Love Your Wife Day helps men open up to romance ...

Japanese men, not unlike their Irish counterparts, can find romance hard, says Jonathan de Burca Butler . So they created Love Your Wife Day to help men express their love for thier other halves

In a park in Tokyo a man in his sixties takes to a small open stage. Behind him is a garland of pink tulips shaped like a heart.

Being January it is cold and there are few onlookers. “We have been married 40 years,” he tells those who will listen and, he hopes, his wife.

“I will become a better husband from now on. Even if I get dementia, please don’t throw me away. I love you.”

The man is one of several participants in an annual event marking Love Your Wife Day. Now in its tenth year, Aisai no Hi, as it’s called in Japan was started to help culturally modest Japanese men express their love for their wives.

A new radio documentary examining the event and the culture behind it will be broadcast on the BBC World Service tomorrow.

Love Your Wife Day was made by independent producer Ruth Evans and is presented by Tokyo-based freelance journalist by Chie Kobayashi.

“Japanese men are normally very shy about their feelings,” says Kobayashi.

“But for this event they are shouting their love for their wives not just in public but on national television.”

In another extract from the documentary, a man, married for 21 years, thanks his wife for putting egg cake in his lunch every day, while another – and I’m not sure the juxtaposition was intentional – says that since getting married 25 years ago, both he and his wife have got very fat.

He suggests they go on a diet together – not sure I’ll be taking a leaf out of his particular guide to romance.

The first Love Your Wife Day took place in a “cabbage field” in a village called Sumakoi. The inaugural event attracted one person who declared his love for his wife drawing tears from witnesses’ eyes.

Though it would be a stretch to class it as a phenomenon – there were about a dozen participants last year – Love Your Wife Day has attracted a wider audience across Japan due to the help of the aforementioned broadcaster NHK.

According to the documentary maker, the event’s founder, Kiyotaka Yamana, is a “trendily dressed” man in his fifties who works in advertising.

Yamana is determined to teach Japanese men that true happiness can be found by declaring their love for their wives, in this case by declaring it publicly at the top of their voice.

Yamana, who also runs a group called The Devoted Husband Association, started Love Your Wife Day after he divorced his first wife. Go figure.

He explains that he was a typical Japanese husband. He worked late, came home late and didn’t spend much time with his family.

After eight years he divorced and realised that his unhappy first marriage was essentially down to his lifestyle. When he married again he decided he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes.

“Generally,” he admits in an interview, “Japanese men are too shy. We don’t hold our wives hands or give them hugs and affection and I think we’ve lost a lot by not doing these things.”

Yamana is hoping to change their habits and to that end he runs boot camps and training courses to help men tap into their romantic side.

On one occasion he paid for a four-page newspaper insert called a “hug mat” which when laid out on the ground reveled the outlines of two sets of feet facing each other. Included were instructions on how to hug.

“Japanese husbands need to learn to hug,” he says. “It’s not really part of Japanese culture so they really need to learn to do that.”

If statistics are to be believed, Japanese men would do well to pay heed to Yamana’s advice. Divorce rates in Japan are on the rise and while in the past it was customary for the husband to call time on a marriage it now seems Japanese women are more likely to call it quits when love is no longer in the air.

Could Irish men learn from Yamana’s push for romance?

A few years ago, travel website lastminute.com discovered that Irish couples (aka men) spend the least amount of money on weekend breaks away when compared to other Europeans.

That said, an earlier survey conducted by Mills and Boon put Irish men in it at number three when it came to firing cupid’s bow and a recent article in the CNN travel section had Irish men in at number 9 in the romance chart, citing our “self-deprecating” charm as a major factor.

In an effort to boost us up the table, here’s my own contribution.

Ciara. I love you. My mother is coming over to babysit tonight at 8pm. Let’s go out for dinner.

Love Your Wife Day by Ruth Evans is broadcast on BBC World Service tomorrow at 4.30pm.