why i wouldn't live in japan again [pszWLrYdwSk]

So as you may know, one of my biggest

dreams ever since I was about 18 or 17 was

to be able to live and move to Japan and

then live there full-term. And in 2018, I

kind of made that dream a reality, and I

lived in Japan for 2 years. Straight,

which now that I think about it is

actually the longest amount of time that

I've lived in Japan continuously. Before

that, I had always just stayed in Japan

for a few months at a time, and then I had

to leave, go to Korea, and then go back to

Japan again because I never had a visa. I

always found it difficult to get myself a

visa because I didn't go to university,

and I don't want to degrade myself by

becoming an English teacher. I always look

at those other people, those other

foreigners in Japan who become English

teachers, and I think, that's not what I

want to do. If I'm in Japan, I want to do

something cool, you know, not sitting or

standing in a classroom lecturing a bunch

of Japanese students and teaching them how

to speak English. That doesn't interest me

because I already know how to speak

English, and teaching other people how to

speak something I know how to speak

doesn't really sound very appealing to me.

So I never really went down that route of

becoming an English teacher, and because I

wasn't interested in that, I always found

it difficult to get a visa and live in

Japan long term. Anyway, 2018, I managed

to finally get myself a long-term visa,

and I managed to stay in Japan for several

years. And I was thinking to myself

recently, well, it's been 9 months since

I left Japan, and I thought, wow, that's—

that is the longest amount of time that

I've ever not been in Japan since 2010.

So last night I was lying in bed thinking

to myself, would I like to live in Japan

again? Because I've noticed some people in

the comments section are saying that I

should go back to Japan, it was more

interesting when I was living in Japan,

and I've been thinking to myself would I

like to live in Japan again? And I've kind

of come to the conclusion. I've decided

that maybe the answer is no.

So I came up with a bunch of reasons why I

don't think I would like to live in Japan

again.

Now, as someone who grew up in England, I

have a preference for Western food,

and finding Western food in Japan is not

really a problem. You can easily get hot

dogs, pizzas, burgers— that kind of stuff

in Japan is easily available, but it all

tastes kind of weird because it's

designed, it's created for Japanese people

and the Japanese palate. And I think it's

safe to say that the Japanese palate is a

little bit strange. Number 1, they like

eating raw fish. Number 2, they like

eating raw egg, and they also eat raw

horse meat. So excuse me if I say this,

but they like strange things. And the

Japanese versions of Western food always

disappoints me. It always just tastes kind

of weird, kind of off. Like they're trying

to imitate Western food, but they're just

not doing it properly. And it just comes

out as this strange version of what

you're used to, but tastes weird.

So working in Japan can be a little bit of

a challenge. If you've decided that you

don't want to become an English teacher,

then you have a few options. If you don't

have any qualifications like me, then

you'll have to find some kind of

low-skilled job. Working in a convenience

store, working in a kitchen or a

restaurant, or in retail are basically

your only options. And I worked in a

convenience store, and even though the

work was pretty simple and

straightforward, the fact that you had to

do all of the work in Japanese just makes

the job 10 times more stressful than it

would be if you were just doing that kind

of job in your home country using English.

And even though I speak Japanese to a

very, very high level, even for me it

started to become very stressful having to

deal with customers in Japanese.

Sometimes they might say something that I

don't quite understand because it's an old

man and he's mumbling or he says some word

that I've never heard of before. For

example, in Japan, did you know they have

these sprays that gets— it gets

rid of static electricity in clothing?

