By Karishma Desai

Japan – The Land of the Rising Sun. A place filled with mystery and culture set to mesmerize the rest of the world. The outside world has a very whimsical image of this country – the awe of the snowcapped Mount Fuji, beautiful white skinned geishas with blood red lips gliding down the streets of Kyoto in their vibrant kimonos, decorative chopsticks used to pick up the world famous dish of sushi, lit up streets of Tokyo bustling with people and restaurants of every kind, the serenity of ancient shrines surrounded by nature and peace. This place certainly makes for a thrilling journey, but have you ever thought to settle down in Japan? Become one with the land?

I came to Japan five years ago to pursue a bachelor’s degree. My view of Japan was pretty much the same as any girl who had never stepped out of her country before. A mysterious land filled with samurais, shrines, geishas, exquisite food and unique culture. My time in Japan has been nothing short of an adventure and I have learned and grown as a human being both physically and spiritually. Japan truly is an epitome of beauty and I encourage every one of you to put this country down as a travel destination. But should you live here permanently? That is entirely up to each of you to decide for yourselves. No two people experience things exactly the same. From my experiences, I would not encourage anyone to settle down in Japan and there are many reasons for that. Read on if you are foreigner thinking of building a life in Japan….

Language Handicap

This may seem like an obvious and conceited reason, but it is true. You cannot survive in Japan without speaking the language and even if you do, you won’t be able to reap everything the country has to offer. I had considered taking some Japanese classes before I began university here, but my Program Director assured me that my course would be fully taught in English and that there was English support available on campus 24×7. He also informed me that I could save money as Japanese language lessons were offered on campus for free. So I landed in Japan with my language skills limited to arigatou gozaimasu (thank you) and started my new life in this foreign land. My director had lied. There was not a single staff member who spoke English on campus, not even at the International Student Center. Tutors were assigned to help me with translation but their English was broken and mistakes were made in important documents. Some classes were conducted in English by bilingual professors. The rest were taught in a dialect that merged Japanese and English and made zero sense. The library staff didn’t help either. During my early student months, I did not have access to many student benefits like free Microsoft, discounted travel tickets, part time job assistance, etc all because no one could speak a single word of English and all online study systems were in Japanese.

Education aside, banks don’t have English service either. If you want to open a savings account you would need to bring an interpreter and sign documents fully written in Japanese. They don’t offer any English copies. Same with hospitals. Unless you are living in the good parts of Tokyo, you will need to travel for more than an hour to reach a hospital with English service, which isn’t a guarantee because some hospitals lie about this on their website and once you get there, you’ll find that the only English they can speak are basic greetings. All signs, prescriptions, contracts are in Japanese and they will not budge if you request an English copy. This can be quite intimidating as health and money are two things you cannot treat lightly. You could be signing a form giving them permission to kill you and you wouldn’t know!

Without Japanese skills, you may as well consider yourself handicapped in Japan, as you will not be able to go about your adult activities without assistance from a Japanese speaker. The good news is that this handicap can be fixed. Learn Japanese. The more I learned, the easier my life became. Or better yet, be smarter than me. Learn it BEFORE you land in the country to make your stay here more comfortable. As I started taking Japanese classes, my situation improved as I could communicate and understand kanji better. So, it really depends on how much you are willing to commit to mastering the language. The better you speak, the easier your life becomes.

Despite becoming fairly fluent in Japanese, I was not motivated to stay here. It was not just the lack of services; it was the overall attitude of the Japanese people. Speaking English was beneath them. I thought this was the norm in most Asian countries but no, its only Japan. I met many Chinese and Korean students who were near fluent in English and told me that its not uncommon to find English services in their country. I myself come from an Asian country and its common sense to learn English in addition to your native language as it is one of the most popular languages on earth.

Say Goodbye to Your Social Life

The Japanese have the worst if not comical work-life balance. If you join a Japanese company, your only social life will be nomikais which are drinking parties where your colleagues will get blackout drunk, pretend like you are their best friend in the world and then act as though they don’t know you the next day at work. It is quite ironic because the whole point of these are to bond with your colleagues, but it’s often used as an outlet by the overworked, repressed salarymen. Don’t be surprised if your boss demands you down a bottle of tabasco sauce for his amusement, and don’t be surprised if your co-workers actually entertain such ridiculous demands. The Japanese love their senpai-kohai culture even though its one of the most toxic behaviors you will ever see. You will be expected to treat your seniors as gods, no matter how stupid and arrogant they are. Your meetings will consist of you and your colleagues just nodding and going along with whatever your idiotic boss says. You aren’t allowed to have an opinion or speak your mind even though that’s the whole point of a meeting!

There have also been cases of people dropping dead from overwork. I cannot count the number of drained, depressed salarymen I have seen slouched in the trains. The Japanese work long hours. Overtime is the norm. What makes Japan stand out from other countries where people work overtime is that here, they will work overtime FOR NO REASON. I had a friend who worked in the supermarket part-time who told me that his boss makes the employees rearrange items to different aisles and shelves just for an excuse to keep them working late. Same goes for an office. Deadlines will be met, no unforeseen incidents would have occurred, everything is going fine, and the salaryman will still work overtime because he wants to show his boss what a dedicated worker he is. He will not leave the office until his boss leaves, even if it means sitting at his desk and staring at the wall. Finally, after a 13-hour shift, he will pick up a box of instant ramen for dinner and retire to his apartment filled with neglect. Do you want to become this man? You can if you settle down in Japan.

