[Zgarbas]

Russians are Japan's neighbours and thus Not Friends. Also, not exotic at all. Bonus: nationalists dislike Russia because of the kuril islands dispute, liberals dislike it because it's totalitarian, right-wingers dislike it because it's communist, and most people have a hard time separating a country from its people =).

Though I should note the most Russians I've met here were really well-integrated.

(2016-01-18, 1:24 am)cophnia61 Wrote: Why the russian thing? ._.

I can't answer that myself, but there is an interesting history between Japan and Russia. I think that the Battle of Tsushima was the first military defeat of a western power by an asian power in the modern era (Japan beat Russia).

Also, I think that Japan and Russia are still disputing a small piece of land.

Stretching my memory, when I visited Hokkaido many of the signs were in Japanese, English and Russian. The Russian was a total surprise for me. You can see some of those signs here.

If you have a minute, I recommend going to Google Maps and zooming in on Hokkaido and looking at just how close Russia is. Whenever I see how close those Russian islands are to Japan I'm surprised.

I read somewhere - I can't remember the source now - that there was actually a concern towards the end of world war 2 that Japan might become like Korea - an artificial border drawn, where Russia controlled the north and the US controlled the south.

Gaijin who choose to move to Japan are members of a tiny, somewhat weird subset of the people in their home countries. Regular, normal, everyday people from Western countries don't drop everything to move to Japan. Instead they follow the more normal path: graduate high school, some go on to college, and after school they immediately start working at a job(s), which they continue doing for 40+ years until they qualify for retirement, at which time they maybe go on a cruise or two, maybe even venture out of their home countries on some kind of a package group tour, and then they die, most of them never having left their home country.

Japanese are pretty much the same in this respect: "normal" Japanese people don't usually move abroad, ever. They finish school, start work, never take off for more than a few days in a row for 40+ years until they retire and then eventually die, most never having left Japan. Japanese people who choose to move abroad to study, work or just live at some point in their lives are a tiny, tiny minority of the Japanese population as a whole.

There are tons of cool Japanese people who are living really interesting, exciting lives somewhere outside of Japan. The thing is, when Westerners travel to Japan to teach English or whatever, we don't meet these really interesting, cool Japanese people, because they're all off living somewhere else, teaching Japanese in San Francisco or climbing crazy high mountains in the Himalayas or paddling kayaks across the Pacific or whatever.

I have a Japanese artist friend who just picked up, left Japan and moved to Jamaica on a whim when he was in his 20's. He tells stories of learning how to spearfish to catch food to eat because he went to Jamaica with almost no money and smoking huge amounts of ganja with Rastafarian dudes he met there. Now, my friend is in his early 60's, and a month or so ago he emailed me some photos of himself, wearing a beret, and sitting in a cafe in Paris with his French artist buddy. He's not a normal Japanese person.

Where I live now, in Hawaii, there are many, many Japanese expats, some of whom have been living abroad for most or all of their adult lives. Almost all of these Japanese expats would be considered weirdos in their home country because they don't really fit the mold of what a Japanese person is supposed to do with his life. I know two Japanese guys who studied English really hard so that they could pass the test to become boat captains. Now they've both got their own businesses taking Japanese tourists out to see dolphins and whales and swim with manta rays. I know another Japanese guy who is a world renowned free diver. I know several middle-aged Japanese people who dropped out of typical Japanese society to become university students in Hawaii. Most of the Japanese expats I know are kind of stuck living abroad, because now that they're in their 30s or 40s or 50s, it would be really difficult for them to return to Japan after having lived abroad for so long.

Those of us who study Japanese and choose to move to Japan to live for some years of our lives are basically a bunch of "weirdos" compared to our more typical counterparts who choose a more conservative path of staying in our home countries. I say this as a person who has done this in the past and is considering doing it again sometime in the near future, so please don't be offended. I actually much prefer people who are a little different.

Problems arise, though, when you take people like you and me who move to Japan to live, work and study Japanese, and you put us together in a work environment with typical, conservative Japanese people who have taken the more cautious, careful, normal, route in their lives and stayed home in Japan, taken a job right after school and never ventured much out of their home country. IMO, that's where the problems arise. You take a self-selected group of gaijin weirdos who dropped out of the societies in their home countries and moved to Japan and put them together with normal, typical Japanese people who think it's a big deal to take a 4 day/3 night package tour to Hawaii, once in their lives. Of course they're not going to get along.

[Zgarbas]

That's quite a romantic way to see things. Going to another first-world country and getting a conventional job is hardly a weirdo thing to do, though. I've met some of the weirdos you talk about here, but most westerners i've met wanted as conventional of a life as they would have had in their country (but better!)
 For non-westerners, seeking out a firstworld country to live in is quite conventional.

(2016-02-23, 9:13 pm)Kamoshika Wrote: Gaijin who choose to move to Japan are members of a tiny, somewhat weird subset of the people in their home countries. Regular, normal, everyday people from Western countries don't drop everything to move to Japan. Instead they follow the more normal path: graduate high school, some go on to college, and after school they immediately start working at a job(s), which they continue doing for 40+ years until they qualify for retirement, at which time they maybe go on a cruise or two, maybe even venture out of their home countries on some kind of a package group tour, and then they die, most of them never having left their home country.

