Yang and Yin, A Matching Pair

The art department at my university was going to have a new design teacher, and the 3rd-year girls I was studying art with were all thrilled to bits. They’d heard he was single and fresh out of graduate school, thus as young as a teacher could possibly be.

There was endless speculation about what he’d be like. Kimiko hoped he’d be hip; art teachers were supposed to be hip. Kazue pictured a philosophical type with soulful eyes and strong, clever hands. Michiyo claimed that she didn’t care what he looked like as long as he was an easy grader. All the other teachers, most of them old men of forty or older, were notorious for being hard taskmasters who made you slave for decent grades.

The young ladies’ hopes were dashed a few weeks later when they heard that the new design teacher would be getting married shortly before signing his teaching contract. Alas, he would not be potential husband material. Still, they could dream. And even a married man would be more exciting than the boring old farts who’d taught them for the past two and a half years.

When Yanagi-san arrived, however, our jaws dropped. He was a dainty, willowy fellow, pencil thin, with a narrow, ferrety little face and practically no facial hair. His voice was thin and reedy too and he had an affected, high-pitched whinny of a laugh that made even my skin crawl. His complexion was unnaturally white, and his forearms and hands were so delicately skinny, you found yourself wondering whether he could handle an exacto knife without injuring himself.

Kazue expressed amazement that there was any woman in all of Japan willing to marry such a man. I pictured a tiny, hyper-feminine creature who would make him look, if not tall, at least normal-sized.

I finally got to meet her when the sculpture teacher hosted a party for the art department faculty and a handful of students. Coming into the house, I was startled by the sound of a woman’s laughter. It was loud, gutsy and coarse – not the sort of laughter you usually hear in broad daylight in Japan when most people tend to be stone-cold sober. "That’s Yanagi-san’s wife," murmured Matsue, the wife of the painting teacher. "Come on, I’ll introduce you."

Sitting next to her husband, Mrs Yanagi looked even bigger than she really was. And by Japanese standards, she was massive. At just under 5’7” I was the tallest woman on campus – probably in the entire town. But Mrs Yanagi was a close second. She was a good thirty pounds heftier than me, too. Her speaking voice made you think of a ship’s captain of good, honest peasant stock. She had a ruddy, pock-marked face and a completely uncontrived manner. You got the feeling that when she wanted to let out a good belly laugh, she just let it out, that she wasn’t the type who would discreetly pass her tongue over her teeth to feel for stray bits of spinach first. Japanese women tend to cover their mouths with their hands when they laugh, but I’m willing to bet that the idea had never occurred to Mrs Yanagi.

Throughout the party, Mrs Yanagi frequently interrupted and corrected her husband in a friendly, high-spirited manner. She wasn’t unkind or grossly crude. She didn’t swear or make catty comments, and she showed interest in what other people at the table were saying even if she did hog the conversation. But the other faculty wives looked stunned: she was completely not their type.

"So, what do you think of Mrs Yanagi?" Matsue asked me later.

I smiled. "I've got to say she's not what I had expected."

"Definitely an arranged marriage,’ she said,laughing, and I had to agree.

Five years later, Matsue and her husband, who had not had an arranged marriage but a ‘love match,’ went through a particularly unpleasant divorce. The last I heard, Mr and Mrs Yanagi had three children and were still going strong.