I’ve been here in Japan for a while now; figure now’s as good a time as any to share some of my favorite things as well as my least favorite things. I’ll mostly ignore things that I’ve already touched on in the past (like expenses). People are people, and I don’t really find much terribly different between the US and Japan on an individual basis. I’ll probably be super surprised when I get back home, and find out that I’m actually wrong once I get to compare again, but for now, those are my thoughts. I can’t make judgments on the working related side of Japan, but for an exchange student I’d say that the good HEAVILY outweighs the bad.

(karaoke, serious business!)

The good:

1. There are a LOT of good looking women here in Tokyo. I suppose it’s to be expected in a big city, as I noticed the same thing in New York City. It’s just especially easy to spot them here due to their fondness of showing off copious amounts of leg. Carrying on a decent conversation is hard, since my Japanese language skills are low, but the ones who are relatively confident in their English skills are super easy and fun to talk to.
2. Flirting with said women at the pub after several drinks is fun. It’s really the only time that I’m not worried about how good or bad my Japanese language skills are, it’s just good fun. If my friend tells me: “Introduce yourself in Keigo!” (very formal speech) Then chances are that I will. It’s especially fun at my favorite pub which is located in the red light district of Kabuki-Cho. The beers are currently 70yen each, and it goes up by 10yen each month. (1 yen = approximately 1 cent). These are the nights that I use the most Japanese, and no English at all.
3. Tokyo is lively and fun (until the last trains of the night). There is a lot to see and a pretty good amount of things to do. There are events and festivals nearly every weekend (including Oktoberfest… There have been two of those so far and it’s really not the right time of year)
4. The public transportation is really good the vast majority of the time. Delays are uncommon; the whole system works in harmony and is very effective at getting millions of people to their destination every day. Normal tickets are pretty expensive, but my commuter pass from my dorm to school costs me about $35 a month and that’s a 40 minute commute each way. Plus with my commuter pass I can stop at any station between the dorm and school without paying extra. Outside of Tokyo, it’s even more expensive, but the options are pretty nice. You can take a regular train, or a bullet train, or a bus, etc.
5. The other exchange students are awesome. We have people from all over. A lot from America, a few from Germany, one from Ukraine, one from Poland,  a few from Australia, several from China/Korea/Thailand, etc. I’m most impressed by the ones from non-English speaking countries though. My friend Daniel is from Germany and he speaks German/English/Japanese. For tests in Japanese class he has to translate from Japanese to German and then to English, or the other way around depending on the question. While speaking with the American students he has to converse primarily in English. We’ve actually got him dreaming in English now. ‘Murrica! The Asian students impress me a lot as well. A good amount of students on exchange from other Asian countries know at least 3 languages at a very high level (their home country’s language, English, Japanese, and frequently Chinese as well).

(Japanese chat room event)

(Avocado and Wasabi Burger from Wendys)

(More karaoke, with Akiko and Kat)

The bad:

1. People walk REALLY slowly! The average walking speed here would never fly in New York City, or any other big city in America that I know of. I’ve been told that this might be because of the humidity. Once you start sweating, it’s hard to dry off. I’m rather dubious about this claim, because even standing still the humidity is pretty unbearable.
2. Relating to the last point: The very second that a single drop of rain falls from the sky, up goes everyone’s umbrellas. This makes navigating through the slow walkers even more tricky. But again, the same reason was explained to me: Once you get wet, good luck getting dry again in the 90% humidity.
3. Relating to the last TWO points: The weather! Summer in Japan means rain, heat, and humidity all together in one lovely little package. I might as well start wearing my swimming trunks to school.
4. Most of the aforementioned good looking girls are wearing ridiculously high heels. I’m already short enough, and this just makes me appear even shorter. I do enjoy when they wear high heels and yet are still shorter than I am though.
5. The trains stop running at around 12:30am, which means I’ve pulled a few all-nighters in Tokyo. If they’d even run one or two trains an hour after 1am, it would be an improvement.
6. Citizenship: It’s quite hard to become a citizen of Japan if you aren’t Japanese. Additionally, Japan doesn’t allow for dual-citizenship so I’d have to renounce my American citizenship if I moved here permanently. It’s a minor complaint I suppose, but not being able to vote, even if I lived here, bothers me.

The really bad:

1. I’m getting REALLY sick of seeing this notice at the train station:

The red part on the bottom left means information from other train lines, and it usually indicates a delay of some sort. That isn’t what my problem is. The problem is the exact reason for the delay, which is often: jinshin jiko. A literal translation for jinshin jiko is “human accident”. In actuality, it usually means someone jumped in front of a train. I’m much less concerned about delays than I am with this needless loss of human life. It gets really disheartening seeing this message so often, frequently daily. Luckily, my train line seems to not be a very “popular” one in this respect, but my friend was on one that had someone jump in front of it. That story had a “happy” ending, as it was a local train already slowing down to stop at the station, so the train was able to stop on time, thankfully. Last year was the first year in over a decade that the number of suicides fell below 30,000. Hopefully it’s the beginning of a downward trend.

My Global Business teacher created a video about this subject, it’s called “Saving 10,000 – Winning a War on Suicide in Japan” and you can watch it in its entirety here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo0SHLxc2d0 (It’s in English)