I was talking to this girl who I found interesting and she mentions that she really likes the new seasons of The Simpson’s and Family Guy. I told her I also like the shows but only the earlier seasons, to which she said she’s never watch them because she thinks they were boring.
I had a Seinfeld moment and suddenly my mind was simply occupied with “boring? BORING??” And thinking about what kind of person finds modern simpsons entertaining
What other reason than culture would an English speaker immigrate to Japan? Do you mean to say you just ended up in Japan by accident?
i lived for a summer in a rural/agricultural community as a farmworker and was invited to stay long term by the employer. it wasn't clear what the terms would be, but they were very interested in having the conversation and were pretty upfront about it. the healthcare, the food, and transportation/telecom/relaxation infrastructure for rural livelihood were all incredible compared to the states. it was so easy to eat right and be physically active, safely. i lost a bunch of inches off my waistline without even noticing until i came back and my friends were calling me "slim". i was absolutely not trying to eat healthy while i was there. i was going ham at every meal and enjoying treats constantly.
hilariously, my shitty rental house back in the states had been robbed in my absence and when i tried to file a police report to make an insurance claim, the cops were dicks about it and gave me pushback until i dropped it. it's hard to articulate how different this was from my impression of petty crime where i was in japan. all i'll say is that the guys i worked with (all japanese nationals) were surprised to hear tales of "bandits" in the modern US. lol, that was the english word they knew for criminals. in my rural community we left our windows down and doors unlocked while shopping in the convenience store for snacks and b.s. while little old ladies zipped by on scooters. pretty sure if somebody got mugged it would make the regional news. it was a surreal experience.
my language skills were absolute shit tier, but if i was fluent i could see the appeal. i wouldn't want to live in some city though, but that's true for the states too.
I hear answers like that quite often when I spoke with foreigners who stayed long term.
At least for Americans, a lot of them weighed up the prospect of making a bit more money (and even that was questionable) against walkable cities, public transport, public healthcare, and lack of violent crime.
That sounds pretty fucking cool. What kind of visa program let you swing this kind of gig?
it was through an "independent" study abroad i put together while i was working on my bachelors as a 30 year old college kid. basically, through a full professor (born in japan, dual citizenship) i knew socially who had the juice to handle the administrative side of creating an independent research class just for me. she assigned a grad student (international student from japan) to help me find a farm to work on based on what kind of operation/production system i wanted to see. they helped me correspond and figure out the timing/logistics/expectations.
ostensibly it was a for-credit study abroad, so i had health insurance through the university. i also had to pay tuition and describe myself as a "researcher"/"student" at border control in japan and not mention that i was doing "work" on the farm in exchange for housing, etc. i got the distinct impression what i was doing was in a grey area if not illegal and the border control guy in japan definitely was suspicious of me, but it was probably too complicated to try and unravel so he just waved me through with the generic travel visa with a look of "fuck it".
i had to prepay for everything, even though i was applied for and won some significant scholarships to cover my travel. the actual money wasn't released until the following semester, which is when i had to write like 10,000 words on my experiences and do a few presentations.
People who are actually interested in a culture can articulate specific things about that culture that interest them. Someone might go to Italy to see the Sistine Chapel and learn coffee making, or France to visit the Louvre and learn to cook, or Moscow to watch the Ballet and learn about Dostoyevsky. Anyone actually interested in a culture enough to move countries is likely to be able to name a couple of specific things they like beyond "the culture".
In my experience, the people who can only give vague bullshit answers about why they moved are embarrassed about the reason. In Japan, 8 or 9 times out of 10 it's because the only Japanese cultural product they consume is porno and they think they can score a "submissive waifu" or some shit.
Even the weebs who say "anime and games" are generally way cooler (or at least less creepy) than the "culture" guys. In my opinion anyway.
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Makes sense, thank you. Gotta say there are cheaper places than Japan to get your rocks off though.
On the bright side, Japan (even Tokyo) is not as ridiculously expensive as its made out go be. Especially true if you're coming from NYC/London/Vancouver, etc. A small private studio in Tokyo can be rented for about US$800 a month, which is not exactly outrageous by comparison to other world cities.
As for getting their rocks off, one Brit I talked to who "moved for the culture" told me after a few beers that he decided to come to Japan because the women in Thailand and the Philippines were "too brown". There's also a contingent of chuds who think Japan is their perfect right wing ethnostate and came because of that. It's so bad that one of my good friends who lives there (white, male, American) keeps telling me stories about other white dudes who think my mate is "one of them" and start spouting off actual Nazi shit.
They might have to go for work