Non-Japanese People Who Live In Japan Reveal What Are The Cons Of Living There (33 Examples)

I don’t live there, but travelled there on business over the years. I’m male, but the way women are treated as way below men astounded me. It is an extremely sexist society.

As just one example, I was on an elevator with a Japanese male and three Japanese women. When it opened on the main floor, the Japanese male raced off and I stood waiting for the three women, they were so happy and thankful, they probably never had that happen before.

Coming here when you aren't young can leave you with few friend options outside of other foreigners.

People 30+ already have little time for their close friend group and aren't really looking to add new faces to the group. On top of that, most foreigners don't stick around long, so Japanese people are hesitant to invest time into building any sort of meaningful friendship with you. So you try to make friends with other foreigners but lo and behold what those Japanese people were afraid of was right and your foreigner friends leave one by one.

If you are not an extremely outgoing person, you can find yourself fairly isolated rather quickly.

The underlying racism. If you speak Japanese as a foreign, that's great. If you're mixed race, part of which is Japanese, and speak Japanese that is not cool for some. The Japanese word for someone of mixed Japanese heritage is "half". Also, the underlying misogyny is pretty outrageous.

The dating scene here is rough if you're a foreign woman. Lots of guys either fetishize you or are intimidated by you. After 3 years I've pretty much given up and focused on my career instead.

I lived in Tokyo for a year. While I was learning Japanese, English is my primary language and I needed a translator for many business interactions.

While my employees mostly spoke English to some degree- very few others do. Taxi drivers, train conductors, some hotel receptionists spoke very little English. I used to have colleagues write out the address to hand to the taxi driver, or hotel reception.

I eventually learned enough Japanese to be polite, but never fluent. I was very happy when my next assignment took me to Singapore- where almost everyone speak English well.

I learned a great deal about how non English speakers must feel trying to navigate the US, where everything, every sign, is only English.

Medical care here sucks. Long a*s wait and doctors only see you for a little, barely diagnose you, and just give generic or placebo medicine. God forbid you have a serious illness. Feels like you're a burden to society and looked down upon. Seriously sick or need to see a doctor on the weekend? Too bad, they don't work on weekends, suck it up or just roll over and die.

Getting ghosted by an entire culture when you mess up one tiny social rule.

How judgmental people are. Judging how people dress/how they talk/what they look like. Idc personally but man it’s so lame how much grown adults can’t get out of a high school bully mindset .

Most landlords won't rent to foreigners. Most banks won't give you a credit card. Police can kidnap you for two weeks without having any proven charge and won't let you contact anyone. Yen has dropped and salaries are stagnant. Glass ceiling for foreigners getting promotions to upper levels.

You need to use transparent trash bags and you need to take them out at 6am. You're not allowed to take them out the evening before. You're not allowed to use trash can but disgusting transparent bags. And if you mess that up you'll need to have the trash bag inside your house waiting for you to get up early

And the schedule is all over the place

Disclaimer : Not all Japan is the same, but it is a known issue.

As the saying goes, “Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980.”

I watch a lot of old Japanese films, and it’s so interesting/remarkable how little things have changed in terms of the societal aesthetic.

Japanese have an incredible sense of beauty, but absolutely no sense of ‘ugly’.

These aren’t exactly downsides, but I was on a call with a recruiter yesterday who was shocked to hear how antiquated Japan is in terms of IT/web design/etc.

The slander and libel laws here are... different. If you say something negative about someone in a public way, even if what you say is TRUE, you can still be sued because their reputation could be damaged. It's whack.

From what I've heard: the banking system.