Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
I'm quite curious about the quality of life in Tokyo; I've heard about indecipherable street names, high-rise buildings and sky-high rents, but I presume it can't be all bad. I have also heard for instance that taxi drivers wear immaculate white gloves while driving.
I wonder if there are any couples on MB who would like to comment on everyday life in Tokyo...
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Hmm.
This is quite difficult for me to answer, as I have lived in Japan for over 25 years. This is what I know best, despite being a "gaijin". When I arrived in Japan so long ago, the number of foreigners was still low enough that strangers would try to sneak a little touch of my sister's blonde hair.
Now it is not so extreme, of course, but the stares still happen. Yesterday, even, as my darling and I were walking back to the station, a girl stared at us to the point she stepped on her own dog.
People here will stare, even now. They point less, but it still happens. The "gaijin da!" (it's a [derogatory term for] foreigner) still follow us everywhere. But for the very reason that we are foreigners, we will get excluded. There are still many places that will not rent to foreigners. And this is legal. It's simply the way it is.
Japan is definitely, as Mordwyr put it, a place of contrasts. Despite the exclusion and despite the fact that being foreigners means we will always be outsiders, the busybodies of the neighbourhood always watch us. Like hawks. They know and comment on, say, the amount and type of trash we throw away in a given week. They know what sort of juice we drink. This, too, is the way it is.
If you don't mind institutionalized discrimination and the close observation of strangers accompanied by being ignored for being foreign, it's actually cool. I don't mind these things, so I have happily lived here for 25+ years. Many foreigners I know, however, find that these things gradually weigh on them, and eventually they become bitter toward Japan.