With so many “Ask the …” treads of late, and knowing there are a fair number of other expatriates here, I bring you Ask the expatriate. I’m an American expat living in Japan (Osaka, hence the name). I’ve lived in Japan over 11 years. Bring on the questions. (Please note there is a significant time difference between the majority of you and here in Japan. Answers may be delayed, but I’ll try to get them up as quickly as I can.)
Is the manga really that good and in large quantities?
How is Japan different from the States? How is thinking different?
What made you decide to move there?
I moved here after I spent a year as a university exchange student in Nagasaki prefecture (the smasllish city of Isahaya). I enjoyed my time and wanted to return. I originally intended to stay only two more years.
As for differences, there are many. However the similarities have been equally surprising.
Differences that stand out off the top of my head include:
Safety. Although this is changing for the worst, it’s still pretty safe
Fewer local papers. Most of the newspapers are national, with local/regional editions. The TV news is the same.
public transport - I’m from Houston, where there’s a terrible bus system and that’s it. Here there are trains, subways, and buses that (according to those from US cities with “good” transport nets) rival the US.
Prejudice, racism, and discrimination - being a WASP male, I’ve never been banned from anywhere in the US. Here I’ve been refused service at resturaunts, bars, and even barber shops. Other I know have had problems at public baths in particular.
Things that are the same include:
Music - There is traditional Japanese music, but most of the music you hear is either western pop or based on western pop.
There’s lots more, maybe a more specific question would help.
There’s lots of Manga - most book stores have a whole section of manga (or in the case of the bigger ones, a whole floor). The quality is variable. Like any other product produced in large quantity, most of it is bad. It is fairly common to see people reading erotic and even hard core comics on the trains.
I take it racism is pretty bad over there. Are any races, in particular, that get the worst treatment? Also, is there a lot of national pride? How are the histories presented about WWII, Ancient Japan, and the like (presuming you had access to them)?
As far as my experience has been, there have been isolated racist episodes (being refused service at shops is an example that stands out). However, the most common episodes are mostly due to inexperience and ignorance. Things like people generalizing about “all foreigners like X”
or “you’re gaijin, you can’t possibly understand” are common (but less and less so). The most common experience is a sort of annoying celebrity - you’re cool because you’re not Japanese. People often approach me on the train and ask for English lessons, ask to be friends, or practice their high school English.
I do know of instances where people have been forbiden to marry foreigner and even disowned for doing so.
There is a sort of hierarchy of foreigners. White Americans are considered high status. Europeans are next. Africans (usually, but not always including American and European blacks), South Asians, and Middle Easterners are next. The bottom rung includes South Americans (especially Brazillian and Peruvian Nissei returnees) and South East Asians. Koreans and Chinese fit in somewhere in between. (the actual bottom rung ould probably be the “burakumin” or desendants of the traditional untouchable class and Ainu.)
I will say I remember fondly an episode at a local yakitori shop I frequent. I started patronizing the place soon after they opened around the corner from my house. One night some guy walked in and sat at the counter hile I was at the other end. He told the owner that he had a nice car parked out front, but should be careful because a bunch of gaijin live around the corner. The owner said “yes, and one of them is one of my regular customers. He’s sitting at the end of the counter.” I waved and smiled, and that guy’s never been back.
There isn’t a lot of outward expression of national pride among most Japanese - flag waving and so forth are mostly associated with right-wing nut cases. However, the average Joe on the street has a sense of being Japanese in his language and everyday culture. The national anthem (Kimigayo) and flag (Hinomaru) are associated with the war and the imperial past. I’ve never seen anyone stand for either. Textbooks in schools either skip WWII or gloss over it. However many people are aware to some degree that Japan has did vaugely bad things during the war. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are widely misunderstood with little connectioin made to the US sense of vengnace for Pearl Harbor. However, I have had people of various ages apologise for Pear Harbor, so there is hope.
In the instances where you’ve been refused service at shops and restaurants, how was the refusal delivered? Were they “polite” about it or was there a scene?
How well do you speak Japanese?
Do many Japanese people speak English? Well?
How expensive is it to live in Japan? I know Tokyo’s the most expensive city to live in in the world, and wouldn’t live there if offered a five-thousand-square-foot penthouse and a trillion zillion bajillion en, but in general, how expensive are the medium cities and countryside?
How easy is it to get citizenship for us gai-jin devils? Did the officials give you a hard time about it, or was it just a matter of paying up the fees and signing the papers?
