Hello everyone,

I am not sure how many people here can answer this question, since this might require a long experience, let´s say, 4 years of Japan, discussion with real Japanese persons, reading books, watching Japanese television etc. to receive a full image of Japanese culture and not only the Japanese culture through drama, anime and manga.

So my opinion on Japan is at the moment on its fourth phase. The opinion in each phase is either positive, neutral or negative.

1. Positive. First I was super excited about everything of Japan. I thought the Japanese people had higher moral than the rest of the world.

2. Negative. I begun to notice the weird and gross stuff eg. sexual perversion. So, the Japanese had the lowest moral of all people.

3. Neutral. Okay, People everywhere are the same. The Japanese just manage to create an illusion they have high moral. All people have the same weird things, westerners do not hide it, Asians manage to hide it quite well. Still, the same weird and bad things exit everywhere.

4. Negative. Japanese people are very formal (exceptions exist) and the discussion is basically exchanging polite expressions forth and back. The discussion has never any depth. It is forbidden to say anything negative and people must think in advance how to behave, act and speak in order not to hurt someone.

Culture note:

If a Japanese person is offended, he/she does not tell about it. Sometimes the only way to know if one has done something bad is to notice that a person suddenly avoids one. Basically, one cannot ever know what one has done wrong, since the hurt person will never tell.

Japanese people do not tell when one makes an error and they do not also tell how things should be done. Eg. "What should I say when that person says something negative?" results most probably in no answer. This has something to do with pride or something.

End of culture note

To learn the social code and correct behaviour I have read that after children are 12-13 years old, people do not anymore forgive them for errors in breaking the social code. So basically a twelve year long education. Imagine being in Japan and it takes twelve years to learn the social code. That is very difficult, if not impossible.

Lately I made up with a guy I had disagreements with. It showed up he was so grown into the Japanese thinking, that every time I broke against a single one the million rules, he was basically hurt. I met with him in northern Europe, so nowhere close to Japan. And yet he had those rules applied to me, I have know way of knowing every single rule of the Japanese social code. So, I made up with him and decided to stay away from him since I cannot anyway fulfill all the social expectations he has on me.

Conclusion: The social life with all the rules and indirectness in Japan might be impossible for me. It is better to watch Japan from the outside through drama, anime, television and Japanese persons living outside Japan. I probably cannot fulfill all the expectations people have on me. I want to express my true feelings, I want to be negative and not fake that I am positive. But no, that all is against the social code. I think in the future I will show more interest to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Macau etc instead.

Those who managed to read all this, comment please.

Thank you in advance.