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  • Locked thread
Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004

lizard_phunk posted:

Coming back to Norway was the hard part. Of course, the first few days were great - seeing my friends again, realizing my Norwegian was wonky now, not feeling guarded all the time. Then the reverse-culture shock hits. There were many things I liked about Japanese culture, and many things I had gotten used to. Suddenly being back in a culture I had never really given much thought (compared to how I analyzed Japanese culture to understand it) was a lot tougher than anyone had told me. Combine this with the fact that no one was actually that interested in Japan and that I could finally process the stuff that went down in the first host family ... I got really depressed.

I am really surprised noone warned me about this.



Reverse culture shock being harder than initial culture shock is common. People expect culture shock but have no idea about the reverse when going home. JETs usually have pretty strong alumni communities in their home countries because it is impossible to bitch about/praise the differences between your home country and Japan or how your forgot to interact with people or how no one understands that ramen is not supposed to be garbage food etc. unless you talk to people with shared experiences.

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Lacedaemonius
Jan 18, 2015

Rub a dub dub
What was the most interesting class in school? History sounds unintentionally hilarious for all the obvious whitewashing but you paint quite a portrait of the arts. Come to think of it, did they even teach any hard science?

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


I'm curious about science class too. I'm teaching science in Asia now and flabbergasted by the holes in their knowledge sometimes.

peanut
Sep 9, 2007


Weeb stories please

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang posted:

You mentioned the original host husband was "tenure track" with a nudge and a wink...talk more about his because I have no clue what that mean in japan vs. the US

Academia is internationally fraught with nepotism and favoritism.

I realize business is like this too, but I think a main difference is that in a business setting you’re competing for personal gains (money) while in academia you’re actually competing for the opportunity to offer yourself up to generate new knowledge (substantial amounts of money are rarely involved at least from what I’m familiar with).

To become a tenured professor (full-time permanent employment) this would be the usual track for a doctor or dentist:

Great academic record from high school – Great results from University, part-time involvement in research – Completing a PhD – Completing at least one 3-4 PostDoc at a great University (usually abroad) – Having support and funds to start a research group – Generate enough publications in good journals to start competing for associate professorships – Start competing for permanent positions at age 40-50.

What you have to add in here are three things:

1. In medicine/odontology, these researchers are usually practicing specialized doctors as well.
2. Your life needs to be spotless to give the right impressions to your superiors, and of course you need to build a family as well.
3. The work ethic in Japan sadly revolves a lot around simply being at work for at least 12 hours a day, or until whenever the bosses and your coworkers go home.

The two last points are hammered into your head in Japan from kindergarten.
A major health challenge in Japan is the medical condition of “dying from work”, that is, dropping dead from the stress on your internal organs from never having time off.

Slime
Jan 3, 2007
Just something I've heard, but is it true that for most people it doesn't involve doing a lot of actual work, but just trying to look productive until it's socially acceptable for you to go home?

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Slime posted:

Just something I've heard, but is it true that for most people it doesn't involve doing a lot of actual work, but just trying to look productive until it's socially acceptable for you to go home?

That seems to be the case many places. The FF8-loving kid grew up and went back to Japan, got a degree in language and worked as a completely ordinary salary man (eg. he was not a translator or anything "gaijin"-related) for some time. At least at his job, it was like that - and when you did go home it was usually required to have "one beer" with coworkers.

This guy - let's call him Mike - had an interesting time.

His exchange year in the Tokyo-area went fine. He became less of a otaku and - also being a language nerd - also learned Japanese very well.

For University, he did a bachelor's in Japan, and started taking non-English classes. He did not live in a dorm, because a old Japanese lady approached him and asked if he wanted to live in her spare rooms (tiny house with an unused floor) for a symbolic amount of money ... because he looked German and she still supported the Germans. Explaining that he was Norwegian, he was judged sufficiently Aryan and was able to save up money while living in Tokyo.
This money came from different small jobs (including as a "host" - he was not the best looking dude, but Japanese girls would still pay to have lunch with him and walk around with him).

