I haven’t been there in over a decade, but in general I’d compare it to an Asian themed 50s America. So if you like the 50s then you’ll like it, if you think the 50s were crap then you probably won’t.
But as a tourist, it’s pretty interesting.
In fairness, there are a significant number of white men in East Asia who are quite…skeevy or immature or shady. To the point where some of that xenophobia is justified.
The US has plenty of cool manhole covers, too. And diagonal crosswalks. Not sure that the need for smoking booths is actually a plus (at least around here, public smoking is basically nonexistent).
Well, they are frequently Buddhist, so it might not be for you.
From what I’ve heard, yes.
Yup. I lived there for 25 years.
And the short answer is :
Whatever you want it to be.
IMHO it’s because the Japanese have taken a lot of things from the west and improved them in such a way that they are (again IMHO) better then the originals. Things like anime, the Japanese RPG (Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in particular), and otaku culture compared to American geek culture. I think it could even be argued that if it wasn’t for the Japanese love of console video games, they would likely have died out in the west during the 1980s and we would no longer have video games as we know them. Sure, these aren’t profoundly important things, but they do make Japan seem “cooler” than the US.
Any thoughts about the beer? 
The Japanese have a fascinating relationship with sex. In many ways they are extremely open and liberal about sexuality, but in many other ways they are extremely repressed. They seem to be publicly open, but privately repressed. It’s a weird duality in their culture.
I’ve been a Japanese cartoon nerd my whole life, and when we got the chance to visit Tokyo I felt “hey, I’ll go, I’ll get this Japan thing all out of my system, and I can move on with my life.”
Turned out Japan was much more interesting than a lifetime of watching their pop culture exports had led me to believe. Most of the preconceived notions I’d had were incorrect. Food wasn’t outrageously expensive, there weren’t overworked salarymen rushing everywhere, and the “high tech” stereotype Japan exists right alongside low-tech, old school, “I can’t believe they’re still using these things” Japan.
Tokyo felt like a terrifically livable city, with amazing public transit, fascinating things to do and see everywhere, and citizens that weren’t grimly marching off to death by overwork, but seemed to have plenty of time to shop, drink coffee, socialize, manage ridiculously specialized businesses that seem to somehow be able to stay in business, and everyone was dressed very nicely compared to us tourists. I can’t wait to go back.
Doesn’t Japan have vending machines where you can buy (used?) panties?
Take kancho. Please! It’s a “game” where (mostly) kids make a gun-like shape with their fingers and try to poke others in the butt.
I liken Japanese sexuality to a balloon. If you try to squeeze (repress) it in one area, it just pushes out in another. So maybe you don’t have some of the open expressions of sexuality like we do in this country, but you get kancho and tentacle port.
I’d suggest that’s true of humans in general.
it’s great if for no reason other than how different things are compared to what a lot of Americans are used to. Especially if your experience is suburban/outer suburb/rural. the biggest difference that I saw at first was how dense everything is. I spent most of my time in Iwaki which isn’t a big city, and even then it felt like stuff was built on top of other stuff. Oh, and there’s no such thing as “zoning.” the hotel I was staying in was (IIRC) a narrow 10 story building, and next to it was a multi-level parking garage. And crammed in between them was a tiny house. But after a couple of days, the “new-ness” kind of subsided, and then I was just in another place with other people. Tokyo was like a lot of big cities (though naturally more dense) and is so international now you’ll see tons of people from everywhere in the world there.
