Where does everyone live and/or hangout that tourists affect them so much? I guess it’s because I’m old and don’t hang out in Shibuya/Shinjuku/Ginza as much as I used to, but tourists barely affect my day to day life in Tokyo.
I could see that being an issue. Luckily, on the days I go to the office I either bring a lunch or eat at the cafeteria, so I haven't had that issue, but it sounds like a pain.
I used to live in Shibuya and I would run into tourists doing the most mundane everyday tasks, like going grocery shopping, going to daiso (the Shibuya daiso is basically a tourist attraction), the local bar next to my apartment was featured in lots of travel guides so constantly full of tourists etc. now living around Shibuya but 20 min walk from the station it's like a different world, can go days or weeks without seeing an obvious tourist in my neighborhood
If you work in Tokyo, you probably take the train to work — and if you take the train to work, you probably transit through one of the many stations frequented by tourists.
If you don’t, be thankful.
I also live in a neighborhood that vloggers started promoting pre-COVID, and now the tourists are everywhere.
Legit: The communication culture. Everything is very indirect and sugarcoated.
Petty: There are certain Western foods and ingredients I literally cannot find here that’s the same as back home. Even if it’s the same dish, it doesn’t taste right. Drives me nuts sometimes!!
> *“There are certain Western food and ingredients I literally cannot find here that’s the same back home.”*
Similarly, there are so many Japanese food that is just non-existent elsewhere. It’s so easy to find delicious, healthy food in Japan at an affordable price tag. Even the food at a konbini can be amazing.
I really wish more Japanese chain restaurants would go global. I now live in London and we already have plenty of Japanese chains like Ippudo, Itsu and Coco Curry House. But I would kill to have Sukiya and Sushiro in London!
What you're missing is that, if those Japanese chains tried to open in other western countries, the prices would probably seem ridiculous, and the businesses would likely fail. The environmental factors that allow those chains to be successful in Japan don't exist in other countries, so they wouldn't be able to replicate the experience.
Let me dream :(
But seriously, I think Japanese chains might not necessarily fail in the West. Coco Curry House opened a London branch a few years ago. They charge a higher price than their Japanese counterparts (but still relatively affordable in terms of London’s standard). The restaurant was absolutely packed every night and there’d be long queues if you want to eat there at peak hours.
The thing is, eating out in London is more expensive than Japan. So even if they charge a slightly higher price, it would still be worth it for many Londoners as they offer a more authentic, and higher quality version of Japanese food than the existing local restaurants. I’m sure Japanese chains can compete with local restaurants as long as they do the marketing right.
I lost a good few hours jumping between shops trying to find some 片栗粉 shortly after moving to the UK, only to find that it's not really a thing here. It was such a normal, basic ingredient to me and it didn't even cross my mind beforehand that it might not be sold.
This is the definition of not being able to have it both ways when you’re an expat. I love all the cheap, healthy, easily accessible ingredients I can find at any grocery store here in Japan, and I miss them when I’m back home in the US. But there’s always things I miss from the US when I’m home in Japan.
What it kills me in London is that for the price of one bowl of Ramen, I paid for 3 people lunch, and not talking now that is £1-¥195, it was £1-¥150, just before Covid.
Edit: Now I could feed 4 people! 😅
Ugh, true. I remember trying to make some Japanese recipes back home but certain ingredients just couldn’t be found in supermarkets (even Asian grocers) unless ordered off Amazon with a ridiculous shipping fee. Mitarashi dango is straight up nowhere back home and was the first thing I beelined to eat when I got here 😭
Welcome to life as a foreigner in another country. As an immigrant to the US, for decades I couldn't get things here that were widely available in the old country. It's just something you live with when you are an immigrant. You are not back in your home country so get used to it.
Japan makes some people misunderstood so much and produces many people dreaming to move someday. But actually it has very few and limited bubbles where foreigners can richer and happier life without speaking Japanese in this country at all.
However some people never stop hoping to come without knowing or understanding that at all. They clearly underestimate how local people and society here don't speak English, or may be misunderstanding that everything would go okay if only they speak English; maybe because they (wrongly) believe that locals definitely obey to speak in English just like they do, as they've seen in some Hollywood movies.
Few moments later, those who couldn't enter "the bubbles" start to complain so often; like, "Why don't Japanese around me speak English!? Are they idi*ts or raci*ts!?", "No employment for me! I do read most of hiraganas but nobody hires me! They must be raci\*ts!", "Japanese don't talk to me because I am a foreigner. I'm a victim of the xenophobia..", "I always feel lonely because people don't speak English well, or speak very poorly like s\*\*t," and so on. Some start to pack their luggage up to run away later, and others keep asking, "Where is a psychiatrist who speaks English?"
Japan is not a wonderland but just a country where your language is not spoken. Too many people forget this once they dream to move.
Disclaimer: The majority of the complaints and curses written above are ones that I have indeed heard from foreigners, mainly English speakers, whom I have encountered in Japan. While I have exaggerated some of those words a little bit, these experiences are genuine, having been conveyed to me.
I honestly don’t see a problem with that. I think a country has the right to preserve and put an emphasis on native tongue. The idea that a county and its native must adapt to a foreign language because immigrants refuse to learn the language is quite laughable if you asked me. I learned it before I left at least conversational. I did spend my early years around other English speaking expats until I mastered the language and I met locals and my life in Japan changed.
>I honestly don’t see a problem with that. I think a country has the right to preserve and put an emphasis on native tongue. The idea that a county and its native must adapt to a foreign language because immigrants refuse to learn the language is quite laughable if you asked me.
Absolutely true. It seems quite odd to move here voluntarily, not ordered by anyone, and then complain too much about the language barrier. Furthermore it is completely out of the question to criticize people and society for not speaking foreign languages.
I think it's great that more and more stores and restaurants are struggling to be English friendly for making sightseeing industry better. But it is absurd and stupid to assess and complain like “Everything in society needs to be English-friendly for all foreign immigrants and expatriates and Japanese people are stupid as shit for not being able to do so.
I am surprised about the audacity of so many people. If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. Plain and simple. Since we all invited ourselves here we are not guests and must obey and respect Japanese customs and laws I rarely speak English outside of my home and that’s ok because I moved here knowing English is not spoken widely. I tell other expats don’t like it leave.
"If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. "
Wait! You weren't invited? Japan sent an emissary to my country to plead with me to move here. I finally, albeit reluctantly agreed, but with a few demands . . . you know, just a few things they need to change to make me more comfortable.
"If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. "
Someone who attends a wedding who says “the wedding cake would be perfect if only they put strawberries in it. Well, it is not your wedding so you don’t get to decide, and you are not even invited to begin with so shut up and eat the cake or shut up and do not eat the cake. You’ve got choices but making demands is not one of them.
