[WingsToDiscovery]

This is a very case by case topic. Despite some bumps along the way, I've always been very close to my family, yet I never felt an ounce of homesickness for either them or the area I was living in prior to moving to Tokyo. Although my mother took my moving so far away a bit difficultly, she told me that her emotions should never make me feel guilty for the decision I made to move. So I was basically given the blessing to go, and I just ran with it. That's as far as my family goes.

As far as my general life, it really just boils down to your level of comfortability with inconvenience. Inconvenience that you may not be fluent in the language, that you can't get all of the commodities you're used to back home, your flexibility with respecting other's opinions and culture, etc. I never really wanted for anything that I really couldn't get in Japan, and I've made do with my knowledge of the language and culture even though it's a bit limited.

I've felt both "stage 1" and "stage 2," but my level of "stage 3" is mild, if at all compared to some really grumpy old " English teachers." I'd probably be pretty pessimistic myself if that kind of job was my endgame. But there are times when I do get frustrated, but that's simply a matter of being raised in a different culture. Japanese people would feel the same way if they went to live in the west. There are a lot of inconveniences, and as said before, it's how you cope with them that determines whether you can live in Japan for the long haul.