Meet Matt, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, California, who recently married his college girlfriend from the University of Southern California. Her name is Miho. The pair are both in their late 30s and there was a 10-year period after university when he didn't lay eyes on Miho or feel any interest in Japanese women, and lived the life of a true-blue Californian whose only bond to Japan was his Toyota Prius. Then the stars aligned, he and Miho ran into each other again at a sushi party thrown by a mutual friend and Matt fell in love, all over gain. Just like a movie.

Never one to do anything half-assed, Matt started taking Japanese lessons, bought heavy, expensive shashinshū (写真集, photo books) on Kyoto and matsuri (祭り, Japanese festivals) — OK, you can stop giggling — and procured the bling. He changed the music in his cāsute (カーステ, car stereo) from Jack Johnson to Miho's favorite, Yuzu. After the wedding in Hawaii, and the settling of the shinkon (新婚, newlywed) dust, Matt found himself quietly but definitely in the throes of an anxiety attack. He couldn't understand Miho's particular needs and when he tried to delve into her mind, she brushed him off by saying that in-depth discussions tired her. She said it in English, and then she said it in Japanese: "Sonnano tsukareru" (「そんなの疲れる」, "That sort of thing wears me out").

Matt came to dread that particular phrase, which Miho pulled out often. His wife wasn't sick or stressed out; she was in fact a fitness freak, who worked out five times a week with a personal trainer shared with two other Japanese onnatomodachi (女友達, woman friends). They'd been married six months and already she seemed to be retreating to a place he couldn't follow. I saw Matt last month, sitting in a bar and sighing into his Margarita. "Japanese women ... Boy do they have issues."