My Japanese Girlfriend's Family Hates Me

So, um, a few nights ago my girlfriend

went to a restaurant with her mum to have

dinner, to, to tell her mum about my

existence and that we're going to get

married. So the original plan was that she

would go to the restaurant and tell her

mum about everything, and if things went

well, if things went okay, she would send

me a message asking me to come to the

restaurant to come and meet her mum.

Well, things, things didn't quite turn out

that way. I got dressed and I did my hair

and I was waiting in the apartment,

waiting for my girlfriend to send me a

message asking me to come to the

restaurant. About an hour passed and I

still didn't get any message from my

girlfriend, and I had this feeling that

they were arguing in the restaurant and

things weren't going well, and I imagined

that her mum was upset about the whole

thing and she didn't want to see me. And

then I finally got a message from my

girlfriend saying that I won't have to

come to the restaurant because things

weren't going very well. And honestly

speaking, I was relieved because I really

didn't want to have to meet her mum. She

sounds like a bit of a scary— a scary

person. I let out this sigh of relief

because I didn't have to meet her mum,

and I took off my jeans and I put my

pyjama trousers back on, and I decided to

start cooking myself some mini pizzas.

And I made a coffee. A few hours later,

my girlfriend finally came home and her

face was all red. She was crying. She had

tears rolling down her face. She smelled

like barbecued beef and alcohol. I got up

and I said, what's wrong? Is everything

okay? And she told me everything that her

mum said to her. My girlfriend told me

that her mum was really upset and angry,

and she was 100% against the idea of us

getting married. And she also said these

really horrible things, like she told my

girlfriend to get out of town. And she

also said that when she dies, she's not

going to leave anything for my girlfriend,

and she's going to give everything away to

her sister. So that kind of just gives you

an image of the maturity level of my

future mother-in-law. I can totally

understand if a parent is against the idea

of their child marrying someone, but

saying that when you die you're not going

to leave anything for your child is just

such a petty and childish thing to say.

Oh, I don't like this decision that you're

making as a grown adult. I'm not going to

leave you anything when I die. You're

going to get zero of the family

inheritance. It sounds like someone's been

watching too much Korean drama recently.

Her mum doesn't even know me and she's

already against the idea of us getting

married. Could you imagine if she actually

found out about me and knew that I'm an

unemployed lazy freeloader who uploads

embarrassing videos to the internet? Her

mum said the same things that everyone

else has been saying. It's too soon for

you two to get married, you only got

divorced last year. Why don't you let him

go home first so you can take more time to

think about this? You haven't even met his

parents. You don't know what kind of

people his parents are. He's just using

you so he can stay in Japan for longer.

Now watch me absolutely destroy every

single one of those points. Number 1, the

amount of time that a couple have been

dating before they decide to get married

is completely irrelevant. A couple can be

dating for years and then they decide to

get married, and turns out the marriage

doesn't work out and they get divorced.

And on the other hand, a couple could be

dating for only a few months and decide to

get married, and the marriage could work

out and they could be happily married for

decades. For example, my parents. Number

2, why does it matter if she got divorced

last year? Why does she have to wait a

certain amount of time before she can move

on and find someone new? If she feels like

she's ready to move on and find a new

boyfriend or find a new husband, then that

decision is completely up to her. None of

us are getting any younger. What's the

point in waiting around? To find someone

new just because you got divorced

recently. That doesn't make any sense.

Number 3, why do people keep saying that I

should go home back to England first and

then come back to Japan and then decide if

we want to get married or not? What

difference does it make if we get married

now or in a few months' time later in the

year? It doesn't make any difference. And

it's not, it's not like we just decided to

get married yesterday. We have been

thinking about it. We've been thinking

about it since last year for the past 4

months. Number 4: Why is it important for

my girlfriend to meet my parents and find

out what kind of people they are? She's

never going to see them. They live halfway

across the world. At most, she might see

them once a year. My parents aren't going

to be involved in our lives, so it doesn't

matter if my girlfriend knows what kind of

people my parents are or not. It doesn't

matter if my parents are criminals or drug

dealers. It doesn't matter if they're the

owners of a successful company. Let's say,

for example, my parents were millionaires

and they were really rich and successful.

Do you think my girlfriend's mum would be

more supportive of the marriage if she

knew that? Just because my parents are

millionaires doesn't mean that I'm a

millionaire. People need to understand

that my parents' achievements in life are

their achievements. They're not mine. And

number 5, some people think— seem to think

that I'm only getting married to my

girlfriend because I want to stay in Japan

or I want to get a visa. And that's just a

load of rubbish. Getting married was her

idea. It wasn't my idea. It's not like I'm

begging her or pressuring her into getting

married to me. Getting married was a

decision we both made because we want to

be together and we love each other very

much. Hey, immigration. We both

knew that her mum wouldn't be happy with

this idea. We both knew that she wouldn't

just say, oh, that's great, bring him down

to the restaurant and I'll meet him and

I'll give him a kiss on the cheek. We both

knew that she would be not very happy with

this, but we didn't know she'd be this

unhappy about the whole situation. My

girlfriend didn't think it would be this

bad. She didn't think she would get

disowned by her own mum. And I'm pretty

sure that even if I did go home to England

and then I came back to Japan a few months

later and then we told her mum again that

we're still planning on getting married,

pretty sure that her mum would still be

upset about it. When it comes to marriage,

Japan is a very traditional country.