That's not really true.  131 million americans currently have valid passports.  That is 42% of americans with valid passports and doesn't count the many many passport cards which allow americans to visit canada and mexico.  That is also not counting the people who got passports, travelled for up to 10 years, and then let them expire.

In Japan in 2008, there were 32 million valid passports for a country of 127 million, or 27% of Japanese nationals possessed passports.

Maybe weirdo was too strong a term with too many negative connotations. As I said, my intent wasn't to attack people who choose to live abroad, as I'm one of them. I just meant different, unusual, めずらしい.

People who choose to live abroad are a relatively small, self-selected group. Those of us who choose to move to Japan are, shall we say, less risk averse than our counterparts who choose to stay home and lead more conventional lives.

The same is true in Japan. There is a relatively small group of Japanese people who also want to follow an unconventional life path, and some of these people end up moving abroad.

When Westerners move to Japan they don't get to meet the group of Japanese people who are most like them (adventurous, unafraid of new things, strangers, etc.), because they've all left Japan and are living in Bali or South Africa or Bucharest or Honolulu.

As far as the numbers of people who have passports goes, I don't doubt the statistics that were presented in the thread above. Many Japanese and Westerners alike take short trips outside of their home countries. My guess is, though, that the number of people who stay outside of the country for more than, say, a month, is a pretty small number. Don't you think?

(2016-02-24, 12:19 pm)Kamoshika Wrote: Maybe weirdo was too strong a term with too many negative connotations. As I said, my intent wasn't to attack people who choose to live abroad, as I'm one of them. I just meant different, unusual, めずらしい.

People who choose to live abroad are a relatively small, self-selected group. Those of us who choose to move to Japan are, shall we say, less risk averse than our counterparts who choose to stay home and lead more conventional lives.

The same is true in Japan. There is a relatively small group of Japanese people who also want to follow an unconventional life path, and some of these people end up moving abroad.

When Westerners move to Japan they don't get to meet the group of Japanese people who are most like them (adventurous, unafraid of new things, strangers, etc.), because they've all left Japan and are living in Bali or South Africa or Bucharest or Honolulu.

As far as the numbers of people who have passports goes, I don't doubt the statistics that were presented in the thread above. Many Japanese and Westerners alike take short trips outside of their home countries. My guess is, though, that the number of people who stay outside of the country for more than, say, a month, is a pretty small number. Don't you think?

Just a quick note to say that I like how you are handling the conflict above - not getting mean, defensive, etc.

I for one lived in Japan for two years. And that was a long time ago.

I always felt that the Japanese I met who had been or lived abroad were very different than those that hadn't. A problem I face now is that *all* the Japanese I meet (by definition) are living abroad! So I'm getting a somewhat distored view of Japan and Japanese.

One thing I really liked in Japan was my exposure to traditional culture, and the sort of wabi-sabi / shibui aesthetic. When I mention that to Japanese I meet here they laugh at me. A lot of them hate that stuff and are attracted to American culture. (Or rather, what they perceive American culture to be, based on movies and whatnot).

I guess the moral is that cultural exchange is hard

My experience living in rural Japan for two years in the early 90's colors my perception of the country and its people. I'm sure if I had lived in Tokyo or another big metropolis in Japan, my experience would've been very different.

The small village where I worked as a JET ALT at the Board of Education was beautiful and the people were very nice to me, but pretty much all of them were really, really conservative. No one who I worked with at the BOE ever took a vacation outside of our prefecture, let alone outside of the country, during the two years I worked with them. Most young people left the village immediately after high school graduation and never came back. So, the Japanese people I was working with were a self-selected group who had chosen not to do what the majority of their classmates did and leave the village to move to Sendai or Tokyo or Osaka or wherever. By and large, they were a relatively more risk averse group than the average Japanese.

On the other hand, my JET colleagues and I were, by definition, more open to adventure, unafraid of risks of traveling abroad, and interested in learning other languages and experiencing new cultures than most of our contemporaries from back home in the U.S., Canada, GB, Australia, and NZ.

When you put those two things together its unsurprising to me that many of the JETs experienced significant challenges living and working in rural Japan with Japanese people who were pretty much our exact opposites. The Japanese people we were working with had taken the safe, normal, conservative path of graduating from H.S., some of them had gone away for college, but then they had returned to their ancestral village to work as public servants at the BOE or one of the public schools. When you put those types of people together with the JETs who were unconventional in the other direction (less risk averse, more open to adventure, excitement, interested in learning other cultures and languages) it's pretty easy to see how there might be some problems...

In hindsight, this seems obvious to me now, but at the time I just assumed that all Japanese people were similar to the very conservative folks I worked with at the BOE in rural Japan. It wasn't until after I left Japan and came to Hawaii that I met Japanese who were more like me: not afraid of traveling abroad, meeting new people, learning languages, etc...

@Kamoshika that's a really good point. It wasn't until I went back to Japan and gave a talk on my research at a conference that I met Japanese people who shared my career interests.

