Moving to Japan? Beware of the Culture Shock! Oh, and the Tentacles!
Monday, June 5, 2017
I have a friend whose son is moving to Japan. We've been having some correspondence and I really want to help my friend's son get acclimated and become successful in the Land of the Rising Sun (Gee, does that mean I have to immediately take him out every night getting so drunk we can barely walk home and have him start smoking two packs of cigarettes everyday within the first two days? No! That can wait at least a week or two!)
Seriously, I want to help any way I can so I thought I should bring up a nasty subject and that is about Culture Shock.
Here's what I wrote to my friend:
Culture shock can really screw people up. Years ago, I was the liasion between foreigners and the Japanese management for a big company in Tokyo. We had about 480 foreign staff. From that experience, I've seen people just totally and completely fall apart. Really.
It really hits people when they become ill with the flu or something. It happened to me!
I got the flu one time and was sick as a dog... All I wanted was to have for breakfast two eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice... That's not asking a lot, is it? Well, in Japan, it was...
I got the two eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice, but it's not the same in Japan as it is in the United States. I know that this is difficult to understand, but trust me, there is no restaurant or person in this country that can make bacon and eggs like mom can... For one, mom isn't here in Japan and for two, even the bacon and the eggs, toast and juice are different.
Really. They are. You have a very hard time finding a restaurant in Japan (that's not inside a major hotel) that makes bacon and eggs like you get in the states (even inside a major hotel, I think you have trouble...) In Japan, they don't know how to cook an egg over-easy or over-medium; In Japan, the toast is sliced massively thick (or too thin) and they often cut the crusts off (Sure, Wonder Bread sucks, but when you're sick and longing for home style food, it sounds "Wonder-ful" (Sorry for the pun!)); and the bacon? Nope. No way. There is no such thing as a slice of crispy bacon in all of Japan... I know. I checked...
Hell, the bacon is different so it's even hard to make bacon at your Japanese apartment that is like the bacon mom makes!
And juice? You kiddin' me? My episode was in the late 1970s so it is much better now. Back in the late 1970s there was no such thing as what Americans call "juice" - meaning something like 100% fresh squeezed or even concentrate - back then "juice", in Japan, meant something like Fanta Orange Juice.
Really. All I WANTED WAS A SIMPLE GLASS OF JUICE AND THEY BROUGHT ME SOMETHING LIKE FANTA ORANGE! THAT'S NOT JUICE! I wanted to scream! :-@ #$!!@| :-@ !!!!Z>?}! How hard could it be to get a simple glass of juice?
Well, in 1979 Japan, impossible!
"You're sick and want eggs and bacon just like mom made for breakfast? You poor baby... Well, we don't have that, but how about some nice tentacles, instead?"
That seemingly benign episode of the flu with no eggs and bacon like mom makes set me off on a deep Culture Shock experience too!
When living in Japan if Culture Shock sets in - then if the person doesn't come out of it relatively quickly - I've seen them fall into serious clinical depression. If that happens, they are finished.... I've seen that happen more times than I can count...
One time, there was a guy who came here from Iowa (or was it Illinois?) and within 3 weeks, he was in serious depression and we had to send him back to the USA. Why? When he got here, he thought he was going to see a Japan that had Samurai and geisha running around (no joke) and so, when he arrived, and saw a big city and business people in suits, it freaked him out.
You can't make this stuff up. I remember seeing my face in his one morning when he was bursting at the seems and complaining about not being able to get a decent steak and eggs breakfast in Tokyo and insisting that I take him to a McDonald's (there were only a few in 1984) so that he could at least get some pancakes. he said he wanted a "Home cooked meal!" I wondered what kind of home he was from if McDonald's pancakes were his idea of "home-cooked"!
Your son won't be that bad, of course (I trust). But I HIGHLY recommend that he familiarize himself with Culture Shock, what it is and its symptoms, so he can expect it and know what's happening when it comes and be more able to deal with it. I knew about it so I think that helped me from not becoming more of a psychotic than I already am.
Heck, I have a friend whose younger brother came here and he lived with Japanese people all his life... He even had a Japanese mom! And he had seriously bad culture shock for at least three months.... And I know he was so incapacitated and depressed that he missed work for several weeks. I don't know what happened to him.
You son (and dear reader) will be better off if he understands that he will have Culture Shock like everyone else does.... In fact, if he understands it and expects it, it might bounce off him like rain on a duck!
And that was basically the letter.
I hope my friend's son come to Japan and does well. I love this place and have never regretted moving here.
If you decide to come to Japan to live please do yourself a favor and at least get a cursory understanding of Culture Shock and be ready for it when it comes. That way, you'll understand what is happening and it will just be another part of the experience.
For a humorous article on the same subject, may I recommend this? Five Things They Never Tell You About Living in Japan
Dinner is served!
Dedicated to my friends, Mark Davis and Shea Davis