What No One Tells You about Living in Japan | My Personal Experience

you may have seen a lot of videos online about the struggles of living in Japan as a foreigner and today I want to share with you all my personal experiences living in Japan as a foreigner hopefully it can help some of you guys if you're thinking about moving to Japan or working in Japan Etc I'm going to be very honest let's get started if you're new to my channel my name is Ana I've self-studied Japanese for the last like seven plus years I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay area and recently moved to Japan a

year and four months ago been a minute if you don't believe that I speak Japanese just take a look at my old videos on my YouTube channel actually please don't it's very embarrassing as someone who's been studying Japanese from 2012 2013 I've idolized Japan for a very long time and I think it's easy especially when you're living in a place like America to think of Japan as this holy place of just everything that just works people that are just nice respectful just truly it to me seemed like the place that would solve all my problems

but reality check moving to a new country will never solve your problems and I learned that the hard way the reason why I never moved here was honestly I heard that it kind of sucks a lot of YouTubers in the past have made videos about how they moved to Japan they're so excited they go to the company they have a job all these things and then they're depressed like very depressed and I remember that was very sobering to realize that maybe Japan wasn't the place that I wanted to live but rather a place I'd like

to visit and enjoy and not have to deal with all like the additional consequences but you know I realized okay I want to live in Japan I want to try it out I can't just base everything off of what other people say so that was kind of the reason I decided to move out here there's a lot to Japan that I think that isn't so obvious straight off the bat and so today I want to share that with you guys number one of the things that you should know if you're moving to Japan knowing Japanese

is crucial to living in Japan so in my case I moved to Japan knowing the language speaking it for years and years and not necessarily using it dayto day so when I got here there weren't a lot of things that I struggled at but there were definitely words that for example if I go to a cafe I have no idea what they're saying to me because it's in the most polite form of kle where it's like and I'm like goo like what you know and so I think those changes were definitely a little bit surprising

um but dayto day if I had to fill out a form for you know my apartment if I had to make a bank account if I had to get a phone number in all these situations I was able to do this in Japanese and you know obviously there would be difficulties depending on whether my name was in English or in Japanese whether which form could go through and things like that that but overall if you know the language I don't think it's super difficult to get through day-to-day life however I have friends who didn't speak

Japanese when they first got here I'm genuinely shocked because it is a struggle being in this country without knowing the language you know even knowing Japanese I'm always like fake it till you make it kind of thing where it's I don't know if I need to submit this form but let's just hope I don't or oh my God I have no idea what this says but I need to pay this by this date all right let's just hope it's correct I do feel like if you don't know Japanese it's kind of a liberating feeling to

know that you can do it there are people who have done it and it's possible so if that's the case then I think give it a try because after a while you get used to it this place becomes your home and it's not as stressful anymore I would still say I don't think I could live in Japan if I didn't know the language because there's just so much here but if you're craving a challenge by all means the next thing that I wanted to talk about is fitting in in Japan so moving to a new

country a new city it's all kind of the same struggles that I think a person would face you know making friends uh finding an apartment finding like a routine and getting used to the city that you're in and doing all the paperwork and what whatnot I think Japan has all of those struggles it's like standard right but I think that what foreigners and especially in my experience like something that kind of Jarred me a little bit is just fitting in is not easy physically like I'm probably the same height as someone who's Japanese and female

but my skin color is not and the way that I look is just not and I try my best or I have up until now in my whole life to adapt to the situation that I'm in and trying to get validation or um people to like you and fitting in like these things were very important to me as a child and although they're not as important to me now it's something that I'm not going to ignore especially in a country as homogeneous as in as Japan where you kind of have to fit in um I

felt sort of like no matter what I did it just didn't matter like no one would just from looking at me they just wouldn't think I was part of the country you know what I mean like I've met people who aren't necessarily Japanese who you know live in Japan they grew up their whole lives and I think all of them have said like there comes a day where you just stop caring at the end of the day when they see me they don't know anything about me they the first things that they tend to ask

is like oh like what's it like in India or like what's it like blah blah blah they don't really know anything about who I am definitely feels like there's a bit of a standard like the Foreigner that's preferred and then the Foreigner that's not preferred and when they look at me it's the latter and it's kind of frustrating because you get glares you get stares you don't really get the best responses from employees at times but then there's another side to it where when you do speak Japanese really well um people are just like wow

like you're so smart you're so amazing they put you kind of on a pedestal even if maybe they don't think it they they definitely express it and it makes you feel like there's a Chasm and you're just sort of in the middle of it if they don't understand that it's just kind of like what are you doing in my country sort of vibe and maybe I'm reading too much into it but for me as someone who really craved that validation of feeling like you know I belong here and people want me here it's tough when

you're getting like glares and stairs and stuff and it's just like wait like this is the country that I've always wanted to be in like why do I not feel fully welcome here but I think there will be a time where I like care less about this because when I first got here I did not care I was just like wo like I'm I'm in Japan like this is amazing now it's more of like you know I want to feel like this is home and a part of that is just realizing that there will always

be people like regard even in America there's like crazy people so it's like I mean their opinion doesn't matter so that's something to keep in mind um the next thing that I want to talk about is you might end up hating Tokyo like Tokyo will not fix your problems once again we're back to the the theme of this entire discussion but um I've spoken to a lot of foreigners and interviewed a bunch and from what I've learned is Tokyo is it's like a can of tuna like I don't like it's not fun being here sometimes