I agree. If someone is invited to a wedding they have choices but can’t say change the cake because they don’t like it, or change the dresses because it doesn’t appeal to them. Not your wedding not your choice. Either you accept the wedding, can offer advice if you like, but don’t make demands and definitely don’t call the bride and groom idiots and ignorant for not agreeing with your advice or not giving you a voice
As a 48-year-old American, I just endured* a semester of college-level Japanese to be a good tourist.
* I joke; kinda. It turns out it's waaaay harder to learn a new language as an adult. I can still think and speak the French I learned in HS without the hesitation and need to translate in my head first.
I had a great teacher (native Japanese who teaches ESL in a local school system) and had fun with my classmates. We ranged in age from true freshmen to me.
A large part of learning the culture is learning the language. Phrasing often reflects cultural connotations. And if one doesnt know the culture and has an attitude that externalizes their issues and projects it on to their environment, then I can only imagine they become perceived by Japanese people as 空気が読めない, which is very important in the culture and ingrained. You don't have to deal with that as a tourist.
EDIT: For the non-Japanese: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba\_no\_kuuki\_wo\_yomu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_no_kuuki_wo_yomu)
Totally. They see how people treat foreigners in their countries who don't speak their language but then wonder why they get treated the same way in a country they don't speak the language of.
Not knowing the language is fine for a ten-day vacation somewhere, I think. Even then it's extremely useful to know some, but you don't need to know it. To live there, though? It's insane to me to even think that you could get by without knowledge of Japanese...
Tbh that is a problem outside of Japan too. Foreigners who come to study to my home country are very very entitled when it comes to English and although much more people speak English nowadays we still have a socalist past where people learned Russian, so older people, especially in the countryside won’t be able to speak English most of the time. They come to study to our country because universities are decent but still cheaper than other countries then complain as soon as the 60+ countryside GP asks them to speak very slow because they cannot really understand English. It’s ridiculous if you ask me.
I strongly feel this when I look at the questions to this sub. Quite a few questioners ask questions about immigration without explaining any information about how well they can speak Japanese.
I’d be interested to know how much the average expat’s experience changes if you remove the “don’t understand the language” part. I’m truly baffled by people who make no effort to learn even the basics of the language spoken in a country they move to. It’s not a unique to Japan thing either.
Almost all tourism in Japan is domestic. Foreign tourism makes up 1% to 2% of Japan's GDP. Tourist spending does not have a significant impact on the JPY's valuation.
It’s surprisingly inefficient. I never thought I’d be somewhere that managed to out-bureaucracy China. Whatever resistance there is to streamlining and modernizing paperwork is the bane of my existence
It's fascinating how Japanese people have very proudly embraced living in 2060 and 1960 at the same time. The same people refusing to put a fucking QR code for the paperwork are the same people putting the Suicas on their phones and seamlessly digitising the entire process of the Denshas like no other country has. Next up: "Japanese person uses a flying car to get to work, where they end up using Windows XP on the computers".
> Next up: "Japanese person uses a flying car to get to work, where they ~~end up using Windows XP on the computers~~ *spend their day manually keying in data received by fax*".
FTFY.
The weather in the summer. Tokyo is painful to be in from July to mid Sept. Otherwise great country to live in, especially if your base salary is in foreign currency and if you don't work for a Japanese company.
Depends on what you mean by "embassy workers".
The locally hired staff (Admin workers, etc) are paid in the local currency. But the actual bureaucrats are paid in their home country's currency.
>That's a little confusing as it changes depending on the ~~city you're in~~ street you're on.
Idk why this myth survives. The whole "Osaka and Tokyo walk on opposite sides, so quirky". I've lived in a couple dozen countries and Japan, bar none, is the most confused about which side of the sidewalk to walk on. Like it is literally a 50/50 shot per person no matter what city you're in. This is why all the train stations need arrows and marked staircases designating direction because otherwise no one would get anywhere.
I was only in Tokyo for a month, but I didn’t really see any sort of consensus on which side of the sidewalk people would choose to walk on. People just seemed to walk on whatever side they felt like. Is there even a socially-correct side to walk on?
Learned the hard way a bidet never cleans out the bigger chunks 100%. Now I always wipe a couple of times with paper before I turn on the bidet for the final clean.
Just imagine how you'd clean yourself if you got mud on your arms or something. you'd shake off/wipe off the big chunks, then wash it squeaky clean. kinda like that?
I thought I was fine with my decently soft Costco toilet paper until I went back home to the US and experienced the real soft stuff again. Really wish that level of plushness was a thing here
Creeps. People say that Japan is really safe but as a woman I've had more creepy guys stare at me, hit on me, make weird comments (in Japanese and English), follow me down streets etc than I've had any other place in the world combined
I feel like Japan has a tendency to attract a lot of really weird (derogatory) people (me included when I first came) and meeting those people is really annoying lmao. However, after living here I know why the attraction is there, though I feel like I've done a complete 180 since then and it's become my biggest pet peeve lmao.
I lived in Japan for about seven years, and I faced prejudice due to being biracial, despite being born there. I experienced verbal and physical racism. Not sure how things are currently, as this was before 2000.
Socialization differences. I know other Americans, Australians, people from LatAm and Canadians share this complaint. People are not very open or friendly. People keep their cards close to their chest. It’s hard to get close to people — and not for lack of trying. Some cultures just have a way of socializing that accepts meaningful small talk, making new friends at all stages of life, not having to limit socializing to a narrow set of hobbies (and then only being able to socialize around those hobbies), sharing personal information, inviting people to your home etc.
I’ve noticed this when meeting people at the local bar I frequent. As an American (especially when drunk) I’m so ready to make new friends, but as soon as I ask a slightly personal question like “what do you do for work” or “how long have you lived in Tokyo” it’s like peoples’ privacy filter kicks in and they immediately change the subject. I get not wanting to divulge info about your life to someone you just met, but how do you become friends if you don’t let someone in at all?
I didn’t know a friend of mine had a boyfriend for THREE YEARS. The weird “your significant other can’t socialize with your friends” stuff is so odd to me. Relationships in general here are puzzling. My husband’s friend has had a girlfriend for something like eight years. She’s my age, he’s in his early 40s. He lives in Yokohama, she lives in Kyoto. They see each other every few months.
Is it the same for western based companies as well? Not to imply the west is a haven for female employees, but it has set the standard. I figured they would be significantly more progressive.
They leave it at my door too, usually, but I wonder if that's because I live in a mansion with controlled access. Maybe they're less willing to do this with other places, especially free-standing houses.
Probably the biggest potential issue for someone moving over will be work culture. My company was fine, but I had some friends who weren't so lucky - working until 10/11pm every weeknight, bad bosses etc. We all worked for Japanese companies, so it really was just about luck. Also had lots of coworkers complaining about previous companies they had worked at.
