6 facts you need to know before decide to live in Japan
Prologue
As what the title has shown what I am about to say. Just like the others, I am still trying figure what I want to do for my life. I think of this problem infrequently but living in Japan for more than three years has led to to this thought.
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Japan is a country that fulls of its culture. Talk about the cuisine, tradition etc. You name it. We all know travelling and staying for long term can be very different. Living at here, you'll learn respecting the public services and manners that doesn't exist in other countries. I'm gonna start with the phenomenon that can be seen in Japan.
Japan has a lot of rules. Many foreigners would definitely agree with me. Rules that you have to line up, rules and regulations to get a refund and whatsoever. That's what makes Japan become one of the safest country in the world.
And that leads to a problem. Too many rules can be exhausting. You have to follow this and that. Chances that you don't follow the certain rules, chances that the Japanese passerby looking at you with. Some of them might throw a few words in Japanese, some might expressed in confused or disgusted expression. Some might just be silence but cursing you in their heart. It is also part of the culture that they will intend to hide their true thought and feelings.
Which brings me to the third point. It is hard to be a REAL friend with the locals. Real I mean by open our heart and share some advice. Unless they have been to overseas or they are more open-minded, it is kinda hard to communicate heart-to-heart. It'll take you some time to really go connecting with them. I believe a lot of you shares this same experience with me. If you do realize, you could hardly have a really deep conversations with the residents here. Well, at least with a friend. Discussing some dense topics may only occurs in labs, I guess. Being frank and open my heart can be easy for me, but the opposite may not be doing the same. I shared this topic with some of my foreigner friends and they nodded their head.
Despite here you have great traditional food and safety life, living here can be energy-draining too. Japan is facing population declining now and they needed more people to sustain this large population. This case wit cause long working hours. They are short of human power and Japan's government is not really a fan of foreigners. According to the poll of Mapped which their research's result for 2015, the percentage of Japan's immigrant to the number of natives is only 1.61% low. It's like 100 Japanese compare to a foreigner. Therefore, long worker hours is one of the solution to their human power shortage.
Racism DOES exist in this country. Here they treat foreigners pretty nice and fair. But if you think racism doesn't exist in this land of sunrise, think again. Racism is something that can never be erased. It will always be there. They won't say it out loud but you can see from their face expression. They also got some really strong influence from westerners. Most Japanese women would want to keep their skin as fair as paper (Okay, I'm exaggerating it, but you get the idea). You can see them carrying umbrella on the street during hot days. Lots of their advertisement are mainly white guy. It's rare to see black men on commercials. As long as white represents pureness and black represents darkness. Racism cannot be solved.
Men and women are unequal(for the time being). Despite the fact that the world is changing, and many women are fighting for their rights. Japan is doing it too but the fact is that the equality doesn't seems to be improving. Just like my country, the gender gap is won't be better. There's still the existence of pay gaps between the two genders. There's a number of girls would prefer to look and act cute or stupid in order to catch the boys heart. But look at the bright side, when the Japanese woman is married to the man, in most of the case, the man's salary has to give to the women in order to manage and sustain their household and lifestyles. That is part of the reason men can be really pressurized as they need to earn as much money as they can. While, Japanese women stays at home watching over their kids and kicking off their feet watching Netflix at home. Beware.
Japan is not a bad country in spite their good reputation of their cultures. Every places has its bright and dark side. This might be hard for some of us, but it is just part of them.
Postscript
How do I start with how in the world that this thought pop out? How do people interact with people? Endless questions keeps go round and round and far to the endless edge of this universe.
As I grow up, I turned into adult five years ago back in my country, Malaysia. I don't know whether I mentioned anything about my past in my previous posts.
By the end of December 2013, I graduated from high school with zero thoughts of future ahead. I was pessimistic about it. Me full of hatred and any negative thing you can think of. Then, it' the two-month-trip to Australia changed my thoughts. I still thank the decision I made and the permission my mother gave me. The decision to travel solo in Australia for two months when I was just 19. Then, I came to Japan on March 2015. Living here do helps to learn about human and sees lots of things that I weren't able to.