How ‘in’ is traditional Japanese culture? Will I be considered a major dorky-poo if I run around in traditional Japanese garb, or will it be just an eccentricity? How tolerant are they of eccentricities, anyways? I’d want to be able to continue my penchant for holding lively conversations with myself when I think no one’s looking.
How did they know you spoke English? Will I be easily able to play my German/French cards and pretend to not speak English if I am bombarded by hordes of screaming Japanese 'Merrikun-lovers, or are many familiar with those languages, too?
At shops where I’ve been refused service, the refusal is either to ignore me and serve other customers (this is what happenes at resturaunts), or for the shopkeeper to tell me no Gaijin (usually attempting it in broken English). I only made a scene at the barber shop. I sat in the chair for 10 minutes while the barber repeated his mantra of “No english. No Gaijin.” while I repeated my request for a haircut in Japanese.
I speak Japanese well enough to get by. I can order in a bar or resturaunt, ask for (and understand) directions, hold a decent conversation on a variety of subjects, and take care of most everyday business reasonably well. I read katakana and hiragana (the phonetic alphabets) well, write them well enough, can read about 3-400 kanji (Chinese characters), and can write about 1-200 reasonably well.
English is taught from junior high school (7th grade) upwards, and most college graduates have had 10 years of classroom instruction. However, there aren’t enough native speakers in the system and the instruction is primarily aimed at the university entrance exams. This is changing slowly, but the end result is an overall poor English ability - most everyone can say a few stock phrases like “How are you? I’m fine thank you.” and a fair number are quite good at it.
It is expensive (the Osaka/Kobe area is supposedly the #2 most expensive place in the world). Sample prices (in $US):
a coke in a vending machine - $1
a snickers bar - $1
a beer in a bar - $4-5
a six pack of beer at the supermarket - $8-10
a 300 gm steak at the supermarket - $10
dinner for two at an average resturaunt - $20-40
a steak dinner for two at a nice resturaunt on my birthday last year - 150
a postage stamp for a normal letter - .70
a months rent in a small (120 square foot) studio apartment in a run down building (my place)- $400
a months rent in an average suburban studio apartment (1/2 an hour to an hour from downtown) - $800-1000
a months rent in a nice 2-3 bedroom apartment near downtown - $1500-2500 and up
that five-thousand-square-foot penthouse apartment downtown - starting at $25,000-30,000 and going as high as you can (if you can find one)
Getting citizenship is possible. I don’t have or want it (I would be required to renounce my US citizenship). According to this information http://www.tabunka.org/newsletter/truning_2.html, it requires living at least 5 years in Japan, various signs of being a “good citizen”, and the acceptance of the Justice Ministry.
Getting a permenat residence visa is much easier and more common. I qualify for one now, and am considering it. I’ve never had a hard time renewing my visa (I’m currently on a 3 year working visa - classified as a “Specialist in Humanities/International Services”). I know people who have, but mostly it’s because they had suspicious or improper documentation.
Traditional Japanese culture is definately out. However many people will ooh and ahh over you if you study some traditional art like tea or flower arranging. This is mostly due to the oddity of a westerner doing it.
The Japanese tend to be very tolerant of eccentricities and even very weird behaviour in westerners/caucasians on the surface. It’s usually chalked up to “all those foreigners are weird anyway and this is just another example”. Talking to youself in public or running around in kimono as everyday wear will get you stared at or laughed at.
To the average Japanese, all caucasians speak English (and to be fair most of them I’ve met do). I’ve played the “I don’t speak English” gambit a few times. If you insist enough, people usually belive you. German isn’t a good one to try, as it’s the language most scientific degrees require (especially doctors and engineers). French is less common, but it’s getting more popular (especially with young ladies, so that might be a good one). I usually go with just saying in Japanese that I don’t speak English. I tend to pull out “Russian” or “Czech” gibberish (making it up as I go along) when pressed and haven’t been caught out yet.
Do everyday Japanese have any kind of awareness that their economy is imploding? Do they care? Is there any economic hardship being had on the man-on-the-street level?
Yes. Everyone knows, but the government suffers from a kind of institutionsl paralysis and “head in the sand syndrome”. Many university graduates are having trouble finding jobs. I find that more and more of my students are mid-career victems of corpoprate restructuriung looking to brush up on their English skills as part of a general re-training scheme. Personally, I lost a lucrative (US $50 and hour) part time teaching contract at a local company office last year because the company decided to cancel all their outside training programs as a cost cutting measure.