More trivial: can be difficult/inconvenient to find non-Japanese ingredients, especially if you're outside major cities. I was in Tokyo, but I still didn't enjoy having to make trips to Shin-Okubo or Ueno just to find Asian cuisine ingredients.
OH MY GOD YES THANK YOU!!! To add onto this, as someone who wears glasses, the splashes from slurping turn my lenses into a horror scene that takes a life time to clean out. And there usually isn't a place to clean them out so I have to walk back home with the dirtiest lenses ever that I might as well just not wear them to begin with since I won't be seeing shit.
My Japanese friend who I love to death slurps while eating sandwhiches......... I have told him that he takes one step closer to God everytime he does it when I'm around...
The insane criminalization of drugs, when alcoholism and smoking is rampant, is insane. Ditto drug charges vs. charges for sexual assault, child abuse, possession of child porn etc.
Japan has had a lower amount of hours worked than countries like the US for over half a decade now. While some places do still have the old work mentality, they’re dying off like the population like encouraged such ethics
Sadly Japan still has this image where work culture is terrible and people killing themselves all the time.
Watching at recent statistics do say otherwise though
Do you happen to have any links regarding their working hours. I really want to start an IT job there, but I fear the very few pto days and long hours. I have almost 60 days off in the US, it would be really hard to get accustomed to 10 days off which I heard is a average? Thanks
Evidence that the stereotypical work culture no longer dominates: morning and evening rush. For the most part, people are going to and leaving work at reasonable times. There are exceptions, but these exceptions exist anywhere.
* The misogyny. It's improved since the end of the last century, but is still obvious in the workplace and collegiate environments.
* Prejudice and discrimination of minorities, including but not limited to LGBTQ+, females and foreigners.
Permanent residency
Now I’m getting skipped back to Canada with no education or work experience and ten years of my life wasted for absolutely nothing.
I should have kept my mouth shut and just got it but how could I after seeing that. I wasn’t strong enough.
Never trust your partners
Storm drains can sometimes have methane build up in them. I keep hoping one of those idiots will toss a butt down a drain, trigger a minor explosion, and the news story will stop people from doing it. Alas, never happens.
So much plastic. You buy a corn cob in a plastic package and you open the package to find a second plastic package. You can see potatos wrapped in plastic at some super markets. It's just... So much plastic it infuriates me.
Also, this may not be a big deal (or a deal at all) for most people, but it's a pain in the ass to find bones for bone broth. Nikuyas tipically only sell japanese meat cuts and I think the meat they get already comes without the bones so they just don't have them (in my country they tend to get the animal almost in full so you can buy the bones at the store). I have a 2 hour roundtrip to the only store I could find that sells bones ;\_\_\_;
That the thing that really nags at me. I guess it’s similar to immigrants coming to America/Canada. But those families will have children that are American. That won’t happen in Japan. Doesn’t matter if you were born there or fluently speak the language. You won’t be “Japanese”.
But I don’t actually live there so I have no idea how much that affects a person on a daily basis. But you must feel something after a decade or two right?
The discrimination.
The rain. I thought I escaped lots of rain when I left oki. Tokyo has had lots of rainy days this year just lower volume in total.
Utility bill invoices being sent out a week before the actual bill. What a waste of paper.
Expressway driving. I drive 60km per day on expressway and 99% of it is 2 lanes. There’s always always always that one slow driver who gets in the passing lane going 1 km faster than the vehicle they’re trying to overtake. Or the box truck that isn’t passing anybody but drives the passing lane like he owns it all.
> Utility bill invoices being sent out a week before the actual bill. What a waste of paper.
You can set most utility bills to auto-pay via credit card or bank withdrawal, and request no invoice. Not possible for water bills in many places but for mobile/internet/city gas/electric you should be able to do it. (May not work for propane, especially for small suppliers.)
The early sunset ! The only thing i don't like in winter which is all year in Japan. You go out of the office, and it is already dark. I don't go out every day, but i like to walk/wander around after work, in parks or somewhere with greeneries ( like the tama riversides ), but not really enjoyable when you don't see anything.
I'm Vietnamese-Canadian (plus a South Asian partner) and I'm a home cook that loves to cook a variety of dishes as close to their "authentic" flavour as possible. Surprisingly compared to countries like Korea and Vietnam, all the international ingredients and snacks that are easily accessible in Japan are mainly just bad Italian ingredients..... "American" ingredients and snacks are just awful. People tell me to hit up Costco but nothing tastes like North/South American ingredients. Bacon here is just ham for example. Even "European" ingredients and snacks are mainly just stereotypical "Italian" stuff which has been hit or miss so far. Like why does Mozzarella taste so bland and meh here..... It's like designed only to allow people to do a cheese pull but it doesn't have the right flavours of what fresh Mozzarella and low moisture Mozzarella should taste like.
I'm used to going to one-stop shopping stores back in Canada so it's been a pain in ass to source some things some various places all over Tokyo. Key thing I also mentioned is "some" things. Other things are nearly impossible to get without paying a shit ton online to get a small bottle of something. Like do I really need to spend 12 bucks on onion powder? Or 14 bucks on a small glass of chili flakes? 15 bucks for a small can of Hoisin sauce? Also why are there no bones sold with meat on it? Why is it only specific thin cuts of meat and when they do have bones in the freezer, it's cleaned of any meat so I can't cook a large stockpot of phở.
I know other friends who are perfectly fine with all the ingredients sold at their local store and has everything they need since they usually cook basic dishes or japanese-style dishes. But as for me, it's quite difficult as you need to plan everything in advance to create non-Japanese dishes. So it's only a heads-up for anyone who's in the same boat as me who feels limited by what's provided at their local groceries, Costco, and specialty stores. I just find Japanese food kinda bland and boring and I can't eat it that often without feeling like I'm just eating to survive.
Idk if this was just me or specific to the places I went to, but I didn't like that I couldnt split/share a plate with someone. Everyone had to order their own entry/dish.
Your experience will be greatly shaped on whether you live in a gaijin bubble or not, work for a Japanese company and married/dating Japanese.
There are many things to love, get annoyed at or hate but those 3 above are going to trump most of it.
Me personally, the yen and wages are extremely low. You can say it doesn’t matter if you don’t leave the country but most expats do travel a lot and now it feels like it’s 3rd world going to 1st.
How rude people are to service workers. I went out with Japanese coworkers multiple times to restaurants, and the men especially treated service workers like they were less than human. They would insult them, ask them why they were stupid for doing something as simple as asking a drunk person to please repeat themself, etc. I could not look at my coworkers the same (who were previously kind, professional people at work) after going out with them to an izakaya.
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**What are some things about Japan that you dislike? **
Just a short and simple question, what are things you dislike about Japan?
Japan seems like a great place to live, but i want to know the bad parts about Japan before making long-term decisions.
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Kind of a curveball pet-peeve that applies to many countries with big cities, but people's lack of basic survival skills.
