Coming to Japan was such a rushed decision for me , I couldn’t take time to research anything prior coming , there are so many things I WISH I KNEW BEFORE COMING TO JAPAN. I hope this will be helpful to someone out there looking to come to Japan. I hope this doesn’t come as if I want to discourage people from following their passion and love for Japan. I hope this will help to mentally prepare you for your journey.
Japan is a lonely place, there are no real connections between foreigners and Japanese people, Japanese people to Japanese people and foreigner to foreigner, most people will get close to you for their own ulterior motives. If you are lucky this might be different for you !
As I mentioned earlier loneliness, this also lead to SINGLENESS or NO RELATIONSHIPS. Living in Japan is such a hard work, it is not easy to make genuine relationships, whether is having a good friend you can take kids to the park with, or a bad girl to party with, never mind finding a boy guy you can call a BOYFRIEND and start some sort of relationship. All this is difficult.
Upon your arrival in Japan you will learn one thing, you need to be a SURVIVOR because Japanese is a jungle , it is the survival of the fittest, one need to be mentally prepared for all the shenanigans and the stress we endure every single second,minute,hour,day. Its a 24 hour job. You need to be strong enough to survive al this.
Being a foreigner in Japan is one thing, but being a black foreigner is another. There are not so many foreigners living here , therefore , we end up being in a place where we are always “ALONE” no family or friends to talk to.
The biggest lesson Japan will ever teach you is not the art of technology or mastering all the Kanji characters , Japan will school you on how to be “VERY INDEPENDENT” . As I said, this is a jungle therefore one needs to survive, you slowly become very independent because whatever happens you know you have no one to wipe your tears or hold your hand , even pay your bills in case of any trouble. One needs to master the art of independence because you gonna need that.
I think most people are familiar with the importance of speaking English, but when you come to Japan you can scratch that out because English ain’t gonna help you, ever since I arrive in Japan , I hardly speak proper English, I either speak broken English with my coworker or childish English with my students , there is no higher or in between, all in all “ I hardly speak English”.
This country is one of the countries with the lowest number of foreigners across the world , never mind seeing a black person . Some Japanese are still not familiar with black skin or black people because there ain’t many of them here. I wish I can see at least one black person a day , but that’s just a wish “ NO BLACK PEOPLE HERE”.
Lastly Japan because of the culture differences and all other shenanigans I can’t mention, Japan will defiantly “CALM YOU DOWN / HUMBLE YOU”. If you were a bubbly , lively person prior coming to Japan , I give you two weeks before you are calm, no yelling , no showing of emotion, no singing on the stress , no talking to people in the train. All I can say , I’ve changed a lot personally and emotionally after arriving here, all in all I just want to scream once in a while !
Thank you so much for reading this piece, my intentions are not to spread hate speech about Japan, but to share my honest experiencing hoping that will help prepare other people while traveling to Japan. Personally I love Japan and I’m grateful to be here every single day.
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