Japanese people on lemmy, what is Japan actually like ?

x4740N@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 142 points –

I want to know what Japan is like from people who actually live in Japan especially after seeing some misleading posts online from people who don't live in Japan & people misunderstanding something resulting in people being misleadingly negative about Japan

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I've even living in Japan for almost a decade (probably closer if you count times I visited for months before living here). If you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Are everyone's dicks really pixelated?

Having been to many a hot spring, yes (but only in my head).

Edit: seriously, though, sitting in an outdoor bath in the mountains as snow slowly falls is one of life's great simple pleasures

How could you check yourself for std's if it is all pixelated?

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I've often thought about taking a vacation in Japan, so I have a few genuine questions.

  • What should a visitor see or do that isn't too expensive?
  • I'm a little over 190 cm tall. Are there any popular tourist activities that my height would make more difficult?
  • My ability to communicate in Japanese would consist entirely of using Google Translate on my phone. Would language be a significant barrier to a good visit?

Thanks for making yourself available for this.

  • really depends upon what you're into and where you want to go. English ability can drop pretty rapidly outside of the cities, but I got by with and handful of words and gestures when I started visiting
  • not really. Some old building are tough, but you can duck. I have a buddy who's 194cm (I think) and he's fine (born and raised in Japan)
  • not really. I did fine as mentioned it point 1 with some very basic words and I've met plenty of people who knows zero and enjoy their visits

For your first question, maybe take a look at the youtube channel Abroad in Japan.
Usually highlights not so well known locations in various places around japan.

According to some bilingual JP youtube colleagues he is well received in the japanese community.

I think maybe older abroad in Japan might be fine. Rachael and Jun is another one I used to watch. I consume that type of content less the longer I live here. If you're into outdoorsy stuff Go North Japan is really nice

You might have to get used to ducking more than usual. And showers in AirBnBs might be too short to wash your shoulders and head. Hotels in the cities are fine in my experience.

Almost every shower I've seen in Japan has it on a movable hose rather than fixed, so at least there's that. I forgot when I went back to the US for a visit for the first time in ~6 years and was super annoyed, heh.

I've heard the work culture in Japan, like many Asian countries, can be quite oppressive and sometimes even toxic when compared to its Western counterparts.

Obviously this is highly specific to the workplace in question, and the framing of this statement has inherent biases.

That said, could you offer any insights into the veracity or lack thereof to these claims?

I've only worked at two Japanese companies. My wife has worked at several in her life (and loves her current company and job). I've also read stories of people in bad places asking for advice. I'll answer based on that, but realize that it is not a huge sample size.

"black companies" are very much a thing and take advantage of those that either can't (or feel that they can't) find other work. Recent years have seen laws to reform the number of hours worked and against various forms of "power harassment" (you can google that for what it is, but basically managers/superiors cannot do certain things). My first company in Japan kinda waffled between a company with a ton of overtime, got quite nice, and then went back the opposite direction.

Some of it is just social pressure, which is a big thing in Japan. People don't want to rock the boat, so they will, for example, clock out but keep working, not leave before the boss, etc. Corona causing a lot of people to work from home has changed things, though, and a lot of people who have gone back to the office have a much better understanding of how much useless BS there is and how many hours of their lives they're missing out on. We'll see how it plays out in the future.

Thanks so much for your detailed response! I found the latter part regarding returning to the office after the lifting of quarantine to be particularly interesting, as it hadn't occurred to me the ways working from home and then going back to the office might play out differently in other cultures.

I very much appreciate you taking the time to answer my query.

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