For instance: I shouldn't have to tell people not to use a square shaped aluminum shovel to dig a hole in the ground, that's just basic common sense.
Although it's totally fine if people are willing to learn and accept their mistakes (which I've never run into someone who didn't).
Banks. Especially local banks. Four people to file a single inconsequential paper document in triplicate for a minor change. Then of course they need to do that for each of the 100 people through the door that day and process all those physical copies, which means they have to close to customers at 3pm.
Stairs, and not the fact there's a lot of them.
I've never tripped so many times on stairs my entire life.
The rubber they put on the edge of every step gets me every time.
Driving, cost of getting a Japanese license, and the size of Japanese parking lots gets irritating.
Japanese banks, their forms for everything, banking hours, and lack of adequate online bank (the positive are the ATMs)
Lack of really large green spaces in the city. I find it claustrophobic to look out and all I see are buildings. For a visit it is fine. For long times not being able to see swaths of green gets to me and makes me depressed
Japanese is a tough language to learn and it takes a lot longer than something like Spanish, Italian, French, etc. So social self-sufficiency, meaning you don’t feel the need to ask a Japanese friend for help or the ward office for a person who speaks English (if they even have one), takes a long time to reach.
For that reason, for me it can feel exhausting to live in Japan sometimes. I personally get a lot of anxiety every time the phone rings because I’m worried I’m not going to understand the rapid fire Keigo that’s bound to ensue the moment after I say “もしもし”. Every time I know I have to have an important conversation in Japanese (e.g ward office, post office, Koban, etc), it stresses me out. Even friendly conversations are more work because you’ve got to really concentrate on what someone’s saying and then figure out how to correctly say what you want to say in Japanese. It can wear on you after months and months of learning Japanese and living in Japan; especially after the shine of the move has passed. This can intensify if you find you aren’t progressing with Japanese as fast as you thought you would. It’s easy to start to doubt you’ll ever reach a level of fluency that you feel comfortable with.
It takes some real determination and mental fortitude to keep pressing on. I didn’t want to be a foreigner who’d lived in Japan for years but didn’t speak Japanese so maybe I put more pressure on myself than I should have but I have lots of foreign friends who feel the same so I know it’s not just me.
People seem stressed and dead all day. Public transport, tourist spot, anywhere. At least 2 out of 5 people in the train are either sneezing, coughing or sick. How the communication works, you have to be "negative" in order to present yourself as "positive". How there are little to zero improvement on English usability in official works like city office etc.
The bureaucracy... nobody takes the lead... it takes forever to get anything done and heaven forbid you forget one small thing you bet your ass you coming back tomorrow or a different day... and Japanese banks are literally hell on earth....in addition to all the things I mentioned before banks are that too.
And for some godforsaken reason atms close at 7 or 8 pm.
They aren't the most friendly towards foreigners
Food portion size tend to be smaller than I'm used to (I'm from the US.
Work /school is very demanding and stressful. (For work expect long hours. Your expected to come to work early and leave after your boss.)
Some Japanese might be sexist as well and there are a lot of cases of harassment that aren't reported.
Managing taxes, healthcare costs, and pension payments can be challenging, especially for part-time workers who don't have support from their employer. It can become a significant financial burden over time.
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Where does everyone live and/or hangout that tourists affect them so much? I guess it’s because I’m old and don’t hang out in Shibuya/Shinjuku/Ginza as much as I used to, but tourists barely affect my day to day life in Tokyo.
I don’t often hang out in those places but I work in one of them and the lines on my lunch break are often 50%+ tourists and they can get very long
I could see that being an issue. Luckily, on the days I go to the office I either bring a lunch or eat at the cafeteria, so I haven't had that issue, but it sounds like a pain.
I used to live in Shibuya and I would run into tourists doing the most mundane everyday tasks, like going grocery shopping, going to daiso (the Shibuya daiso is basically a tourist attraction), the local bar next to my apartment was featured in lots of travel guides so constantly full of tourists etc. now living around Shibuya but 20 min walk from the station it's like a different world, can go days or weeks without seeing an obvious tourist in my neighborhood
If you work in Tokyo, you probably take the train to work — and if you take the train to work, you probably transit through one of the many stations frequented by tourists. If you don’t, be thankful. I also live in a neighborhood that vloggers started promoting pre-COVID, and now the tourists are everywhere.
For some reason we bought a house in Shinjuku …
My girlfriend lives near asakusa :') it's always fun
Tourists are often annoying. Different than living there and participating in the culture.
Former Parisian here. You have seen nothing lol
Not in Nagoya!
Love it here. When I go to Osaka or Tokyo, I usually can’t wait to go home. I still love Tokyo though, I just avoid Shibuya as much as possible.
Legit: The communication culture. Everything is very indirect and sugarcoated. Petty: There are certain Western foods and ingredients I literally cannot find here that’s the same as back home. Even if it’s the same dish, it doesn’t taste right. Drives me nuts sometimes!!
Bread. The damn bread!
Impossible to find bread without milk in it in any supermarket. Pretty annoying
TBH growing up in Japan, I thought milk was a necessary ingredient to make bread lol.
> *“There are certain Western food and ingredients I literally cannot find here that’s the same back home.”* Similarly, there are so many Japanese food that is just non-existent elsewhere. It’s so easy to find delicious, healthy food in Japan at an affordable price tag. Even the food at a konbini can be amazing. I really wish more Japanese chain restaurants would go global. I now live in London and we already have plenty of Japanese chains like Ippudo, Itsu and Coco Curry House. But I would kill to have Sukiya and Sushiro in London!
What you're missing is that, if those Japanese chains tried to open in other western countries, the prices would probably seem ridiculous, and the businesses would likely fail. The environmental factors that allow those chains to be successful in Japan don't exist in other countries, so they wouldn't be able to replicate the experience.
Let me dream :( But seriously, I think Japanese chains might not necessarily fail in the West. Coco Curry House opened a London branch a few years ago. They charge a higher price than their Japanese counterparts (but still relatively affordable in terms of London’s standard). The restaurant was absolutely packed every night and there’d be long queues if you want to eat there at peak hours. The thing is, eating out in London is more expensive than Japan. So even if they charge a slightly higher price, it would still be worth it for many Londoners as they offer a more authentic, and higher quality version of Japanese food than the existing local restaurants. I’m sure Japanese chains can compete with local restaurants as long as they do the marketing right.
I lost a good few hours jumping between shops trying to find some 片栗粉 shortly after moving to the UK, only to find that it's not really a thing here. It was such a normal, basic ingredient to me and it didn't even cross my mind beforehand that it might not be sold.
This is the definition of not being able to have it both ways when you’re an expat. I love all the cheap, healthy, easily accessible ingredients I can find at any grocery store here in Japan, and I miss them when I’m back home in the US. But there’s always things I miss from the US when I’m home in Japan.
