Images of Chinese Women with Japanese Spouses in Japanese Magazine Articles during the 1990s and 2000s

Abstract

  The purpose of this paper is to describe images of Chinese women with Japanese spouses in Japanese magazine articles during the 1990s and 2000s.

  In magazine articles from the 1990s, when international marriages between Chinese women and Japanese men were increasing, Chinese women were portrayed as “brides of the farmhouse” who could be purchased like products by Japanese men with economic power. The increase of international marriages between Chinese women and Japanese men has the background of a “shortage of brides” in rural Japan. They were regarded as alternatives to Japanese women who could support the patriarchal family system and fulfill the gender roles of “wife” and “mother.” However, in the 2000s, as Japan’s immigration control policies became stricter, Chinese women, who were supposed to become spouses of Japanese men, deviated from the gender norms and came to be seen as criminals that were a huge threat to “Japanese people” and “Japanese society,” as reported in the magazine articles.

  In this way, the images of Chinese women with Japanese spouses in magazine articles have primally changed from “good wives” who were subordinate to Japanese men sexually and performed their gender roles well, into that of criminals. This shift can be linked to the context where the Japanese government strengthened its control over illegal employment, “illegal residents,” and fake marriage cases involving foreigners in Japan.