I was disappointed that some of them kept on speaking to me in English though, even after I asked them several times to speak to me in Japanese.

(2016-02-24, 1:23 pm)Kamoshika Wrote: Most young people left the village immediately after high school graduation and never came back. So, the Japanese people I was working with were a self-selected group who had chosen not to do what the majority of their classmates did and leave the village to move to Sendai or Tokyo or Osaka or wherever. By and large, they were a relatively more risk averse group than the average Japanese.

I worked for 2 years in a rural part of Japan the town had a pop. of <20,000 spread out over 50-60Km. From what I gathered, and maybe this is a difference between 90s and now, most Japanese weren't from that town. Something to keep in mind with teachers is that they get moved around within in the prefecture all the time. This is true now more than ever, now that we have a lot of schools in rural parts of Japan closing due to student numbers.

I don't disagree with much of anything you said, I just wanted to add some more info on that point. As something of a supporting fact to what you were saying. Many of the kids in that town (I worked Junior high) had never been to Tokyo even though we were only 2.5-3 hours from it by train (we actually had a JR line in town). Many didn't experience stuff outside of the area until they went on their extended field trip (forget what its called, しゅうsomething?) to Kyoto. Unlike you, I did live in Tokyo and work at a school after my time in the rural parts and the kids and people were more open to doing things. Most teachers in both areas though, if they were over like 30, had been outside of Japan though (vacation). Most were your typical trips to Hawaii though. 

The big reason, I feel, that you don't see too many Japanese outside of Japan living and working is due to the language barrier. If you are from the EU/US/Canada, you are more likely to find those people in Europe or other parts of the world simply because they are well versed in English and most places use English. Japan still hasn't gotten the English education sorted out well enough that most people can hope to leave Japan and live somewhere else; or have the courage to try and do that. Some of my close friends from my time when I studied abroad in Japan are abroad now, but the majority are still in Japan. I'd say that ultimately its a personality thing that seems to dictate which people leave Japan and live abroad. I think the most amusing case was my good friend who passed the UN's English test (that thing puts the TOEFL and TOEIC to shame in difficulty), went to work for Mitsubishi or something, and then barely a year after starting, quits. He goes to work for a Japanese NPO and has been to living and working in rural Uganda helping build communities there for nearly 3 years now. None of this is super surprising though considering his personality.

[Zgarbas]

I understood that weirdo was meant to be a positive thing, I just think it's a romantic interpretation . And as you say, your experience maybe mirrors the typical rural population rather than anything typical to Japan.

I just think that you can be interesting without being adventurous or travelling, and you can be adventurous and travel a lot and be, well, dull and/or ignorant. And sorry, I just don't find going to another first world country in a comfortable position an adventurous or high-risk thing to do to begin with...my choice to move here was 100% practical; staying in my country would've been the riskier choice.

of course, as you say, your experience tints your perception, and I've only met people from the US who were expats and travelling; I've not been to Oklahoma to compare whatever 'the regular American' would entitle, I just know that people from the US always tell me that they're not one and then proceed to be eerly similar to everyone else I've met from the US :p. However, at least from what I've seen from US culture, 'backpacking through Europe' or 'seeing Japan one day' seems like fairly stereotypical bucket list items, at least for the urban population.

Japan similarly puts a lot of pressure on people to travel, consume foreign culture, and go abroad, so I'd say that choosing to not do so is the more rebellious option. The salarymen are forced to move around every 2-3 years and it's an aspect of salaryman culture that I personally find more troublesome than the overwork and unfulfilling office job aspect. I don't think that willingness to travel is necessarily a liberal choice - at some organised events I would often run into salarymen who add that they've lived in Australia for a while in their self-introduction; it's just something people do to enhance their status.

Contemporary global discorse in general places a lot of emphasis on travel, as it's one of the more profitable industries, and lately I've been musing a lot about how much our idea of travel is original and how much is just pushed on us. I was on an island in the Phillippines last week and was surrounded by middle aged foreigners (French, Dutch, German, US from what I overheard) who were *almost all* in the company of hired escorts or other foreigners - does that experience make them more interesting people? They're definitely travelling abroad and meeting new people and (given how some were not native English speakers) learning at least one foreign language.

(2016-02-24, 9:53 pm)Zgarbas Wrote: I've not been to Oklahoma to compare whatever 'the regular American' would entitle,

For what it's worth, the majority of americans live in cities these days and I'm guessing other countries are majority urban including Japan.  I'm too lazy to look up the stats, but if memory serves, over 20% of Japanese population lives in Tokyo alone.  So people talking about their experiences in rural Japan might not be making accurate assumptions about who is average these days.

Also, there's something to be said about travelling within one's own country if it's a large one.  I haven't travelled as much as I would like, but I've visited 3 or 4(sub) continents but some places within a half-day's drive from my home seem more "foreign" to me than say Paris or Milan.

I agree that the act of traveling in no way determines whether or not someone is interesting. There are obnoxious, dull, boring people who travel a lot, and there are extremely interesting people who never travel more than a few miles from where they were born. Traveling does not make one interesting.