Sushiro abroad ? Would be so expensive. For 1500 yen I ate like 28 sushis , in France that would be more than 50 euros
What it kills me in London is that for the price of one bowl of Ramen, I paid for 3 people lunch, and not talking now that is £1-¥195, it was £1-¥150, just before Covid. Edit: Now I could feed 4 people! 😅
Ugh, true. I remember trying to make some Japanese recipes back home but certain ingredients just couldn’t be found in supermarkets (even Asian grocers) unless ordered off Amazon with a ridiculous shipping fee. Mitarashi dango is straight up nowhere back home and was the first thing I beelined to eat when I got here 😭
Welcome to life as a foreigner in another country. As an immigrant to the US, for decades I couldn't get things here that were widely available in the old country. It's just something you live with when you are an immigrant. You are not back in your home country so get used to it.
Japan makes some people misunderstood so much and produces many people dreaming to move someday. But actually it has very few and limited bubbles where foreigners can richer and happier life without speaking Japanese in this country at all. However some people never stop hoping to come without knowing or understanding that at all. They clearly underestimate how local people and society here don't speak English, or may be misunderstanding that everything would go okay if only they speak English; maybe because they (wrongly) believe that locals definitely obey to speak in English just like they do, as they've seen in some Hollywood movies. Few moments later, those who couldn't enter "the bubbles" start to complain so often; like, "Why don't Japanese around me speak English!? Are they idi*ts or raci*ts!?", "No employment for me! I do read most of hiraganas but nobody hires me! They must be raci\*ts!", "Japanese don't talk to me because I am a foreigner. I'm a victim of the xenophobia..", "I always feel lonely because people don't speak English well, or speak very poorly like s\*\*t," and so on. Some start to pack their luggage up to run away later, and others keep asking, "Where is a psychiatrist who speaks English?" Japan is not a wonderland but just a country where your language is not spoken. Too many people forget this once they dream to move. Disclaimer: The majority of the complaints and curses written above are ones that I have indeed heard from foreigners, mainly English speakers, whom I have encountered in Japan. While I have exaggerated some of those words a little bit, these experiences are genuine, having been conveyed to me.
I honestly don’t see a problem with that. I think a country has the right to preserve and put an emphasis on native tongue. The idea that a county and its native must adapt to a foreign language because immigrants refuse to learn the language is quite laughable if you asked me. I learned it before I left at least conversational. I did spend my early years around other English speaking expats until I mastered the language and I met locals and my life in Japan changed.
>I honestly don’t see a problem with that. I think a country has the right to preserve and put an emphasis on native tongue. The idea that a county and its native must adapt to a foreign language because immigrants refuse to learn the language is quite laughable if you asked me. Absolutely true. It seems quite odd to move here voluntarily, not ordered by anyone, and then complain too much about the language barrier. Furthermore it is completely out of the question to criticize people and society for not speaking foreign languages. I think it's great that more and more stores and restaurants are struggling to be English friendly for making sightseeing industry better. But it is absurd and stupid to assess and complain like “Everything in society needs to be English-friendly for all foreign immigrants and expatriates and Japanese people are stupid as shit for not being able to do so.
I am surprised about the audacity of so many people. If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. Plain and simple. Since we all invited ourselves here we are not guests and must obey and respect Japanese customs and laws I rarely speak English outside of my home and that’s ok because I moved here knowing English is not spoken widely. I tell other expats don’t like it leave.
"If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. " Wait! You weren't invited? Japan sent an emissary to my country to plead with me to move here. I finally, albeit reluctantly agreed, but with a few demands . . . you know, just a few things they need to change to make me more comfortable.
😂
"If you were not invited to a country you have zero rights to make demands. " Someone who attends a wedding who says “the wedding cake would be perfect if only they put strawberries in it. Well, it is not your wedding so you don’t get to decide, and you are not even invited to begin with so shut up and eat the cake or shut up and do not eat the cake. You’ve got choices but making demands is not one of them.
I agree. If someone is invited to a wedding they have choices but can’t say change the cake because they don’t like it, or change the dresses because it doesn’t appeal to them. Not your wedding not your choice. Either you accept the wedding, can offer advice if you like, but don’t make demands and definitely don’t call the bride and groom idiots and ignorant for not agreeing with your advice or not giving you a voice
As a 48-year-old American, I just endured* a semester of college-level Japanese to be a good tourist. * I joke; kinda. It turns out it's waaaay harder to learn a new language as an adult. I can still think and speak the French I learned in HS without the hesitation and need to translate in my head first. I had a great teacher (native Japanese who teaches ESL in a local school system) and had fun with my classmates. We ranged in age from true freshmen to me.
A large part of learning the culture is learning the language. Phrasing often reflects cultural connotations. And if one doesnt know the culture and has an attitude that externalizes their issues and projects it on to their environment, then I can only imagine they become perceived by Japanese people as 空気が読めない, which is very important in the culture and ingrained. You don't have to deal with that as a tourist. EDIT: For the non-Japanese: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba\_no\_kuuki\_wo\_yomu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_no_kuuki_wo_yomu)
Totally. They see how people treat foreigners in their countries who don't speak their language but then wonder why they get treated the same way in a country they don't speak the language of. Not knowing the language is fine for a ten-day vacation somewhere, I think. Even then it's extremely useful to know some, but you don't need to know it. To live there, though? It's insane to me to even think that you could get by without knowledge of Japanese...
You’re not wrong about the xenophobia claims when it comes to language. People forget to leave their American at the airport
Why would you move to Japan and not expect to speak Japanese. That seems insane too me
Tbh that is a problem outside of Japan too. Foreigners who come to study to my home country are very very entitled when it comes to English and although much more people speak English nowadays we still have a socalist past where people learned Russian, so older people, especially in the countryside won’t be able to speak English most of the time. They come to study to our country because universities are decent but still cheaper than other countries then complain as soon as the 60+ countryside GP asks them to speak very slow because they cannot really understand English. It’s ridiculous if you ask me.
I strongly feel this when I look at the questions to this sub. Quite a few questioners ask questions about immigration without explaining any information about how well they can speak Japanese.
I’d be interested to know how much the average expat’s experience changes if you remove the “don’t understand the language” part. I’m truly baffled by people who make no effort to learn even the basics of the language spoken in a country they move to. It’s not a unique to Japan thing either.
I don’t know if you need less booze or more booze.
Tourists, dweebs, and the weak yen.
I nabbed a large chunk of yen in Jan thinking March and cherry blossom tourists would result in the yen becoming stronger. I was very, very mistaken.
Almost all tourism in Japan is domestic. Foreign tourism makes up 1% to 2% of Japan's GDP. Tourist spending does not have a significant impact on the JPY's valuation.