He got involved with some seedy people (and also got hold of weed, which is pretty unusual in Japan - "Rasta" clothes and incense are all the rage, but people rarely actually smoke anything ;) ).

Mike later went to Korea, learned Korean and visited North Korea. I visited him when he was home in Norway (we grew up in the same part of the country) and he told me all about the glory of North Korea. I was more than slightly creeped out - he had been gifted a military cap and North Korean banners. He was now fluent in Korean as well and seriously planned to go to North Korea. For all I know he might be one of the foreigners living there now.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Lacedaemonius posted:

What was the most interesting class in school? History sounds unintentionally hilarious for all the obvious whitewashing but you paint quite a portrait of the arts. Come to think of it, did they even teach any hard science?

Come to think of it, I can't remember there being a generic "natural science" class. We did that first year in Norway, so I might have missed it.

Lacedaemonius posted:

What was the most interesting class in school? History sounds unintentionally hilarious for all the obvious whitewashing but you paint quite a portrait of the arts. Come to think of it, did they even teach any hard science?

When it came to natural science, my elective courses were mathematics and physics. My reasoning was that mathematical language is international. To this day I still suck at these two things.

The "advanced" math class was held in a rarely used part of the school. It was full of huge spiders and we did 4 hour stints of solving for x and y. I'm not kidding, we were handing a sheet of problems (no text or developing formulas, just numbers) and answered them in pencil. For four hours. The teacher usually slept. The questions did not get harder, so the kids (all male except me) usually played card games like poker (yes, for money) while the teacher snoozed. There was no air conditioning and I just remember dying from sweat and boreddom.

The physics class revolved around copying vectors from the black board (I have had physics class in University still and I think my understanding of vectors are permanently damaged).

The good point was that I learned a lot of technical math and science related kanji and sentence building, I would think these are hidden away in some dusty neurons in my brain.

My favorite class - that's hard to say, really. All of them were fun because I was learning Japanese, which was what I wanted. Japanese history was very interesting to me, because we started at scratch - the first peoples of Japan, how the language developed, how technology developed, etc. All of this was presented from a Japanese point of view by our head teacher, which was an open-spoken and engaging man. This guy really had a heart of gold and looked out for his annoying class.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Lemmi Caution posted:

Reverse culture shock being harder than initial culture shock is common. People expect culture shock but have no idea about the reverse when going home. JETs usually have pretty strong alumni communities in their home countries because it is impossible to bitch about/praise the differences between your home country and Japan or how your forgot to interact with people or how no one understands that ramen is not supposed to be garbage food etc. unless you talk to people with shared experiences.

I basically had zero follow up. None of the troubles I had was communicated forward at all. I did try to approach the organization about this later, but they didn't want to hear about it.

After I came home I started to detest general weeabo stuff, so I alienated some friends. In the end, I think it was a good thing. But reverse cultural shock and mental effects of that was a big driver in me dropping out of high school like 3 months from graduation.

In University, I felt a lot more mature than the other students. Because of my time in Japan I got accepted into the most advanced Japanese language class in the country and did great (I helped the teacher teach, to be honest).
Then it became clear that I would have to study full time for 2 years (80% attendance) learning basic Japanese and go back to Japan as a student for 6 months for gaijin language classes at some small collaborating university to even get a bachelor's degree in Japanese.

So I changed my major into psychology, later molecular biology and ended up with a MSc in that. The academic track in Norway is that the university will employ people with excellent MSc results (normal wage, 3-4 year contract) to work as researchers aiming for a PhD, so that's what I'm doing now, and I am sure as hell not doing that in Japan. I've heard enough horror stories about STEM in Japan (especially as a woman), although they do great research over there. :)

Qwazes
Sep 29, 2014
Fun Shoe
Well, now I'm curious about what horror stories you have about stem in Japan. My university advertised a (paid) program (in English) to get a master's in our sister school in Japan, so I was considering it.

