Job Discussion Forums

[borg]

Well Stosskraft, you've received some excellent advice in this thread. Anyway, you've made a decision. That's good. I second the person who mentioned Osaka and Nara. I've lived in three cities in Japan and been around the country and I think Osaka is easily the friendliest city I've lived in or visited. Having said that, even Japanese have trouble making close friends with each other let alone foreigners. But you should be able to make friends with at least some Japanese even if they do not ultimately become close friends. It's true that friendships take a long time to bloom in Japan. But everywhere you go has it's good and bad points. I'd say the Thais are the friendliest people I've met in Asia (although Laos would be close) but you will barely earn enough money to pay your bills there. You'll do better financially in Vietnam, but it's a developing country with it's share of problems and although the people are quite friendly, they would be a lot less so if you were say, poor and Asian. Good luck.

[SakuraDrops]

Hi Stosskraft,

After reading what you wrote I felt compelled to sign up on this site just so I could post a response to you.

I felt the same as you did when I stayed in Australia, I think when other people are settled in a place they don't need to make an effort with other people. I know it can feel really lonely.

After my experience in Australia I put this down to English speaking people feeling vulnerable in a non-English speaking environment. But after what you said maybe there's more to it than that.

When I was in Tokyo I stayed in a large International youth hostel. It was terrible for my Japanese as there was only one Japanese girl there but it was loads of fun and there were always more people to meet. So I would suggest moving somewhere similar if you can. Somewhere with a large common area and dorms. I consider myself quite shy but it soon becomes almost like a room in your home and even if you go in there with a magazine or something there's usually someone to talk to.

You can have ultra-relaxed conversations with the long termers you see every day and there are new people to meet. And because of the high turnover it doesn't really get cliquey.

I started martial arts too and found a very clinically pleasant response to me. But they're often like that to each other too! Several of my English students have been my age but I don't feel like I "clicked" with them like I would a Westerner.

One Japanese bloke even started talking to me in a bar, he was a friend of a friend with impeccable manners and was nice to me, but conversation could not progress beyond very safe getting-to-know-you questions. He asked me on a date but I evaded (saying I was going to leave Japan soon) because the conversation had totally dried up by the time we left the bar.

I have fallen out really badly with Japanese over little cultural things. One never forgave me for being late to meet her - in her eyes I had betrayed a promise, I apologised profusely but in my eyes I had only given her an estimated time of arrival because I hadn't known the train times.

The second cultural thing was this. I lived in a girl's dorm and one night very drunkenly brought back my then-boyfriend. We just cuddled but I felt bad the next day as it was a girl's dorm. Then my landlady asked me out of the blue whether I'd like to move to the mixed dorm with my boyfriend. I later found out from a friend that the Japanese girl had gone behind my back and told my landlady. My landlady could easily have chucked me out of the hostel as it was against the rules. I was so angry at her for being so sneaky and two-faced as she was always outwardly nice to me. But in Japan, if someone has a problem with you they will go to your superior rather than talk face to face with you.

So my plan to stay in a Japanese flatshare or something to immerse myself in Japanese culture probably would have been great linguistically but maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed it.

Please never feel like you have failed. I left India extremely early because I hated it. Other Westerners loved it. But it was the right thing for me. I really do think you should do Tokyo though. I have only worked in Tokyo so I can't compare it to elsewhere in Japan but it's like nowhere on Earth. Also there are lots of social organisations to join in such a big city.

I really hope you feel better soon. Let me know if you'll be in Tokyo in January.

[Sody]

[SEndrigo]

[Zzonkmiles]

There's a lot of talk about making friends in this thread. I'd like to ask all of you how many of you went out of your way to befriend foreigners back in your own country? How many of you made an effort to be friends with international students at your university or immigrant/migrant families in your neighborhood? How many of your friends actually tried to befriend people from other countries? When I was in graduate school, I remember most of my classmates conspicuously avoiding working on group projects with the international students (presumably because of their poorer English) and didn't really go out of their way to talk with them. I'm sure such behavior happens on campuses everywhere. I'm sure those students didn't feel particularly welcome or included either. And since class/school/university was probably the easiest place for them to make friends, their inability to do so was probably very difficult for them to handle--perhaps just like this thread's original poster.

In short, I'm saying that I don't think the Japanese are doing anything that some of us on this site and most of our fellow countrymen haven't done back on our home turf.

[Brooks]

that would be me.
I am from Ithaca, New York, and thanks to the university there, there are people from all over the world.
From the age of four I was able to meet and befriend people from many countries.
I keep a picture which has me, my brother, and a couple Japanese children sitting on a floor. The children were from Yokohama, and I wonder where they are now.
At high school, I joined the international club and was a member for three years. Only one other American ever joined when I was there.
In high school, my friends were from Nepal, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
In college, a good friend was from Haiti.
I am kind of unusual in this way. I used to really despise the way whites, blacks, Asians and hispanics would want to be among their own kind at lunch.
I didn`t want to be like that.

But I have to agree that, in my experience, it is hard to meet people in the Tokyo area. I don`t think all Japanese are uniformly unfriendly though.
When abroad, I have lived in Morocco, Poland, Russia, and Japan, and Japanese people are the least friendly in my experience.