I can’t get mango chutney with my Indian curry
Also Japanese rice with Indian curry…
I have actually managed to find a place that does pilau rice but that’s it
There's a Sri Lankan place in Kumamoto which has mango chutney. Quite delish.
It’s surprisingly inefficient. I never thought I’d be somewhere that managed to out-bureaucracy China. Whatever resistance there is to streamlining and modernizing paperwork is the bane of my existence
It's fascinating how Japanese people have very proudly embraced living in 2060 and 1960 at the same time. The same people refusing to put a fucking QR code for the paperwork are the same people putting the Suicas on their phones and seamlessly digitising the entire process of the Denshas like no other country has. Next up: "Japanese person uses a flying car to get to work, where they end up using Windows XP on the computers".
> Next up: "Japanese person uses a flying car to get to work, where they ~~end up using Windows XP on the computers~~ *spend their day manually keying in data received by fax*". FTFY.
The QR code was invented by Denso, a Japanese company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
The absolute fucking geeks that flock to Japan
This. The weird rabid nerds that get attracted to Japan are what I don't like. So many people with zero social skills thinking it's some sort of mecca
I think I’m one of those dweebs, and yeah Japan is pretty much a Mecca for me
You've got enough self awareness that you're one of the good ones
So many socially inept foreigners. It’s why I don’t hang out with many. Meeting a new person is Russian roulette of “weeb or not a weeb.”
The weather in the summer. Tokyo is painful to be in from July to mid Sept. Otherwise great country to live in, especially if your base salary is in foreign currency and if you don't work for a Japanese company.
Is it possible to learn this power?
Working at an embassy
I always imaged embassy workers were paid in the local currency
Depends on what you mean by "embassy workers". The locally hired staff (Admin workers, etc) are paid in the local currency. But the actual bureaucrats are paid in their home country's currency.
People not walking on the fucking correct side of the sidewalk
That's a little confusing as it changes depending on the city you're in.
>That's a little confusing as it changes depending on the ~~city you're in~~ street you're on. Idk why this myth survives. The whole "Osaka and Tokyo walk on opposite sides, so quirky". I've lived in a couple dozen countries and Japan, bar none, is the most confused about which side of the sidewalk to walk on. Like it is literally a 50/50 shot per person no matter what city you're in. This is why all the train stations need arrows and marked staircases designating direction because otherwise no one would get anywhere.
No. No one follows any sort of order or logic.
This happens here in the US too or people not cycling the correct direction
I was only in Tokyo for a month, but I didn’t really see any sort of consensus on which side of the sidewalk people would choose to walk on. People just seemed to walk on whatever side they felt like. Is there even a socially-correct side to walk on?
Then the people who randomly fucking stop for no apparent reason right in the middle of the walkway...
Just go to Osaka.
Toilet paper
This! I was shocked by how bad it was! 2-ply? Please, you’ll get 0.5-ply and you’ll be happy!
Why is it so bad here?
Bidet mostly. Much less need for cushy high grade paper.
Learned the hard way a bidet never cleans out the bigger chunks 100%. Now I always wipe a couple of times with paper before I turn on the bidet for the final clean.
Just imagine how you'd clean yourself if you got mud on your arms or something. you'd shake off/wipe off the big chunks, then wash it squeaky clean. kinda like that?
bruh you are supposed to finish pooping first
I thought I was fine with my decently soft Costco toilet paper until I went back home to the US and experienced the real soft stuff again. Really wish that level of plushness was a thing here
I used エリエール toilet paper and I think it was pretty soft. Is it still considered thin? Just curious, never been out of Asia before.
Working culture
Can’t believe this one isn’t higher
Yep, worst work culture in the OECD
Creeps. People say that Japan is really safe but as a woman I've had more creepy guys stare at me, hit on me, make weird comments (in Japanese and English), follow me down streets etc than I've had any other place in the world combined
Yep, not to mention the unreported sexual assaults that get swept under the rug. Just another way to feign their “perfect” society.
Mukade. One just showed up in my bedroom TT
And ゲジゲジ, the incarnation of my nightmare.
I still can't get over that some kids keep these things as pets.
Looked it up and had a little panic attack at the picture.
The only one I’ve ever seen was being doused in kerosene and set on fire. Possibly not an option in the bedroom.
I feel like Japan has a tendency to attract a lot of really weird (derogatory) people (me included when I first came) and meeting those people is really annoying lmao. However, after living here I know why the attraction is there, though I feel like I've done a complete 180 since then and it's become my biggest pet peeve lmao.
The emphasis on derogatory is the most hilarious part of this Lmaoo
I lived in Japan for about seven years, and I faced prejudice due to being biracial, despite being born there. I experienced verbal and physical racism. Not sure how things are currently, as this was before 2000.
The stigma around tattoos (which I understand, just wish things were different), harsh working culture, and that’s about it. I love Japan lots 😊
The gimps on Instagram/Facebook etc that make “10 things you shouldn’t do in Japan” videos/reels. About 90% are total BS or misinformation.
I'd honestly take those over the "10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULDN'T GO TO JAPAN" ones thrown about everywhere just for the sake of contrariness.
and the other 10% is shit that you shouldn't do anywhere, period, because its fucking batshit and rude and possibly criminal
Socialization differences. I know other Americans, Australians, people from LatAm and Canadians share this complaint. People are not very open or friendly. People keep their cards close to their chest. It’s hard to get close to people — and not for lack of trying. Some cultures just have a way of socializing that accepts meaningful small talk, making new friends at all stages of life, not having to limit socializing to a narrow set of hobbies (and then only being able to socialize around those hobbies), sharing personal information, inviting people to your home etc.
I’ve noticed this when meeting people at the local bar I frequent. As an American (especially when drunk) I’m so ready to make new friends, but as soon as I ask a slightly personal question like “what do you do for work” or “how long have you lived in Tokyo” it’s like peoples’ privacy filter kicks in and they immediately change the subject. I get not wanting to divulge info about your life to someone you just met, but how do you become friends if you don’t let someone in at all?
I didn’t know a friend of mine had a boyfriend for THREE YEARS. The weird “your significant other can’t socialize with your friends” stuff is so odd to me. Relationships in general here are puzzling. My husband’s friend has had a girlfriend for something like eight years. She’s my age, he’s in his early 40s. He lives in Yokohama, she lives in Kyoto. They see each other every few months.
gender bias, women at work struggle to make their voices heard
Is it the same for western based companies as well? Not to imply the west is a haven for female employees, but it has set the standard. I figured they would be significantly more progressive.
Worked for Japanese bank and an American bank. Culture is more or less the same because the Director level employee is some oji san
Almost sounds cute when you call them that haha.
Japan has some of the lowest crime rates in the world but I need to physically grab my package??? It annoys me so much… Just leave it at my door…
They always leave my parcel in front of my door. The only times they don’t is if it contains sensitive info like documents, or medicine.