@Zgarbas, I agree with you that going to Japan wasn't a particularly adventurous or high-risk thing to do, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Americans DO NOT choose to live abroad at any time during their lives. There may be communities of people in certain cities in the U.S. where backpacking around Europe or teaching English for a couple of years in Japan is a normal thing to do, but I didn't grow up in a place like that. Of the people I grew up with, I literally don't know of anyone else who has lived outside of the U.S. besides myself and my 2 siblings. Not one single person.

Maybe Romania is different. I've met several Romanians in Hawaii who were traveling around the world working on cruise ships. Was leaving Romania to work abroad common among people you grew up with? Maybe that's why it seems normal to you.

I also agree with you that "travel" is often an overrated, commercialized, commodified experience that consumers are sold as something they must have to be considered sophisticated, successful adults. Many Japanese tourists I've met here in Hawaii are so jetlagged during their 3 day/4 night trip to the Islands that they barely seem able to keep their eyes open. Americans who travel to Europe usually stay a little longer, maybe a week or two, but not much more than that, because they've got to hurry back to their jobs.

There's a big difference between taking a vacation to another country for a few days or even a week or three and selling all of your things, buying a one-way plane ticket to another country and moving there to live. This is what I'm saying puts people like you and me into a small, self-selected group that is in many ways different from our counterparts who choose to stay at home.

I'm not saying you and I are more interesting or better people because we choose to live and work abroad, just that we're different. In Japan there are also people who are different from their countrymen in the same way we are different from Americans and Romanians who choose to stay at home. When we travel to Japan to live and work, often we don't get to meet the Japanese people who we may have the most in common with because they aren't there. They're working as dive instructors in Tahiti or climbing volcanoes in Hawaii.

To me that doesn't sound like that controversial of an idea. I'm not really sure why you find it "romantic?"

So, what's your stereotype of Americans? You said that every American you meet tells you he's not typical and then goes on to be eerily similar to all of the Americans you've met before. What are Americans like, in your opinion?

I definitely identify as an American, but I also reject and dislike many things about the U.S. Like right now, I'm ashamed that a large number of my fellow American citizens seem to actually consider Donald Trump to be a serious, viable candidate for President of the United States. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about it. In other ways, though, maybe I would fit your stereotype?

What's a typical Romanian like? If I were to meet and talk with a whole bunch of Romanians, would there be something similar that would immediately stand out? Are typical Romanians arrogant? humble? adventurous? proud? open minded? closed minded? My only experience in Romania was hitchhiking through the country a couple of times not long after your revolution. The countryside looked beautiful. Bucharest seemed like a big, dirty city. I've always wanted to go back and spend more time in the Romanian countryside...

[Zgarbas]

(2016-02-25, 1:08 am)Kamoshika Wrote: 1. Was leaving Romania to work abroad common among people you grew up with? Maybe that's why it seems normal to you?

[...]

2. When we travel to Japan to live and work, often we don't get to meet the Japanese people who we may have the most in common with because they aren't there. They're working as dive instructors in Tahiti or climbing volcanoes in Hawaii.

[...]

3. So, what's your stereotype of Americans? You said that every American you meet tells you he's not typical and then goes on to be eerily similar to all of the Americans you've met before. What are Americans like, in your opinion?

[...]

4. What's a typical Romanian like? If I were to meet and talk with a whole bunch of Romanians, would there be something similar that would immediately stand out? Are typical Romanians arrogant? humble? adventurous? proud? open minded? closed minded? My only experience in Romania was hitchhiking through the country a couple of times not long after your revolution. The countryside looked beautiful. Bucharest seemed like a big, dirty city. I've always wanted to go back and spend more time in the Romanian countryside...

(Sorry, Splitting up the quote doesn't seem to work on my phone so I just numbered the bits I'm answering)

1. Yeah, about 1/4th of the population left the country in the past 2 decades, and it's estimated that another 1/4th is temporarily or unoficially living abroad. We usually measure up how good a school is depending on how many leave the country afyer graduation (out of 30 people, only 3 of my classmates went to Romanian universities; I took pride in staying, at the time)

It's rare to find a Romanian who wouldn't move abroad given the chance, and it's a running joke that what we want to do when we grow up is leave the country, the rest will work itself out. 

2. That's the thing though, when I think of all the people whom I would identify with, a dive instructor in Hawaii would be at the bottom of the list. I am a pretty dull person, so I would find more people that I have things in common at a library or a concert than in some exptic place. 

3. (I spent some time trying to think of a polite way to put it, but this might still going to sound mean, sorry)
Special. 
I've met people who had pretty much my ideal life path, people who loved the same things that I did, people with whom I have nothing in common with, ultrareligious ben carson supporters, yuppies, hippies and hipsters. Though their socio-political affiliations and birthplaces varied greatly, few lacked the extreme desire to present themselves as special. 'I'm not a typical American' is the stereotype for me. With few exceptions, most people struggled really hard to prove that they 'get it' and fit in more than their compatriots. To be fair, I've noticed this among most Westerners. 

Despite so much evidence to the contrary I am still in denial about Trump supporters and the likes of Y'all Qaeda being real. 

