Why are foreigners so obsessed with the idea that Japan is “expensive,” when it is not?

26 comments

1. Your problem is that you’re comparing only to places outside of Asia.

2. You should start a blog.

3. 1. Japan DID used to be very expensive, but decades of no inflation has made it comparatively cheaper. It is hard for a place to shake an ingrained stereotype.
   2. Many rankings for expensive cities base their results on how much it would cost to send an expat with a full “package” to that city. This criteria often includes a relatively large house with a car/parking. Using that criteria, Tokyo IS very expensive compared to a lot of cities.

4. With housing, on a per square footage basis it may seem expensive. A 2 million dollar home in West Bay Area Northern California where I am from would probably be a 250 m^2 5 bed 3 bathroom home on a 800m^2 lot. A house in Nerima ward might be like 60M for a 90 m^2 on a 150m^2 lot, but that is in fact more expensive on a per area basis.

5. According to a CNN news article from 8th of June 2022, Tokyo is the 5th most expensive city in the world.

   So either they are wrong, or you missed some important factors in your comparison.

6. Compare with Italy, Spain or Greece and let me know.

7. Who exactly is saying that Japan is expensive? I can’t speak for Europeans, but as an American this is definitely the perception there. However, Americans in my experience absolutely have the perception that everything outside America (in highly developed nations, not developing ones) is crazily expensive. They’re always shocked every time I tell them how cheaply I can tour in Europe or Japan for, or how much stuff costs there. Now that I’m in Japan, they still don’t seem to get it.

   AFAICT, Americans only look at a few select metrics to compare “expensiveness”: 1) the tax rate (which in many other countries includes social insurance and healthcare; for American taxes they conveniently ignore FICA taxes and especially their gargantuan health insurance premiums), 2) the price of gasoline, and 3) the price of housing in terms of $/square foot, as compared to a house in the suburbs of America (rather than Manhattan for instance). They ignore everything else.

   Your comparison with the US is looking at NYC and Tokyo, which is fair, but Americans always ignore NYC as an outlier and look instead at the cost of living in someplace like Kansas City, and compare that with Tokyo. Well of course an American-style McMansion with a giant yard is going to be completely unaffordable in Tokyo unless you’re a billionaire. But Japanese don’t live this way, and it’s not a fair comparison: look at the cost of apartments or condos in any of America’s major cities (NYC, Boston, DC, Bay Area, etc.) and Tokyo actually looks quite cheap or at least very comparable. When you stop comparing on a square-foot basis, it’s even better: you can get very nice, though small, places in Tokyo for not much money. $1000/month will get you a good place here, though it’ll probably be a 1K or similar. It’ll be in a nice, safe place close to public transit. There won’t be homeless people wandering around or trash everywhere. This just isn’t the case in any major American city, at all. Also, Americans also look a lot at gas prices. In Tokyo, who cares what the price of gas is? You don’t need a car here.

   Americans also completely ignore other costs of living. How much does it cost to eat out? I can get a really nice sit-down restaurant meal here for $20 per person in downtown Tokyo. Good luck getting that anywhere in America now, and certainly not in a major city. How much do Americans spend on car ownership (insurance, maintenance, fuel, payments, etc.)? Again, not a big problem in Tokyo: it’s very easy to live car-free here.

   America has set up a society somehow that is extremely expensive to live in because of the way the society is structured (largely because of cars), and due to other things too as seen with the ridiculous healthcare system. Americans ignore most of that, assuming that somehow it must not be any better anywhere else, because they have a religious belief that America is the best place in the world. Then they cherry-pick certain metrics to compare living costs with other places, and conclude that other places must be horribly expensive, or so backwards that people live in huts with dirt floors.

8. It’s expensive when you still want a large chunk of cheddar cheese, instead of processed plastic, or a mango. Otherwise quality of life can be very reasonable. Eating out is so much cheaper than in the U.K.

9. As a former Australian resident:

   My mortgage on my 3br, 110sqm house, 10k from center of Osaka: 60,000 yen per month vs.

   Mortgage on an equivalent townhouse 10k from center of Melbourne: Approx. 300,000-400,000 yen a month (soon to be 500,000 yen+ as interest rates rise)

   Child care for my 3-year old in Osaka: Free vs.

