1.Our Theme for This Week, #WeddingFail
To celebrate June bride season, the theme on the show this week was #WeddingFail. We looked at various mistakes and faux pas people have made at weddings.
We looked at #WeddingFail tweets that were about useless grooms, holier-than-thou priests, guests that come only for the open bar, and a bridesmaid that wanted that bouquet just a little too much. We also featured #Bridezilla—tweets from women willing to do whatever it takes to make their fairy-tale weddings come true.
The word “fail" is most often used as a verb that means to be unsuccessful or unable to do something(「失敗する」or「しくじる」in Japanese). The standard noun form is “failure". However, in recent years it has become an informal term for embarrassing mistakes, gaffes, and blunders. For example, fashion no-nos can be called “fashion fails", and marketing campaigns that inadvertently end up being offensive or inappropriate are can be called “marketing fails". In that sense, the Engrish you encounter so often see on Japanese signs and products are “English fails". It’s become a thing on social media to share fails of all kinds.
In LANGUAGE & EDUCATION #022, I wrote about how we live in times when it isn’t clear if we take photos and post to social media in order to commemorate something we did, or if we do something in order to have something to post to social media. The term “Instagrammable" is emblematic of just that, as is its Japanese equivalent insuta-bae (インスタ映え), which was chosen as one of Japan’s vogue words of 2017. When you get lost in the rabbit hole of social media, you start to become obsessed with taking cooler, more stylish photos. You artificially manufacture the self-image or lifestyle you want people to think you have, with the ultimate goal to garner likes and make your friends and followers on social media feel jealous. Proposals and weddings provide a wealth of photo opportunities that are perfect for that objective.
There is perhaps no one on this Earth who knows all of that better than Kim Kardashian, queen of reality TV and social media. Kardashian wed rapper Kanye West in 2014; plans to book famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for their wedding ceremony fell through, and they ended up flying in a British 22-year-old that they had found on Instagram just a few days prior. In order to give a photo of the couple kissing in front of an elaborate display of flowers an Annie Leibovitz-style aesthetic, Kardashian reportedly spent four days of her honeymoon editing the photo herself. (Kanye vocally vented his frustration some time later at an event.)
Ironically, whether it’s a wedding ceremony or a photo for social media, trying a little too hard to strive for perfection inevitably results in a fail. Mistakes and slip-ups are a part of life. While it’s a good idea to do everything in your power to prevent those fails from happening, it’s more important to cultivate a disposition that allows you to take fails in stride and find joy in dealing with the aftermath. How a couple deals with a #WeddingFail speaks volumes about their future. Some things you have to just laugh off together.
2.English and Japanese Terms Related to Weddings
Next, a brief run-through of various words and idioms related to weddings in English and Japanese.
First, a soulmate is called your 運命の人. And as there are no Japanese equivalents, you can describe Mr. Right as 理想の男性 or 夫にするのにふさわしい男性, while Mrs. Right is 理想の女性 or 妻にするのにふさわしい女性. A match made is heaven is お似合いのカップル, while you can characterize the relationship between a couple that deserves each other as 割れ鍋に綴じ蓋. This saying literally translates to “a mended lid for a cracked pot".
Once you’ve found your Mr. Right of Mrs. Right, next comes the proposal. The most straightforward way to say “propose" isプロポーズ, but the more formal “ask for someone’s hand in marriage" can be translated as相手に結婚の承諾を求める, while a somewhat stilted translation of the more casual “pop the question" would be 結婚の申し出をする. Meanwhile, “Do I hear wedding bells?" is a question people ask to tease a friend who is utterly smitten or head-over-heels. In Japan, where the people are generally more bashful, the classic response to someone speaking fondly or bragging about their relationship is ご馳走様—literally, thank you for the meal.
In English there are a number of colloquialisms for getting married, such as “say I do" or “walk down the aisle". In Japanese 結婚する is most common. That being said, the imagery of “tying the knot" or “getting hitched" also has significance in Japan—the character 結 means “knot", and 結ばれる is a more poetic way of saying “tying the knot". And speaking of “walking down the aisle", the Japanese term for wedding aisle is virgin road (ヴァージン・ロード). While the word “virgin" did at one time refer to an unmarried woman, that use is seen today as archaic; today the term usually refers to someone who has never had sexual intercourse.
Weddings in Japan usually fall into one of three styles: traditional shinzen-shiki (神前式) weddings are held at Shinto Shrines, secular or non-denominational jinzen-shiki (人前式) weddings have the guests serve as witnesses, and kyoukai-shiki (教会式) weddings are held in a chapel with a “pastor" and more or less adhere to Christian wedding traditions. Ask a Japanese person to picture a wedding, and they will likely picture a chapel. Again, most Japanese are not Christian, and thus have little to no attachment to the religious significance of the wedding ceremony. The name virgin road was made up by the Japanese bridal industry to push the idea that brides should aspire to be pure and, well, virginal. But as premarital sex in Japanese society is not associated with sin, the name clearly nothing more than a charade. What’s more, the pastor that stands at the end of that “virgin road" is usually a part-time foreigner-type with no formal training or qualifications other than the fact that they look the part by virtue of being a white foreigner. And given the fact that most Japanese tend to emphasize the reception over the ceremony, it remains a mystery to me how such posturing could constitute anyone’s dream wedding.
