I lived in Japan for 10 years then took a break for two years and now I'm back just gone 5 months. I'd forgotten all the things that led me to become very jaded and generally negative before I left. A lot of that was to do with my last career, well I was an English teacher so I don't think you could call it that! Now I'm in a much better line of work, proper job/career with great conditions at least for Japan.
I live in an idyllic place, Shonan area, by the beach. Have a nice house and relationship situation. Absolutely loved being back for the first few months – had a second honeymoon period where I just couldn't get over how nice it was to live somewhere where things worked, cost of living was low, it was nice clean and safe etc.
I have N2 Japanese which got a bit rusty while I was a away but only a bit. I can speak fluently, not always in the most natural native-like way but perfectly intelligibly with good grammar / pron etc..
I guess I had an idealized notion that id come back and hit it off with the locals.. I have been able to start making connections with a few neighbors and through a local running group. But I've been pretty shocked by the reception I get at other times.
A few recent episodes.. a couple of the shops in regular visit the shopkeepers are just plain weird with me. At one おむすび屋さん the staff can't speak English but they try to speak to me in the most broken English, really awkwardly when I talk back to them in fluent Japanese. Then they switch to speaking in silly Japanese 舐められている感じ
I had the same kind of thing with a bakery on my street, when the woman was just replied weird to anything I say to her. I was like 'ooh blue cheese baguette すごいですね' and she took it as me saying it was weird and started on a mini rant saying like 海外ではNGですよね and all this other odd stuff.. I know redditors will probably say i may have sounded like I was questioning it but that wasn't the tone at all.
I figure in both cases they probably just feel uncomfortable and are acting goofy because of it. I tend to try to react really Japanese and just look confused by their responses e.g. I don't respond in English and to the bakery woman I just continue to be positive but in a Japanese way and compliment their baked goods.. after writing that sentence it does just strike me how bizarre this whole thing is.
To the stupid English/Japanese I tend to kind of stonewall them and become very Japanese and formal which tends to make them realise they are acting inappropriately and snap out of it.
Of course I encountered this behaviour a lot in the past over the 10 years I was here before…
I've also encountered plenty of chill folks who will just talk to me normally and not act weird from my foreigness. Really appreciate those people. I guess i also understand the others for their weirdness and how they insist on putting up these barriers.
We also had a guy visit about putting up curtains / blinds in our house. The request was to have either blackout blinds or curtains and his reply was that this is something that foreigners want and he didn't seem to understand why. I told him the sun rises early in Japan later than it does in England and that's why.. as it wakes me up. But felt annoyed afterwards why I had to justify myself about this. This is a dude who specialises in fitting curtains and blinds. Surely he gets requests from Japanese folks for blacking out light as well… Surely.
I'm sure some of you will say I'm being oversensitive.. I guess I came here to vent a bit and express my disappointment at the barriers I find some folks putting up that stop me from connecting more with the community. The shop keepers above are just two examples of places near my house, who I don't feel like visiting because of their odd behaviour.
I think there's something to be said that some folks have this reaction at first but the real challenge is in turning their behaviour around and getting them to realise you are a person and treat you normally. I've had that happen multiple times too.
Its also worth saying these episodes are dampening my motivation to get better at Japanese. You might think they'd increase it but at the end of the day I feel why bother if I'm going to be treated like this based on the way I look alone.
I'm determined not to become jaded by these episodes.
by 1000carrotgeezer