but at no point did I see anything which would explain why your typical anime-devouring otaku thinks it’s The Promised Land. other points:
positive:
[ul]
[li]you can get almost anywhere in the country via train and a bit of walking[/li][li]people in general (where they’re used to foreigners) are polite and may try to help you if they can[/li][li]if you are in smaller cities where Westerners are less common, school kids will always want to practice their English with you[/li][li]the food. the Japanese food you find in the US is mostly authentic, but it’s only a sub-set of the depth and breadth of the cuisine. e.g. yakitori in the US is usually just grilled pieces of chicken breast on a skewer, with dressing/sauce. in Japan, you can get pretty much any part of the chicken on a skewer, like gizzard, heart, “soft bone” (cartilage,) and so on. Plus, there are any number of smaller restaurants which serve pretty much only one thing. There was this tonkatsu place in Iwaki which was phenomenal. They’re not as paranoid as we are and don’t cook things to death, so the cutlet I was served was cooked until it was just done and was so damn good. [/li][li]promptness. Public services e.g. trains absolutely run on time.[/li][/ul]
weird:
[ul]
[li] in spite of their reputation as a technological wonderland, they can be surprisingly archaic. the first time I went there, when I bought a train ticket the cashier calculated my change using an abacus (soroban.) [/li][li]the cheaper hotels such as near train stations have seriously tiny rooms. but beer vending machines in the hallway, so that was all good :D[/li][li]Roppongi is something to avoid, it’s nothing more than a tourist trap. IIRC it’s what The Simpsons was riffing on when they all wanted to go to “Americatown.” It’s also where they kind of “stick” foreign residents, and it was the only place in the country where I felt someone was going to boost my wallet. You will be endlessly hounded in Roppongi by people trying to get you to go to the “massage parlors.”[/li][/ul]
bad:
[ul]
[li] the people are still rather xenophobic/racist, at least the older crowd. They will be polite to foreigners, but there’s still an element of distrust.[/li][li] it is legal for businesses to serve Japanese people only. [/li][li] the workplace (at least in the remaining bigger “Japan Inc.” companies) is still very patriarchal; it’s slowly changing but when I was there women were still more or less relegated to secretary and assistant jobs. [/li][li] there are way more homeless people than you’d expect. We arrived at Ueno station when it was dark, and homeless people were piled up sleeping along the outside walls. and there was the time we stepped onto a commuter train to see everyone crammed at one end. because a homeless guy at the other end was passed out and had shit himself. [/li][/ul]
I’ve been to Japan about a half dozen times, each visit lasting 5 - 14 days. Most Americans I know who have visited share experiences like mine. It’s an awesome place…for about a week. The food is good, the culture is interesting, there’s a lot of history, some very cool stuff to see and do and the people are mostly pretty friendly (it’s true kids will want to practice English with you, and adults will introduce you to their kids for that reason). But after a week or so I’m ready to get back to America.
I’ve been to countries that I didn’t want to spend more than about an hour in. And I’ve been to countries where I thought yeah, I could live here. Japan is neither of those.
Out of interest, what countries would you live in? Apologies this is off topic (I’ve never been to Japan, but everyone I know who has loves it. Even my father, who finds France a bit too foreign).
Top of the list would be Sweden. That place is awesome, but admittedly I’ve only been there in the spring and summer months. Experiencing winter might change my mind, but I doubt it. Food is good, people are so nice, laid back, it’s not at all crowded. Another thing that helps a lot is English is pretty ubiquitous.
Japan *is *quite crowded and the opposite of laid back. That’s one of the reasons it’s just nice to visit for me. It’s just personal preference, but noise and bustle isn’t my style.
Which is weird when you consider officially Japan only has 25,000 homeless people total and only 5,000 in Tokyo itself. That seems like an absurdly low figure even in a place where cultural norms and social programs try to eliminate homelessness.
Isn’t Japan known for “officially” underestimating many things by a wide margin? I’ve read that the government deliberately suppresses the statistics of homicides, for instance; wouldn’t be surprised if the homelessness figure is far beyond the official figure.
Well, there are good things and bad I guess. I thought it was pretty amazing, though I have to admit I didn’t enjoy the crowds, especially on their trains. I was very uncomfortable, but I feel the same about any crowded place as I have a bit of a phobia about confined spaces and crowds. But it’s a truly beautiful country that has an interesting mix of modern with tradition and history. And it’s really REALLY clean…amazingly so if you are coming from some place like New York or other large cities.
Like others, I’d like you to go into detail about what you are actually having issues with or think you are missing. Like I said, there are good and bad aspects to Japan. Were you wanting a more traditional experience? Are you coming at this from the perspective of having gone to some other Asian countries? What were your expectations and what has disappointed you?
My biggest problem with actually being in Japan is that nothing fits me. The chairs are too short both in height and depth, there is not enough room between rows of seats, the beds tend to be too short, doorways even in modern homes can be only 6’ tall, and so on. The older I get the more uncomfortable this feels. I was able to live there for an academic year when I was 30; now I can barely last a week.