I've been lurking these forums for a long time, but I think it's about time I registered an account just so I can give some input into this thread.
For a bit of background, I've lived in Japan for over half a decade now, am married to a wonderful Japanese woman (with incredible in-laws, to boot), and have a son. I've got a well-paying job at a Japanese firm, plenty of financial security and all that, and am in my early thirties.
All that said, I'm leaving Japan next year, permanently. The only thing preventing me from leaving this year is the wait time on spouse visa applications in my home country. So, why am I giving up what otherwise looks like a decent life and job in Japan to take a stab at making it in the economic turmoil back home in the West?
Because Japan lied to me.
The "Japan" that Japan consciously sells to the world, with a long history and unique culture and traditions does not exist. The image of Japanese people that Japan sells to the world - a polite, respectful, amicable, honest, trustworthy, creative, hardworking, well-educated people - also does not exist. The Japan that is painted as a "first world country", to use the (incorrect) common term, on par with Western nations in terms of innovation, governmental institutions, and as another poster succinctly put it, rule of law, does not exist.
The Japan that Japan sells the world is a carefully crafted lie, created by a PR campaign that is second to none in the world.
Politeness: The Japanese are not sincerely polite. The politeness that exists here is pounded into childrens' heads from the time they are born, as a mechanical reaction - it's a "when this occurs, do this" reaction. There is no sincerety to it. It's much like tapping one's knee with a hammer - tap the knee, and the leg rises in reaction. Say 'ohayo gozaimasu' and you get 'ohayo gozaimasu' in reaction. Enter a store and you get 'irasshaimase' as a reaction. Enter the staff room in the morning and you must say 'ohayo gozaimasu' (or 'azass' more often than not, remember it is the action and not the sincerety that counts). Japanese society runs on action and reaction, and when you finally realize this, Japan becomes a very cold place indeed.
Respectfulness: Japan certainly paints a picture of the Japanese as a respectful people what with their constant bowing and overuse of keigo, but that is all, again, action and reaction without sincerity. As soon as you are out of earshot (or right in front of them, as I'd say about 90% of Japanese truly believe no foreigner can speak Japanese, tv "tarento" notwithstanding) they will being to speak ill you. The concept of "benefit of the doubt" does not exist here, in any context, especially when dealing with foreigners.
Empathy: There is no empathy here. Japan reminds me much of America in the sense that there is a very "f you, got mine" sort of attitude. As long as it suits me, I will do what I like. Provided I don't break any social mores, I'm fine. Banging on the walls and screaming, that's fine as long as nobody says anything. People here do not genuinely consider how their actions affect others, and I see it every day. The simple lack of thought towards other people here, Japanese and foreigner alike, absolutely sickens me.
Honesty: It is true that, generally speaking, if you leave your wallet on a bench, for example, someone will probably turn it in. Japan has indeed instilled a large degree of of what I would term "enforced social honesty" in its people. As long as you are acting under the guise of yourself, as a private individual, you have a duty to act honestly. In this regard, the Japanese are models of citizens who are honest. Where the act fails however, is when there is some other entity involved. As another poster put it, "people with suits will rob you blind". As long as there is some other entity onto which blame for the act can be shifted, I bear no responsibility, thus it is A-OK to rob you. While a housewife who finds your wallet in the park may turn it in, the same woman wearing a suit and working for a company would have no problem taking you for everything you have. The constant stream of scandals, embezzlement, and corruption here are proof of that point indeed.
Trustworthy: The adage that "you can't trust them farther than you can throw them" is well apt for Japan, especially in regards to personal information. This is quite odd given the strong personal privacy laws here, but again, hypocrisy and double standards are something Japan is all too good at. When you go to the doctor, for example, you may trust that the doctor will not reveal your personal information to other patients. Why then, is the nurse interviewing you in the waiting room about the condition of your hemhorroids, right in front of all of the other patients? This also extends into the workplace: I trust exactly zero of my colleagues to keep any information confidential if said information's release would not detrimentally impact them.
