Today it finally happened, I burst into tears after being in Japan for almost two months. This week has been rough. I enjoy my coworkers, but this past week many of them have been sullen and bothered when I speak to them. I’m tired of the constant stares everywhere I go and the feeling of disapproval for everything I’m doing. The cherry on top was falling on my bike today in front of an old man on my way home from the grocery store. He proceeded to stop and stare at me while I hurriedly picked up my groceries. He seemed annoyed with me and I continued to apologize.
Don’t get my wrong, I feel so lucky to live and work in Japan! Today just seemed to be the point that sent me over the edge.
11 comments
Congratulations you’re dealing with home sickness and general expat shit. It’ll get better. Then in 2-4 years it’ll get worse. Then it’ll either get better or you’ll go home. I haven’t hit the next phase yet.
Honestly living in a foreign country is a whole lot like a relationship. You start out all bright eyed and happy and blind to the problems. Then what you’ve done hits you (like right now) and you become supremely self conscious about it. Then after a few years the little things that only annoyed you start to really annoy you. Then you either work through those and learn to live with them or you break up/divorce (leave the country and go home). Eventually you sort of settle into a steady state and it just becomes your day to day normal.
I’m so sorry to hear that. My first day in Japan, I was as happy as can be and was walking around my new neighborhood. Then a week later, it dawned on me that I was thousands of miles away from home. I would look at the night sky and think of the distance and how I can’t hug my family nor understand a word of Japanese. But looking at the night sky gave me comfort because it looks exactly the same as it does in my country and that I see the same sky as my family across the planet. It’s cliche lol but I felt that way. I was bullied at work too mostly by the Japanese staff because I was the newest. But I got through it and you can too!
You get used to it.
I have been living in Japan for over 15 yrs and I’m sick of it. Moving back to Europe next year.
Well if it helps in anyway, on my very first week here in Japan, same thing happened to me, but I guess I had “more audience”…. If i would say. Well, here it is, i was a very rural area of fukui, just had gotten me a 5000 yen bike, and in the middle of the night, in a residential area, (it was a little bit passed midnight, so everyone seemed to be asleep), my shoelace tangled in the chains of the bike, and bam… fell right there, most of the damage were emotional, as I just had woken up at least 3 houses, (lights went on and families came out to see me, on the asphalt untangling the shoelace, it took my around 5-10min, to get going), I arrived home and just burst laughing
The secret is to just find the thing that makes your stay here more enjoyable. There are a lot of things you can do like Travel, or get a Hobby that will take out that lonely feeling out of your mind. Japan has this weird feeling of not being part of something even if you see you should be part of it (I am not sure if this makes sense to you — though this is what I feel even today, perhaps part of me being a closet introvert), and I don’t take it against them and always think of it as part of the trade-off on living here. Meetup is also a good place to start if you are into group meets.
Try to get used to the loneliness, find and make new *good* friends (preferably from your own country or other foreigners, Japanese people will only be surface level friends).
Try not to worry too much about work stuff, do your best and don’t bat an eye about what others think.
Don’t worry! It’s definitely happened to me (maybe more than once). Regarding your coworkers, I’ve noticed my Japanese coworkers tend to get moody now and then (probably being overworked) and I’m prone to anxiously obsess over if I’ve done something wrong to offend them, however I’ve realised I have to just push my worries away and focus on myself!
Push through! You’ll be okay. Find joy somewhere else to keep your mind busy. Soon you won’t even notice the stares.
Homesickness… happens everywhere. Need to muster through
For me it was also about 2-3 months in that I experienced similar feelings. It gets easier. Give it time.
It takes time to adjust to this place, it took me five years before I could really settle into the culture. Between the language barrier and the cultural differences it’s easy to misinterpret what you see, especially when you’re new here. It’s more likely the old man was staring at you to make sure you were ok. Once I could communicate effectively in Japanese it changed my perception of the people around me and made life much easier and more enjoyable.
You might be under a lot of mental stress right now because of the change in environment, but it sounds like you are very self-conscious. I promise you things will get better once you learn not to give a shit and stop being so self-conscious.
People are staring at you? Maybe it’s because you’re hot? Maybe they just happened to be staring into blank space in your general direction? Maybe you were holding food and they were hungry (I do this sometimes)? Who knows? Who cares? You’ll likely never see them again if you’re living in a big city.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but the earth doesn’t revolve around you. Everything that happens, including the mood and feelings of others, aren’t directly attributable to you, so don’t take it so personally.