Honestly? I was about to graduate university with a useless liberal arts degree, and I was mildly wondering what I wanted to do with my life (I'm not the kind of guy who ever really worries about anything, just take what's put in front of me). I was also about to marry the girl of my dreams, and she, having grown up in Rome and Tokyo, suggested leaving the country and seeing what the rest of the world had to offer. "After all, teaching English in Japan is an easy start."

So off we went. We graduated on a Monday. That Friday we were married (this was all planned months in advance, not some kind of shotgun wedding). The next day we were on a plane to Japan. I started teaching my wife's parents private classes while they were on furlough for the summer, and that gave my wife and me three months to find steady jobs of our own. We found teaching jobs no problem.

Working in a cram school wasn't what I wanted to do, though, because it's second shift, and I was starting a family. So I went back to school and got my Master's so that I could teach at the university level. Got my first uni gig in 2001 and have been doing that ever since.

Also, while I was working the night cram school, a coworker who just happened to be Christian (a rare thing here) asked me if I wanted his wedding officiant job. I was perplexed, but he explained it to me and offered me his job because I was also a man of faith and he didn't want to give the job to someone who wasn't a believer. I took that job and worked it freelance for a while, but I wasn't getting as much work as I could.

So I joined a wedding company who specializes in that sort of thing. All of a sudden, my number of weddings (and thus my pay) increased, and just this year, it has doubled, so I'm very happy about my promotion.

In the end, I decided at about the seven-year mark to stay in Japan for as long as my kids are living with me because the health care is top-notch. All children's health care, no matter what, is free until the age of 16. The other draw was the fact that Japan doesn't give a shit about me or my kids. I can educate them however I like, I can believe whatever I want, and no one is going to interfere. That bubble was attractive to me, and my kids are turning out happy, healthy, and educated. My three oldest who have made / are making plans for their lives, have left / will be leaving Japan behind.

Japan uses me, I use it right back, and when I've had this negative-population-growth country foot the bill for the raising of my children, my wife and I will leave and go...wherever.

Word up on the gaijin bubble. I exploited it in my own way too.

^ That's often how "exotic" turns out to be when you get up close to it. :(

^ Yore welx, OH. I'm surprised you make a stand about body smells when with so little effort you could become more accepted. On a different note, given what you've said about US teaching, do you ever regret not staying in Japan? By now you could be the leader of your own cult - somewhere between Zhanteime, Mr. Kurtz and that crazy guy upstream in Apocalypse Now.

@ Zhanteime: You've done well for yourself, then. I particularly like that little wedding job: nice touch. May I ask if your children have dual nationality? Mainly, I feel that it's something really cool to give your children, but sometimes I wake up and worry in the middle of the night: are they forever condemned to being divided? All the time they're in one country, won't they wonder about being in another?

When you're an anti-social weirdo there's a vast sea of difference between being tolerated and being accepted.

^ I suppose that's true. I wonder if, had OH applied some deodorant, he'd 've been allowed to tag along to those teacher lunch dates - hippycore jazz punk headphones and all.

$25k a year supplemental just for working Saturdays? Yeah. Good gig.

No. This is all part of the Japan not giving a shit about me and mine thing. The law in Japan is that foreign children have the nationality of their fathers if both parents are foreign. If it's a mixed marriage where one spouse is Japanese, then of course the kids can have dual citizenship. My wife, however, is not Japanese.

I knew gaijin who got in on that wedding racket. It’s fraudulent af. It’s not playing a genuine role in Japanese weddings; it’s being a circus prop at the ceremony.

You make around 50,000 yen per ceremony, don’t you? They love throwing money away at weddings!

No. Japan is merciless with foreigners. Sooner or later they take out the trash and you’re the trash. A foreigner has no future there. I got while the gettin was good and then split.

Only until adulthood. Then there’s no dual citizenship. Kids, meet garbage can.

I just wanted to be invited and refuse, tbh.

So doesn't that mean that no matter how many generations there are unless one of your descendants breeds with a Nip they'll never be full citizens?

Years ago I decided I wasn't going to be the abrasive weirdo who people thought was funny but didn't actually want to include in their social get-togethers, so I toned myself down and got a new job. For the most part I still got blown off when I tried to hang out with other people and when I did find a new group of friends I never felt comfortable around them because I was acting like some bland facsimile of myself who was just awkward as ever but just quieter. When you make friends acting a certain way you can't really say, "Hey, I know you kinda sorta liked me one way but now I'm gonna be different and you're just gonna have to deal with it." By the end I didn't even like any of them anymore.

I'm kinda happy I went through that cause I don't feel quite so lonely as before because now I know what the alternative is, so I'm just gonna be a ****ing abrasive weirdo and if that means I spend my nights at home then at least I'll be able to recognize myself in the mirror and won't be boring the hell out of myself as I sit quietly in a corner with people I don't even connect with.