Big Blood Bovine
Apr 24, 2010

Финское качество!
As a fellow Scandinavian this makes me appreciate the relative ease of my own student exchanges. Although Finland can not be grouped together with Russia and Poland (especially not Russia), we still share all the most basic norms of Western society and culture. Sure, I had my periods of home sickness and occasional problems, but nothing to the extent that you had. I really have to thank my foreign teachers if I see them again. I got lucky and was about five years older than you, so that helped too. Still, it's nice to hear that you managed to improve your Japanese so much.

Interestingly while in Russia both me and my friend were in a host family where the father was mostly absent and the mother got mad for stupid little things (I had forgotten to pay for using the laundry machine and my friend was 'wasting' toiletpaper, so she had to start buying her own). Is this a thing?

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Qwazes posted:

Well, now I'm curious about what horror stories you have about stem in Japan. My university advertised a (paid) program (in English) to get a master's in our sister school in Japan, so I was considering it.

Even in Norway, the idea of 10-12 hour workdays being good for academic inspiration is quite common in STEM (but not really outside STEM).

A normal workday in Norway is 7.5 hours, usually with 5 weeks paid vacation a year.

In Japan, I would most likely get in real trouble for going home when my contract said I should. I would expect lab work would be a lot like what I've experienced with SE Asian/Indian/Chinese students - we will be at work from 8AM to 8PM, weekends included, and we will be very inefficient.
This is a nightmare for collaboration and work culture in general.

I have worked with Chinese students in Norway who slept in the lab. I have worked with Indian students who slept in the office. All of these international students got a stern talking to on how this was illegal - according to their contract.
They were basically being warned that they might get fired for working too hard.

I don't think Japan is quite as bad (although you would probably be expected to stay quite late), but from what I've heard women are treated particularily bad - like having to serve the tea, obviously, and "never coming up with good ideas" (because people will take them from you, they suddenly sound much better coming from a guy).

In research you are never really done with work because you keep planning and having to keep up with literature, all while "time running out" for whatever grants you have. A 6 month stay or something would be fine - but not being able to go home or have a day to chill in the weekends would drive me insane quickly. This is coming from someone who worked 50% night shift all throughout my 100% MSc for two-years, so it's not just STEM whining. ;)

Having grown up in a culture where I honestly never noticed being treated differently because of gender, combined with being tired of never having time for life outside work/studies, I think research in Japan is out for me personally.

I would say that for you it depends a lot on the quality of the school and what a MSc entails in your country. If it's mainly classes and some rotation in labs, that sounds fun. If it's 100% participation in a lab which needs to yield a thesis work (including a manuscript) with classes on the side (which my program in Norway turned into), I would think carefully about which conditions you'd be working in.

Getting to live in Japan for a while is a huge perk - I honestly think Japanese is the most beautiful language in the world, the history of Japan is amazing, and the food is even better. But all this stuff is completely individual.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Big Blood Bovine posted:

As a fellow Scandinavian this makes me appreciate the relative ease of my own student exchanges. Although Finland can not be grouped together with Russia and Poland (especially not Russia), we still share all the most basic norms of Western society and culture. Sure, I had my periods of home sickness and occasional problems, but nothing to the extent that you had. I really have to thank my foreign teachers if I see them again. I got lucky and was about five years older than you, so that helped too. Still, it's nice to hear that you managed to improve your Japanese so much.

I don't know where you went in Russia, but I think many Russians have an informed view of Europe. Compared to Japan, I bet a Russian wouldn't talk about Europe like one country with one culture, for example. Or expect Frenchmen to dress like 18'th Century princes. ;)

The Polish have a rich cultural heritage too, but it does mix very well with Scandinavia. At least in Norway we have a "big" Polish community and a lot of Polish people planning to stay in Norway forever.

