As I See It

From New York and Tokyo to Shanghai and Hong Kong, single women in big cities around the world are united in their gripe about being luckless in love. Educated, intelligent and financially independent, they excel in everything in life except for the one thing that really matters to them: finding Mr. Right. The twin goals of marriage and motherhood – things that women a generation ago took for granted – have become ever elusive. Cinderella and Snow White might have had their fair share of heartache before they got hitched, but all the chores and poisoned apples in Fairyland pale in comparison to the blood, sweat and tears of the single woman in the real world. For who wants to die alone in a musty apartment with five cats and a ball of yarn? They make singlehood look so cool Ever since Sex and the City glamorized the life of the bachelorette, being female, single and over 35 has never been so cool. But behind the martinis and witty one-liners, the girl power and lipstic...

I was having way too much sake that night. At a noisy izakaya (居酒屋) on a Tokyo backstreet, my friend Yuji and I kept refilling each other’s cups. After we graduated from college, Yuji moved back to Japan and I to Toronto. Clinking cups with him that night took us back to the days when we used to do silly things together. An adventure beckons I quaffed another shot of the potent junmai-shu sake (純米酒) and blurted out: “You and I, let’s climb Mount Fuji tomorrow.” It was the alcohol talking. Yuji, his face as red as a ripe tomato, hit back with the two most dangerous words in the English language: “Why not?” That’s how it all started, 15 years ago – on a dare. Hours later and still nursing our hangover, we boarded the earliest bus from Tokyo to Kawaguchi-ko (河口湖), the most popular starting point for the climb. Mount Fuji is divided into ten “stations” from base to summit, and there at the fifth station base camp we found hordes of climbers warming up for t...