Happier Abroad Forum Community

Hello. I first heard Winston Wu about two weeks ago. I have been perusing this forum for about a week. I hope that I can be useful and interesting to the group.

Why did I join?

After listening to a number of podcast interviews with Winston in the past 2 weeks, I believe that he has hit upon some important truths not only about American women and their de-balling mission to the world, but about some important aspects of modern culture as well. He has hit upon a dysfunction that runs deep within our culture that manifests itself with females and that he is willing to dig out. He does so not only out of intellectual curiosity, but also in order to discover his own personal happiness.

I find that heroic in a way.

After listening to the aforementioned interviews, Winston clarified some things for me as I found that some of his experiences and revelations uncannily parallel mine. So, there is much truth in what he says and I thought it would be a useful exercise for me to write posts about the phenomenon we are all uncovering here.

A little about me: I am a 40+ attorney. I have a Japanese girlfriend. Before I got out of the States at age 41 and went to Europe I was thoroughly de-balled
and depressed. After spending almost a year there(mostly in Eastern Europe-for professional purposes) I woke up to the simple realization that things don't have to be the way they are in the U.S. Winston is correct when he points out that Americans live depressed lives and he is also right to show men that it is healthier to look outward if you wish to resist such a lifestyle.

I will be posting about my experiences in Europe and the Far East (spiritual, intellectual, sexual)in order to make sense of them and that, I hope, will be interesting for members of the group.


P.S. I will be using the term "de-ball" and its derivatives much in my posts. The urban dictionary defines de-balling as: "A situation that arises in which at the end some amount of personal manhood was lost by the actions of a woman." I believe that many American women have become de-ballers by default, to their eternal disgrace. For instance, if you look around the internet, there are various attempts by female bloggers to smear and discredit Winston Wu. These must be recognized as full frontal de-balling attacks. Hopefully my posts will dig deeper into the reason why American women have become obsessive and chronic de-ballers.

Hi Jason,

A warm welcome to the forum, albeit from not what could be called a "power poster". I am happy you found relational and sexual fulfilment by going East. I too had a Japanese girlfriend back in the years (I live in London UK, and she was already here) and what I noticed is that Japan does offer very high quality ladies for discerning adult gentlemen. What I believe happens is that, as it's typical of Asian cultures, once a Japanese woman has reached a career and level of intellectual/cultural sophistication on a par, if not higher than that of their male peers, the traditional Japanese man will shy away from her. They are preferred young, house-bound and a couple of notches lower than their boyfriends/husbands. Confucianism at its best. The paradox is that lots of those gorgeous late 20s to early 30s ladies, lawyers and doctors, scientists and managers, refined as hell due to their cultural level and financial independence, just can't find a matching market in Japan.

If you indeed found one such specimen of Onnanoko, then you have all my envy

Good luck,
PD

Welcome Jason. I'm glad you liked my interviews. I was glad to have the chance to talk about taboo but liberating truths that don't get talked about in normal public outlets.

How did you find them in the first place?

I think you will like our new PowerPoint presentation too. Check it out here:
http://www.happierabroad.com/HappierAbroad.ppsx

Publicduende:

Thanks for the greeting. I actually met my girlfriend in the U.S. like you met yours in England. She is older and was a medical professional in Japan. Her dream, she told me, was to go to medical school, however, she said that being over 30 and going back to school in Japan would be difficult. So, she saved her money and came to the U.S. in order to study to become an M.D.

It was so easy to talk to her and we hit it off immediately. And we've been together for almost 2 years now. I hope to explore the subject of relationships on this forum and hope to speculate about them. So, let's just say a relationship with a woman from any part of the world will have its ups and downs. American women like to use the cliche that the reason men like Asian "trophy wives" is because they are "submissive." Besides being racist, that sentiment is just not true and I can assure you that has not been the experience I have had with my girlfriend. She is certainly not submissive to me and is not beyond playing hardball when it comes to getting the things-and the life- she wants.

For instance, it is not beyond her to use a gentle form of emotional blackmail to get what she wants sometimes. The difference between her and American women however, is that she will never even begin to approach the de-balling zone. In fact, it is quite the contrary. Even though we argue very little, when we do it is always about our future together and whether we have adequate resources to raise children. Thus, her intent is to make me a better provider and a stronger man.

"A-ha!" I can hear them saying, "It IS all about the money! You're just a stupid lonely, American male falling into the Asian honey trap! Gotcha!"

Well...

