words glaringly reveal a misunderstanding common to men.

There are often men who confuse the prestige of their rank with the strength of their character, or who erroneously believe that a good income is equivalent to their dignity as a human being. There are also many, many men who are preoccupied with the belief that they as people are held in high regard, when it is only their titles that are venerated -- it is only their labels that rate highly. This is laughable.

But it cannot be said that this tendency exists only in men. The truth is that there are women who marry themselves to the titles of such men. Brand-obsession is not merely a matter of wristwatches and handbags; through marriage, a woman earns status by buying a 'brand-husband'. This is considered a woman's utmost happiness.

I hear strains of "An Essay Against Marriage" author Hideko Okada*: "Man buys love with money, and woman buys money with love."

There are people who, when they see a wife taking a great deal of trouble over her husband's health, call her shameless. A woman's rank is decided by her husband's company position and economic power. Love, which should be the purest of all things, is prone to distortion when a woman's husband is her livelihood.

*岡田秀子、『反結婚論』