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（英会話リスニングスクリプト）
Yukio Igarashi lives in Tadami, a village
in the mountains of northern Japan.
The population of Tadami is around 5,000
and falling - most of the young people, especially the young
women, move out as soon as they get a chance.
"When I became 35," he says, "I
started trying to get married. After 10 years I realized
that no Japanese girl would marry me, so I decided to get
a bride from Thailand."
In fact, he got two Thai brides.
He paid $23,000 to marry the first one,
then she refused and her family kept the money.
Then he went back and chose 20-year-old
Mui from 20 possible brides offered to him by a marriage
broker.
Six years later, Mui has stopped complaining
about the cold, got a Japanese driving license, had two
daughters and learned how to cook Japanese food.
She seems to be happy with her life.
The number of foreign brides, who are often
widowed or divorced Filipinas, poor Chinese or Thais, started
to increase sharply in the late eighties.
Ethnic Japanese brides from Brazil and Peru
are popular with men who want their children to look Japanese.
This is forcing people in small towns to
change their attitudes.
"The towns change for the better because
of these foreign wives," one person said.
"At least they internationalize a little."
As many Japanese women with college degrees,
better jobs and more opportunities to enjoy themselves do
not want to get married, it seems that there will be many
more foreign brides in Japan in the future.
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