International companies in Japan have a slightly better employment situation. The more foreigners you have in your office, the better. English teachers also enjoy a good work life balance as they work school hours, not office hours. They get weekends off and enjoy long breaks during the summer. However, there isn’t much career growth available for English teachers so unless you learn Japanese and move on to other industries, you’ll probably be stuck with a dead end job. Use it as a stepping stone. A lot of foreigners start off with teaching English and then move on to management, the creative industries, opening their own businesses, etc.

You will be the Prime Suspect for Everything Gone Wrong

As unbelievable as this may sound, the Japanese still harbor outdated WW2 notions that they are the superior race (they’re not) and act as such. In most countries, the racists form a loud and obnoxious minority but not in Japan. If you want to live here, you will need to accept that racism is integrated into the whole of Japanese society and that no matter how perfect your language skills are or how well you have adapted to the culture, you will always be treated as an outsider. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Your first obstacle after getting here will be finding accommodation as many landlords don’t accept foreign tenants as ‘foreigners are a flight risk, messy and can’t follow rules.’ Of course, there are places that accept foreigners, but you will get blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong. For example, garbage disposal. Japan has a very strict segregation system for garbage disposal which is quite admirable. You are required to separate your garbage and certain days are allotted to pick up a certain kind of garbage. Should someone in your neighborhood put out the wrong garbage, guess who’s going to face the brunt of that? That’s right. You. Unless you have a sure fire way of proving that it wasn’t you, your landlord or neighbors are going to coming knocking at your door with the garbage bag ready to scold you. This was usually how I woke up many mornings; my landlady shoving someone else’s garbage in my face yelling abuses in Japanese, even on the mornings when I did not put any garbage out at all!

It is also not uncommon for the police to randomly stop foreigners outside and demand to see some identification. If you live here, make sure to carry your residence (zairyu) card with you AT ALL TIMES. Not having this on you is actually punishable by law! In most cases, they will just ask you your purpose in Japan, write your details down and send you on your way. If you’re unlucky, you might get escorted to the police station, so they can pin some imaginary offense on you. Do NOT sign any papers they give you. Request a translator and don’t budge even if they make a fuss. That is your right. This is also another crucial reason why you should polish your Japanese skills. If you find yourself in a legal/criminal dilemma and the other party is Japanese, there’s a 99% chance that you are going to lose. I’ve heard from two colleagues at work that the Japanese attorneys they hired to help them didn’t take their side at all. One of them was robbed and had their house vandalized and I kid you not, his attorney actually said to him, “Do you really need to press charges? You can earn back that money anyway.”

Food

This section is exclusively for desi expats or people who come from countries with rich and flavorful cuisines. Japanese food is bland and tasteless. There are some exceptions such as omelet rice, takoyaki and okonomiyaki which are all quite delicious. I want to add yakiniku and ramen to the list but these come from Korea and China. However, these are expensive, and you will most likely not to be able to afford these often. But the common food is just depressing. It consists mainly of salted fish, seaweed, slimy rice, raw eggs and some root vegetables seasoned very poorly. What shocked me more than the lack of flavors was how undercooked the food was. Meat or veggies, it was very rare that I found a dish that wasn’t half or partially raw. I will never forget the time when I was at a nomikai with my undergraduate thesis seminar group and we were served raw chicken liver to compliment the sake. I could still see some blood on it! Apparently, it was some kind of a delicacy and my professor educated me that they even serve chicken sashimi in Japan. I don’t care about how well treated the meat was; the whole idea just screamed salmonella to me.

The Weeb Knights

Put together weeaboos and White Knights and you get THE WEEB KNIGHTS. While you will face a lot of hostility and xenophobia from the locals, your biggest enemy in Japan will be your own. The Weeb Knights mostly consist of Japan long termers who have disconnected themselves from their own culture or anything foreign and worship the ground that the Japanese walk on. They will not associate with other foreigners and keep their circle strictly Japanese. The worse part about the Weeb Knights is that they justify racism in Japan by blaming other foreigners, particularly the newcomers/short termers. In other words, they are basically xenophobia apologists. The most famous lines you will hear from these characters are:

“You are the reason I cannot get a credit card!”

“Learn Japanese or go back to wherever you came from!”

“I want a Japanese wife/husband. In <insert home country> the people are too trashy.”

“You are ruining everything for the rest of us!”

“Another deadbeat gaijin in Japan. You are the reason I need to renew my visa every year!”

As a new comer in Japan, you will make mistakes as you are just learning about the culture and lifestyle. A weeb knight will use your smallest mishap to justify the racist treatment they receive from the Japanese. Perhaps you are a new language student and can’t read the signs, maybe you don’t know how to use chopsticks yet, maybe you misunderstood how Japanese NHS works and are trying to make your back payments; it is all the same to them. Your very existence is the reason they are not given the same status as Japanese citizens. It is a special kind of Stockholm Syndrome if we are to put a label on it. They are under the impression that putting down other expats living in Japan will score them points with the locals. This is THEIR Japan, not yours. Delusion at its finest.

Watch out for the weeb knights if you plan to stay here long term as you will run into lots of them. But the good news is that they are pretty easy to spot. If you see a middle-aged person in the midst of Japanese locals staring at you with ‘drop dead’ look, then you have just spotted a weeb knight. Proceed with caution.

There are a handful of foreigners who have managed to carve out a small space for themselves and are quite content here. Perhaps you will be one of them. Perhaps you won’t. Perhaps you have already lived in Japan and your experiences were different. Let everyone know in comments!

But living obstacles aside, don’t let any of these reasons deter you from visiting Japan as a tourist, student or as a working holiday person. A temporary stay in Japan can do wonders to the way you perceive life. Stay tuned for my next article – 5 Reasons Why You Must Visit Japan