4. Arrogant, proud, and closed minded, but thinking that they're kind, smarter than average, and open minded. The great majority of Romanians are poorly educated people in the rural areas living below the poverty line, but we act as if most of is are urban and with hig education (despite the lowest university enrollment in Europe). Conservative, xenophobic, and homophpbic af. But we are greatly concerned with the West's opinion, so we sweep most of our reality under the rug. You'll often hear people comment that 'Romanian girls are beautiful', and they will innocently state it as a fact despite us having a serious problem with prostitution, human trafficking, and sex tourism. 
Bucharest is your only chance at finding people who maaaybe wouldn't vote Trump if he were to run for president in Romania. It's not as pretty to visit as other areas, but it's the best place to live (pollution-related diseases aside). As a foreigner, you'll get the deluxe 'Romania is a hospitable and polite society with beautiful girls and welcoming peple' treatment.

Quote:1. Yeah, about 1/4th of the population left the country in the past 2 decades, and it's estimated that another 1/4th is temporarily or unoficially living abroad. We usually measure up how good a school is depending on how many leave the country afyer graduation (out of 30 people, only 3 of my classmates went to Romanian universities; I took pride in staying, at the time)

It's rare to find a Romanian who wouldn't move abroad given the chance, and it's a running joke that what we want to do when we grow up is leave the country, the rest will work itself out. 

That's interesting. It explains your perspective better. You come from a place where 1/4 - 1/2 of the people leaving the country is considered normal. So, it makes sense that you don't see living and working abroad as something particularly special.

The midwestern U.S. city where I grew up has a population of about 350K, but the surrounding "metropolitan area" has around 2.5MM people, so it's not like I come from some little tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I read somewhere, though, that my birth city has an unusually high number of people who never leave, and I've found that to be true among my childhood friends and classmates. Most of them, that I know of, are still there in the same city where we all grew up. When I go "home" to visit everyone acts as if my life is somehow really exceptional. When I try to point out to them that they could easily travel or live abroad as well, they just look at me like I'm nuts...

Quote:That's the thing though, when I think of all the people whom I would identify with, a dive instructor in Hawaii would be at the bottom of the list. I am a pretty dull person, so I would find more people that I have things in common at a library or a concert than in some exptic place. 

 

I get what you're saying now, although I don't think someone who doesn't want to be a dive instructor is necessarily "dull."

Do you think it's possible you may be underestimating your own uniqueness? How many of your Romanian classmates are in Japan? Isn't Japan a pretty "exotic" place compared to Europe? You mentioned that just last week you were on an island in the Philippines. That sounds pretty exotic to me. How many people who you grew up with in Romania have been to the Philippines?

BTW, how did you end up in the Philippines and where did you go? My next door neighbor is married to a filipina from Cebu, and they keep talking about selling everything and moving to Palawan. According to them, Palawan is the most beautiful place in the world. I have another neighbor who is single, and he is also talking about moving to Palawan. He wants to meet a beautiful girl and get married...

Did you enjoy your trip to the Philippines?

Quote:(I spent some time trying to think of a polite way to put it, but this might still going to sound mean, sorry)
Special. 
I've met people who had pretty much my ideal life path, people who loved the same things that I did, people with whom I have nothing in common with, ultrareligious ben carson supporters, yuppies, hippies and hipsters. Though their socio-political affiliations and birthplaces varied greatly, few lacked the extreme desire to present themselves as special. 'I'm not a typical American' is the stereotype for me. With few exceptions, most people struggled really hard to prove that they 'get it' and fit in more than their compatriots. To be fair, I've noticed this among most Westerners. 

Despite so much evidence to the contrary I am still in denial about Trump supporters and the likes of Y'all Qaeda being real. 

I don't know about anyone else on this board, but there's no need to worry about offending me. I'm not very sensitive when it comes to the U.S. In the late 80's and early 90's I spent 3 years living in Europe where I was constantly forced to confront other people's stereotypes of what Americans are supposed to be.

Your perspective is interesting. Obviously you know that Americans you meet in Bucharest or Japan are pretty much by definition NOT typical Americans. Most Americans live their lives and die without ever going to either of those places. So, really when the Americans, outside of the U.S., tell you they're special snowflakes, they're right.

So, I guess maybe I fall into your stereotype of Americans as well.

When I first went to Vienna as a student in 1989, I lived with an Austrian family. The first day, I asked my landlady, who had been hosting American students for about 20 years, "How long does it usually take American students to become fluent in German?" She smiled and said, "Most of the students who've stayed with us never become fluent in German, because they spend all of their time with other Americans speaking English." That was enough incentive for me to decide, right then and there, that I wasn't going to hang around with other Americans. I wanted to hang out with Austrians and learn German. Which I did. The American school I attended in Vienna had several hundred students, and I think I and one other guy were the only ones who signed up and took actual courses in German at the University of Vienna. It was free, but only 2 of us out of like 4 hundred students elected to do it. WTF?


BTW, I wanted to mention that your written English is amazing! I wish I could write in German or Japanese or any language other than English with your level of fluency!  

