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D.O.S.

This is not intended to ruffle any feathers. Rather, it's an interesting story from Newsweek International about modern day Japan.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Rorschach · Joined: 25 Mar 2004 Posts: 130 Location: Osaka

I agree. Japan was alien and foreign to me the first time I arrived here. The first year was hell trying to adjust to the 'Japanese' way of things. Only now that I have been here nearly 3 years that I finally feel settled.

abufletcher · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

For a great many (and possibly the majority) of the English teachers in Japan, this has been their very first experience living outside their own culture. I suggest that most of what people find "alien and foreign" here is in fact little more than the experience of being an alien in a foreign land -- any foreign land -- for the first time.

From my perspective as some who came to Japan via Mexico and before that Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, Japan is indeed a pretty ordinary sort of place. I hear so many "Japan stories" that to my well-traveled ears sound exactly like "Middle East stories" or "Latin America stories." The illogic of "the locals" almost always figures centrally in these stories. I find nothing whatsoever "unique" about the experience of living in Japan out of all the world's countries. This is just more of the "myth of uniqueness" that has been cultivated in the West for at least the last couple hundred years.

This is not to say that there aren't unique experiences to be had in Japan. I've had lots. But there just aren't any more of them than I've experienced in any of the 5 other countries I've lived in or in the 35 I've traveled in.

If fact on an extended trek in Nepal many years ago I found myself alone on the trails and rather starved for the companionship of other Western travelers with whom I could compare experiences and comiserate -- so much so that I started recording the numbers (and homelands) of the "Westerners" I met in my journal. During the roughly 4 weeks of my trek I saw only 14 other Westerners like myself. It was only after I got back home (to Kuwait) that I realized the incongruity of that fact that of these 14 travelers that I could identify with, 5 had been Japanese.

Compared with my wife's small villiage in Mexico (which might as well be in the mountains of Pakistan for the cultural distance from the US) life in Japan is a walk in the park -- or rather a stroll through the mall.

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

The illogic of "the locals" almost always figures centrally in these stories. I find nothing whatsoever "unique" about the experience of living in Japan out of all the world's countries. This is just more of the "myth of uniqueness" that has been cultivated in the West for at least the last couple hundred years.

Hmm, I would say compared to undeveloped countries or developing countries, perhaps.

abufletcher · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject:

seanmcginty · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 203

Its always amusing when someone who has only lived in Japan for a year and a bit starts running off like an expert on the whole frigging country and culture.

Actually a lot of the stuff in the article was true, but some of it seemed bizarre. Like seeing hundreds of trick or treaters on halloween? What the hell is that about, outside of little contrived parties at English schools I've never seen anything related to Halloween in Japan and certainly not trick or treaters.

I definitely agree with aclarke, this guy must have been writing just about his limited experience in a part of Tokyo. Go to small-town Japan, or even most mid-sized cities and the presence of foreigners and foreign influence drop off significantly.

Gotta agree with abufletcher too. Compared to adjusting to life in a third world country life in Japan really isn't that much different from life in any other industrialized country.

king kakipi · Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 353 Location: Australia

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

According the the Japanese Ministry of Statistics, in 2004 there were 720,000 thousand marriages. If this figure is similar to 2003, then 1/20 of that would be 36,000 marriages with Japanese and foreigner spouses.

Japan's population is about 127,000,000 so 1% of that (the number of foreigners registered here) is about 1,270,000. Of course, not all of these foreigners are married, nor are they married to Japanese. And, you can't say that 1 in 20 PEOPLE are married to foreigners. Just that 1 in 20 MARRIAGES have foreigners in them. Big difference.

J. Sean Curtin (Professor, Japanese Red Cross University) has a piece in GLOCOM from last October about the rising rate of international marriages in Japan (5% of all marriages in Japan in 2002)...

The number of marriages involving a non-Japane