From reading the typical costs the apartments don’t seem to be that far out of line from a Manhattan scale,tho the food costs seem a litte higher.
Do the Tokyo/Osaka salaries reflect that like NYC salaries generally do?
When japanese visit here are prices considered a bargain with the yen/dollar exchange rate?
What percentage of the hoi polloi would you guesstimate makes up these tourists vis a vis US.tourists,eg,office/tradespeople vs.the upper classes? (that is in wealth)
Sorry,just remembered another one.I once encountered a Japanese tourist at a show visiting with her parents,and since she spoke english I was trying to explain other shows/points of inteerest they’d probably enjoy-sort of a spur of the moment local tour guide-when their questions got feedback.
Her face had that white/geisha type makeup,and she wasn’t performing anything,just a night on the town getup.
What does that signify?She’s a princess or something?Tho she seemed a sweet person that makeup thru me off.Couldn’t tell whether I was being tolerated or appreciated,what with my perception of general Japanese politeness.
BTW-my comments were not along the lines of
Q-should we see this show,we’ve heard good comments
A- **FUGGEDABOUTIT ** 
Do you find that on a personal/social/personality level that Japanese are becoming more Westernized? That is to say, more casual, more genuine, less concerned with the extreme social codes that we have heard about here? That’s the aspect of the Japanese that has always put me off…I’m such a through-and-through-I’ll-tell-you-anything American that hyper-politeness is really uncomfortable for me. (This has come up for me recently in my relationship, which is with a Japanese American man. While he is 4th generation, there is definitely still plenty of “Japanese-ness” in his family and the way he was raised, and this leads to me not feeling really warm and fuzzy with his family. Not hostile at all, just nothing like close. It’s kinda like “Annie Hall” and I’m Woody and he is Diane Keaton.)
Do you work for an American company? Do you know if (or do you think) there is a significant difference in working conditions between American and Japanese companies?
Yes, the salaries tend to reflect the prices.
US prices are a bit of a bargain, but Ausltralia and SE Asia are better bargains.
In my experience, the majority of Japanese tourists are young single women, especially the “office ladies” (clerical/secritarial staff - note that Japan is stuck in about the mid 60’s as far as working women go). They tend to make less money than their male counterparts, but live at home where their parents take care of everything. Thus they tend to have the largest disposable incomes. They also are looking to enjoy their lives before settling down with Mr. Salaryman (which partially explains “yellow cab” syndrome).
Japan in general has been making a superficial move towards Westernization. “Internationalization” has been a buzz word for decades, but it’s not really filtered down to the “soul”. As for openness, Osaka is rather famous for being more independent, casual, and open than Kyoto or Tokyo. Osaka was the merchantile center of Japan for centuries, while Kyoto was the home of the imperial court and the Kanto (Tokyo) area was the home of the Shoguns court (at Kamakura then Tokyo). This has had a lasting deep influance. Also the hyper-politeness that Japanese are famous for is often restricted to people you know. Strangers on the street or train are not to be trusted, but to be ignored as much as possible.
I work for a Japanese “Eikaiwa”, or English conversation school (ECC) and a couple of part time classes at local businesses. I haven’t worked a full time job in the US, as I moved here right after graduating university. That was more than 10 years ago, so take my opinions with a grain of salt, but I don’t think working conditions in general are all that different. There are wonderful The Eikaiwa business tends towards a 40 hour week at an entry level salary of $25,000. The hours tend towards afternoons and evenings. There a number of schools that take advantage of fresh off the boat teacher’s ignorance of applicable labor laws. Not enrolling employees in unemployment insurance, conning/forcing teachers into shoddy health insurance schemes, not allowing legally mandated holiday time, restricting contract (and thus visa) renewals, and not paying legally mandated severance are the biggest abuses. I won’t name names, but one famous school is nicknamed “No Vacation” for a very good reason.
Personally I work shorter hours (35/week) than I would probably have to for the same salary in the US ($30,000)/year. I have 6 weeks holidays a year - 5 fixed (1st week of May - “Golden week”, 2 weeks in August, and 2 weeks at New Years, plus a week of flex holidays. However, the company pays only unemployment insurance and transportation - no other benifits (health insurance and sick days are out of pocket).