I think a big difference is the degree of individuality. In Japan, you are not supposed to express individuality much at all. The only people who can pull that off are basically artists and celebrities.

Big Blood Bovine posted:

Interestingly while in Russia both me and my friend were in a host family where the father was mostly absent and the mother got mad for stupid little things (I had forgotten to pay for using the laundry machine and my friend was 'wasting' toiletpaper, so she had to start buying her own). Is this a thing?

We were actually warned that this might happen before going abroad. I never heard about this being an issue in Japan.

In general the standard of living in Japan is very good, and my impression is that the barrier for telling people that they are "taking a toll" on the household is quite high.
What was very common was having to wash your own underwear specifically, while the host mom would do the rest of the laundry, but that was about politeness and boundaries, not cost.

Kopijeger
Feb 14, 2010

lizard_phunk posted:

Or expect Frenchmen to dress like 18'th Century princes. ;)

Really? In your experience, what are the most absurd Japanese stereotypes about "gaijin"?

Taeke
Feb 2, 2010


Great thread. It's an interesting topic and you write well, making it an enjoyable read. Glad you're doing so much better, and I hope this is a therapeutic/cathartic experience experience for you.

I'd love to visit Japan/Asia some day, and I look forward to visiting a crowded market or some place similar. I'm a slightly over 2 meters (6"6') blue eyed white as can be Dutch guy with long, flowing blonde hair, so I imagine I'll be getting quite some attention, and just seeing a sea of black hair all around me would be interesting.

As to the culture shock discussion, it really can creep up on you in the weirdest, most unexpected way. As I mentioned, I'm from the Netherlands, but I did spend 9 months or so studying at a university in the UK. Having visited the UK frequently before, being completely fluent in the language and hell, it's just across the canal, I didn't expect much of a culture shock at all. Boy was I mistaken. Not sure how much of is was cultural and how much of it was just me living in relatively poor/bad area compared to what I was used to, but the amount of teen pregnancies (explained by the binge drinking culture, I guess) was a bit of a surprise to say the least. The night life in that area was tiresome as well, so I soon decided to only visit two venues: the first being a club that catered exclusively to international students (and their +1s, obviously) and the second being the hot spot for the local alternative crowd, who still drank to excess but were less... irresponsible about it, I guess.

Speaking of, I realise you were fairly young at the time, but did you experience anything with regards to going out, a night life, such things? Any romantic interests? What's the dating life like as an older teen in Japan, both from your perspective and that of a regular Japanese kid?

Lacedaemonius
Jan 18, 2015

Rub a dub dub
You talk quite a bit about the rampant sexism, but haven't cited any personal examples which stands in marked contrast to most of the points you've talked about previously. Is there not much overt sexism outside the workplace, is it in some way limited to certain facets, some kind of omnipresent intangible...? As someone born and raised in a country who for decades has been wrestling with "А у вас негров линчуют" discrimination of that...quality (for lack of a better word) is beyond imagining, much less belief. And to be tacitly acknowledged by most of the populace with no intention to change... I'm depressed now.

Negostrike
Aug 15, 2015


Your experience reminded me of this webcomic about an English teacher in Japan: http://www.marycagle.com/letsspeakenglish/
I don't know how relatable this can be but I liked it a bunch.

Pixelante
Mar 16, 2006

You people will by God act like a team, or at least like people who know each other, or I'll incinerate the bunch of you here and now.
I used to read the blog of a black guy who was teaching over there. His life seemed to be 80% preventing elementary school students from grabbing his penis because they wanted to know if it was huge. Anyone remember the name?

Tendai
Mar 16, 2007

"When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."

Grimey Drawer

Pixelante posted:

I used to read the blog of a black guy who was teaching over there. His life seemed to be 80% preventing elementary school students from grabbing his penis because they wanted to know if it was huge. Anyone remember the name?
That dude, I think? I remember reading this years ago and it fits:

http://gaijinchronicles.com/category/archive/gaijin-smash/

peanut
Sep 9, 2007


Mr. Gaijin Smash :japan: thx u

Everyone is welcome to come to the Japan threads in LAN or T/T. Maybe YOU will be the goon who makes those threads interesting again!

