Lucas88 wrote: ↑July 1st, 2023, 8:34 am
I've not been in Japan since the early 2010s so my knowledge of the country might be outdated by about a decade (I don't really follow what's going on there anymore).
@Lucas88
Thank you for your two comments above - I am living in Japan since more than 40 years I can assure you that your impression about Japan is spot-on and surely not outdated at all. It is still more or less the same situation - I agree with all what you mentioned.
About myself, and some other few countrymen from my native country in Europe, you need for living long-term in Japan a family with you - otherwise like many lonely Japanese (mostly men) you will end up alone in a tiny room doing some occasional jobs and playing with a computer after work with nowhere to go.
Japanese people in general are not very communicative and I also need to get out of Japan about 2 or 3 times a year, away for 2 or 3 months, and I spend some time mostly in Philippines (meeting my Filipina fosterdaughter) and in Thailand (where I have a second home). I never came back to Europe.
Life is now easy for me in Japan as I am fully retired, we also moved away from the big city of Tokyo but there is only a good job possible for a foreigner in the large cities. - We are living now a bit outside of Okayama City, much more space for us, a lot of greenery, river and forests, and not much traffic around - but of course the Japanese people are the same... and true, if you don't have your family around with you as in my case it will become rather boring...
Japanese themselves - and not only foreigners - are complaining about being treated in Japan often as 'invisible' ...
Good in Japan is that it offers a very good health insurance, it is a safe place you can go everywhere day and night, services are functioning, like power and water supply, garbage collection etc. - It has however also rather high taxes, similar to Europe, not so much difference now.
The situation about personal contacts is not getting better but worse in Japan, due to replacing humans with robots, instead meeting people face to face you have to use internet (for example banking) or call centers... Covid-19 made the situation worse, less income, more isolation in their own rooms....
For example the family restaurant I use since many years has almost no service staff anymore, you enter and a robot is asking you how many you are and offers you a number for a table, on the table is a tablet computer with menu, you order by touching the screen and a robot will come and serve you with the ordered food.
I was surprised in another restaurant, still staff welcomes you, but the waiter has no menu, only a plastic card with Wifi and barcode, you have to use your i-Phone to order and also you can pay the bill with it.
Smaller shops where I met the owner personally are often closed now and replaced by convenience shops etc. with part-time staff, who are often not even Japanese, but from Indonesia or Vietnam...
About Japanese women, I often made comments also here in this forum that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are importers of foreign women for local men - Japanese men married with foreign wives outnumber Japanese women married with foreign men more than 2:1.
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan cannot be compared with Philippines or Thailand. Most Japanese couple still meet each other by introduction - this works fairly nice if you have a lot of relatives... but there are also Japanese men around who don't know anybody and rarely talk to other people.
In the large cities you have still a chance meeting and talking to somebody, but if you drive around in rural areas, it might take you hours to see even a single person - usually you will meet only elderly people - plenty of empty farm houses, closed schools...
About living costs, it is not so expensive anymore in Japan except housing inside the very large cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka...
plenty of empty houses and also some condominium buildings a bit away from the cities which you can rent or buy .... cheaper than in Europe for sure with very honest real estate brokers. Medical care is good and not overpriced like in the States. Nothing to worry about street crime....
Also very expensive is still higher education, but universities etc. in USA are also not cheap at all...
For foreigners like myself, no hassle with visa - permanent resident status is almost the same as citizenship, I report only 7 years 1 time to immigration, also hold a re-entry for automatic gates at the airports, I can leave Japan any time as often as I like but have to re-enter Japan within one year to keep my visa status. I am owner with my name in the landtitle of our condominium unit.
Finally, you mentioned in one comment about 'no foreigners' clubs, restaurants, onsen etc...more than 10 years ago. This situation changed somehow, as owners of such a business try to avoid confrontation regarding discrimination (there are also Asian foreigners in Japan) and changed their policy into membership - often membership linked to introduction etc... being refused because you look foreign or being refused to enter because you are not a member are two totally different legal situations...
And yes, Japanese are not very good in foreign languages and to be able to communicate somehow in Japanese is an advantage (you will find the same situation also in South Korea) - unfortunately Asian languages are not easy for people from Western countries.
Now in Japan you will notice however that much more information in the cities makes it easier for you to find your way - there are a lot of traffic signs, leaflets etc. which are not only in Japanese, but also in English, Chinese and Korean...
Life is not so bad in Japan compared to many other places in Asia... I think, still the best country in Asia - but of course it depends on the individual Western foreigner to live here for long-term or to leave within a few years. - My impression and experience so far, many leave and only a few stay (and these foreigner, mostly men, as far as I know them have all a Japanese family...)