Creativity: Creativity is actively stifled in Japan. Any attempts to deviate from beloved "tradition" are succintly squashed. The examples are countless but I'll come back to this with a grand example regarding Mr. Takafumi Horie.
Hardworking: If there was ever a person who I absolutely would not hire, it would be a person born and raised in Japan. Every day I look around, and see my coworkers dicking off, right in plain sight. This is not only tolerated, but effectively condoned. Reading the newspaper, simply carrying on banal conversations, or even sleeping right at their desks. It disgusts me honestly, especially given the hypocrisy of it all: they whine and complain about having too much work, having to stay late, and so on. Why then are they so unproductive? One western worker would accomplish the work of any three of my current colleagues and still have time to spend on Facebook each day. Now, I'm fully aware that keeping morale up in the ranks is important, but these lot absolutely take the piss with it. And from all accounts, this is not just my coworkers, but the nation as a whole.
Intelligent: I have some friends who work in public schools here, and honestly, it is terrifying. How little these students know of the world is staggering. Many students honestly believe things like "they speak English in the gaikoku", "only Japan has four seasons", "every American has a gun and has shot someone", "only Japan has an effective democratic process", etc. They literally just know nothing. If you cannot dilute it to an equation, the students do not get it. Cramming information into their brains, memorizing "x input = y output" is all these students know. There is exactly zero creativity fostered, no critical thinking, and concepts like applying logic and reason are absolutely unknown. And then the students must all attend juku after regular schooling! How it does speak volumes of the absolute, complete failure of the Japanese school system that students must attend supplementary schooling, yet still actually *know* nothing. I've seen students unable to complete an exercise because the problem was copied directly from the textbook with only the variable names changed. It is both staggering and infuriating. And having gone to a Japanese university myself, I have seen first hand how horrific upper education is here - to put it bluntly, my middle school curriculum was more rigorous and taught me more than my time at a top ten university in Japan. I could write a dissertation on the failings of the university system here, but honestly education in Japan is simply broken, and it reflects in the people raised here.
Japan on par with the West:
This perhaps grates on me the most. Before I lived here I, too, bought into this. From all I had seen, Japan was indeed on par - a booming economy that seemed to work, what appeared to be a functioning government supported by a legal and judicial framework that functioned properly. Oh, how wrong I was.
Much like the stereotype many have of China of simply copying things from the West, modern Japan was actually built on this premise. Advisors were sent abroad, and brought back western institutions and implemented them in Japan. The problem was, they brought things without understanding them. Democracy was brought, in the European model, without understand how or why it works. The Japanese never had to fight for their rights, for their freedoms, and thus do not appreciate them, nor do they value the democratic process.
So, too, was the legal system brought, based upon the models that the German states at the time provided. But again, the Japanese did not "get" it. They have laws, but of course, but they are often not enforced properly, and as much weight is given to blame and responsibility as is given to legality and judicial process. Corruption and scandals are rife, even within the judiciary itself - I do believe the chief public prosecutors of two prefectures are currently up on charges resulting from scandals invovling cases. And as someone else pointed out, they have admitted to being taught that "yakuza and foreigners have no human rights". There is no right of habeas corpus in Japan, and as a foreigner, you are likely to be held for the entirety of the 21 day daiyokangoku process if you do not immediately confess to whatever crime the Japanese police force has accused you of - we would all certainly like to stand up and proclaim that we are innocent and would not buckle, but "torture" would be an apt word one could use to describe the tactics that police use when interrogating suspects, both Japanese and foreign. And the police themselves are effectively immune from investigation, as they control the investigatory bodies, and what with Japan being one giant old boys' club, no one is keep to step on anyone else's toes. And so the show goes on.
Lack of social skills: The Japanese lack social skills. From an early age they are segregated by sex, even through high school. By the time students enter university, they have had, I would estimate, about as much time interacting with non-family members of the opposite sex as your average Western five year old. They simply do not know how to act towards people who are not of the same gender, and it shows. Compounding this problem is the fact that the Japanese seem to mature much slower than Westerners. Your average 25 year old Japanese person is about as mature as a 16 or 17 year old Westerner. Emperor Hirohito himself stated that the "Japanese are children" and not yet mature, and although he was speaking in regards to the adoption of democracy, his words were true in all regards. Japan is a nation of children in adult bodies who do not understand how to act with each other.