You know sometimes you might touch your

clothing and it shocks you? That's static

electricity. And in Japan, they actually

have a special spray that they sell in

convenience stores that gets rid of the

staticness static electricity. And one day

this old man came into the store and he

asked me if we had any of this spray, and

I didn't even know it existed in the first

place, so obviously I didn't understand

what he was asking for. And he kept making

this gesture with his hands, like a

spraying gesture, and I thought he wanted

deodorant, so I kept showing him the

deodorant section. He kept saying, no,

that's not what I want, and I had no idea

what he wanted, so I had to go and call my

Chinese coworker And she

knew what he was asking for. And it was

just kind of annoying because I felt like

I had to keep relying on my co-workers

whenever I didn't understand what the

customer was saying. And if I was just

working back home in England or Europe

where we use English, I wouldn't have this

problem. I wouldn't have this stress. And

as someone who suffers from social

anxiety, the possibility that I might not

understand what they're asking for and I

might have to ask them to repeat

themselves, which sometimes they get a bit

angry if you keep asking them to repeat

themselves. This just triggers my anxiety

so much, and going into work every day at

the convenience store in Japan was just

stressful, and it really shouldn't have

been stressful. And if I had the same job

here in Germany or in England, I don't

feel like I would be so stressed out about

such an easy job. So yes, working in Japan

is just going to be more challenging than

it should be or would be if you were just

doing the same job in your home country.

Okay, so dating and girls.

As a male adult who's still in his prime,

or nearing the end of it, obviously dating

and girls is something that I'm very

interested in, and it's also one of the

main reasons that I wanted to go to Japan

in the first place. And Japan is full of

cute, really attractive girls. You just go

outside and you'll instantly be surrounded

by cute, attractive girls. And that's

great and everything, but it's kind of

meaningless because you'll probably never

be able to get on a date with them, and

you probably won't ever be able to get

anything, you know, intimate from them.

Won't even be able to get a relationship,

probably won't even get a second date,

I'd say, at most. If you're lucky, you'll

get one date, and if you're really,

really, really, really lucky, you'll get

at most a second date. But after the

second date, I really doubt anything more

is going to happen because I tried for

such a long time, probably about 10 years,

I was trying to do the whole dating thing

in Japan. I was on dating apps, websites,

I was in guest houses meeting women, I was

doing everything I possibly could to try

and get myself one of those cute Japanese

girls. I did my hair nicely, I got nice

clothing, practiced my Japanese until it

got to an extremely high level, but in the

end I just could not get myself into a

relationship with a cute, young,

attractive Japanese girl, which was the

whole reason why I was there in the first

place. And after years of

rejection after rejection after rejection

started to really chip away at my

self-confidence. I started to feel like

What's wrong with me? Why can't I get one

of these cute girls who are just

everywhere outside? It's not like they're

rare. It's pretty common to see a cute

girl outside. They're everywhere. How come

they're not interested in me? And I

started to get kind of depressed and upset

about it and a little bit angry. I felt

like it didn't matter what I did, what I

said, what I looked like, I just could not

get one of them. They were just like this

impossible thing that

I could not obtain, and I came up with a

theory as to why this may be. Now stay

with me because it's going to be a bit of,

um, it's going to take a bit of time to

explain this. Basically what you have is

the cute Japanese girls, and what do they

want? They want attractive, successful

Japanese men. Why would they want a

foreign guy when they could just have a

Japanese guy? Most Japanese women are

perfectly fine with having a Japanese

boyfriend, and they probably would prefer

a Japanese boyfriend because number one,

they speak the same language, they share

the same culture, they have the same

preferences when it comes to things like

food. If they're dating a foreigner,

there's going to be so many problems that

they just would not have with a Japanese

boyfriend. So they must be thinking,

well, I'm a cute Japanese girl, would I

want a foreign boyfriend when I could just

get a perfectly normal Japanese boyfriend

who is going to be able to speak my

language, is going to understand me from a

cultural perspective? And it just started

to make sense to me as to why all of these

cute Japanese girls aren't interested in

me. It's because I'm a foreigner. If I was

a Japanese guy, they'd probably be

interested, but because I'm a foreigner,

it probably adds all of this extra baggage

to a potential relationship that they're

not interested in and they don't have any

reason to be interested in. They have the

luxury of being able to choose who they

want to be with because, you know,

they're young and attractive and cute.

