Love hate relationship with Japan..
 

If you are to name just ONE thing you love, and ONE thing you hate about Japan, what will it be??

For me, the LOVE will be its elaborate transportation system

The hate will probably be not being able to drive there...

whats yours???

hmm..love how fashionable and healthy most people are and their general heightened sense of maturity compared to folks back home

hate the weather in summer. hate it hate it hate it, mostly due to the humidity

I also love the transportation system; absolutely fabulous.

I also HATE the heat and humidity in the dead of summer.

best,

.................john

Why wouldn't you be able to drive here? I drive here all the time, even changed my international license to a full on Japanese one

My answers are:

I love the way sex is viewed in this culture.
I hate, well it's a tie between tatemae and how infrequently friends hang out

I take that back.. I could drive.. but am pretty challenged by the rules and some etiquette that i am not used to... So I only did that like twice and gave up.. plus the elaborate transit system means I don't have to drive :)

I sometimes drive there....... on an international lic., but ONLY out in the country. Can't Imagine driving in a big city!!!! :eek:

best,

..............john

Yeah, thats what I did... around nikko, i drove up and down irohazaka once.. thats about it

i am now getting my 2nd license so i could drive a bike also and my instructor said it took him just 30 minutes to get used to "wrong side" driving. said that the hardest part was figuring out roundabouts and that is it.


i have never been to Japan but i can tell already one thing i don't like (not hate) based on my other travels. i can't stand these XXXL city sizes. city of 500k who are spread out is still ok, but when you get to millions and buildings with 30 or more stories, then i am uncomfortable.

like? many things.

I love the food!

I hate the humid summers, the lack of central heating in the winter, the torrential rainstorms and those huge wasps which can pick up a small child.

The perfect life for me would be to live in Canada in the winter and summer and live in Japan in the spring and fall.

the only difficult part of driving on the other side was driving when sleepy,
that's when auto-pilot turns on, but the first small mistake sends a good burst of adrenaline through you lol

having the steering wheel on the other side is usually plenty of a reminder to also drive on the other side,

oh and throwing the wipers on instead of the indicator, on a sunny day, that sucks

driving around Kyoto and other older parts of Japan is a little tough with the ultra-narrow streets, then again the K-cars are like go-carts lol

I love the food... not only the unique flavors and delicacies, but the variety. That is both Japanese food, as well as Indian, Brazilian, Thai, Chinese, French, Italian, etc.

I also love the collector spirit.

I didn't like that if I wanted to stay out passed midnight I had to stay out all night, or take an expensive taxi home.

[quote=MMM;875792]
I also love the collector spirit.
QUOTE]

What do you mean???

I agree to your point with staying past midnight, but then I am not a night person, so it doesn't bother me..

Looks like Humidity is up there on everyone's hate list:) Doesn't bother me though, probably because I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Asia, pretty used to it

These types of questions are always hard for me to answer as I end up spending too much time trying to recall stuff from Life Before Japan so that my answers are Japan specific and not just things I love and hate about life.

But that is a pain, so here are my answers of the moment.

I love feeling safe pretty much anywhere I go. I love being able to just walk over to the local combini in the middle of the night without worrying about what could be lurking in the shadows. I love being able to go anywhere and not be concerned about whether it is a "bad part of town". An extension of this is the lack of a mainstream drug culture, which is a seriously big thing for me having grown up in the thick of it...

Something I hate... Besides the heat and the frustration of Cool Biz at the moment - I hate how schools do not tell you anything until the last minute. I HATE having to run all over town to find something we need tomorrow. If you are going to need six toilet paper rolls and three empty milk cartons... Tell me more than two days ahead, please. I do not drink milk and use toilet paper at that pace. :rolleyes:


ETA; I personally love driving in Japan. I love driving tiny little roads in the mountains, I love road trips here. Trains are great, but there are so many fascinating places that are too far from stations to be easy to get to.

I love the fact no one really gets in your face about anything. No beggars walking up to you and saying,"Hey, got a quarter/dollar?"

I hate the fact that, being a big guy, I can't buy any clothes there. A Japanese XL is a L and a XXL is an XL, etc. I like to wear t-shirts a size bigger and I find it hard to buy XXL items there, especially sports-related merchandise because it's not usual for a buy guy to wander in. Why stock what won't readily sell?

I just thought I'd add those because they're not the "normal" answers people here will give....

I love shouchu topped up with fanta grape. The best thing about Japan for me is the theme tunes the trains have.

I hate when the temperature goes higher than 20℃.

