Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Expand

@Zuljaras Okay that was strange, I clicked reply on your comment and it took me back to the main page.

Anyway, you're absolutely right I love Japan beyond anywhere else in the world by a huge margin. And that would be the absolute best gift ever.

@RR529 It's not been the easiest...

And I agree with you. That wearing a mask being seen as political is ridiculous. My family is quite divided over the topic. No one thankfully is in full hoax mode, but my mother and 2 of my aunts both think it's being deliberately distorted and exaggerated just to destroy Trump and that the whole dang world is in on it. I find it is because so many people here never go abroad, they don't want to. They see it all as an "us vs them" where us is apparently American Trump supporters and them is everyone else on Earth united against them. Who cares how little sense that makes. And they say the same thing, that once the election is over, everything will apparently just fade away. Well, the families of 175k people in this country so far, can't go back to normal. But, many people claim that the numbers, data, evidence, witness testimony, videos, etc etc are all fabricated. Everything they don't like is just fake and everyone who believes it is in on the conspiracy...

@NEStalgia So I totally see your point about the cost of housing. But I do want to mention that even if houses still costed as low as you describe, I would not want yard or need a full size home to myself. And I don't mean micro apartments. I wasn't talking about those things you sometimes see on TV shows or on a social media feed. Apartments of the style I lived in in Japan are common everywhere in the country, from hyper dense Tokyo, to super rural Shiga where I lived. It's a standardized design, I used to see "my" building all over the place. Each person has one larger main room that was both my bed and living room, with the other half of the space divided among kitchen, toilet room and bathroom/utility room. I had all I needed and a comfortable amount of space in a very practical and compact form for prices you couldn't rent a broom closet for here. It's a design specifically meant either for single people, or for business folks with an excessively long commute who only actually go home on weekends. (That's related to old Japanese families who've own land since before the rebels kicked the red coats back to England, not wanting to give up their family homes)

Anyway, you're right. I have seen your comments on here before more than a few times. I was in a bad place last night so my head wasn't on entirely straight. We do seem to be mostly on the same page. I wouldn't trade my time in Japan for anything. But looking at things from a different perspective, I'd not be having this problem if I were a typical 2020 American and raised like apparently most people here were.

You mentioned being raised in a manner more compatible with Japan, and I definitely was. One very visual example is how many Americans have no qualms with wearing shoes indoors. But I only learned that was the norm here when I was in high school and started visiting more people. In Japan, people even take their shoes off indoors at schools and at work and switch to either a clean pair of indoor shoes or slippers. In a way stuff like this actually made it harder to do my job as an ALT because I'm a very very poor representation of American culture today.

@Octane Well because of the pandemic it will likely be months or perhaps even years before I even could return to Japan even if I had the means and a job lined up. I was warned before I left that, because of the pandemic, people from America are on the no entry list to Japan right now and you have to jump through a ton of hoops to get an exception.

And yes, the infrastructure is totally different. I lived in, what Japanese people considered to be an extremely rural area. I still walked to and from the grocery store. I'd occasionally get comments from people along the lines of "Wow, you have to walk 15 minutes just to buy food?!" and I'd laugh and point out that everywhere I had lived in the US, the closest grocery store would be at best, a 15 minute drive. Currently, it's 20 minutes now. And you're right about needing to turn homes into virtual warehouses. Like I mentioned in the other comment, there just aren't small homes or apartments here. This 4 bedroom 2 bath, 2 living room, full kitchen/dining room and big 2 car garage is a "small" home by local standards, and we're sharing it with 6 adults and my cousin's kid who is here enough that he thinks it's more his home than his parent's house. Because of that, we have 2 big refrigerators and an additional full size freezer to store enough food to avoid having to go shopping every other day.

@WoomyNNYes You say "legal bribery" a lot more politely than I do. But you're not wrong. And yes, I think Japan's culture is largely driven by their island nation's limited natural resources, but also the impact of WW2. America was never invaded, not the mainland. The last major war on America soil was the civil war. so no one alive and none of our parents or grandparents have ever seen our cities destroyed, our infrastructure flattened etc etc. But both Japan and Europe have and I don't think it's just a coincidence that both of them have a greater cultural value on the good of society and things like public transportation and other services. Because they remember at a cultural level at least, what it's like when it collapses, and how hard rebuilding is.

I don't begrudge people who enjoy large cars. My dad was a car fanatic, I know for some people it's a hobby. But I don't understand why so many people have to have these huge trucks and SUVs for everyday driving. What really baffles me is the lack of mix. While yes, I often talked about how weird it was that like 80% of cars in Japan are black, white or grey/silver, and America has most of the spectrum, most people still have just these huge cars and trucks everywhere you look. There's not the mixture that would make sense in my head. Sure he has a Toyota, she has a GMC and he has a Ford, but they're all big hulking 4x4 V8 heavy duty pick up trucks and none of them have jobs even remotely requiring a machine like that. I don't get it. It's so lopsided that I heard Ford has stopped selling most smaller cars entirely, choosing instead to focus on big trucks, SUVs and sports cars.

@Apportal I don't quite know if important is the word I would use. But I appreciate you reading it. I shared it here because I wanted the perspective of outsiders from my situation. I feel as though if I were to talk about this issue with my friends or family here, it would just come off as an ungrateful complaint fest, and if I talk about it with my friends back in Japan I'd just make them feel bad or uncomfortable because I know they'd want to help me but I know there's really nothing they could do. And none of them wanted me to leave.

I didn't either. But my contract was set and my position wasn't just not getting renewed, no one was getting it after me. I was in a very rural area that people were moving away from, to go to the city, less people, less students, less taxes, less need for English teachers. Everyone I worked directly with said they wanted me to stay, but it wasn't our choice, it was people 3 or 4 steps removed from the school, up the food chain for whom, we were just expenses on paper. Everything bows to bureaucracy...