Originally Posted by samurai007
Since I posted some things earlier in the thread too, I thought I'd try to sum it up like this (it's what I think MMM and the others meant too).
Life in Japan is not all fun and games, it's life. Life includes all kinds of things, from the drudgery of doing laundry to getting sick or injured sometimes to maybe working at a job that can be boring or just feeling depressed, sad, or lonely at times, and all the other things that real life can bring. And the difficulties of living in a country where you don't speak the language well, can't read and write fluently, and come from a different culture with some different beliefs, priorities, and expectations can make life's challenges there even harder. Difficulty communicating with your doctor, for example, or having to line-dry your clothes when you really just wish you had a good dryer to dry them in an hour. As a foreigner, you are forever an outsider to the culture and to many people, and while most people are still very kind, helpful, and friendly (sometimes even more so than usual because you are a foreigner!), you'll likely find that, after a while, you might miss not being the center of attention and stares, that you'd like to be able to read a newspaper or signs without translating, that you'd like to watch TV shows or eat food that you just can't get in Japan because that's what you grew up with and you miss it. You might also miss friends and family, even if you make many new friends in Japan.
There are many threads talking about how great life in Japan is or would be, and I certainly enjoyed my 2 years there. I had a great time, it was a life-changing experience I'll treasure forever. In fact, they were 2 of the best years of my life. But all of the difficulties and frustrations of life in Japan were very much present in my time there too, and I think people dreaming of going to Japan deserve to hear about the other side of the coin, the down sides of living in Japan as well as the great things. At least they'll be better prepared and have more realistic expectations of what real life over there is like. And that's what this thread is for... not to say "Japan is terrible, don't go" (it isn't terrible at all, IMO), but "here are the difficulties, frustrations, and differences of life in Japan that you may not have considered." Many foreigners visit Japan for a vacation. Some people, like MMM, me, and some others here are lucky enough to have lived there for an extended time. But very few stay there permanently, most eventually end up going home again, and perhaps seeing their home country in a new light when they do. The poet William Shenstone wrote, “The proper means of increasing the love we bear to our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one”, and many will find that to be true. You don't really appreciate things like central heating and AC, clothes dryers, good Mexican food, or literacy until you have to live without them for a while.
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