[mrjohndub]

Brooks, I hear you on that last comment. I've lived in Mexico, Israel, Chile, Denmark and Mongolia. The people there were all genuinely friendly. I think most of the (small amount) of friendliness that I get here is for show or with ulterior motives in mind.

[SEndrigo]

Hey Zzonk,

I hear what you're saying, but here's the distinction: Stosskraft, and the rest of us on this board, do not attend a high school or university in Japan!

We may work in public schools or universities, but we are not students there. If we were students there, we might have an easier time meeting people or making friends, but we're not.

It is tough to make friends here, plain and simple. After living here for a year and a half, studying Japanese like mad (just like you have), I still find myself with few Japanese friends.

Whereas in Spain, you could make friends quite easily.....the same goes for the UK, USA, Canada, etc.

You might claim it is because we speak the same language (English), but others on this board have made friends in countries where people do not necessarily speak English.

So it's not really language barrier. Actually, I don't claim to be an expert on this matter, but I suspect some of it has to do with the crazy hours that people work here, leaving little time to make friends or hang out with people.

[Gordon]

I think some of you have missed the mark about friendship in the eyes of the Japanese. You are defining friendship the way we define friendship. The Japanese think a friend is someone they have known for many many years, often since elementary school. We don't fit into that mold for them because they see us as transitory, which we are largely. The Japanese are very loyal and see friendship as something very important. They don't want to invest their time and heart into someone who will leave in a year or 2. Yes, they are hard to reach, I certainly don't deny that. Also, the language barrier can't be stressed enough. How much is there to talk about if you can't communicate freely?

[Brooks]

I don`t buy that.
I think social isolation, a lack of friends, and insane work schedules has led people to bail and move on to other places.

I am still here, but I have a Japanese wife.
If I didn`t, I am not sure I would still be here.

One former teacher I used to work with said that he was tired of unfriendly people. So, he decided to head to Shanghai.
He certainly made an effort to learn Japanese (and kanji).
He tended to hang out with Filipinos.

In the end, making a lot of money starts to feel hollow, if it comes at the expense of friendship.

[mrjohndub]

What gets me is how it seems so easy to make a romantic (or sexual) connection, complete with verbal communication, but hard to make pals...

[Sadken]

I live in Okinawa and I can genuinely say that I cannot relate to any comments made about the Japanese being an unfriendly bunch, since my experience has been totally different.

I have only been here 8 months and yet I was invited to a friend's wedding just the other night - the only foreigner in attencance and just today another Okinawan mate of mine returned from a trip to Europe with a bag full of English newspapers for me, along with some Twiglets.

The way I met and befriended these people was by hitting a load of bars on my own when I first turned up and simply finding people to chat to.

I went through a period a couple of months ago where I considered moving up to the mainland because I was getting a tad frustrated about missing out on the sumo, sushi bars, temples and kabuki that I had read all about before coming out here, however, now I am feeling pretty content about things and have decided to stick it out here until April or September 2006 at least, since, judging by what everyone else says about their lot, I could well be looking a gift horse in the mouth by leaving this place too early.

The only real source of frustration down here is finding a steady girlfriend who is either not completely terrified of foreigners as a result of the many horror stories the US marines create or who is not just randomly chucking herself at foreign guys in nightclubs. *beep* it though, relationships are not all life has to offer and, whenever I find myself in one, I usually start looking to find myself out after a couple of months anyway.

I realise now, having written this post that it seems as if I created it merely to crow about life in the subtropics. Oh well, if the cap fits and all that......

My only advice would be to get yourself down here by any means necessary. The weather is clement and the drinks are reasonably priced.

[Sadken]

Edited - the twisted brainwrongs of a one-off man mental.

[parrothead]

To the op, if your contract is ending in February, I am guessing you have been in Japan for 8 or 9 months. Feelings of isolation, loneliness, exhaustion are quite common by this point. Perhaps you just need a vacation abroad. This works for me anyway. I usually return fresh and with an objective mind.
I do, however, understand your feelings of being unable to "click". If this is the case, then I say that life is too short to spend it being miserable. If somewhere else shakes your tree and is a better fit, then go for it. In the meantime, don't dwell on social inclusion so much. Part of Japan's appeal to me (and I am usually happy in my solitude) is the fact that I can go about my life without too much outside intrusion.
Good luck!

[sanadamushi]

Not to beleaguer the point of the OP, but the responses that were of indignation tended to come from those of you who had only been in Japan a short time. Also, the issue of friendship, think about it, your closest friends... where did you make them? How long did it take to get to know them?

I feel like some of you perceive "friends" as testaments to your cultural integration accomplishments into said country. Your roles as English instructors or students leaves you open to the "gaijin hunters" as I like to call them. Japanese who will follow you to the ends of the earth, until the next batch of "fresh gaijin" arrive. If you want to "connect" approach this as real life and not like some arcade game where you are racking up points before your next foray into a foreign land with its own set of complexities.

Those of us who have invested a lot of our being into trying to connect with things Japanese, the language, culture, will constantly encounter frustrations.

I have found however, that the saying, "still waters run deep" is most true about many Japanese. They are perceiving your attempts and guardedly registering their feelings and with time will reach out, it can be very subtle and requires you to meet them on their wavelength. If you truly want to go the distance, the rewards will last the rest of your life.