3.Modern Marriages and Relationships
Next, an overview of various English phrases used to describe marriages and relationships today.
The term that seems most straightforward but is actually most troublesome is traditional marriage. For example, a traditional marriage in Japan evokes a man who rules the roost (the 亭主関白 stereotype), and a woman who is a good wife and wise mother (the 良妻賢母 stereotype). Alternatively, it could refer to what the Japanese call omiai-kekkon (お見合い結婚, an arranged marriage). In either case, in a more general sense a traditional marriage in Japan is one that puts the family first—as opposed to an American marriage, which puts the individual first.
By contrast, a traditional marriage in the U.S. has different connotations. In LANGUAGE & EDUCATION #024, I wrote about the LGBTQ+ movement and the evolving language of how we define our sexuality, and by extension, our relationships. As a reaction to the fight for the right to gay marriage, some have begun using the term traditional marriage to differentiate opposite-sex marriages from same-sex marriages. In that usage, the word traditional implies an aversion to gay marriage.
Related to the idea of traditional marriage is conventional marriage. In the West, a conventional marriage is a monogamous one where two people pledge to love each other for the rest of their lives. By contrast, a marriage of convenience is one where a couple marries for financial or political gain (sometimes without their consent). This is where it gets a little complicated, because from a Westerner’s perspective, a conventional Japanese marriage that puts the family’s wishes above the individual’s is a marriage of convenience.
In recent years, more and more people are choosing not to marry. For personal, political, or ethical reasons, they take issue with or oppose the notion of a “traditional" or “conventional" marriage. A couple that is fully committed but not married usually refers to one another as a partner or life partner.
A monogamous marriage is referred to by the stilted ippu-ippu-sei (一夫一婦制) in Japanese, while there is no particular term for a monogamous relationship outside of wedlock. Polygamy is fukukon-sei (複婚制), while polygyny is ippu-tasai-sei (一夫多妻制). There is no equivalent for the term open relationship or open marriage, which refer to relationships where both partners agree that each can have sexual relations with others. And unsurprisingly, there is also no equivalent for the term monogamish, which refers to a mostly monogamous relationship where partners occasionally make exceptions. Perhaps tradition holds more sway in Japan than it does in the U.S., which is younger as a nation and founded on the idea of questioning tradition.
4.A Japanese #WeddingFail
As I mentioned on the show, I have never been to a wedding in the U.S. I have, however, been to a wedding or two in Japan, and on one instance I committed a #WeddingFail so egregious it makes me want to curl up and die just thinking about it. It happened several years ago when a Japanese friend of mine who was born and raised in the U.S. married a Japanese man.
Although my friend is Japanese by blood, her personality had always seemed to me more American, and I had heard that a number of her American friends were flying in to attend. All of this is to say that I wasn’t sure what kind of “traditional" to expect—whether I should dress for an American wedding or a Japanese wedding. After talking with Scarlet, I decided to play it safe and wear a classic black suit and silver and navy regimental necktie. And this being Japan, I knew I should plan on bringing goshugi (ご祝儀, gift money). I asked BigBrother where I should go to obtain crisp new paper bills, and he told me to go to the front desk of the venue.
So on the day of the wedding I arrived at the venue early and handed the clerk two old 10,000 yen bills. The clerk gave me a slightly puzzled look and asked, “20,000 yen, do I have the amount right?" I thought the question was a bit odd, but I replied in the affirmative. When the clerk returned with my new bills, she asked me again, “20,000 yen, do I have that right?" I had been afraid that 20,000 yen would be too small an amount for the occasion, but at the time I could not afford to give 30,000 or 40,000 yen. So I received my bills, tucked them away in the noshibukuro (熨斗袋, traditional envelope) that Scarlet had prepared for me, and headed for the reception desk.
When I told BigBrother about this exchange a few days later, he burst into laughter. He explained to me that for wedding money gifts, numbers starting with an even number—in other words, numbers evenly divisible by two—were considered bad luck. Numbers such as 3, which cannot be divided evenly in half, represent the idea that the couple will remain together forevermore. Intrigued, I did some research and found that belief had likely originated in the idea of yin and yang, imported to Japan from China. Even numbers were considered yin (dark and negative) while odd numbers were yang (bright and positive); people went out of their way to avoid even numbers for celebratory occasions. Soon I began to see it everywhere, such as in the Japanese traditional rite of passage for young children Shichi-Go-San (七五三, or seven, five, and three), and the fact that the Japanese like to conclude dinner parties and get-togethers with either an ipponjime (一本締め, a 3-3-3-1 hand-clapping pattern) or sanbonjime (三本締め, that same pattern repeated three times).
On the #WeddingFail show we all shuddered at a poor sap who accidentally said the name of an ex at the altar. For weddings in Japan, it’s important to get the numbers right, too.
5.My Wardrobe for This Episode
Pink button-down shirt by Difference
Silver bow tie by Ralph Lauren
Dark red long socks by Tabio