I remember especially this winter and I'm not trying to get all negative or anything but this winter was just probably one of the hardest Winters I've ever experienced obviously I'm alone for the first time in another country which I think creates a certain level of stress but people often mention how Japanese people are so kind they're so sweet they're so like nice blah blah blah they are very respectful I think Tokyo though is just a little bit difficult to really see the kindness in other people because everyone's just in a hurry um it's kind of

like a rat race but I think it takes it a step further than what you would imagine in like New York for example where people are trying to go from here to there it's like very go go go there if someone like gets injured or something like people will still care they'll still try and help them but in Japan I think it's gotten to such a point of like being everyone tending to be a little bit more introverted but also just kind of like you know you mind your own business you just keep going sort

of thing and you kind of find yourself being in a rush as well and once I got like trapped between like um two train tracks and I was stuck and I had no idea what to do like I just genuinely like froze I was like do I stand in the middle here and there was enough space for me to wait there or do I take my chances and try and like go through the tracks even though both you know things have gone down like I was stuck it was terrifying and I just remember looking ahead

of me not knowing what to do and I see this woman and she just standing there and it's just this blank expression that you see all throughout Tokyo and she was just staring at me or ahead whatever it was and I genuinely was just like I don't know what to do right now and luckily there was like some oisan who like yelled like oh and eventually they were able to get me out but it was terrifying in the moment because I genuinely felt like no one would be able to help me and I think that

fear has kind of seeped into a lot of uh how I feel about Tokyo at certain times um and living alone in another country I was definitely battling a lot of anxiety in the winter and if you guys follow me on Instagram you might have seen I posted quite a lot about this but I also fainted for the first time in Japan and I know it's not a big deal but when you feel like you're alone and you don't feel like there's help even if there is it's it's that feeling right it can cause anxiety

there's so many lovely kind warm people like Japan is a great country and you know there are wonderful people but uh in Tokyo it can be pretty stressful um just you know you look around the train and it's just a lot of people who are very like sad looking and just very tired um and so that energy kind of can seep through and you can kind of feel it in the air so that's just something especially if you're planning on living in Japan I think if you don't have like a a routine where you have

you know time for yourself or time with other people that's something that can catch up to you really quickly and so if there's there's one piece of advice I want to pass through this video is like don't end up like me just make sure that you have the things that you need to be mentally stable and yeah it's just like basic things that you need I know we're super negative in this video so I wanted to end on a good note the best thing I think about living in Japan as a foreigner or just in

general is you get to participate in like the beauty of Japan that so many foreigners don't necessarily get to see if they're just visiting Japan people here love to have fun and I think that's truly what inspired me about Japan is everyone has their own Hobbies everyone loves to do stuff on the weekends if they have free time like there's four seasons in Japan you can enjoy a different activity every season so compared to America there are always things that you can do here it's so fun and so you can truly find basically anything to

do here so in that sense I feel a lot of life in Japan especially on the weekends where people are out and about it does get very very packed so if you get overwhelmed by people I would not recommend it but for example I go to onsens like maybe once a month but it's just a part of me like getting rejuvenated and that's not something I could have done in the states yeah I feel like in Japan like there's just you can go to the park you can go to one of bazillion restaurants isak Kaya's

and the food is amazing so I don't have to keep like babbling about all the things that I know you know but there is a huge benefit to living in Japan and obviously if you work here the health care is so so affordable therapy though uh is not covered on Japanese like health insurance but basically every other thing is and so I've been to the doctor I think when I had like a cold which is very common here you just go to the doctor um I had like an ear infection once I went then kind

of go for anything and it's really accessible which I really love despite all the things that almost made me not like Japan in some ways especially someone who's like idealized it so much uh I realized it's kind of a LoveHate relationship but to go further on that it's kind of like you know you like the things about Japan but I feel like I'm going to really love love this country once I learn to accept the things that I don't like as much and after a while I'm probably not going to feel as strongly as I

do in the future if you're thinking about moving to Japan uh or just visiting this country has so much to offer the yen is still a bit cheaper it's not as great as it was before but if you're planning on coming just enjoy every day here 100% recommend it I'm not planning on leaving this country anytime soon uh and I think that's just a testament to how amazing it is honestly but I want it to be super honest and vulnerable with you guys because not everything is like sparkly glitter and stuff and I feel like

my Instagram if you guys watch me there is very much that and I don't feel like I have an outlet to be completely honest about things that I'm feeling yeah I hope this was helpful for you guys uh thank you so much for watching make sure to like And subscribe I'll be putting out more content about Japan and just all things of my life here as well as just things you should know uh if you're visiting Etc I'll see you guys in the next one Jenny