The Ups and Downs of Life in Japan

Answering the age-old question of "Why Japan?"

Ruriko-ji Five Story Pagoda, Yamaguchi City

Hemingway once mused that you can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. He also said that you’ll drink yourself to death, hang around cafes, and become obsessed by sex while living abroad, which is probably more true than not for most expats in Japan.

If you’re among the 2.7 million foreign residents who’ve decided to call this country your home, you’ll inevitably encounter the question “Why Japan?” From there, you’ll likely also be asked why you moved here and if life in the Land of the Rising Sun is all it’s cracked up to be. I’m here to tell you that it is — provided that you’re the right kind of person. Beyond the booze and fornication, I think that one tends to find their true self once they’ve lived long enough in Japan more than they ever could in their native place of birth.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple, Kyoto

I celebrated the sixth-year anniversary of having stepped foot in Japan for the first time this May. Subtracting a year I spent back in the U.S. to finish university, I’ve lived here for a total of five years in a variety of places both urban and rural. While that’s nowhere near as long as other foreigners I’ve met who’ve been in Japan for decades, I would say I’ve probably hit the first milestone most reach when they decide if they’ll stay or leave.

And I’ve decided to stay. I finished a master’s degree in international relations and am currently doing my doctorate in the same field with a specialization in Japan-North Korea relations. I’ve used that for my side gig as a freelance journalist, but I intend to turn it into a full-time career as an academic based at a Japanese university in a couple of years when I hopefully graduate. While I haven’t forgotten my roots as an American and don’t pretend to be anything else, I don’t have any intention of moving back to the United States. I chose Japan.

I am often asked by Americans and other Westerners what I truly think of this country. Foreign media has the propensity to portray Japan and other Asian countries through the lens of exotic idealism. As Gearoid Reidy of Bloomberg points out, even “respected” outlets like The New York Times still try to create this Disney-like fantasy image of Japan. It goes without saying that Japanese media isn’t immune to doing the reverse with Western countries (Ian Buruma’s “Occidentalism” is a fascinating analysis of how the East views the West), but the same exaggerations are repeated until by a certain point they are considered “facts” by entire masses of people who have never stepped foot into these places being none the wiser.

It’s just another country at the end of the day.

You’ve probably heard of that urban legend about vending machines which sell used panties in Japan. This is Reddit post claiming that such apparatuses are real, but the underwear is definitely not used and thousands of gacha machines dispense a plethora of novelty items from miniature models of electronics to strange oddities like snack packet tissue holders. Keep in mind that we’re talking about a post from this year and not one of those early 2000s internet message boards like Something Awful where misinformation about Japan was rampant. A lack of Japanese language ability can cause one to draw the wrong conclusions from out-of-context photos. It almost makes you wonder how far we’ve truly come from Marco Polo’s tall tales about “Zipangu” and its streets of gold even with the advent of online communication.