Japan: Good Move or Bad Move? (homes, earthquake, club)

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by xeRkx

Tell me the ups and downs of Japan.
Would it be a good move or will I regret the decision?

I already know 2 ups.

1. Girls
2. Food! (I like weird stuff, and Japan seems like the capital of weird food.)

1 down
1. Not sure how it will differ from the freedoms of America.

I live in Japan now, and have lived in many countries prior to this - USA, South Korea, Brazil, and Europe. I've also been throughout Europe, Asia, Southy America, and North America.

All in all, I live in Japan now, and LOVE it. The few negatives are far outweighed by the positives.

Generally speaking, my negative lists way run higher on everywhere else I've been...so living in Japan is great. I wish I moved here long before I actually did - about 1 1/2 years ago.

[bluebeard]

Here is a recent article about Orientalism and the sexualization of Asian "babes":
Richard Bernstein's The East, the West, and Sex. - By Johann Hari - Slate Magazine

The long colonial dream of the Eastern girl who won't—or can't—say no is losing its remaining links to reality, one country at a time. Somebody needs to tell the world's masturbators: The days of the Asian babe splayed on the road to Mandalay are over.

[Tenzo]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

Here is a recent article about Orientalism and the sexualization of Asian "babes":
Richard Bernstein's The East, the West, and Sex. - By Johann Hari - Slate Magazine

uhhhh, this has nothing to do with Tokyo

[Xiaomao]

It's kind of a xenophobic country, NihonKitty really explained it pretty well. Totally different culture. Very stubborn culture, too.

[Tiger Beer]

I live in Japan, and have for a year and half.

Personally, I think the xenophobic tag to it is way over-rated. If they are, I certainly don't experience it. People say the Japanese are so subtle that they are xenophobic to you, and you don't even know it.

Well, it certainly applies to me. Everyone is so friendly, if they hate my guts deep down inside, I certainly wouldn't know. It affects me ZERO so far.

I came here after 7-8 years in South Korea...that country is a great country to experience xenophobia, in case foreigners living in Japan have no idea what it really is like to experience.

[Xiaomao]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

I live in Japan, and have for a year and half.

Personally, I think the xenophobic tag to it is way over-rated. If they are, I certainly don't experience it. People say the Japanese are so subtle that they are xenophobic to you, and you don't even know it.

Well, it certainly applies to me. Everyone is so friendly, if they hate my guts deep down inside, I certainly wouldn't know. It affects me ZERO so far.

I came here after 7-8 years in South Korea...that country is a great country to experience xenophobia, in case foreigners living in Japan have no idea what it really is like to experience.

My brother moved to S. Korea and just got back. He said he'd get stared at, but nothing major. He says they're kind of afraid of Black people, though.

[RobE]

Nihon Kitty is right on. It's not that the Japanese are racist or nationalistic necessarily, it is just that they have a real rigid sense of expected behavior and anything that seems foreign kinda upsets the applecart.

This is a culture that values indirection and a kind of silent communication (some have even referred to it as a kind of telepathy---btw, the Koreans say the same thing about their own culture) so that nobody is embarrassed or shown up. But when a foreigner shows up, that confidence that everyone around you knows the rules is shaken somewhat and it can lead to embarrassment. So they resort to a kind of aversion in order to try to keep the atmosphere around them running in a way they are comfortable with.

This even extends to Japanese kids who have lived overseas for a few years. They are discriminated against in Japan because they aren't seen as really being totally in on the cultural game. A friend of mine, who is otherwise a well known writer and editor in Japan, is considered "un-Japanese" by many of her countrymen because of her predilection for foreign languages (she speaks French and English fluently, speaks Russian well enough to get bye and even picked up a little Serbo-Croat along the way) and other non-Japanese cultural manifestations and her having lived overseas for quite a while as well. She also won't play the game that Japanese women are expected to. She's never married because she views marriage as too confining and speaks her mind.

So against all that, imagine a foreigner coming to Japan for yahoo reasons or just as a lighthearted lark who doesn't speak the language, know the culture and swaggers around like he's going to teach the Japanese a thing or two. That's too much cognitive dissonance for the average Japanese to deal with. So they use aversive measures so they won't have to feel embarrassed or perhaps be part of some embarrassing scene the foreigner may create.

As for the preferences of Japanese girls, the overwhelming number prefer Japanese men for a whole host of reasons. The ones who marry foreigners are kind of a breed apart because they are generally (50% of the cases plus 1) braver and more educated about the rest of the world than other Japanese women. And even then, half of all those marriages between Japanese women and foreign men fail.

The girls you pick up at Gas Panic? Well, some of them are just out for a fling and then when it comes to crunch time (marriage), they will find a Japanese guy to marry. Personally, I'm not into bar girls and going to Roppongi for foreigners (a Japanese friend of mine, who grew up in that area, says it has been ruined by being such a notorious pickup strip) is such a cliche it is almost pathetic to go there now to troll for women.

By the same token, though, some of the signs on windows barring foreigners referred to is overstated. Now it is true that if you want to use a Japanese brothel, foreigners will not be allowed in because of the fear of the AIDS virus (like it is only a foreign disease). If they do let you in, you will most likely end up with a Filipina or Thai girl because the Japanese sex workers don't want to deal with you). And there was the infamous case up in Hokkaido a few years ago. But also know this: the Japanese believe in collective responsibility. And the way it manifests itself vis a vis foreigners is that since foreigners are an outgroup ("soto"), if a business owner has a problem with a member of that outgroup then he will punish all members of that outgroup because, first and foremost, he has to protect his Japanese customer base.

And for the uninitiated, Japanese get punished under collective responsibility, too. For example, when Yomiuri infielder Luis Gonzalez (a former Colorado Rockie) tested positive for performance enhancing drugs last season, not only did he get released, but members of the ballclub's organization received temporary pay cuts and written reprimands for what was called not supervising the team enough to ensure that such an embarrassing episode would not occur.

I'm not saying that some of the behavior you see toward foreigners in Japan is right by our western definition of justice, but they are Japanese and have an entirely different set of assumptions they operate under. So my immediate advice is to remember that everytime you screw up in public in Japan it could reflect ill on the entire foreign community, like it or not.

[Tenzo]

Originally Posted by RobE

Nihon Kitty is right on. It's not that the Japanese are racist or nationalistic

Oh, they are racist.
but in the real sense of the word, not the distorted negative meaning we have given the word in the US.
Can't think of a more racist nation.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Tenzo

uhhhh, this has nothing to do with Tokyo

Right, but in the discussion of why to go move or not move to Japan we were talking about whether people should move there to get laid. This is relevant to that.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

I live in Japan now, and have lived in many countries prior to this - USA, South Korea, Brazil, and Europe. I've also been throughout Europe, Asia, Southy America, and North America.

All in all, I live in Japan now, and LOVE it. The few negatives are far outweighed by the positives.

Generally speaking, my negative lists way run higher on everywhere else I've been...so living in Japan is great. I wish I moved here long before I actually did - about 1 1/2 years ago.

The only negatives I have about Japan:

- Expensive
- Crowded (driving here sucks, but at least there's a good public transit system)
- The anti-gaijin mentality (mostly with the older generation)
- Weather during the rainy season (from about mid June to early July)
- Having to be reserved and subtle, regardless of what happens (in Japanese culture you're not supposed to display anger. This requires a lot of patience)
- Reminds me of California in many ways (that can be a positive for many people)

But like you said the positives outweigh the negatives. Every place has its negatives, and I'm not going to let the above negatives push me to pack my bags and rush for the Narita Airport.