Oh yeah. Done that a few times. :D

best,

................john

Japan breeds collecting and hobbying. There are entire stores, conventions and magazines dedicated to everything collectable. Look how JR puts different shinkansen on different lines. They start 'em young with Stamp Rallies all around (getting a free stamp book, and you have to travel from place to place to get stamps and them redeem for a prize). Go to practically anyone's house and ask to see their manga... invariably there will be a series 20+ volumes long they have collected. Whether it is trains, toys, comics, motorcycles... you name it, you can collect it in Japan.

Oh, collectors as in, well collectors.. i thought you mean something else..

Yeah, I do railway model and collect figures myself..

I suppose thats also something i love about japan...

Love tokusatsu.

Hate...racist old men. That'll do.

Loves: quality of food (other than japanese), cleanliness, safety, service (both from stores and restaurants), being able to drink in public, onsens, public transport

Dislikes (i don't like the word hate): humidity, the way nomikai are seen as a requirement almost..and the frequency that they keep people away from their families, uhh can't think of much atm

I love the climate of Hokkaido including the summer which is nowhere near as hot and humid as Honshu.
I hate dealing with any government bureaucracy in Japan, be it local, prefectural or federal!

I think that is universal, and not just with Japan.

I like the food :> and I also enjoy how different it is from America in some aspects~

Not digging the bullying and the nothing being done about it (at least from my experience).

Bullying by???

he means schools. actually japanese media shows it a lot as far as anime and movies go. i've read online the same thing from exchange teachers. not only kids are really nasty to each other but sometimes they can drive their teachers almost to brink of suicide.i think it has something to do with that in japan teacher isn't allowed to send students out of class if they misbehave and there are almost no other methods allowed to "punish" them.

well, that is what i've read. and sounds like this thing isn't as unusual as it might seem.

Love the nightlife - Hate that trains don't run all night.
Love the language - Hate that people assume I can't speak it.
Love the beaches - Hate the humidity.
Love the traditional customs/culture - Hate that foreign customs/culture are taboo.
Love the junk food - Hate the real food.

ok. i just have to ask. now i am sitting at my store and like 5min ago a Japanese women walked in. looked like she was in her 60's.
so. does Japan view burps and farts differently? because she burped out loud some 7 times and one time farted. and i don't know what to make of it.

because this could go on my hate list if it is more or less a general thing.

but other than that she was funny. :cool:

Ahaaaa. You have likely been introduced to the concept of "obaasan". If she looked 60 to you, likely she was 70 or 80. Older women, after a lifetime of basically being subservient to just about everyone in the traditional structure (except daughter-in-law), are sort of "above" a lot of the traditional constraints. And they often revel in this.

Watch out for them riding bikes; they will run you over with glee. :ywave:

best,

.............john

What foreign customs are taboo?

The food is great and delicious.
Unfortunately airport (like Narita) isn't open 24 hours like in Singapore or some other Asiatic countries. It would be good in case you have a very early flight, so you could enjoy last hours there....buying souvenirs/gifts, shopping, enjoying drinks, foods etc.
I prefer not only to sleep 2-3 hours in a hotel! I could really sleep during the flight..:)

Tattoos, dyeing hair, shoes in the house, whatever.

These are a "Custom"????

My original quote said "culture" as well.

I agree with your other points but this one confuses me lol ><

I had the opposite feeling coming here.
the sukiyaki, sushi, nabe, kushikatsu, etc I all loved
Izakaya were good too and served better food than 99% of pubs I went to back home,
the junk food felt like watered down tasteless versions of western junk food to me

Of course if I went with plain stuff like ramen, gyudon, yakiniku, etc, that stuff is kind of impossible not to like. But you can only eat the same kinds of food so many times. My first problem is just my own dietary needs; I don't eat seafood (from both allergies and just not liking the stuff I can eat) so it whacks a lot of foods here. The other problems are the limited variety of foods (both in Japanese cuisine and the availability of foreign foods).

Sure but I made a point of it because Japan took it to a whole new level than what I was used to.

like: food
dislike: very hot and humid weather

i think this could summarize my two week trip in japan over a year ago.

I love...the way they use their money. i love the yukata. i love the store shimamura. i love the food. the traditional sweets. the old ladies with purple hair.

I hate the traditional toilets. Oh my GOD.

Kayci reminded me of another one.
I love that you can pay for even the smallest things with a 10,000 note. - I hate that the lowest note is 1,000.

Dying hair? But loads of Japanese people have dyed their hair.