VVV only if you're female, lgbt, poor, foreign or alive

peanut fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Mar 28, 2016

minya
Sep 7, 2004

SUN RA WAS HERE IN HIS ELEMENT
he invited me back for a ride
Man, Japan sounds loving awful.

DAVE!!!(c)(tm)
Feb 22, 2003
I would urge you to write about your experiences and get them published. Even as a non-scholarly work it would be a fascinating read. I've certainly enjoyed what you've shared with us so far in this thread.

Tendai
Mar 16, 2007

"When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."

Grimey Drawer

DAVE!!!(c)(tm) posted:

I would urge you to write about your experiences and get them published. Even as a non-scholarly work it would be a fascinating read. I've certainly enjoyed what you've shared with us so far in this thread.
I agree, I honestly love reading about things like this, even just from the perspective of learning about different cultures and how they handle poo poo.

Plan Z
May 6, 2012

Pixelante posted:

I used to read the blog of a black guy who was teaching over there. His life seemed to be 80% preventing elementary school students from grabbing his penis because they wanted to know if it was huge. Anyone remember the name?

Apparently it's a common thing because my cousin (white dude) taught in Thailand and the kids did that too.

Qwazes
Sep 29, 2014
Fun Shoe

Plan Z posted:

Apparently it's a common thing because my cousin (white dude) taught in Thailand and the kids did that too.

At what point would you start

a) wearing a cup
or
b) stuffing an eggplant down there?

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength
Side question: which particular buttfuck nowhere in Norway did you escape from?

:norway:

(Reminiscing a little about my own long-ago exchange experience, much less interesting than yours and not even in Japan)

Gabriel Grub
Dec 18, 2004

Qwazes posted:

At what point would you start

a) wearing a cup
or
b) stuffing an eggplant down there?

c) You don't give them a big reaction when they try and they eventually lose interest, because they're interested in getting a reaction out of an adult not touching some foreigner's privates. Mr. Gaijin Smash kept getting poked because apparently he made a big deal about it every time and then went home to write about it.

zmcnulty
Jul 26, 2003

Interesting thread that brought back a lot of memories for me. I also went through AFS for a year in Japan during high school. In fact, I was in Hiroshima, so the prefecture right next to the OP's.

Just a few similarities and differences I noticed through the course of reading the thread:
  • I am an American guy while the OP is a Norwegian woman. And I went a couple years earlier -- I went over in March 2001. So I was in Japan on 9-11.
  • I was getting zero school credit during my time over there so I rarely bothered to try and actually learn the subjects being taught during class. I ended up self-studying Japanese quite a lot in the school library
  • I also had two host families over the course of the year. My first host family consisted of an elementary school teacher, high school teacher, and their two kids -- host sister was a 3rd year in my same school, host brother was still in middle school. The relationship with the host mother deteriorated rapidly (she nearly caught me banging the host sister) and eventually after like 5 months I just straight up asked her if she wanted me to leave. The answer was yes, so that was that, we both agreed it would be best I move along. The second host family was much more chill, older, also with two kids but both out of the house already. That second host family was good friends with a different family nearby -- we would get together for dinner/drinks like 2 times during the week and almost every weekend. They had a pretty sexy 24yo daughter who had recently moved back home after completing community college, and she had a car so the two of us spent a shitload of time together. Eventually she gave me a BJ in the parking lot of a grocery store.
  • My school was public and as far as I can tell far more normal than the OP's. Most of the students seemed pretty focused on their studies and we sure as hell didn't have any students punch teachers in the face. Though I did see one student punch another student, but obviously that's not particularly unique to Japan.
  • In terms of my extracurriculars I did kendo. I was sort of considering soccer as well but figured it was a bit too "multicultural" so went with kendo instead.Good choice!
  • We did not have a choice of school trip, so I went up to Hokkaido. Good trip altogether but we nearly lost our class because we skipped out and went to Sapporo ramen instead.

