On the day I married my husband, I married his family, too. I moved next door to my in-laws on the family plot in Tokyo. Now, I live there with my husband and daughter; my parents-in-law; my husband's uncle, aunt and their three daughters; two dogs; a cat; and a goldfish named Mikey.
Being the foreign addition to a traditional Japanese extended family, as I found out, can be a real challenge. But it's more commonly encountered these days -- one in 22 marriages in 2000 were "international," even though foreigners make up only 1 percent of the population (according to March 2002 estimates). As the leader of a foreign wives' group, I am often asked what it's really like to be living here with my Japanese husband.
Most of my friends met their Japanese husbands here in Japan. A few others, like myself, met their husbands abroad. Some of us live with our in-laws; most of us do not. But there is one factor that affects how well we each adjust to our lives as wives here in Japan: how we came to be here in the first place.