Quote:Arrogant, proud, and closed minded, but thinking that they're kind, smarter than average, and open minded. The great majority of Romanians are poorly educated people in the rural areas living below the poverty line, but we act as if most of is are urban and with hig education (despite the lowest university enrollment in Europe). Conservative, xenophobic, and homophpbic af. But we are greatly concerned with the West's opinion, so we sweep most of our reality under the rug. You'll often hear people comment that 'Romanian girls are beautiful', and they will innocently state it as a fact despite us having a serious problem with prostitution, human trafficking, and sex tourism. 

Bucharest is your only chance at finding people who maaaybe wouldn't vote Trump if he were to run for president in Romania. It's not as pretty to visit as other areas, but it's the best place to live (pollution-related diseases aside). As a foreigner, you'll get the deluxe 'Romania is a hospitable and polite society with beautiful girls and welcoming peple' treatment.

 


So, it sounds like my theory about the types of people who leave/stay in a country is reversed in Romania. The people who stay in Romania are actually the rebels?

Pretty much, I think we're in agreement. People who choose to stay and those who choose to go away are self selected groups. If I were to travel to Romania, right now, I wouldn't meet you, because you're living in Japan, right?

So, you end up with small, self selected groups of Americans, say, who go to Romania, and there we meet up with a small, self selected group of Romanians who, in this case, chose not to leave their home country to live and work abroad. Either way, it's interesting.

I wonder if you went to live for a year in a small town in West Virginia or Oklahoma, to use your example, if the Americans you met there would be similar or different than the stereotypical Americans you describe that you've met abroad?

[Zgarbas]

Quote:you think it's possible you may be underestimating your own uniqueness? How many of your Romanian classmates are in Japan? Isn't Japan a pretty "exotic" place compared to Europe? You mentioned that just last week you were on an island in the Philippines. That sounds pretty exotic to me. How many people who you grew up with in Romania have been to the Philippines?

BTW, how did you end up in the Philippines and where did you go? My next door neighbor is married to a filipina from Cebu, and they keep talking about selling everything and moving to Palawan. According to them, Palawan is the most beautiful place in the world. I have another neighbor who is single, and he is also talking about moving to Palawan. He wants to meet a beautiful girl and get married...

Did you enjoy your trip to the Philippines?

It's true that Japan is one of the harder destinations due to distance alone, but I don't really find it that exotic to live here (especially since i'm basically on campus 8 months a year). I do have some people that I gew up with living in Japan and even one in the Phillippines.
I went there visiting one if my friends from Uni, who lived in Baguio. We also went to Sagada and Paierto Gallera. it is a beautiful country but I felt a lot of guilt being there as a white tourist; I'm pretty hung up on the damage that the tourism industry causes, and it felt weird to be actively part of it. It was also weird to see just how openly westerners practice sex/wife tourism (and how many of the prostitutes assumed that it was the case with my friend and I...). While I've read a lot about it and see it done here in Japan people at least *try* to not make it obvious.

Quote:tell you they're special snowflakes, they're right.

I don't know, it's not like the entire population is one uniform entity. While it's true that it's a select group I think it has more to do with class and opportunities than with any individual characteristics. I don't think that there arema y people in the world who would say no to my schiolarship regardless of its destination - it's just that they haven't had the fortune of getting it.

Regarding the language experience: yeah, I genuinely don't undestand how people live in a country without knowing the language. I've met people who have been here for 14 years and didn't know even basic Japanese - I am in genuine awe, since I'm too much of a control freak to be able to do that. I spent 4 days in Korea, and it was my first time in a country where I can't say 'hello'; It was an immensely stressful experience for me.

Quote:. The people who stay in Romania are actually the rebels?

Some of them. Most of them stay because of lack of opportunity, old age, incompetence or familial duty, though there are definitely some who stay out of rebellion. I'm planning on coming back, and tbh that's a far higher risk than staying abroad (since I want to do social work, which is usually not paid in Romania). I'm already saving up my scholarship here so that I might have a chance at resettling there in a few years.

I don't know how much they would be the same or not, but being a city folk I think that I would be bored to tears in any small town :p.

(2016-02-25, 8:41 pm)Zgarbas Wrote: It was also weird to see just how openly westerners practice sex/wife tourism (and how many of the prostitutes assumed that it was the case with my friend and I...).

I was always under the impression you were female, so hearing this is really weird if that is the case. Prostitutes thinking that if you were a white male wouldn't surprise me.

Quote:Regarding the language experience: yeah, I genuinely don't undestand how people live in a country without knowing the language. I've met people who have been here for 14 years and didn't know even basic Japanese - I am in genuine awe, since I'm too much of a control freak to be able to do that. I spent 4 days in Korea, and it was my first time in a country where I can't say 'hello'; It was an immensely stressful experience for me.

This has always amazed me as well, that you can spend decades in a country and not be functional in the language, which seems to suggest when they came to the country they had 0 skill. I'm kind of like you in that I need a certain level of skill or it would drive me nuts; mainly because I feel like it shuts off a huge part of the country/culture to you if you can't function in the language. At the same time, I feel its worth it to have the courage to visit somewhere where you can't speak the language and still experience new things. That aside, I could never reason out how someone else couldn't feel powerless like me until just now. The people that come over with 0 skill and no ambition of really picking up the language must be arrogant.

