Well ... you might not, actually. Because while there are plenty of great reasons to live in Japan, such as the low crime rate and the amazing public transportation system, there are a few things you should know before you decide to pack up your manga and hop on a jet across the Pacific, wearing rabbit ears and flashing peace signs at everyone who makes eye contact with you. For starters ...

Two years ago, I achieved alpha-geek status among my friends by moving to Japan. Since then, all I've been hearing from them is how lucky I am and how they would murder any endangered species still clinging tenaciously to existence in exchange for permission to live in my closet. And I totally get it, because come on, it's Japan -- the wackiest, most interesting place on the planet. Who wouldn't want to live here?

5 Everything Is Frightfully Low-Tech

Lintao Zhang / Getty

Quick question: When was the last time you had to use a fax machine?*

*"What is a fax machine?" is an entirely acceptable response.

Getty

"Some sort of ... sex toy?"

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Well, you should try moving to Japan if you want to recapture the magic of the fax machine and other 1990s technology. I actually use one about twice a month to send out my work invoices, because many of the Japanese companies that employ me do not accept paperwork by email. The rare ones that do require that my Word/Excel files be compatible with their 1998 version of Microsoft Office, which is sort of like requiring your Avengers Blu-ray to play on a Betamax machine.

My point is, on the surface Japan seems like the closest thing Earth currently has to a moon base, what with their stock exchange being entirely computerized and wireless Internet literally coming out of their vending machines.

Asahi Soft Drinks Co. and Chris 73 / Wikipedia Commons

Neither of those things are jokes.

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But the truth is, many things are still being done in painfully old-fashioned ways, a phrase which here means "by hand and on paper." Actually, having seen the amount of paper a typical Japanese office goes through, I feel safe in assuming that the entire country has declared a shadow war on both the information age and trees.

How can this be? Well, Japan is still mainly in the hands of the older generation: Over a fourth of the population is over 60, and they're in no particular hurry to adopt new technology (particularly not Apple products, because as far as Japan is concerned, Steve Jobs can go fuck himself). Institutions like banks, the postal service and government offices still keep all of their records on paper, maintained and filed by superfluous personnel who could easily be replaced by an old Soviet computer (which incidentally is more or less what a friend of mine at a Yokohama municipal office was using at his workstation as recently as 2010).