1616 days in Japan

Maybe this blog should have been started ages ago. Yeah, maybe 1616 days ago. I have lived in Japan for 4.5 years now and am starting to feel that I should really put my thoughts, experience, feelings, interesting encounters together and share with everyone.

I hope this will help those others that are either already in Japan or will be coming to Japan.

Many of you is probably wondering why I came to Japan. Well, my husband is Japanese so that's why I came. Some of the people that I meet thinks that I had an easy adaptation to Japanese culture becoz of my husband. But the fact is, no. As many other Japanese サラりマン "Salarymen" (a term used by Japanese to mean males who work in a company) do, my husband had very long working hours. yes, i mean, long long working hours - from 9am to around 11-12pm everyday. My work didn't require me to work too much. So, I ended up finishing work at 6-7pm, grocery-shop, cook, and sit in front of a TV and ate by myself. What's worse is that there is absolutely NO english tv channels in Japan. So, what did I do? just watch the facial expressions and guess the meaning. That kind of life lasted for around 1 year.

Japanese people are in general very very shy. They don't like to "look different" which is very very different to those of us who used to live in Western countries. If you ever come to Japan for a visit, try to get onto a train (especially 田園都市線、東横線) you will notice that every salarymen wears exactly the same suits and ties and the most funniest thing is they have the same expression. They don't like to be stared at and they won't stare at other people in return.

Becoz of this, I had a lot of difficulties during the first year in Japan. With an asian appearance, I was always treated as local Japanese and therefore made my life a lot harder. For example, in HK or in Australia, it is totally fine to talk on cell phones in trains, bus or other public transports but in Japan, that's a big NO NO. I didn't know and therefore, was talking to my friends in trains and there was once, i was told by a Japanese old man that I should not talk on the phone in trains. Everyone was staring at me with their "what do you think you are doing" eyes.