What I miss the most:

EVERYTHING!!! I’ve been back ‘stateside’ for a year now and still have many days where all I can think about is how much I love Japan and how much I want to go back!

I miss earthquakes and typhoons, rainstorms that last for days, pea gravel playgrounds, yen stores and my Ofuro. I miss walking and biking, hot muggy days and nights. I miss neighbors that visit with eachother, and people that actually sweep the streets in front of their own houses. I miss sorting my garbage into 8 catagories and tying to remember which one to take out each morning. I miss moth balls and emptying dehumidifiers twice a day. I miss festivals and history and tradition. I miss people taking ownership and responsibility. I miss bug spray and sunscreen used daily. I miss bamboo forests and concrete edged canals through town. I miss driving on the left on roads just barely wide enough for 2 cars, and I miss having Japanese to talk to as I try to learn Japanese. I know there are so many more things that I miss, I just can’t think of them all now.

I’ve decided to move back to the US because I have the same feelings as Robert McKinney above – the things that ‘distress’ me about living in Japan will only get worse as I grow older.

I have a Japanese wife and three “half” kids. I’m 41 years old.
I will be moving back to the US this year to Seattle.

I was fortunate enough to work in a foreign company (well, foreign owned and foreign management style – there are only two ‘gaijin’ out of 170 employees) so I have had the freedom to be self driven and forge a pretty good career.

I have a permanent residency visa. I speak Japanese fluently (JPLT level 1) and in addition to my day job work as a freelance J-E translator on the side.

We live in a suburb north of the city, about an hour commute to my office. We used to own a house (about 115sqm in size, cost about 40 million yen) – pretty large by Japanese standards, but shoddy and small compared even the smallest and cheapest suburban houses in the US: insufficient storage space, no central heating, drafty windows and doors, poor insulation, tiny food preparation area in the kitchen, no enclosed garage, not a square inch of unpaved ground outside the house, no front yard, no back yard, 50cm distance between my window and the neighbor’s window, tiny street out front so narrow that a bicycle can barely pass a car coming the other direction….the list goes on. And this house was only FIFTEEN years old when we sold it. Fifteen year old houses in the US are _nice_. People complain that houses in places like Sydney or west coast US cities are more expensive than Japan – but look at all you are getting. If they sold Japanese-quality houses in the US, I could probably get one in a prime location for about $50,000.

Over the years I have grown apathetic of permanently living in Japan. I like all the things about Japan that everyone has stated above – the food, the service, the polite people, general safety-ness, cleanliness, fun shopping, super fast home delivery service, everything is close by, etc…

So after thinking about it for about 3 years and agonizing over the thought with my wife, I finally decided to make the move. She speaks English well and went to university in the US for a couple years, but that’s a completely different life from what we have now. She is practically giving herself a nervous breakdown being worried about whether she’ll like it and how she’ll do.

I could stay here a while longer if I had to (the pay for my job in Japan is a lot better), but my wife says she’s getting old and wants to move before she gets too old and set in her ways.

I’m also worried whether she’ll be able to adjust, but I just really believe that the US will accept a Japanese transplant far more receptively than Japan will accept an 80 year old foreigner…

I didn’t always think like this. I don’t remember it now, but my wife says that I told her I wanted to retire in Japan when I was 28 years old or so!

So if you are thinking about moving permanently to Japan, think far, far, ahead and really seriously contemplate.

And — I would love to hear from any of you reading this who made the move to the US but ended up moving back again – what was it about the US (or Japan) that made you reach this decision? I’m really scared that I’m going to love being back in the US but have to consider moving back to Japan because my wife can’t stand it.

I wonder what his comments on life, and his own country will be after 25 years back home.

Hopefully his approach to people has improved somewhat.

please keep us posted!

Thanks for your very honest comments.

I am currently pondering a move back to Japan and your comment moved me to thinking. The most I’ve spent in Japan is 2 years, and even then I felt a bit of what you talk about. The thing is I still have the desire to move back.

I’m wondering what made you stay for 25 years when you were able to see so many negative aspects and realized that you would never be accepted?

Also, I’m interested if there are any foreigners that have found a lifestyle that makes them happy in Japan, assuming that acceptance is not an option.

For example, playing up your role as the foreigner and taking advantage of the benefits that come with that (i.e. Bobby Olgun as a gaijin talent on T.V. who fakes his inability in Japanese), or finding some group in Japan that can accept you for your skills and look beyond your ethnicity… I don’t know…

Also I’m wondering if living in Tokyo vs. the countryside would exacerbate this effect.

I hope to hear everyone’s comments on this issue. Thanks!

That said, if you can find a Japanese person to practice with, that would be very, very useful, because speaking and listening is vastly different from just dealing with the written word.

My brother found a Japanese teacher (in a small Canadian town of 15,000) for his daughter, who wanted to learn, so you should be able to find one too, wherever you are.

I’ve been to New York a few times, and I got to admit, I wouldn’t be surprised if the tram system was a million times better. As for learning the language, what would you recommend? Aside from actually living in the country, i mean. What would be some ways to start learning standard Japanese?

That sounds like a realistic approach. Give yourself time to learn what to expect (#1: the unexpected!). You can also start learning the language, too.

Definitely the most common mode of transportation is train. You will not believe just how many people are moved around, how quickly and efficiently. And you’ll wonder why we can’t do it nearly as well on this side of the Pacific.