After I finished college in the early 90s in East Asian Studies, I decided that I wanted to go to work in Tokyo. My first job was at a large mercantile trading company with a huge headquarter office in the central business district. The office was traditionally configured in a large open plan with more senior staff by the windows and new recruits like me arranged along long tables covered in paperwork and phones. One perk of the job was finding myself surrounded by young Japanese girls called OLs short for office ladies. OLs are considered like flowers that brighten up the office, do the clerical work, and more often than not marry the single men as they rise up the ranks. In those days OLs didn't expect to get promoted very far nor work for very long. Only the old maids stayed - and many times these older women kept everything working but received little or no recognition.
One of the younger girls that worked on my floor was Yuriko. She has a stunningly beautiful pixie-like face with a small pouting mouth that always seemed to show her two front teeth. Otherwise she was typical - on the smaller side, with small breasts and a round bottom that gradually morphed into legs a little on the thick side. I didn't give her too much though since there were plenty of attractive women around and I didn't want to go hunting at my workplace. But over several months I came to appreciate Yuriko's fast wit, helpful attitude and caring nature. She confided in me that she thirsted for adventure to travel and live abroad and get away from her mundane life. It crossed my mind that marrying a foreigner would be one route to achieve that goal.
All went smoothly at first but that was about to change one April night during Cherry Blossom season. As is typical of that time of year, after work our whole office decamped to a large mat under some particularly fine cherry trees by a canal. Beer and snacks flowed late into the night while everyone got progressively drunker. When it came time to leave, I ended up going to the subway with Yuriko and a few other coworkers since we lived in the same general direction. Yuriko lived far out of the city one of the many long commuter lines. By the time we got to the connecting terminal station it was just the two of us and her last train had just left. For me that was not an issue since I lived nearby. But Yuriko was very upset since taking a taxi home would cost the equivalent of $500 and she didn't have that kind of money to burn and while hotels were cheaper they were not somewhere that a young single woman would find in the middle of the night. So off the cuff I offered to let her stay at my place on a pull out sofa. She protested at first but in the end and a little embarrassed said ok if I insisted.
We walked home silently and scampered up the stairwell to avoid any nosey neighbors. Once inside I gave her a tour of the apartment - all two and a half rooms of it. She borrowed a toothbrush, a t-shirt and after we made the bed, she tucked herself in. Exhausted and tipsy we both fell asleep at once. Saturday morning we woke up late, had a restorative breakfast of cereal and coffee. With nothing much else planned I invited Yuriko to spend the day with me. After the obligatory refusal professing not wanting to be a bother, she accepted my offer. I first took Yuriko around my neighborhood showing her all the wonderful traditional shops and temples that still remained and were the reason I lived in the area. I think Yuriko was impressed by my knowledge and love of Japan. Most foreigners are in the country for only a few years and don't have any command of the language or the culture so I was definitely an outlier in that respect.
That afternoon we went down to Omotesando, a favorite area of mine with western-style street cafés near a green and quiet park. After our lunch we found a secluded park bench and had a great time chatting about our families, our dreams and goals. It turned out the Yuriko was an only child. Her mother was a seamstress and her father ran a small liquor store - in other words she came from a fairly typical middleclass household. Neither of her parents spoke English and they had never travelled out of Japan. Yuriko was scared she would live an equally uneventful if comfortable life. As dinner was fast approaching, I once again invited her to stay the night. This time there was no hesitation when she said yes.
