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What do you like about living in Japan?

What do you like about living in Japan ?

  • Tasty and cheap food

    Votes: 94 54.7%

  • Speciality restaurants, which means quicker service

    Votes: 47 27.3%

  • Reliable trains

    Votes: 104 60.5%

  • Huge department stores

    Votes: 49 28.5%

  • Order and respect of authority

    Votes: 67 39.0%

  • Peaceful people

    Votes: 103 59.9%

  • Clean streets

    Votes: 105 61.0%

  • Politeness and helpfulness of the people

    Votes: 82 47.7%

  • Cute girls with a real sense of fashion

    Votes: 67 39.0%

  • Mild and dry winters (in Tokyo at least)

    Votes: 38 22.1%

  • Onsen (hot springs)

    Votes: 71 41.3%

  • Japanese nature (better than in my own country)

    Votes: 56 32.6%

  • Japanese seasons (more clear-cut than in my own country)

    Votes: 39 22.7%

  • Matsuri (festivals) and other traditonal celebrations (setsubun, shichigosan, obon...)

    Votes: 76 44.2%

  • Love hotels

    Votes: 32 18.6%

  • The energetic atmosphere (of big cities)

    Votes: 54 31.4%

  • Japanese TV

    Votes: 53 30.8%

  • General non-religiousness of the Japanese

    Votes: 48 27.9%

  • Non-argumentative character of the Japanese

    Votes: 31 18.0%

  • Low taxes (by European standards)

    Votes: 27 15.7%

  • Japanese aesthetics (wabi-sabi, sado, traditional architecture, gardens...)

    Votes: 67 39.0%

  • The ability to integrate aspects of foreign cultures and systems

    Votes: 29 16.9%

  • The relative lack of political debates and demonstrations

    Votes: 25 14.5%

  • Japanese-style houses (with o-furo, tatami, kotatsu...)

    Votes: 80 46.5%

  • The numerous mountains, good for hiking and skiing

    Votes: 53 30.8%

  • Good service and attention to customers

    Votes: 70 40.7%

  • How easy it is to move around cities in bicycle

    Votes: 49 28.5%

  • The homogeneity of society

    Votes: 25 14.5%

  • The original street pattern, with very broad avenues and very narrow back streets

    Votes: 33 19.2%

  • The fact that Japanese banks don't charge monthly fees on bank accounts

    Votes: 25 14.5%

  • Kitsch decoration (pink, neons, cute characters...)

    Votes: 30 17.4%

  • The relax attitude toward sex (lack of Judeo-Christian shame about nudity, porn, etc.)

    Votes: 47 27.3%

  • The kindness and interets showed toward foreigners

    Votes: 48 27.9%

  • The blissful joy and excitement of Japanese women

    Votes: 45 26.2%

  • The dedication to work of the "salarymen"

    Votes: 18 10.5%

  • Shopping on Sundays

    Votes: 53 30.8%

  • The ambiance music in train stations and cute voice of the announcers

    Votes: 39 22.7%

  • The ease to set up a company in Japan (little redtape)

    Votes: 18 10.5%

  • The numerous bilingual Japanese-English signs in big cities

    Votes: 39 22.7%

  • The sense of honour (linked to the concept of "face" and "embarassment")

    Votes: 40 23.3%

  • The customs of "omiyage" and "duty presents" (who doesn't like giving and receiving gifts ?)

    Votes: 28 16.3%

  • Seeing women in kimono from time to time

    Votes: 65 37.8%

  • The Japanese imperial family (the oldest in the world and still respected)

    Votes: 24 14.0%

  • The abundance of convenience stores and vending machines

    Votes: 80 46.5%

  • Fast-food restaurants serving more kinds of teas than soft drinks

    Votes: 56 32.6%

  • The low cost or mobile/cell phones compared to the quality

    Votes: 41 23.8%

  • Living in Japan made me know JREF

    Votes: 24 14.0%
  • Total voters
    172
Just about everything... except the fact that it is so damn hard (impossible) to get a loan to buy a house in Japan if your being paid in foreign currency.
 