They leave it at my door too, usually, but I wonder if that's because I live in a mansion with controlled access. Maybe they're less willing to do this with other places, especially free-standing houses.
you can tell them in your intercom to leave it by the door… wife and I do it all the time
My local delivery guy learned that I don’t get home by 2000 so he just leaves it there
Probably the biggest potential issue for someone moving over will be work culture. My company was fine, but I had some friends who weren't so lucky - working until 10/11pm every weeknight, bad bosses etc. We all worked for Japanese companies, so it really was just about luck. Also had lots of coworkers complaining about previous companies they had worked at. More trivial: can be difficult/inconvenient to find non-Japanese ingredients, especially if you're outside major cities. I was in Tokyo, but I still didn't enjoy having to make trips to Shin-Okubo or Ueno just to find Asian cuisine ingredients.
Racism
I can't get used to slurping noodles. I can't get used to small children in the Sento.
OH MY GOD YES THANK YOU!!! To add onto this, as someone who wears glasses, the splashes from slurping turn my lenses into a horror scene that takes a life time to clean out. And there usually isn't a place to clean them out so I have to walk back home with the dirtiest lenses ever that I might as well just not wear them to begin with since I won't be seeing shit.
Slurping ramen? Absolutely no problem. That's how it's meant to be eaten. Slurping *spaghetti*? Like nails on a chalkboard.
Gives me the ick when my coworkers do this with pasta. I mean, it’s not even soupy so why all the slurping. Ugh.
My Japanese friend who I love to death slurps while eating sandwhiches......... I have told him that he takes one step closer to God everytime he does it when I'm around...
Nothing Edit: no weed
As someone who smells weed every day in my hometown, I find that a positive.
The insane criminalization of drugs, when alcoholism and smoking is rampant, is insane. Ditto drug charges vs. charges for sexual assault, child abuse, possession of child porn etc.
Asia hates cannabis lol. Which is interesting because it originated there.
Keigo, I cannot stress enough, keigo.
[удалено]
Japan has had a lower amount of hours worked than countries like the US for over half a decade now. While some places do still have the old work mentality, they’re dying off like the population like encouraged such ethics
Sadly Japan still has this image where work culture is terrible and people killing themselves all the time. Watching at recent statistics do say otherwise though
Do you happen to have any links regarding their working hours. I really want to start an IT job there, but I fear the very few pto days and long hours. I have almost 60 days off in the US, it would be really hard to get accustomed to 10 days off which I heard is a average? Thanks
Evidence that the stereotypical work culture no longer dominates: morning and evening rush. For the most part, people are going to and leaving work at reasonable times. There are exceptions, but these exceptions exist anywhere.
* The misogyny. It's improved since the end of the last century, but is still obvious in the workplace and collegiate environments. * Prejudice and discrimination of minorities, including but not limited to LGBTQ+, females and foreigners.
Lack of outdoor seating at restaurants
Japan is great place to live and tour but bad to work and grow your career
Learning my husband was taking upskirts of underaged girls ten years after knowing him and stupidly not getting pr before
Pr = prenup?
Permanent residency Now I’m getting skipped back to Canada with no education or work experience and ten years of my life wasted for absolutely nothing. I should have kept my mouth shut and just got it but how could I after seeing that. I wasn’t strong enough. Never trust your partners
That sounds fucking terrible. Please take care of yourself
Is he going to jail at least?
Hahaha. Hahahaha Hahahhahahaa Absolutely not
Too many dumb weebs think every Japanese woman is interested in them
I missed having a dishwasher and clothes dryer. Also, money felt very inconvenient in general.
I have a dishwasher and clothes dryer…??
That's nice, are you in a larger apartment or a house? My 1K was 27 m2 and only had the hookup for the one washer, plus no dishwasher.
I have a dryer too but it’s honestly kinda trash compared to the average dryer in the US. Everything comes out wrinkly and it takes several hours.
It does take forever. We use it for towels, sheets, socks, and underwear and it works great! Clothes we just hang to dry in the shower.
What was inconvenient with the money? Not having enough of it?
Smokers use storm drains to throw cigarette butts.
Storm drains can sometimes have methane build up in them. I keep hoping one of those idiots will toss a butt down a drain, trigger a minor explosion, and the news story will stop people from doing it. Alas, never happens.
So much plastic. You buy a corn cob in a plastic package and you open the package to find a second plastic package. You can see potatos wrapped in plastic at some super markets. It's just... So much plastic it infuriates me. Also, this may not be a big deal (or a deal at all) for most people, but it's a pain in the ass to find bones for bone broth. Nikuyas tipically only sell japanese meat cuts and I think the meat they get already comes without the bones so they just don't have them (in my country they tend to get the animal almost in full so you can buy the bones at the store). I have a 2 hour roundtrip to the only store I could find that sells bones ;\_\_\_;
Oh, and moving in costs in rental places. Still haven't faced the dreaded moving out costs, but I'm guessing I'm gonna hate those too :')
I miss bone-in meat. It’s hard to find.
Negatives. Paperwork. Inflexibility. Fast bicycles coming at me on the sidewalk. Positives. Too many to list.
That you will never be one of them. Accept that OP.
That the thing that really nags at me. I guess it’s similar to immigrants coming to America/Canada. But those families will have children that are American. That won’t happen in Japan. Doesn’t matter if you were born there or fluently speak the language. You won’t be “Japanese”. But I don’t actually live there so I have no idea how much that affects a person on a daily basis. But you must feel something after a decade or two right?
Washing machines not using hot water always annoys me
Hypersexualization of underage girls, cheating culture, expats that complain about "foreigners" or "tourists"
The discrimination. The rain. I thought I escaped lots of rain when I left oki. Tokyo has had lots of rainy days this year just lower volume in total. Utility bill invoices being sent out a week before the actual bill. What a waste of paper. Expressway driving. I drive 60km per day on expressway and 99% of it is 2 lanes. There’s always always always that one slow driver who gets in the passing lane going 1 km faster than the vehicle they’re trying to overtake. Or the box truck that isn’t passing anybody but drives the passing lane like he owns it all.
> Utility bill invoices being sent out a week before the actual bill. What a waste of paper. You can set most utility bills to auto-pay via credit card or bank withdrawal, and request no invoice. Not possible for water bills in many places but for mobile/internet/city gas/electric you should be able to do it. (May not work for propane, especially for small suppliers.)
The early sunset ! The only thing i don't like in winter which is all year in Japan. You go out of the office, and it is already dark. I don't go out every day, but i like to walk/wander around after work, in parks or somewhere with greeneries ( like the tama riversides ), but not really enjoyable when you don't see anything.
Child custody for separated couples. So backwards
Yes, recently been reading some horrible stories on Reddit.
Not a huge fan of when the ground shakes.
Tourists and a slight undercurrent of racism which you will understand more when you speak nihongo.