And some of the stranger things that happened to me during the year:
  • A bird poo poo on my head, leading me to drive my bike off the road into an empty lot
  • There was some sort of heated argument going on in the neighborhood association, so I ended up staying over at the aforementioned chick's family's place one night. She came in and said "don't come in to my room during the middle of the night." I was too drat dense at the time to realize what she really meant.
  • Found an abandoned car while climbing a mountain, so of course I found the biggest boulder I could carry and put the thing right through back window.
  • Pissed on a dude's shoe during a Hiroshima Carp game. He was not happy.

All in all it was a great year and set a lot of things in motion for me, in terms of school/career.
I guess I could go into more detail about anything, but since I have spent my entire 20s in Tokyo I've kind of lost touch with what is WACKY JAPAN vs. what happens to teens/20yos everywhere. And the OP writes much better.

zmcnulty fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Mar 29, 2016

peanut
Sep 9, 2007


Why/how did you piss on some guy's shoe (was it a Hanshin fan?)

ntan1
Apr 29, 2009

sempai noticed me
How old were you when you got the BJ.

Negostrike
Aug 15, 2015


When a girl asks you not to rape her I think you should not rape her.

SalTheBard
Jan 26, 2005

I forgot to post my food for USPOL Thanksgiving but that's okay too!

Fallen Rib

Pixelante posted:

I used to read the blog of a black guy who was teaching over there. His life seemed to be 80% preventing elementary school students from grabbing his penis because they wanted to know if it was huge. Anyone remember the name?

http://classic.dryang.org/japanese/index.shtml

You have no idea how loving hard it was to find this goddamn thing.

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

SalTheBard posted:

http://classic.dryang.org/japanese/index.shtml

You have no idea how loving hard it was to find this goddamn thing.

Not the best starting point for finding suitable search terms, one might imagine.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Taeke posted:

Great thread. It's an interesting topic and you write well, making it an enjoyable read. Glad you're doing so much better, and I hope this is a therapeutic/cathartic experience experience for you.

I'd love to visit Japan/Asia some day, and I look forward to visiting a crowded market or some place similar. I'm a slightly over 2 meters (6"6') blue eyed white as can be Dutch guy with long, flowing blonde hair, so I imagine I'll be getting quite some attention, and just seeing a sea of black hair all around me would be interesting.

As to the culture shock discussion, it really can creep up on you in the weirdest, most unexpected way. As I mentioned, I'm from the Netherlands, but I did spend 9 months or so studying at a university in the UK. Having visited the UK frequently before, being completely fluent in the language and hell, it's just across the canal, I didn't expect much of a culture shock at all. Boy was I mistaken. Not sure how much of is was cultural and how much of it was just me living in relatively poor/bad area compared to what I was used to, but the amount of teen pregnancies (explained by the binge drinking culture, I guess) was a bit of a surprise to say the least. The night life in that area was tiresome as well, so I soon decided to only visit two venues: the first being a club that catered exclusively to international students (and their +1s, obviously) and the second being the hot spot for the local alternative crowd, who still drank to excess but were less... irresponsible about it, I guess.

Speaking of, I realise you were fairly young at the time, but did you experience anything with regards to going out, a night life, such things? Any romantic interests? What's the dating life like as an older teen in Japan, both from your perspective and that of a regular Japanese kid?

I realize this thread is pretty dark at some points, but I want to stress that as an adult travelling alone or with friends, Japan is an amazing country to visit.
Being "American" and tall will get people's attention, but probably not in a bad way. In Tokyo, I imagine people will respectfully ignore you (unless you're going out at night, then people might strike up a conversation).
In smaller cities, people might want to talk to you, point at you or ask to touch your hair.