Turn the clock back to the 80s, when JET was still a fresh thing. Most of the people that astounded me in their lack of Japanese came to Japan on JET in the 80s and have never left. I can easily picture these people coming from the US and the UK, having a mindset where they believe that the rest of the world must function on English because all the super powers of the world use English. Therefore, "Why the hell do I need to learn Japanese if they'll know English."

Quote:It's true that Japan is one of the harder destinations due to distance alone, but I don't really find it that exotic to live here (especially since i'm basically on campus 8 months a year). I do have some people that I gew up with living in Japan and even one in the Phillippines.

I went there visiting one if my friends from Uni, who lived in Baguio. We also went to Sagada and Paierto Gallera. it is a beautiful country but I felt a lot of guilt being there as a white tourist; I'm pretty hung up on the damage that the tourism industry causes, and it felt weird to be actively part of it. It was also weird to see just how openly westerners practice sex/wife tourism (and how many of the prostitutes assumed that it was the case with my friend and I...). While I've read a lot about it and see it done here in Japan people at least *try* to not make it obvious. 

I share your distaste for sex tourism, but I don't know that covering it up and keeping it a secret, Japanese style, is the answer. When I lived in Japan, the hypocrisy I observed on a daily basis was one of the things that bothered me the most.

Once, the newly-elected mayor of the village where I lived invited me to go with him and some of his male friends to an onsen for the weekend. While we were there, the mayor's girlfriend, a bar hostess, showed up and spent the night in the mayor's room. The next day before we left the onsen, the mayor took me to the gift shop, bought me an expensive present, a traditional Japanese doll, and said, "please don't tell anyone that my girlfriend stayed with me last night." I never told anyone about what I had seen, but it made me feel uncomfortable, as I also knew the mayor's wife. My impression was that none of the Japanese people who were there even batted an eye that the mayor's girlfriend had come to visit. It seemed like business as usual for them.

Over the years, I've known several Western men who have married filipinas. While some of the relationships have seemed kind of sickening and exploitative, others appeared to be based on mutual love and caring. Personally, I'm happy to be married to an American woman who is my equal.

Quote:Regarding the language experience: yeah, I genuinely don't undestand how people live in a country without knowing the language. I've met people who have been here for 14 years and didn't know even basic Japanese - I am in genuine awe, since I'm too much of a control freak to be able to do that. I spent 4 days in Korea, and it was my first time in a country where I can't say 'hello'; It was an immensely stressful experience for me. 

That's interesting that you felt stressed out by not knowing the language. I've spent years of my life traveling and constantly being in environments where I was surrounded by people speaking languages I couldn't understand, and it's never really occurred to me that I should feel stressed out about it. I guess maybe if I had thought about it more, I might have been stressed. My strategy has always been to just dive in and worry about how to deal with whatever comes up as I go along. I've always made efforts to learn as much of the local languages of the countries I've traveled to and lived in as I could, because I like to talk with people and learn about them and their culture, not because if I didn't, I'd feel stressed out...

BTW, next time you go to Korea, just say, "Anyang haseyo!" It means hello. That and "kamsamnida" (thank you) are the only two Korean phrases I know. If you use those two phrases liberally and smile a lot, the Korean people will love you. You'll see their faces light up.

[Zgarbas]

Vix: (Technically genderqueer but) yeah, I'm a girl. The phillippines aren't that heteronormative; It probably helped that we were in an area full of ates (which are anything from really camp gay men to drag queens to trans people), and I'm pretty butch. Some people assumed she was my guide or something, but she got the look from at least 2 of the girls, and either way everyone assumed she was paid to be there with me some way or another. 

I'm not sure if it's all arrogance: I sort of get people who come here without knowing the language, especially if they've never learned a foreign language before; the myth that travel/moving somewhere magically gives you language skills is quite strong. I just don't understand how it doesn't get to people. Even if they have (comparatively) good English, I've met very few Japanese people who are willing/capable of discussing non-trivialities in anything but Japanese, so it seems like quite lonely to me, even if you're lucky enough to land in a place where you can get by without knowing the language. Complaining about japanese society based on secondary sources seems to be the main coping method, but it just seems to make matters worse.

Kamohika: oh, of course, covering it up is not the answer either. I've been fortunate in not being out in such situations so far. The sleaziness of the business is the same everywhere, I was just amazed by the lack of self-consciousness.

Probably we're just different types of travellers I'm a very self-conscious person by nature and that reflects in the ways I see languages, I guess.

(2016-02-25, 11:59 pm)vix86 Wrote: This has always amazed me as well, that you can spend decades in a country and not be functional in the language, which seems to suggest when they came to the country they had 0 skill. I'm kind of like you in that I need a certain level of skill or it would drive me nuts; mainly because I feel like it shuts off a huge part of the country/culture to you if you can't function in the language. At the same time, I feel its worth it to have the courage to visit somewhere where you can't speak the language and still experience new things. That aside, I could never reason out how someone else couldn't feel powerless like me until just now. The people that come over with 0 skill and no ambition of really picking up the language must be arrogant. 