   Child care for a 3-year old in Melbourne: Approx. 200,000 yen a month.

   Assuming the same income, I’m around 500,000 yen per month better off in Japan.

10. Rent in Denenchofu is $810?
    There is a difference between LIVING and SURVIVING.

11. While many of us foreign folk came over on our own and have found joy in living in a 1K or 1LDK in the suburbs, eating more Japanese style – a lot of expats are the typical “expats.” They want a Western-style 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, they want to be in areas like Azabu, they send kids to International School. They prefer to eat at restaurants with more Western foods: steak, baked potatoes, grilled salmon. For them – it is very expensive!

12. Most Americans I met who complained Japan was expensive were trying to eat the same way they ate in the US which definitely makes it more expensive when you’re seeking out American cereals, cheeses, etc.

    Also the American listed egg price made me scared because where in the US are eggs $3+?! In my state I pay less than $1 in mainstream stores haha

13. When I arrived in Japan in 1993, not long after the bubble collapsed, Japan was expensive compared to the rest of the developed world.

    From 1993 until now the post-bubble hangover has meant that Japan has had pretty much zero inflation, and almost zero economic growth. Meanwhile, constant inflation has meant that consumer prices have *doubled* in the USA since 1993. I’m not going to look it up for every other developed country but it seems likely to be about the same, perhaps worse.

    Things like rent and real estate prices in many places outside Japan (the US, Canada, Australia, and probably elsewhere) have accelerated far faster than inflation in consumer goods.

    The result is that while Japan *used* to be expensive relative to the rest of the world, it no longer is. However people still hold the belief that Japan is expensive, and it will take time for that belief to change.

14. I have no idea where some of these prices are coming from, but where I’m from (Central Europe) they’re way off.

    Electronics – I AM one of those people who claim it’s cheaper to buy overseas and send it here. And I stand by it, because that’s what I do with all bigger purchases. Usually save between 25 and 50%.

    Property/Rent – prices have gone up at home recently, and are now comparable. But on a per sqm basis Japan’s way more expensive. Also you got to factor in quality. Triple pane windows, passive-house standard all decked out with a lifespan of 50+ years and resale value vs the typical shoddy Japanese construction worthless within 20years for similar prices.

    Food – staples, dairy, veggies, fruits ARE cheaper abroad. By a lot. Will never find a 50€ watermelon or 15€ for a small pack of average cheese. Can buy a 1kg bucket of Yoghurt for the price of a 200g cup here.

    Also, something you haven’t touched on – healthcare and pension are only 1/3 of what I pay here in the same income bracket (also no 30% extra pay every doctors visit every time).
    And education is free (or close to) all the way through uni.

15. Although I agree that Tokyo isn’t as expensive as it’s said to be, a few points:

    * -There are a lot of people making less than 3 million yen a year in Tokyo.
    * -Health insurance, taxes, pension etc. all get quite expensive and don’t ever seem to be calculated into COL.
    *-Although rent is much cheaper in Tokyo, moving costs are way high, and if you want to rent a place quiet enough to sleep, it’s going to cost you way more than you estimate.
    * -There’s already a [website](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/) that compares cities around the world. Would have saved you a lot of time.

    Edit: formatting

16. Groceries wise in my experience it’s more expensive. The amount I used to get back in the states where I lived compared to the amount I get here for the same price is insane. This is my experience. Both places being rural parts of each country. Never lived in a big city/area in the US or Japan.

17. My God, in addition to cherrypicked grocery data (by leaving out deep discounters like Aldi) your salary comparison is … I’ll be polite here, way off. You seem very intent on proving your thesis, rather than just doing an impartial analysis. Who makes 24,000 a year gross in NYC, and what 35-year old adult in Tokyo lives on $13500 a year? There’s a grain of truth in that minimum-wage earners are better off in a country like Japan where lifestyles get pulled to the middle, but for a moderately ambitious person with a university degree and some semblance of a career, your salary figures are not representative at all. Are these even NYC salary figures or did you just take the US average and think that’d be close enough for NYC?

