[f-jin]

Aside from using the term "waifu" instead of something like "wife" / "SO" / "girlfriend", the comment itself seems fine to me. I've heard stories of low computer literacy in Japan from other sources as well, it is quite interesting.

[sk0g]

Well, if I'm not wrong, waifus are fictional characters people take on as a SO of sorts. So it doesn't even qualify as an anecdote, IMO.

[james_s_tayler]

Wrong in this case. My actual wife is Japanese.

She often gets me to help her out with very, very, very basic things on the computer. She's relatively smart outside of that, speaks fluent English and graduated uni both in Japan and overseas. But it's as if the basic foundation for working out new abstractions on a computer just aren't there. Which is how the discussion came up. I was curious why such a level of computer illiteracy would be present in someone who grew up in the 90s/00s.

People are shocked at hearing about that minister who says he never touched a computer. I was equally shocked when my wife casually told me she never touched a computer until entering University. I wouldn't have thought that to be possible given how much technology I grew up around in the West. I assumed it would have been the same in Japan, but it can't have been.

I guess in a way it doesn't surprise me. On the outside Japan looks like this super technologically advanced country and in reality they still send faxes. It's half stuck decades in the past and halfway planted in the future.

[AnaniasAnanas]

It might be a bit offtopic but I am just wondering, how did you two meet?

[james_s_tayler]

I was a regular at a Japanese/English conversation club in my area for many years. She came one time. I sat down and said hello.

[y4mi]

you're definitely not wrong. a waifu is not a human.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waifu

[james_s_tayler]

My friends sometimes use it in an ironic sense to refer to my wife who is Japanese.

[tsunamifury]

Maybe consider the literal implications of the "joke", even if its meant to be ironic/endearing or something similar.

[james_s_tayler]

No.

[AnaniasAnanas]

Pretty sure that he just tried to use a cute japanese-sounding term to describe his Japanese wife without necessarily knowing what it means.