Turn the clock back to the 80s, when JET was still a fresh thing. Most of the people that astounded me in their lack of Japanese came to Japan on JET in the 80s and have never left. I can easily picture these people coming from the US and the UK, having a mindset where they believe that the rest of the world must function on English because all the super powers of the world use English. Therefore, "Why the hell do I need to learn Japanese if they'll know English."

It's possible some people who came to Japan on the JET Program in the 80's were arrogant and purposely didn't learn Japanese because they just assumed everyone else would cater to them by speaking English. I never met any of those people, though. Some of the people I met on JET in the early 90's were amazingly fluent in Japanese, others not so much.

My take has always been that people who refuse to learn the language of a country where they are long term residents do so because they are insecure. In my experience, people who lack confidence in themselves have the most trouble learning languages, mostly because they refuse to try and inevitably sound like an idiot in the beginning, which is a prerequisite for learning any foreign language.

I remember clearly going out to a party in Vienna with an American friend who had studied German at least 4 times longer than I had. My friend refused to speak German with the Austrian guests at the party. She spoke only in English. Whereas I, who had only taken two semesters of German in college, was walking around speaking only in German to everyone I met at the party. I asked my friend, "Hey, you majored in German. How come you're talking to everybody in English and I'm the one walking around speaking German?" She answered, "Well, I'm planning on waiting until my German gets a little better before I start speaking with strangers..." Of course, her German never got better, and then she eventually went back to the U.S.

One of my "one day" goals is to create an online course titled "Japanese for English Teachers". Maybe after I pass N3?

It's easy to blame each of the individuals who live in Japan and can't speak Japanese. But as a former JET I'd like to point out some of the problems that I and other teachers teachers I know faced:

1. Paid to speak English during the workday
2. Discouraged from speaking in Japanese at work

This means that learning Japanese mostly had to be outside of my day job. The problems there were:

1. I didn't have access to a professional Japanese teacher or Japanese language school
2. Most social opportunities I had were somehow tied to me being a native English speaker

And the kicker is:

1. You're leaving pretty soon anyway, and it's not a useful skill outside of Japan

In my case I flailed around learning Japanese on my own my first year. In my experience many teachers try to learn on their own and don't get very far. But during my first summer break I went to an intensive language school and everything changed. When I got back to my hometown I pulled out all the stops and found an experienced tutor in my city. In my second year my language ability grew exponentially.

Note that this was in 2000-2002. Before internet schools such as JOI and italki were around, and before Anki was around.

There may be individuals living in Japan who just don't give a damn about learning the language. But I suspect that if most of them were introduced to a teacher they liked and trusted, and guided on using Anki, their level would improve as well.

I was reading a blog about a guy who spent a year in Korea. He learned a few words and refused to go any further. He figured he would be gone in a year and it would be useless to him afterwords, and it is very difficult. You can sort of get by with out it.

I don't think I could go someplace like that without have a good base in the language. I also know I'd be one of those types who would probably hide in the foreign bubble. I am social and outgoing but based on past experiences I think I'd be uncomfortable with using a second language except for the most basic stuff until I had some proficiency built up. I also know it is counter productive but it is what it is.

Also I know without Anki I would have found learning another language much more difficult. I knew of spaced repetition in high school but it never would have occurred to me to apply it to vocab.


Often on POF it seems like every second profile is someone who spends all their time in travel. I wonder when they find the time as Canada has typically North American standards of the 2 or so weeks of vacation.

Sometimes I feel like a dull boring person but I really don't have the drive for travel. Going through air port security, long uncomfortable plain ride. Huge expense. Jet lag.
Although I like history, museums kind of leave me meh, I'd rather get the in depth knowledge from books than looking at artefacts without context, that or you spend hours reading the write ups they have which seems like an uncomfortable variant of just sitting with a good book. I will go to one, but I am not inclined to travel half way around the world to do it. Natural scenery is all fine and dandy but again the costs of getting there to see it. Sure you can have conversations with people overseas but er, Canada. I can go to my local corner store and talk to some pretty cool people who hardly function in English.

I suppose if I had lotto money I'd be more inclined to give travel a shot.

I'd be more inclined to move someone for a year or two rather than travel for a few weeks. No better way of really getting into a place. However there is a huge PITA factor there also. Expensive flight over. Difficult tax complications if you own assets [I'd hope in a few years to get an annuity, makes things easier]. Getting the visa, or more to the point setting up the situation to get the visa and hoping you don't get the school/employer from hell. Just the whole disruption of life, it would seem easier if you have a parental home base that you can leave your stuff behind in.

But again I feel like such a boring person at times because although I've been coast to coast I've never been overseas. I donno, I am well read, I march by the beat of my own drummer but still.

@Dudeist Speaking for myself and what I saw, most of the people were recent college graduates who were given the offer to work abroad in a foreign country for a few years. The organizations that require people to live abroad (JET, peace corp, etc.) all recruit pretty heavily at colleges. I think that I (and most other JETS) who applied and accepted the offers viewed it as a "now or never" type of thing.