For her it is about her ability to raise children in a financially and emotionally stable environment. I have expressed to her my desire to home-school our children as I believe much of what's wrong with America stems from the school system. So, she recognizes the reality that this choice would impose us as a couple and has told me that she could not imagine donating that much time to children and having both parents work at the same time. That makes sense to me. Besides, I have checked out as far as I could Japanese child-rearing traditions, and in Japan, mothers are traditionally extremely close to their children. Some have called it "amae" explained below:

Amae can be defined as "indulgent dependency", rooted in the mother-child bond. The indulged (amaeta) child as a spoiled child is ethnocentrically Western from the Japanese-as unique view. Vogel argues that ". . . I see amae (indulgence) as the universal basic instinct, more universal than Freud's two instincts, sex and aggression." Amae is experienced by the child as a "feeling of dependency or a desire to be loved", while the mother vicariously experiences satisfaction and fulfillment through overindulgence and overprotectiveness of her child's immaturity. The assumption is that subsequent Japanese social bonding—teacher-student, supervisor-subordinate, etc.— is patterned after the primary mother-child experience. This can be inferred from Vogel's observation that a large number of Japanese mothers blame the themselves for not being loving or giving enough when their children refuse to attend school. Essentially, Japanese mothers report feeling guilty if they are not all-giving to their children.

Besides, I have been with her for 2 years now, and because I have been raised in a de-balling epoch and indoctrinated with feminist de-balling propoganda, I cannot help but to be suspicious and have been on guard for "inauthenticity" on her part. It just isn't there, and I am beginning to believe that most of the horror stories about "Happier Abroad" relationships are more of the same de-balling propoganda.

WINSTON:

Thanks for responding to my post. I think I found your site through doing living abroad and expat journalism searches on Google. I have been going to Escape Artist and Escape From America for a long time now, but never found your site. I guess things only show upin your life when you are ready to find them.

I listened to your podcast with Robert Stark and I was struck by the truth of what you were saying. I had the same experience with women and emotional health wen I went to the Czech Republic in 2008 and was there for almost a year. It took about a month for me to understand what was happening and to start confidently talking to the very pretty girls in Prague. But when I did, everything else began to unfold. I found Czech women to be open and intelligent-one was reading Montesquieu-and very willing to talk about politics, religion, etc. The surprising thing, however, was the fact that, some of them at least, actually sought me out and were concerned that I was spending too much time alone in Europe. Wow, I could not believe that girls who looked like models actually took a single minute out of their day to give a shit about my well-being!

I also discovered that other European girls were also great and down to earth. Austrian, Germans, Greeks even Russians were great. There is a little problem with the Swedes though and as for any chick from anglo-sphere (Australia, N. Zealand, G. Britain...even Ireland) they seem much like American women to me. The girls I met from Australian and N. Zealand hated me as deeply as American women seemed to.

What I like about your site is that you are willing to go beyond the question of finding women and examine the issue from an epistemological point of view. In the podcasts I listened you raise an interesting question and one that definitely resounded with me as I'm sure it has with others.

You said (I'm paraphrasing) "I always thought it was me. I tried for years to fit in, to change myself and my body but it never seemed to work. Then I discovered it was not me, and even it it was, why was I forced to change myself just to have friends or to talk to women, or just get a date."

It is that revelation that struck me after living about a month in Europe and having girls who looked like models give a shit about me and flirt with me. That introduction to normal relationships between men and women was just the beginning. It began an unraveling process that opened vistas beyond sex and led to politics, philosophy, culture for me. It is these things I wish to pursue on the forum.

Thank you for providing it. Hope to talk to you more!

Jason

Jason of Dystopia wrote:Publicduende:
Thanks for the greeting. I actually met my girlfriend in the U.S. like you met yours in England. She is older and was a medical professional in Japan. Her dream, she told me, was to go to medical school, however, she said that being over 30 and going back to school in Japan would be difficult. So, she saved her money and came to the U.S. in order to study to become an M.D.

It was so easy to talk to her and we hit it off immediately. And we've been together for almost 2 years now. I hope to explore the subject of relationships on this forum and hope to speculate about them. So, let's just say a relationship with a woman from any part of the world will have its ups and downs. American women like to use the cliche that the reason men like Asian "trophy wives" is because they are "submissive." Besides being racist, that sentiment is just not true and I can assure you that has not been the experience I have had with my girlfriend. She is certainly not submissive to me and is not beyond playing hardball when it comes to getting the things-and the life- she wants.

For instance, it is not beyond her to use a gentle form of emotional blackmail to get what she wants sometimes. The difference between her and American women however, is that she will never even begin to approach the de-balling zone. In fact, it is quite the contrary. Even though we argue very little, when we do it is always about our future together and whether we have adequate resources to raise children. Thus, her intent is to make me a better provider and a stronger man.

