Being the wife of a foreigner in Japan is a continuous learning process. In my case, the training started about 20 years ago when I began dating my English husband-to-be, Tony. We were on our second outing and Tony asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. "Anything's fine," I replied. To my surprise, Tony got annoyed. "You're talking about women's equality and now you can't decide even what you want to eat," he chided. I was shocked -- none of my former boyfriends, all Japanese, had ever uttered such a thing.

To a certain extent I was aware of women's issues. At home, I often got angry with my mother when she asked me to help wash up after dinner while my brothers read or watched television. I couldn't stand it; she expected me to do housework simply because I was a girl. At school, I often argued with my male classmates over anything suggesting discrimination against women. To someone I fancied, however, I thought being cute and helpless was essential to be appealing.

Having a foreign boyfriend in Tokyo back in those days was stimulating. But it was not -- and it's still not -- all smooth sailing. I've gotten used to the casual, and sometimes hurtful, remarks. One day, as we rode the subway together, Tony, who is fluent in Japanese, nudged me to tell me the three Japanese sitting in front of us were speaking ill of me. One woman commented that I was dressed decently for someone going out with a foreigner. Her male companion added that she looked "much nicer" than me.

These days, seeing foreigners in Tokyo is not special, though they remain different. In the early 1980s, foreigners were no different to the Giant Pandas at Tokyo Zoo -- attracting people's attention wherever they went. So did the Japanese girls beside them. The prejudice felt towards them probably harked back to the days when Japanese women became "panpan" (prostitutes) for American GIs during their occupation of the country after World War II.

But the prejudice toward foreigners and their Japanese girlfriends was not confined to Tokyo -- in fact, it was stronger in the countryside. And Tony, apparently the first ever foreigner to live in one particular area of Matsudo, in Chiba prefecture, bore the brunt of it. His place had a traditional toilet (bowl) with a septic tank underneath. But it wasn't long after moving in that his Japanese neighbor complained to Tony's landlord that the fan on Tony's septic tank was broken and that the smell coming from his residence was unbearable. The landlord's wife even said to me on one occasion: "You know, they say the excrement of someone who eats meat a lot smells." She smiled innocently as she said this, seeking my agreement. (Tony went on to install a flush system, but whatever he or I did in Matsudo, people watched us carefully.)

Of course, there were nice people in Matsudo. Such as the couple that ran the liquor shop. They were very friendly and we soon became acquainted. But one time, when Tony was making fun of me for being "a typical Japanese," the wife scolded him: "No, she isn't. If she were, she wouldn't go out with a foreigner." Tony's former Japanese boss used to put it a slightly different way. "A woman as tough as Tony's wife could only marry a foreigner," he'd say. "No self- respecting Japanese man would ever consider her." (Needless to say, I've had countless proposals from Japanese men!)

Japanese men who have scored foreign wives, meanwhile, have often been admired. Japanese fathers can pass on their nationality to their offspring, and the law has since changed to grant Japanese women the same right. But social changes like these doesn't stop remarks such as the one made to my daughter, Emma, by an old woman in a Tokyo department store elevator. "How did your parents ever allow it?" the woman asked.

There is nothing that Emma, aged 12, hates more: being singled out as a child from a mixed marriage. This happens often when she takes our dogs for a walk. She's spared such remarks when we visit England -- but then again, most British people think my daughter and I are Chinese!