I am obivously generalizing but after living in Japan a couple of years I think this feeling is very strong there.
This post was inspired in a recent post saying “my Japanese wife is trying to avoid me getting a PR bc we are almost divorced and she doesn’t want me getting it”
I had a similar situation with a jp girl where I felt she suddenly changed her attitude and tried to charge me for everything, literally like charging me every shingle help she provided me, it felt like ‘hey bro, nothings free here, now pay me back’… so I want to know your thoughts guys.
This also relates to a friend’s story telling me Japanese people often want something of their relationship, like yeah I am your friend but only bc you play good valorant or maybe bc you have tons of connections and indeed my relationship with jp people felt like this.
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This feels pretty racist to be honest, dude.
A lot of relationships are transactional, when it gets down to it. That’s not only in Japan but all around the world.
Sort of. Let me address the paying back question first:
Like, I’ll go to dinner at my wife’s best friend’s house and at the end of the meal they split the cost of groceries to the very cent. Neither couple is strapped for money, it’s just how they are with each other. I’ve seen her parents also do this! They’re in their 70s and her mom has a part-time job and she’ll be giving grandpa change to the penny over a restaurant order. Nuts.
It is culturally normal here for women to completely manage the bank account and take care of everything. This is a hard leap to make and how you monitor it and question money withdrawals of things you didn’t see coming or didn’t plan also opens up a new kind of fight
As for return gifts of gifts, that’s also the cultural norm. But the return gift is expected to be a much lesser value, more of a thanks. So in terms of expecting, they’d be down bad if they did things in expecting in return, unless that person didn’t know and is always trying to match the gift value exactly. Whoever came up with this cultural norm was a brilliant economist.
What kind of help was your friend giving you?
Maybe from her perspective you were just using her for her Japanese skills and didn’t care about her as a person?
Never had that problem….
But that’s probably because I’m not a _completely_ useless human being.
I believe this can happen anywhere in the world?
BTW you’re reading too many horror stories here which leads you to a conclusion that “only Japanese will do this?”
Never had that problem.
Never had that problem
Not when it comes to small things like favors between friends, but I feel relationships (especially romantic or sexual) can feel very transactional at times. Professional relationships, too.
I actually read a Japanese article on this a few months ago, it seems studies have proven that Japanese people are more spiteful than other nationalities. (Google “日本人” “スパイト” and you can see for yourself)
It seems many of the people starting these threads are super ky and probably missed the 100 hints they were given before making things completely uncomfortable and awkward for everyone around them. 😬