"A-ha!" I can hear them saying, "It IS all about the money! You're just a stupid lonely, American male falling into the Asian honey trap! Gotcha!"

Well...

For her it is about her ability to raise children in a financially and emotionally stable environment. I have expressed to her my desire to home-school our children as I believe much of what's wrong with America stems from the school system. So, she recognizes the reality that this choice would impose us as a couple and has told me that she could not imagine donating that much time to children and having both parents work at the same time. That makes sense to me. Besides, I have checked out as far as I could Japanese child-rearing traditions, and in Japan, mothers are traditionally extremely close to their children. Some have called it "amae" explained below:

Amae can be defined as "indulgent dependency", rooted in the mother-child bond. The indulged (amaeta) child as a spoiled child is ethnocentrically Western from the Japanese-as unique view. Vogel argues that ". . . I see amae (indulgence) as the universal basic instinct, more universal than Freud's two instincts, sex and aggression." Amae is experienced by the child as a "feeling of dependency or a desire to be loved", while the mother vicariously experiences satisfaction and fulfillment through overindulgence and overprotectiveness of her child's immaturity. The assumption is that subsequent Japanese social bonding—teacher-student, supervisor-subordinate, etc.— is patterned after the primary mother-child experience. This can be inferred from Vogel's observation that a large number of Japanese mothers blame the themselves for not being loving or giving enough when their children refuse to attend school. Essentially, Japanese mothers report feeling guilty if they are not all-giving to their children.

Besides, I have been with her for 2 years now, and because I have been raised in a de-balling epoch and indoctrinated with feminist de-balling propoganda, I cannot help but to be suspicious and have been on guard for "inauthenticity" on her part. It just isn't there, and I am beginning to believe that most of the horror stories about "Happier Abroad" relationships are more of the same de-balling propoganda.

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the interesting insight. I too have been to London long enough to explore relationships with women from different countries and cultures, and I must say I would hardly feel as happy and fulfilled with my wife (a wonderful Colombian woman) if I hadn't chosen to embark in this kind of journey, with an open mind and trying not to mind the few open wounds in the process.

My Japanese ex-gf was a serious relationships that lasted more than 2 years. We lived together and shared a lot of our cultures, biases, good and bad sides. As it's often the case, I did not feel the urge to commit myself to her through marriage, while herself and her family started to put pressure on me to say the M word. We eventually parted when she decided that I wasn't convinced about marriage, thus about her, and chose to go back to Japan, after almost 9 years in London. While we stopped talking, I know she did marry another foreigner, an American young man, and to the best of my knowledge they're now living happily somewhere in the US, after a few more years in Japan.

Then yes, I couldn't agree more about your view of a Japanese woman's subtle ways to extract things from her partner - whether it's a promise or something material. One thing I learned too from my ex-gf, after the surprise and the scorn of the first few episodes, is exactly what you said: that these requests, and methods thereof, are never made out of selfishness, but always with the greater good of the couple in mind. It's absolutely true, and true to the Confucianist sense of family structure that's been instilled in all but (perhaps) the very last generation of Japanese, that a Japanese woman understands and respects her partner's role as much as she knows and respects her own. That famous saying "behind a great man, there's always a great woman" may work pretty well with Japanese women. The good side of this is, a Japanese woman will always be supportive towards what feels is the best choice to improve the overall quality of life for the family, even at the cost of a few sacrifices. This probably explains why Japanese young wives find it OK to let their husbands pull long hours at work every day and even spend nights socialising with their peers, so long that brings the financial benefits or career progression and a better social stature. The flip side is that, at least to a Westerner's eye, their extreme pragmatism may come across as cold, emotionless, almost something to be suspicioius about.

You rightly use the word "inauthenticity", and that's probably the one criticism the Western world has always cast to Japanese society since the Meiji era. For how much time and effort I devoted to understand Japanese society through my then-gf, a few books read and three separate journeys to Japan, I still have no answer. All I can I feel is that Japanese people learn, since childhood, that their individuality is a wonderful gift, so long it's confined to specific times, places and contexts. Your girlfriend probably thought she could not compromise her dream of becoming a medical professional for the sake of respecting the traditional gender rule. That doesn't mean she's not Japanese in many other aspects. She may have also married the American idea of child upbringing, one where she won't develop too much "amae" and will watch her kids at a healthy distance, even at the expense of sometimes feeling inadequate. I think only time and many more conversations on the subject will tell.

Good luck!

Hi again Publicduende:

Thanks for the response and the interesting discussion. I will look around for more of your posts. We seem to be in the minority on Happier Abroad because we are both in long-term relationships and have experienced the hard work that they can be, even with foreign women.

The journey continues.


Stay in touch.