Match-making and going on a date in Japan

By Carole Goldsmith Copyright 2010 All rights Reserved


One afternoon around 5 PM, I was waiting on Iidabashi Station in Tokyo when a quiet young man came up to me and said Konnichi wa. That means hello in Japanese. I turned around and said konnichi wa in return and uttered a few other Japanese greeting words.  He wanted to practice the English that he had learnt in his recent class. " I have learnt English for 6 months and my English is still like Japanese English" he said with a sigh. I wanted to practice my Japanese language skills as I had been studying hard and writing lots of characters (kanji, hiragana and katakana) I told him this as we waited for the approaching train.

On the train we went and the train pushers were already to push us inside the train. We went to the back of the train and continued our conversation.  My name is Moro he said. I would like to meet you for coffee so that we can practice English and Japanese together. We arranged to meet at Shinjuku on Saturday afternoon at 3 PM. I got off at the next stop " Suidobashi" as I had to do some electrical shopping.

I met Moro at the designated place the following Saturday. To my surprise, he turned up with a young Japanese woman, Kimiko san. After the introductions and lots of giggles from Moro and Kimiko, he told me that he would like me to travel with them both to his country town. The reason he explained was to convince his parents that he should marry Kimiko, whom he loved, instead of the woman they had arranged for him to marry. Yes match making still occurs in Japan.