18. A lot of people here have done a good job of explaining the origin of the “Japan is expensive!” belief in the bubble economy. You’ve done a fairly good job of giving some facts that tell a counter-narrative, but instead of concluding that the reality is complex, you’ve chosen to just push the opposite narrative that Japan is the cheapest country, which is obviously untrue.

    Probably the reality is that some things in Japan are expensive that are usually cheap in our birth countries, and some things in Japan are cheap that are usually expensive in our birth countries. And it’s probably a bit of human psychology at play that we notice something we can easily buy in any Japanese store for 30% less than we would notice something that’s hard to find and that we really crave that costs 30% more. People tend to pay more attention in situations like that. Ordering a pizza for example: inferior quality, smaller size, and costs 4 times as much as back home, but it’s also a thing I sometimes really crave and associate it with my culture, so it sticks out in my mind way more than the fact that I can get 100 yen sushi here and back where I’m from not only is the same quality of bargain maguro nigiri considered a premium dining experience, it’s a potential food poisoning risk. But even though I love sushi, I rarely crave it and I feel no cultural connection to it, so I don’t feel bad about not having it back in the US.

    I think when people complain about Japan being expensive, they’re not entirely right, they’re not entirely wrong, but mostly what they’re actually saying is “it’s harder to get the things I want to live the life I want.” And I think that’s probably true for a lot of us, even if on the whole we like living here.

19. I live in Fukuoka and the food prices with fruit and vegetables are about 20 times more expensive than where I was in America, and meat prices are around 3 to 4 times more expensive.

20. Most foreigners are *not* from developed countries.

    Compared to my shithole country:
    Food, transport, and rent here are ridiculously expensive.
    Home appliances are slightly cheaper.
    Cars are very cheap!

21. I notice how you don’t mention clothes or shoes, which are often retardedly expensive. Especially if you aren’t built like an average Japanese guy that has the upper body build of an emaciated prisoner of war.

    As much I can change my diet or daily living habits, I can’t change my bone structure or height.

    >I remember seeing comments here a few days ago about how electronics in Japan are “crazy expensive,” and someone else even said “it’s cheaper to buy electronics from western countries and ship to Japan than buying in Japan,” which are completely false,

    Pre-pandemic, they were totally right. The supply chain issues and weak dollar has affected this.

    >Which makes me question if those people are indeed living in Japan or if they are just pretending.

    Oh piss off.

    I’ve lived in this country a lot longer than you and I can regale with the times when we never got any cheap shit from China. I don’t think you realise what it was like in the pre-Amazon and pre-AliExpress days.

22. Where are you getting the prices for the TV because I see TV’s here in Japan almost double the price as in the US

23. Someone’s obsessed, all right. But it’s not the people trying to scrape by out of their one-room prison cell apartments and having to pay extortion prices for things like fruit and laptops.

    Also, those US grocery prices are wack. 3.30 for eggs? Maybe free-range, locally raised hipster eggs.

24. I don’t know where you found your sources from France, but that’s really not the reality sorry. Most of the things in supermarkets are cheaper than the prices you put in. Especially regarding vegetables and fruits. (For real, $1,7 the pack of spaghetti? There are options at $1 everywhere) Electricity is also much more expensive in Japan. The only point I would agree on is regarding restaurants, indeed they’re much cheaper in Japan. For the rest, I would say that it’s pretty much the same, except apartments in Paris compared to Tokyo. Source: I’m french and lived there for 23 years.

    Edit: just read again: electronic products.. I think that’s the best joke here. All electronics products are 2 times the price compared to France. I don’t even wanna buy anything related to computer components in Japan because it’s a disaster. 60% cheaper… “mdr” (lmao) as we say in french.

25. I find it crazy expensive. Got a new laptop in Oz, found out my husband had to pay even more for a crappy, old, secondhand one. Groceries like fruit, veg, beans, etc cost a fortune. There are never half price sales on non-perishables (eg chocolate), while in Oz things are always 50% off. Want good bread? Pay $10. And the salaries! I earn about 1/4 of what I would at home. So even if something costs the same, I have much less money. And rent, it might be similar to Oz but for a teeny tiny room.

26. It’s cheap if you eat rice, own a futon and a chawan and your hobby is sleeping.