My SO looks like the Japanese "dream American", but he's pretty short, which I think makes him more approachable to many Japanese. Being giant-sized is a bit imposing to us short people. ;)

Interesting to hear about your exchange over in UK. I had a similar experience staying for only a week in Northern Norway with inlaws (take a look at Norway on the map and look at the geographical distance between Oslo and Tromsø) - I felt like I was in a different world. People's priorities can be so different just depending on history, economy and environment even if the culture and language is the same on paper.

I'd rather adapt to live in Japan forever than having to adapt to rural Northern Norway, I'll say that much... :norway:


DAVE!!!(c)(tm) posted:

I would urge you to write about your experiences and get them published. Even as a non-scholarly work it would be a fascinating read. I've certainly enjoyed what you've shared with us so far in this thread.

This was really inspirational to me, thank you. Maybe I'll consider it when my life doesn't revolve around getting academic manuscripts published. :) I think it gets more and more interesting to remember my year in Japan as time passes. For example, I saw my first smart-phone in Japan. In 2004, Japanese kids were running around with flip-up smart-phones with internet access, while in Norway we had only just started being able to send MMS messages.

minya posted:

Man, Japan sounds loving awful.

Nah, Japan is cool. Japanese working society and child abusers are awful. :japan:

peanut posted:

Mr. Gaijin Smash :japan: thx u

Everyone is welcome to come to the Japan threads in LAN or T/T. Maybe YOU will be the goon who makes those threads interesting again!

VVV only if you're female, lgbt, poor, foreign or alive

It's been a long time since I read this guy's blog. Wonder how he's doing now, the last couple of posts are about getting filmed at Japanese variety shows.

The stuff he writes about women seems ... appropriately Japanese, though. Niceguyish enough to put me off a little bit.

Lacedaemonius posted:

You talk quite a bit about the rampant sexism, but haven't cited any personal examples which stands in marked contrast to most of the points you've talked about previously. Is there not much overt sexism outside the workplace, is it in some way limited to certain facets, some kind of omnipresent intangible...? As someone born and raised in a country who for decades has been wrestling with "А у вас негров линчуют" discrimination of that...quality (for lack of a better word) is beyond imagining, much less belief. And to be tacitly acknowledged by most of the populace with no intention to change... I'm depressed now.

First, realize that my parents were "68'ers" (this is a term in Norway too). They were basically the generation who fought for gender equality, and that worked out very well in Norway. I have very rarely thought much about my gender, and being treated poorly because of two X-chromosomes just isn't accepted where I live (at least in my ethnic cultural group). If you have a kid, you usually get one year paid leave, and this is 99% accepted. Your boss will not be disappointed, it will rarely have any ill effect on your career. People will look at you strangely if you express a desire to come back to work early, or not share paternity leave equally with your husband.

In Japan, it becomes obvious quickly that some activities are girls or boys only. Your group is defined from kindergarten - if you're a girl, you have the cute uniform with the skirt. If you have kids, you have to quit your job (or if you don't want to, you are usually forced to quit your job). If you're not married by 36, you will probably not have kids, and you are thusly placed in the category of "career woman". There are few shades in between. Girls might be "strong and bossy" in the household, but they are expected to be weak and sweet in society.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

Groke posted:

Side question: which particular buttfuck nowhere in Norway did you escape from?

:norway:

(Reminiscing a little about my own long-ago exchange experience, much less interesting than yours and not even in Japan)

I grew up in a small town (couple of thousand inhabitants) in Vestfold - really crappy town in the 90's, I would find crackpipes on my way home from school, lots of alcohol- and drug addicts, lots of troubled kids at my school.
Moved to my dad which placed me in buttfuck nowhere Trøgstad, Østfold, where work didn't work out, so we ended up in even more buttfuck nowhere Buskerud (Åmot, Modum to be specific) where the most famous piece of artwork is a wall painting of two elks copulating.

Feel free to write about your exchange - plenty of room in this thread.