There's truly a lot to like about Japan. For me, I like the fact that I can go running outside any time I want and feel truly truly safe. I like those pinks and oranges that wisp through the sky painting a real-life, one-of-a-kind portrait of those Japanese sunsets can be so amazing to behold.

Teaching here has been a blessing too. Students here have been so awesome and so willing to learn (in most cases), it's been so much more rewarding than I thought it would be. I also like that there are opportunities to make extra money if you're willing to work (but I think that's the same in the U.S.).

The food, the fesivals, the beautiful Japanese women (sorry, just being honest), Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura, mountain hiking, are just some of the many things that I'm quite fond of. But you know? I even enjoy those tough times, in hindsight of course, when I don't understand what people are saying or can't express myself in Japanese. I appreciate these times, too, because it's a sobering reminder that I live in a foreign country and have an OPPORTUNITY to learn another language...and I have to take advantage of it.

I understand how this place can be so addictive...
 
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Hello !

I am new here, registered just a few seconds ago.
I went my first time to Japan in march two years ago for three weeks.
My mate is japanese and we have a japn italian baby girl who is now 2 years old and is named Momoko (my image you see)
I loved the gentleness of the people and the 100 yen stores in which I found a million of things, I bought a tons of bento and accessory (whic I am really crazy about) and bento books, I was immensely sourprised about the stores in which you can buy used books that looks like new ! GOSH ! and also I loved the restaurant of ramen and grilled meat and fish sourprisingly low cost but gorgeous.
We wsere lkiving in SHizuoka, Iayzu city and everything seems so peaceful and different HAHA
The house of my mate's mummy is 3 meters near a small river so you can sleep hearing water run and is so relaxing, during the day sakura flowers seems pink soft clouds , it was always windy hbut not the wind that make nerves, the wind that makes happiness and gives fresh air, seemed no pollution at all ! WOW
Children went to school alone with their small bikes, incredible because in my town in Italy no parent would allow as it is so dangerous also because in Iayzu and everywhere in Japan people drive carefoully, I did not see nobody not respecting the rules.
We went around and visited Osaka, Universal Studios, Tokyo Dysneyland, many temples and everywhere it was clean, gentle people, the strange sensation was something like as if time had been slowed ! ^__^
I would like to go again and take my baby to meet her japan family also because in the meantime I have had two nephews I would like to meet, they are children of my mate's brother (boy is named Ryuki and is 2 year old, girl is named Riko and is 7 months old)
 
I travel to Japan quite frequently for business. On my way back home I transited in HongKong.
Being at 2 places on the same day, you would realize the big difference in the attitude and services of the shop attendants.

For me, the service is the best.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I like the part where "NEETS" and "Parasite Singles" can work as cheap contract security guards either working a low profile easy sites where one could play on their laptops all night as they would if they were a hikikomi at home, but the difference is that they will now draw a paycheck in doing so even if it is only on the level of those who are working arubaito jobs, enjoying their freedoms. Most hippies in Canada have too much anti security mindset to even catch onto this brilliant idea that many Japanese NEETS know about. This way, they could overcome the stigma of being a NEET and at least get the respect of someone working a hakengaisha job, which is not very much but certainly beats someone who is not working at all and being a total NEET. (I say they are still NEETS in the sense that while they might still earn around JPY 150,000 Yen monthly as a security guard, they are still just doing next to no "work" in that they spend almost all their hours at "work" playing on the internet just being a warm body.) It is however a way one could live life of leisure without having to mooch the system and take handouts, and being a burden to no one outside of their immediate family.
 
ikes Japan. Eating in a restaurant next to someone dressed properly. Mmmm, Enjoyable
 

How many places in Japan have you been to that have security guards? How many did you see playing on the internet?

I've been to more than I could even begin to count, and I've never seen a one playing on a laptop.

Moreover, you seem to have a very naive/uninformed notion that all security guards here do is sit on their butts. I can take you around and show you a very large number who are on their feet most of the day, out in blistering sun or freezing cold busting their butts for their pay.