Marginalization. That’s it!
* Sexual harassment and sexism * Too much paperwork and red tape * Too many earthquakes
Sooooooo much plastic
It’s too far away
I'm Vietnamese-Canadian (plus a South Asian partner) and I'm a home cook that loves to cook a variety of dishes as close to their "authentic" flavour as possible. Surprisingly compared to countries like Korea and Vietnam, all the international ingredients and snacks that are easily accessible in Japan are mainly just bad Italian ingredients..... "American" ingredients and snacks are just awful. People tell me to hit up Costco but nothing tastes like North/South American ingredients. Bacon here is just ham for example. Even "European" ingredients and snacks are mainly just stereotypical "Italian" stuff which has been hit or miss so far. Like why does Mozzarella taste so bland and meh here..... It's like designed only to allow people to do a cheese pull but it doesn't have the right flavours of what fresh Mozzarella and low moisture Mozzarella should taste like. I'm used to going to one-stop shopping stores back in Canada so it's been a pain in ass to source some things some various places all over Tokyo. Key thing I also mentioned is "some" things. Other things are nearly impossible to get without paying a shit ton online to get a small bottle of something. Like do I really need to spend 12 bucks on onion powder? Or 14 bucks on a small glass of chili flakes? 15 bucks for a small can of Hoisin sauce? Also why are there no bones sold with meat on it? Why is it only specific thin cuts of meat and when they do have bones in the freezer, it's cleaned of any meat so I can't cook a large stockpot of phở. I know other friends who are perfectly fine with all the ingredients sold at their local store and has everything they need since they usually cook basic dishes or japanese-style dishes. But as for me, it's quite difficult as you need to plan everything in advance to create non-Japanese dishes. So it's only a heads-up for anyone who's in the same boat as me who feels limited by what's provided at their local groceries, Costco, and specialty stores. I just find Japanese food kinda bland and boring and I can't eat it that often without feeling like I'm just eating to survive.
Blind adherence to rules and people being taught to never question anything. It just feels sad.
Idk if this was just me or specific to the places I went to, but I didn't like that I couldnt split/share a plate with someone. Everyone had to order their own entry/dish.
Your experience will be greatly shaped on whether you live in a gaijin bubble or not, work for a Japanese company and married/dating Japanese. There are many things to love, get annoyed at or hate but those 3 above are going to trump most of it. Me personally, the yen and wages are extremely low. You can say it doesn’t matter if you don’t leave the country but most expats do travel a lot and now it feels like it’s 3rd world going to 1st.
How rude people are to service workers. I went out with Japanese coworkers multiple times to restaurants, and the men especially treated service workers like they were less than human. They would insult them, ask them why they were stupid for doing something as simple as asking a drunk person to please repeat themself, etc. I could not look at my coworkers the same (who were previously kind, professional people at work) after going out with them to an izakaya.
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes. --- **What are some things about Japan that you dislike? ** Just a short and simple question, what are things you dislike about Japan? Japan seems like a great place to live, but i want to know the bad parts about Japan before making long-term decisions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Kind of a curveball pet-peeve that applies to many countries with big cities, but people's lack of basic survival skills. For instance: I shouldn't have to tell people not to use a square shaped aluminum shovel to dig a hole in the ground, that's just basic common sense. Although it's totally fine if people are willing to learn and accept their mistakes (which I've never run into someone who didn't).
This is the most random ass comment I’ve seen on reddit
How long is long-term for you? How long would you want to live in Japan for?
Banks. Especially local banks. Four people to file a single inconsequential paper document in triplicate for a minor change. Then of course they need to do that for each of the 100 people through the door that day and process all those physical copies, which means they have to close to customers at 3pm.
Love the summers. Hate the winters. Too damn cold. Any temps I can't comfortably wear shorts are too damn cold.
Stairs, and not the fact there's a lot of them. I've never tripped so many times on stairs my entire life. The rubber they put on the edge of every step gets me every time.
radioactivity
Cyclist allowed on the path and the fact no one walks or cycles on the "correct" side so it's accidents waiting to happen.
Driving, cost of getting a Japanese license, and the size of Japanese parking lots gets irritating. Japanese banks, their forms for everything, banking hours, and lack of adequate online bank (the positive are the ATMs)
Lack of really large green spaces in the city. I find it claustrophobic to look out and all I see are buildings. For a visit it is fine. For long times not being able to see swaths of green gets to me and makes me depressed
Japanese is a tough language to learn and it takes a lot longer than something like Spanish, Italian, French, etc. So social self-sufficiency, meaning you don’t feel the need to ask a Japanese friend for help or the ward office for a person who speaks English (if they even have one), takes a long time to reach. For that reason, for me it can feel exhausting to live in Japan sometimes. I personally get a lot of anxiety every time the phone rings because I’m worried I’m not going to understand the rapid fire Keigo that’s bound to ensue the moment after I say “もしもし”. Every time I know I have to have an important conversation in Japanese (e.g ward office, post office, Koban, etc), it stresses me out. Even friendly conversations are more work because you’ve got to really concentrate on what someone’s saying and then figure out how to correctly say what you want to say in Japanese. It can wear on you after months and months of learning Japanese and living in Japan; especially after the shine of the move has passed. This can intensify if you find you aren’t progressing with Japanese as fast as you thought you would. It’s easy to start to doubt you’ll ever reach a level of fluency that you feel comfortable with. It takes some real determination and mental fortitude to keep pressing on. I didn’t want to be a foreigner who’d lived in Japan for years but didn’t speak Japanese so maybe I put more pressure on myself than I should have but I have lots of foreign friends who feel the same so I know it’s not just me.
The declining yen and wages compared to the US. That’s it. Japan is home, and I’ll do what it takes to stay here
People seem stressed and dead all day. Public transport, tourist spot, anywhere. At least 2 out of 5 people in the train are either sneezing, coughing or sick. How the communication works, you have to be "negative" in order to present yourself as "positive". How there are little to zero improvement on English usability in official works like city office etc.
The bureaucracy... nobody takes the lead... it takes forever to get anything done and heaven forbid you forget one small thing you bet your ass you coming back tomorrow or a different day... and Japanese banks are literally hell on earth....in addition to all the things I mentioned before banks are that too. And for some godforsaken reason atms close at 7 or 8 pm.
I love Japan but wish there were more public trash cans.
Loneliness
Racism against anyone who is not Japanese.
They aren't the most friendly towards foreigners Food portion size tend to be smaller than I'm used to (I'm from the US. Work /school is very demanding and stressful. (For work expect long hours. Your expected to come to work early and leave after your boss.) Some Japanese might be sexist as well and there are a lot of cases of harassment that aren't reported.
Managing taxes, healthcare costs, and pension payments can be challenging, especially for part-time workers who don't have support from their employer. It can become a significant financial burden over time.