As what the title has shown what I am about to say. Just like the others, I am still trying figure what I want to do for my life. I think of this problem infrequently but living in Japan for more than three years has led to to this thought.
---------------------------
Japan is a country that fulls of its culture. Talk about the cuisine, tradition etc. You name it. We all know travelling and staying for long term can be very different. Living at here, you'll learn respecting the public services and manners that doesn't exist in other countries. I'm gonna start with the phenomenon that can be seen in Japan.
Japan has a lot of rules. Many foreigners would definitely agree with me. Rules that you have to line up, rules and regulations to get a refund and whatsoever. That's what makes Japan become one of the safest country in the world.
And that leads to a problem. Too many rules can be exhausting. You have to follow this and that. Chances that you don't follow the certain rules, chances that the Japanese passerby looking at you with. Some of them might throw a few words in Japanese, some might expressed in confused or disgusted expression. Some might just be silence but cursing you in their heart. It is also part of the culture that they will intend to hide their true thought and feelings.
Which brings me to the third point. It is hard to be a REAL friend with the locals. Real I mean by open our heart and share some advice. Unless they have been to overseas or they are more open-minded, it is kinda hard to communicate heart-to-heart. It'll take you some time to really go connecting with them. I believe a lot of you shares this same experience with me. If you do realize, you could hardly have a really deep conversations with the residents here. Well, at least with a friend. Discussing some dense topics may only occurs in labs, I guess. Being frank and open my heart can be easy for me, but the opposite may not be doing the same. I shared this topic with some of my foreigner friends and they nodded their head.
Despite here you have great traditional food and safety life, living here can be energy-draining too. Japan is facing population declining now and they needed more people to sustain this large population. This case wit cause long working hours. They are short of human power and Japan's government is not really a fan of foreigners. According to the poll of Mapped which their research's result for 2015, the percentage of Japan's immigrant to the number of natives is only 1.61% low. It's like 100 Japanese compare to a foreigner. Therefore, long worker hours is one of the solution to their human power shortage.
Racism DOES exist in this country. Here they treat foreigners pretty nice and fair. But if you think racism doesn't exist in this land of sunrise, think again. Racism is something that can never be erased. It will always be there. They won't say it out loud but you can see from their face expression. They also got some really strong influence from westerners. Most Japanese women would want to keep their skin as fair as paper (Okay, I'm exaggerating it, but you get the idea). You can see them carrying umbrella on the street during hot days. Lots of their advertisement are mainly white guy. It's rare to see black men on commercials. As long as white represents pureness and black represents darkness. Racism cannot be solved.
Men and women are unequal(for the time being). Despite the fact that the world is changing, and many women are fighting for their rights. Japan is doing it too but the fact is that the equality doesn't seems to be improving. Just like my country, the gender gap is won't be better. There's still the existence of pay gaps between the two genders. There's a number of girls would prefer to look and act cute or stupid in order to catch the boys heart. But look at the bright side, when the Japanese woman is married to the man, in most of the case, the man's salary has to give to the women in order to manage and sustain their household and lifestyles. That is part of the reason men can be really pressurized as they need to earn as much money as they can. While, Japanese women stays at home watching over their kids and kicking off their feet watching Netflix at home. Beware.
Japan is not a bad country in spite their good reputation of their cultures. Every places has its bright and dark side. This might be hard for some of us, but it is just part of them.
Postscript
How do I start with how in the world that this thought pop out? How do people interact with people? Endless questions keeps go round and round and far to the endless edge of this universe.
As I grow up, I turned into adult five years ago back in my country, Malaysia. I don't know whether I mentioned anything about my past in my previous posts.
By the end of December 2013, I graduated from high school with zero thoughts of future ahead. I was pessimistic about it. Me full of hatred and any negative thing you can think of. Then, it' the two-month-trip to Australia changed my thoughts. I still thank the decision I made and the permission my mother gave me. The decision to travel solo in Australia for two months when I was just 19. Then, I came to Japan on March 2015. Living here do helps to learn about human and sees lots of things that I weren't able to.
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