Today's bibliography of our review, "Wives Who Hate But Don't Divorce," is from Japanese writer Miki Kobayashi.
The original Japanese name of the book was "Wives Who Want Their Husbands to Die", and on the Japanese Internet, search for "husband" using a search engine, the first associated word that automatically appears is "to die". The author, Miki Kobayashi, interviewed 15 wives who had the idea of "dying" with a decade-long follow-up investigation.
Why don't these hateful wives divorce? How many women are disappointed in life by the sense of shame, the shackles of endurance virtue, invisible discrimination and disrespect? To what extent does the employment environment and social security system affect the quality of life of ordinary people?
Welcome to continue to pay attention to the "jury", we will continue to send you the freshest reading experience. Book reviewers look forward to providing everyone with high-quality reviews of reading under this new column, and also growing up with new excellent "book reviewers".
The Jury of Books
Jury
Bibliography of this issue
"Hate but Not Divorced Wives"
Author: Miki Kobayashi
Translator: Af
Edition: Spring Tide | CITIC Publishing Group February 2022
About the Author:
Miki Kobayashi was born in 1975. Journalist in the direction of labor and economy in Japan. He worked for News Co., Ltd., then as a reporter for the editorial board of The Economist, a mainichi shimbun, and has been a freelance journalist since 2007. Reports focus on issues such as hiring, getting married, giving birth to children, and returning to work. He is the author of "The Society That Does Not Allow Childbearing", "Middle-aged Drifting", "Young People Who Have Become "Regular Employees"" and "Nursing Collapse", "Workplace Abortion" and so on.
Translator's Bio:
Af, a language and writing worker. After studying in Japan in his early years, he graduated from a bachelor's degree in international information processing and moved to Denmark to teach and translate Chinese and Japanese. He later joined a Danish jewellery company as an East Asia manager. After returning to China in 2010, he left the workplace and returned to campus, and from 2011 to 2017, he studied at the School of Chinese Culture of Beijing Normal University, where he obtained a master's degree in Chinese international education and a doctorate in literature. He currently lives in Germany. His translations include William's Sky (in Danish), Henry the Great Magician, Lily the Tiger, and The Cookie Dog series (21 volumes, in English).
What kind of book is this?
Why don't hateful wives divorce?
How many women are disappointed in life by the sense of shame, the shackles of endurance virtue, invisible discrimination and disrespect?
To what extent does the employment environment and social security system affect the quality of life of ordinary people?
Miki Kobayashi has been a freelance journalist since 2007. In 2013, he won the Poverty News Reporting Award. As a freelance journalist for 14 years, her reporting has focused on hiring, marriage, childbirth and childcare, and returning to the workforce.
Miki Kobayashi uses cross-decade tracking investigations, cases, and data to depict the real rift in marriage, and through the encounters of 15 interviewees, she continues to ask: what is a husband and wife/ what is marriage / what is home. The original appearance records the perspective of women, while supplementing the male point of view, while reflecting on the solidified concept, but also asking questions about the workplace culture and social environment, giving readers of all ages an opportunity to think deeply about marriage and personal, social and family.
Why is it appealing?
Author of "The Society That Does Not Allow Children" and freelance journalist Miki Kobayashi. More than ten years of follow-up investigation, using the marriage encounters of 15 living Japanese women, helped us avoid marriage tragedies.
Professional and easy to read true stories, from full of expectations for family life, to being defeated by exhaustion, the Japanese realistic version of "Kim Ji-young born in 1982".
In-depth case + data analysis, depicting the real rift in marriage! Think about three big questions before marriage: What is husband and wife / What is marriage / What is home?
Sitting across from reporter Miki Kobayashi, she told her own story.
It's not anyone's wife, it's not anyone's mother, it's Miyuki, Shiho, Satoko, Misaki, Yuri...
There is no gratuitous hatred: widowhood, no love, infidelity, emotional abuse, implicit exploitation...
"Hate but Not Divorced Wives" (trial reading)
Husband fleeing the "battlefield"
"What are you doing ? Enough, you go and die!!"
At 7:30 a.m., in an apartment in Tokyo, the wife's roar at her husband turned the living room into a battlefield.
Nanase Miyuki (pseudonym, 38), who was anxious to go to work, scratched his head with his hands in a hurry, and calculated in his heart: he had to quickly feed his 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter breakfast and change clothes, and if he did not leave the house at 8 o'clock, he would be late to the nursery. More precisely, it is that you are going to be late for work. Miyuki looked at her watch, the time was not waiting for anyone, but at this time, her son was in a mood, shouting: "Don't eat, don't eat -" However, children cannot go to nursery without breakfast.