Sexualization of children: The sexualization of children here is honestly terrifying. Groups like AKB48, even the old "Onyanko Club" from the 80s, do nothing but make viewing children as sexual objects acceptable. The creator of AKB48 even stated that AKB48 was created specifically for middle aged men. How marketing 12 and 13 year olds to men in their mid-30s is acceptable is completely beyond me. What is further beyond me is why this country is okay with that. I for one do not want my underage children to be thought of as sexual objects for men literally double their age. But this problem extends beyond just the music industry in Japan - so much pornography here features schoolgirls and girls who are supposed to be underage. Far from being a fringe niche, this is mainstream. The sheer volume of rape pornography produced is also worrying. If rape and underage schoolgirls (and let's be fair, there's a truckload of underage schoolgirl rape pornography as well) is what gets Japanese men off, then that is truly scary.
Sexual crimes: Sexual crime and deviancy here is rampant. I do not know a single woman here who has not been molested. Literally. Full stop, end of story, that's it. Even my wife has been molested by a man on the train when she was in high school. It is such a problem that some municipalities (Osaka, to start) have designated women-only cars. I also know women who have been victims of sexual assault, and when the police were called, they simply wrote off the entire incident. Stalking here may be a crime, but only when something bad actually happens. There was a very well-publicized story from two years ago where a woman was finally raped and murdered by her stalker, whom she had reported multiple times to the police prior to the fatal incident - the police simply stated that "nothing can be done". Also, human trafficking is huge here, with thousands and thousands of the women forced into sexual slavery and forced prostitution all over the country. If a woman manages to get free, the authorities are more likely to deport her rather than go after those that held her - just got have a read at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for gigantic white papers about sexual slavery in Japan.
Safety Japan: Japan likes to paint itself as a safe country. I'd say as long as you are a man, that is generally true. You aren't very likely to be the victim of random violence out on the street here. But again, in what country ARE yOU likely to be so? Japan pads the numbers, that much cannot be argued - low reporting plus an ineffective and lazy police force who constantly shirk duty (remember the lady who was raped in a koban last year? yikes) means that numbers are artificially repressed. Murders in Japan are often recorded instead as "illegal disposal of a body" because it's easier to prosecute than murder, and because it helps keep the "Team Japan" image clean and safe. Sexual crimes are again, well under reported, and the shame and stigma that a woman is attached when she is assaulted are on par with the likes of Afghanistan or the DRC. And again, thanks to the rampant corruption and scandals, I would estimate that white collar crime here is not only huge but, again, woefully underreported. You might not be gutted by some chav on the sidewalk but you're pretty damn likely to be the victim of some form of fraud or scam. And let's not even mention the fact that the police pretty much allow the Yakuza to work freely throughout the country. The Yakuza are even, oddly enough, kind of a source of national pride. It blows my mind.
And finally the thing that pisses me off most about Japan: the unfounded pride and nationalism.
Japan as a country has given nothing to the world. We, the West, came and brought them out of the iron age and into the modern world. We built them into what they are today. All Japan has done is taken from the West, made some minor improvements on things, and then jacked off about how fantastic they are. It sickens me to death. Japan's literal only claim to fame is having participated in a failed war on the side of the aggressors and lost. They have done nothing else of note, and yet they have the gall to thumb their noses up at us, Europeans, and act as if we are somehow below them. It absolutely enrages me. For all we have done for these people they treat us like, and look at us as, scum, and I for one am tired of it. They show no appreciation nor gratitude for all that we have given them, and it sickens me, about as much as it should sicken Americans that they pay taxes to support South Korea, another nation which does all it can to shit all over the West. At least China is honest about not liking us. SK and Japan can both go right to hell as I'm concerned - perhaps if the Soviets had taken over, they wouldn't need someone to come along right now and put them in their places.
So **** you Japan, I'm out. Wish I'd never came here, honestly. Back to the fatherland of the EU for me.
