Currently at UH, I am taking a class called Japanese in Hawaii, which basically deals with the history and the different issues that Japanese face in Hawaii. This past week, we were talking about Japanese labor immigration and picture brides, which were Japanese women (and also women of other ethnicities) that came to Hawaii as a part of an arranged marriage. Basically how it worked was that Japanese  plantation workers in Hawaii would hire a matchmaker to find them a bride in Japan. The worker would send the bride a picture of himself and then in return the bride would send a picture of herself. The crazy part was that this was the only form of contact between the two before the marriage and most times, the male would send a picture of himself 10 to 20 years prior or would use a picture of his friend (if he himself was ugly). When the brides finally came to Hawaii, some were surprised to find out that the picture that they had looked nothing like their husband to be.

Today in class we re-enacted this picture bride situation. There were about 50 guys and 50 girls and each person was to draw a picture and a description of themselves. Then our teachers switched the guys and girls pictures and then we had to find our match. It was hard trying to find your match because the picture really never matched the person. Anyways, it was an interesting class activity. Now I can imagine how those brides must have felt when they first met their husband to be… Freaked out!! Haha