> You will never be completely trusted as a foreigner in Japan, nor will you ever completely fit in.
In my experience this is not really true (though if you read it literally, then it is ;-) ). If you speak, read, write and act like a Japanese person, then people will treat you as if you are Japanese. You will fit in. There are racist people in Japan, but not any more than I've seen in any other country. Japanese culture being what it is, you also won't really experience blatant racism out in the open even if you meet racists.
Having said that, attitudes are much different in the big city than the countryside. When I go to Tokyo or Osaka, everyone initially expects me to be a tourist. When I'm at home in rural Shizuoka, everyone expects that I live there (because there aren't a lot of foreign tourists). But even in Tokyo or Osaka after talking to someone for more than about 10 seconds they know that I live permanently in Japan and treat me that way.
My Japanese is not even that good (although I am very fluent in the areas where I have fluency). I rarely make social mistakes any more and people treat me just like they treat everyone else. I fit in here more than I fit in anywhere else in the world.
If you have difficulty fitting in, then it's likely that you're missing some nuance. Since nobody spells it out for you, it's definitely hard to figure out, but not impossible. You just need to watch what other people do in that situation and then start doing the same thing. The other main thing is to feel OK about being Japanese -- which a lot of foreigners don't in my estimation.
I actually meant it literally -- you get extremely close to completely fitting in but the problem is, as soon as you travel to a place you've never been to or hang with people you've never met, you're back to step one and you feel like you're on the outside again. This dissonance grates on me (and I think it would on anyone), and there's no one you can really rightfully blame.
This is something that I feel the US really gets right -- once you're an American citizen, you're an American and that's that -- no one generally asks where you're from unless they're trying to get to know you. This might have more to do with how America was formed, because it just is a country made up of a lot of people from other countries in relatively recent history, but it makes sense that Japan can't really do this with how homogenous they are.
There's a ton of nuance, and mileage varies a ton from person to person in their interpersonal interaction in any country which is why I was so literal with what I said -- most people I've met would agree with the literal statement.
Fair enough. I agree with the literal statement too, but I think it's a bit misleading for people who don't get the context. For what it's worth, not very many people ask me where I'm from and when they do I say Shizuoka. Nobody has asked the obvious follow up question.
> You will never be completely trusted as a foreigner in Japan, nor will you ever completely fit in.
In my experience this is not really true (though if you read it literally, then it is ;-) ). If you speak, read, write and act like a Japanese person, then people will treat you as if you are Japanese. You will fit in. There are racist people in Japan, but not any more than I've seen in any other country. Japanese culture being what it is, you also won't really experience blatant racism out in the open even if you meet racists.
Having said that, attitudes are much different in the big city than the countryside. When I go to Tokyo or Osaka, everyone initially expects me to be a tourist. When I'm at home in rural Shizuoka, everyone expects that I live there (because there aren't a lot of foreign tourists). But even in Tokyo or Osaka after talking to someone for more than about 10 seconds they know that I live permanently in Japan and treat me that way.
My Japanese is not even that good (although I am very fluent in the areas where I have fluency). I rarely make social mistakes any more and people treat me just like they treat everyone else. I fit in here more than I fit in anywhere else in the world.
If you have difficulty fitting in, then it's likely that you're missing some nuance. Since nobody spells it out for you, it's definitely hard to figure out, but not impossible. You just need to watch what other people do in that situation and then start doing the same thing. The other main thing is to feel OK about being Japanese -- which a lot of foreigners don't in my estimation.