People don't tell their parents that they

have boyfriends or girlfriends unless it's

a really serious relationship that has a

future. Usually in Japan, if a guy wants

to marry his girlfriend He would go and

meet his girlfriend's parents, and then he

would— he would literally get on the floor

and then bow down to his girlfriend's

father and

ask for his permission to marry his

daughter, which is just such an

old-fashioned way of doing things. It kind

of reminds me of what it was like hundreds

of years ago in England, where you had to

ask for the father's permission to marry

his daughter. It's kind of like the father

sees his own daughter as property that he

owns. And you need his permission to

obtain his property. It's just such a

weird, messed up way of thinking. It just

doesn't make sense. Why does a grown

woman, a grown adult woman, need the

permission of her father or her parents to

get married? How about you just let her

make the decision for herself, for her own

life? It's not just her mum. Things are

also pretty bad with her sister. At first,

her sister agreed to be a witness for her

marriage. And she agreed to sign the

document. But then later in the day, she

suddenly changed her mind. We think that

her husband talked her out of it, talked

some sense into her. And then my

girlfriend had this huge argument with her

sister on the messaging app,

and things aren't good between them. I do

feel a little bit guilty that because of

me, my girlfriend has basically fallen out

with her whole family. But it also feels

kind of nice because I feel like I'm the

only one she has now. She has no one else

to turn to, basically. I'm her only family

right now. Anyway, I'm sure her family

will calm down and stop being so angry

after, after the relationship has lasted

for a bit longer and they realize what a

great guy I am. I mean, who wouldn't want

me as their son-in-law or their

brother-in-law? I'm such a nice person.

At least I don't do drugs, I'm not an

alcoholic, I don't smoke. I don't think

there's anything wrong with me. Why would

you be against— I mean, if you had a

daughter, would you be against the idea of

her marrying me? Tell me the truth,

honestly.

Lemon beer, that sounds interesting.

Thick slice bacon.

Mm, poo curry sounds delicious.

Any beans here? Baked beans, baked beans.

Oh look, they have Heinz ketchup.

Ravioli.

Hey, so I know there hasn't been much

Cooking with Daniel recently, but oh boy,

have I got a treat for you today. We're

going to be cooking our hardwood smoked

old-fashioned brand thick sliced bacon,

baby. Oh yes, look at that.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find baked

beans at Caldi, so this will have to do

for today's lunch. I still don't think

this is going to taste like proper British

bacon because this looks like streaky

American bacon, and the bacon that I'm

talking about is back— back bacon cut from

the back of the pig. So I think this is

going to taste different to British bacon,

but it's going to taste a lot better than

that crappy Japanese bacon, which is just

ham basically. Okay, so the frying pan has

heated up and we're gonna pop in our first

slice of bacon. Let's see how it goes.

And the second slice.

As you can see, I decided to cut the bacon

strips in half with my scissors because

they were too long and it was hard to fit

inside of the frying pan. You can also see

there's a lot of fat on this bacon. You

can see that fat starting to turn into

oil. It's been frying for roughly 20

seconds now, and I can already smell that

smoky bacon flavor, and I'm really hungry.

It's been frying for about 1 minute now,

and the thing is with this bacon, it cooks

extremely quickly, so we're going to flip

it over to prevent burning.

Now, as you can see, it's, uh, starting to

go pink or brownish depending

on what kind of color you think

that is, but I think it looks like a dark

pink. And we're going to

continue to fry the other side for about

another 40 seconds and then take it out of

the frying pan. Okay, so the bacon has

finished frying and it would be a good

idea to get some, to get some tissue paper

and wipe off this fat or oil, but I'm too

lazy for that. And I've prepared some

traditional English muffins here on this

plate, and we're just going to place the

slices— 2 slices of bacon into each,

each English muffin. This one's

being a bit naughty and it's trying to

escape, but you're not escaping the

muffin, Mr. Bacon. And just try and shake

off some of that oil because, you know,

it's not really good for you. And get the

final strip of bacon and place it into the

muffin like so.

And the final touch that we need to do to

complete this dish is some ketchup.

And that is how you make a bacon muffin

the traditional English way. Now, another

good idea would be to get a fried egg and

put that on top of the bacon. But we don't

have any eggs today, so we'll just have it

without eggs. So we're going to pop in the

first bite of the bacon.

Mmm, this is really good bacon.

It's not quite as good as British bacon.

Not bad. I give it a 7 out of 10 on the

bacon scale.