Ch-ch-ch-changes!

-Lion Dance-

Japan has been amazing, and rather eye-opening. It’s an interesting blend of history and modernity.

-Toyota i-foot-

Really though? It’s just normal. People here go to work, go to school, and go back to their families at night. Yes, there is a lot of anime, porn, men in suits riding bicycles and heated toilets. There are also children playing in the park, couples on dates, people trying to get to work on time, and little relief from their hectic daily-life.

I’m actually kind of scared of Japan. Once you look past the happy façade everyone else in the world sees, it pretty much seems like everyone is five seconds away from a nervous breakdown, or worse. All the happy things associated with Japan, like overt cuteness, seem to be there as an acceptable disctraction from their normal routine.

From what I'm learning in my classes, people essentially get married because they're supposed to, never really loving their spouse. Companies control their salarymen seemingly with no care about them being a person. Schools don't manage to teach their students enough to meet the college expectations, but went down from a six day week so the children could have a life (warning: MIDI file and odd formatting). Add this all together with a strict resistance to change, and Broad-Overview Japan is honestly one of my worst nightmares.

It isn’t all bad here though, and naturally everyone’s life isn’t like that. Also, it’s always different when you weren’t raised in the environment. A lot of the Japanese students I’ve met at school want out though. The most cited reason is that they don’t want to work for a company. I don’t blame them. No country is perfect; I’m not sure I want to continue living in America either. But my changing impression of Japan hasn’t been a positive spin. More of a realization that the negative stereotypes are fairly true, just hidden better than I thought.

Still, it's been amazing and I'm glad I came. Hopefully, I can come back in the future for a visit. This depressing, negative post is my last. It's been fun!

-Yes, You Can-