They don't have to be beggars, they can be

choosers. And I started to come to the

conclusion that I'm just gonna have to

give up. I'm going to have to either lower

my standards completely and date someone

who's 15 years older than I am, or someone

who's 10 times bigger than I am, or I'm

just gonna have to accept that I'm gonna

be single whilst I'm here in Japan. And I

thought to myself, maybe I'll have a

better chance back home in Europe where

I'll be able to find a girl who speaks the

same language as me, shares same values as

me, grew up in the same kind of Western

culture that I did, and liked the same

food as I did. So if I was a single man,

if I was still single, um, and I

was interested in dating and romance, I

don't think Japan would be a great place

to go back to, to try the whole dating

thing again, because it obviously didn't

work very well for the last 10 years.

And the final reason why Japan has kind of

lost its magic for me is because it's

just, it's just too oversaturated with

foreigners. When I first went to Japan all

the way back in 2010, there weren't

really that many foreigners and I felt

really special being the only foreigner in

most places. I felt like I had this

special magic card that I could play that

instantly makes me a more interesting

person just because I came from a

different country, I spoke a different

language, and I looked different to the

locals, that instantly just made me a more

interesting person to the Japanese people.

And that made me feel good inside because

growing up as a kid, I never really felt

like I stood out much. I never really felt

like people noticed me or appreciated me.

And being in Japan as a foreigner, I

finally had an experience, had a taste of

what it feels like to be noticed and to

be liked and to be popular. But as the

years go by and more and more of these

stupid J-vlogger channels who keep telling

everyone about how great Japan is,

convincing more and more foreigners to go

over there, move there, and live there,

there's just too many foreigners now. And

Japan is becoming less Japanese, is

becoming too globalized.

I mean, what is the point of being a

foreigner in a foreign country when you're

just surrounded by other foreigners? It

just makes you feel like you're not

actually in Japan, but you're in a place

that looks like Japan, but all the people

are foreigners like you are, and it kind

of ruins it for me. It kind of takes away

the magic of Japan.

Something else that I'm not very happy

with is you don't actually need to be able

to speak Japanese now live in Japan. Back

in the day, before the internet, before

smartphones, before technology took over

everyone's lives, you had to be able to

speak Japanese if you wanted to survive in

Japan. It was just not possible to live in

Japan and have a comfortable life if you

couldn't speak a word of Japanese. You

would really struggle if all you could

speak was English. And back in 2010, when

I first went, before there were

smartphones Well, there were smartphones,

but most people didn't have them yet, and

there were hardly any apps, and there

weren't really many dictionaries or

translation apps. Back in that time,

you really needed to be able to speak

Japanese to do basic things. But these

days, it's just— technology has ruined

everything because now you have a

smartphone, you have Google Translate,

everything's in English as well. They've

got English menus on machines, they've got

English signs everywhere, and it just

makes it so you don't really need to be

able to speak Japanese to live in Japan.

And that's kind of annoying as someone who

spent so many years perfecting and

honing his Japanese to a point where

Japanese people can't even tell if I'm a

foreigner or not if they hear my Japanese.

It's so good they can't even distinguish

between a foreigner and me.

And now you've got these foreigners who

can't even speak a lick of Japanese moving

to Japan and not even struggling. They

didn't even put in the time or effort to

learn the language of the country they're

moving to, and there's, there's no,

there's no penalty for them. And as

someone who spends so much time learning

this language, acquiring this skill, I

feel like I kind of wasted my time. Might

as well not have bothered. Just reminds me

of World of Warcraft back in the day,

back in World of Warcraft vanilla, when it

actually took skill to become a rank 14

PvP player. And then they completely

ruined the system so any noob could just

get the purple epic PvP gear. It just

really pissed me off because I worked

really hard to get my epic gear, and then

you've got these stupid newbies coming

into the game getting it straight away.

So yes, those were my reasons why I

probably won't want to live in Japan

again. I'm currently looking for a new

country to live in and set up my base of

operations, and I just don't think Japan

is going to be in that list of countries

that I would consider anymore.