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge

zmcnulty posted:


[*] In terms of my extracurriculars I did kendo. I was sort of considering soccer as well but figured it was a bit too "multicultural" so went with kendo instead.Good choice!

[*]Found an abandoned car while climbing a mountain, so of course I found the biggest boulder I could carry and put the thing right through back window.


Fun experience, I bet.

Your sexual exploration of Japanese culture got a laugh out of me. I'd be worried if your host mom didn't kick you out for that one.

Just a note, I have been to Hiroshima many times and the culture there is pretty unique. I really get the feeling people in Hiroshima are much more chill, much more friendship focused and very interested in international relations (not necessarily BJs). I guess you can all surmise why.

Kendo: Something guys could do. I wanted to join the kendo club, was put in the tea ceremony club (!) instead. Eventually tried the manga-club, which I can summarize as otakudom being the same worldwide. The manga-club consisted of girls (and some boys) geeking out while tending to their social anxiety and drawing hot fan art.

Abandoned car at mountain: Hope you're happy about smashing up the car of some salary man trying to peacefully commit suicide. :golfclap:

lizard_phunk
Oct 23, 2003

Alt Girl For Norge
Someone asked whether I had any romantic experiences while in Japan.

I had a huge crush on a kid in my class for about a few months until I understood what he was actually saying. He was a short pretty muscular kid with good hair and a sort of comedian attitude. Complete doofus actually, but I was really longing for some sort of intimate relation with someone.

Halfway into my stay I got in touch with Ryoma, a guy in his twenties. Ryoma had been an apprentice at a bakery and had thusly travelled the world learning about the art of baking bread. We would go around the city shopping for the correct types of flours and grains. This was absurdly amusing to me since bread is a staple in Norway and a delicacy in Japan.

Honestly I thought he was a bit wonky, but I was attracted to him and I liked his hippie-like attitude to life (I was 16 years old, okay!).

This epic romance got as far as hand-holding and a hug. My impression of Japanese "romance" is that it's far removed from sex. Like, in Norway (and the US I would assume), there is a natural trajectory from hand-holding to kissing to intercourse if you're in love with someone. In Japan, I personally got the impression that young people are struggling a lot with getting to "third base" - love is a pure, sweet thing, while sex is violent and bad.

I'm sure there are many different opinions on this. Anyways, Ryoma started his bakery and his obsession with yeast strains got him a career.

peanut
Sep 9, 2007


Nah people gently caress like bunnies, if they can first persuade someone to hang out. Getting the second date is where Japanese youth flounder.

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

lizard_phunk posted:

I grew up in a small town (couple of thousand inhabitants) in Vestfold - really crappy town in the 90's, I would find crackpipes on my way home from school, lots of alcohol- and drug addicts, lots of troubled kids at my school.
Moved to my dad which placed me in buttfuck nowhere Trøgstad, Østfold, where work didn't work out, so we ended up in even more buttfuck nowhere Buskerud (Åmot, Modum to be specific) where the most famous piece of artwork is a wall painting of two elks copulating.

Feel free to write about your exchange - plenty of room in this thread.

Ah, inland buttfuck-nowheres are the worst in Norway; at least the one I grew up in is on the coast. I sometimes think it's unnatural for people to live away from the coast here (saying that, I live away from the coast myself now).

My exchange was, as I said, much less interesting than yours, and much longer ago -- 1989/1990, in the USA, a small town in Kentucky to be more precise. Not much drama with the host family, just emotional isolation, casual racism, childhood obesity and a long drawn-out death (of a grandparent, so at least in a demographic group where that sort of thing is expected). The main similarity I was thinking about was actually the reverse culture shock on my return, which was a bit of a bitch.

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Poop Cupcake
Dec 31, 2005

When you say reverse culture shock, what exactly does that mean? I haven't been in another country long enough to experience it personally, and it's the first time I've heard the term. What kind of things about your home country became strange after staying in Japan for so long?

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