Volume 39, Number 15
Features
Family Focus
The Walsh Family
In 1995, Jonathon, who was living in New Zealand, and Harumi, in Japan, became pen-pals after a mutual friend introduced them to each other. For four years they corresponded, first on paper and then by email, before meeting for the first time face-to-face in 1999. By that time, their emails had already taken on a more romantic tone and meeting in Japan, where Jonathon was stopping as part of an Asian backpacking tour, only concluded that they were in love with each other. Two weeks after meeting, Harumi introduced Jonathon to her parents as her boyfriend, and for the next two years they committed to a long distance relationship, visiting each other whenever they could.
Three years of very expensive phone bills later (one month Harumi’s phone bill was more than the cost of a flight to Auckland) and the couple decided that something had to change. Jonathan moved to Japan in 2002 and in April 2003 they got married.
Life has been good since they have been living together here in Tokyo. Talking on international relationships Jon says, that, “Every day we are teachers and students…we learn and teach each other about our respective cultures, countries, and languages— it is incredibly stimulating.”
On February 6 of this year their daughter Serena was born. Serena was born five weeks earlier than expected and arrived just two and a half hours after the initial contraction! Both parents were indeed in a state of shock but both mother and child (and father!) are happy and healthy. Serena is now six months old and the whole family has just recently started going out together.
Jonathon adds that they have had a sleepless but wonderful first few months with Serena, and so that he can spend more time with his daughter, he has recently quit his morning job and now works from home during that time. When not changing nappies, he runs his company, Business Grow, a rapidly growing company specializing in providing editorial content and advertising services to Japanese and foreign businesses.