Miyuki calmed down for a moment and began to play the role of a gentle mother. "You don't have to eat them all, just eat a little." Then, with a gentle and somewhat exaggerated manner, she held out her spoon to her son: "Come, be nice." Ah—" The son finally took a bite, and took another bite. "Wow, that's awesome!" Every time the child took a bite, Miyuki was busy giving praise.
Well, it's one bite to take. Hurry up and change your clothes!
My 3-year-old son can change his clothes completely, but he just doesn't do it himself. Not only did he not change it himself, but as soon as Miyuki's hand touched him, he turned around and ran away. Miyuki thought to herself: I'm still running pretty fast. When I looked up, I saw my son hiding in the shadows of the curtains, smiling at her. Alas, it is at this time that the innocent child looks like a little devil. Miyuki felt the green tendons on her forehead constantly erupting.
- No, no! If you get angry at him at this time, he will not be able to go out as soon as he cries.
endure! Be sure to hold back.
"Come on, be obedient, let's change our clothes." Miyuki chased after her son, ripped off his pajamas, and changed into the clothes he was wearing for the nursery. It's time for the younger sister... Just thinking about it, my son, who had just changed his clothes, suddenly shouted: "The stink is coming out!" Immediately after, the daughter overturned the milk cup, and the clothes and floor were suddenly wet.
"Oops! How to do it! ”
The husband fled into the kitchen. Is it time to turn a blind eye, run to the kitchen to wash the dishes, and make yourself tea?! He pretended not to see it!
Thinking of this, Miyuki's heart rose up with a real killing intent.
- You wash your ass! It's a mess in front of you, can't you see it? Can't you just clean it up? Now what tea to drink ?! Come and help!!
In front of the children, Miyuki had a bad seizure and could only swallow these words hard. Since the time he was single, the husband has been a "tea idiot". Whether it is black tea or green tea, the water temperature of the tea must be precise, and the time to brew the tea must also be calculated by a stopwatch. Drinking such a carefully brewed cup of tea after work before the birth of a child will always make Miyuki full of joy. "But after having a child, you can't still be as good as before, right?" Every time she thought of this, Miyuki couldn't help but get irritated. I don't know if my husband didn't notice Miyuki's irritability, or if he pretended not to see it, but he hid in the kitchen and didn't come out. Do you deal with your son's in his pants first, or do you clean up your daughter's spilled milk first?
"Hurry up and help me!" Miyuki shouted at her husband, but only got a slow answer: "Wait a minute! ”
At this moment, the string that controls emotions "bangs" and breaks. At the moment, nothing can stop Miyuki from entering battle mode. "Enough! Go and die!!" As soon as the words came out, Miyuki felt something peel off in her heart. I don't love this person anymore. Not loving, of course. Miyuki accepted the idea calmly. The two children looked at their suddenly mad mother and were stunned.
The era of unquestionable double-paying families
When interviewing Miyuki, who was the same age as me, I suddenly remembered an old advertisement. So, I chatted with Miyuki with great interest.
"Golden Bird wardrobe insect repellent, Golden Bird wardrobe insect repellent, as long as the husband is still alive, there is nothing wrong with not going home."
This is the advertisement we did when we were kids, right? At that time, the married life of Japanese couples was quite happy.
"It's not the same now. Wives hate their husbands to die. Miyuki said with a bitter smile.
The phrase "Golden Bird Wardrobe Insect Repellent" is an advertisement for clothing insect repellent launched by Golden Bird (Great Japan Pyrethrum Co., Ltd.) in 1986. The rapid development of the economy has made "company employees plus full-time housewives" the mainstream family member composition model. In the advertisement, a group of middle-aged housewives sang in unison at the community neighborhood committee: "As long as the husband is still alive, there is nothing wrong if he does not go home." "The advertisement was witty and funny, and it was a big hit.
Miyuki grew up in a typical "company employee plus full-time housewife" family, with parents belonging to the Clumps generation. Miyuki's plan for the future since childhood is to get married and have children. However, unlike her mother, miyuki did not quit her job at an advertising agency after getting married and having children. Miyuki sees this job as her vocation, raising children while working on her career.
In the era when the "Golden Bird Wardrobe Insect Repellent" advertising slogan was popular, the family model of the wife as a full-time housewife became mainstream. Let's take a look at the development trend of the two family models of "working husbands and unemployed wives" (hereinafter referred to as "full-time housewives's families") and "working families of both spouses" (hereinafter referred to as "double-paid families"). According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' Labour Force Survey (known as the Special Labour Force Survey until 2001), the number of full-time housewife households in Japan in 1980 was 11.14 million, almost double that of dual-income families (6.14 million). In the 1990s, both sets of data fluctuated, and by 1997 they had completely reversed. Since then, the number of dual-income families has increased year by year. In 2014, the number of full-time housewife households fell to 7.2 million, while dual-income households rose to 10.77 million. Soon, double-income families became the dominant family model in Japan (Figure 1-1).
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