Try actually knowing something about it before you denigrate both the job and the character of the people who perform it.
 
Mike Cash, the ones you see are the visible ones out in public and are the high profile ones. The ones who sit in their cars and watch equipment doing night security or the ones that sit inside small buildings having to do as little as a 10 minute hourly patrol with 50 minute downtime are not as readily visible to the greater public, but are well known to those within the industry. By the way, even in North America, we know a lot of these types but you do not see this type of behaviour unless you are either working in the security industry or working as an employee or a cleaner of commercial buildings or work as a construction worker. I think you have only seen the surface as an outsider.
 
nyouyaku said:
I think you have only seen the surface as an outsider.
Click to expand...

It is simply amazing how you make such a smug assumption about my experiences. It is even more amazing than how you make such smug assumptions about Japanese security guards based on what you have seen in North America.

I am a professional truck driver in Japan and have been for quite a long time. I have been into countless places and had direct dealings with hundreds of security guards. Never have I encountered one amusing himself or doing other than paying attention to his duties, no matter how demanding they may or may not have been. They take their jobs seriously and don't treat them like the joke jobs you seem to think they are.

When I need some more uninformed, condescending smug assumptions regarding the nature or extent of my own firsthand experiences I hope I can feel free to call on you. You provide such excellent merchandise.
 
So, are you saying that you know such situations intimately? How so, if I may ask?

I'm with Mike on the guys that are in the open, even though they may be behind a wall somewhere.
 
So mike, are you saying that Japanese contract security guards and North American security guards are different in their work ethic? I know that Japanese people have samurai culture but long past are the days of the military Japan. I think at the Arubito level, people are people be Japan or North America, because if everyone in Japan had such impeccable work ethic, we would not have NEETS and Hikikomis.
 
Gosh, such a batch of straw men it is hard to know where to start.

Your assumption that Japanese security guards are young arubaito with no work ethic is all it takes to answer my unanswered question regarding your personal direct experience with and knowledge of the subject. It is obvious the answer is "jack squat" and that you're projecting based on assumptions, not figuring there would be someone here who could point out how baseless and full of sh*t your assertion was.

(Hint for the clueless, such as yourself: they are overwhelmingly of a mature age).
 
So taking this logic then it appears that Japanese security firms would perfer to hire mature seniors with good deportment rather than young freeters who would lack life's experience to maintain deportment and professionalism in security and thus taken more seriously in Japan rather than in North America where it is common to see lots of college students doing night security getting paid to do homeowork.
 
The respect towards authority, the honour system and how friendly the people seemed to be is one of the many aspects which made me feel Japan was a country worth moving to. Growing up as a child in the UK there is very little of any of those things. You could see that from the UK Riots of last summer.
 
Well, I've never been there so what I CAN tell you is that what I DON'T like about Japan is that I'm not there.
 
The food here is tasty and fresh, but I don't find them cheap. The only cheap food is the gyudon from sukiya, matsuya or yoshinoya.
 
Japan

I have never gone to Japan, If possible I want to go to Japan to visit theirtroditional building
 
I bet if I started a thread titled "What Do You Like About Eating Turd Sandwiches?" it would be no time at all before we had three pages of "I've never eaten a turd sandwich but I would love the mayonnaise."

Why do people who have NEVER LIVED IN JAPAN feel compelled to participate in this thread?
 
I like the smile.
I get a good service with a smile everywhere.
I got a culture shock when I went to Japan, people were so nice.
I got another culture shock when I leave Japan, I miss those nice people.
 
This is a very interesting and detailed poll!
Thanks! It was also interesting to read about what others like about Japan!

I definitely love that it's so easy to travel around and that the trains are so reliable!
Japanese taxes are so low, it's almost a joke! I really like it!
There's not much crime. The only thing I'm afraid of when I'm out alone at night are insects!
 
Funny sometimes.

Japan is safe from robbers but not from disasters.
My country is safe from disasters but not from robbers.
 
I love so much about living in Japan but amongst other things the tastiness of the foods and the politeness of the people!
 
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