It's not brain surgery, people
I hate it when people nit-pick and bitch about how hard living in Japan is.
OK, so I just made a bitchy post about the train system failure a few days ago... but that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's just that people act so damn helpless. I read LJ's of other expats and wonder, why the hell are you even here? If it's so fucking hard, why don't you go back to America where everyone speaks your devil tongue fluently (except for the illegal Mexicans! :D)
I want them to shut the hell up.
"Oh, it's so hard to take the trains!" Shut up. No it isn't. There are maps everywhere in English, there are signs in English, there are station employees who often speak enough English to help you if you're too retarded to figure it out on your own. If you have a phone, you can use the phone internets to plan your route and avoid getting lost. If you don't have a phone, you can plan out where you're going in advance and check it on the real internets.
"Oh, it's so hard to order at restaurants/fast food places!" JESUS. SHUT UP. You have an index finger, POINT AT WHAT YOU WANT and they will bring it to you. Alternatively, you can learn to read katakana/hiragana and a few basic phrases, which will allow you to order 70% of food items on menus at food-related establishments.
"...but I hate it when I go to McDonald's and the people at the register automatically flip the menu over to the English side! It's discrimination!" I HATE YOU SHUT UP. Come on, the staff there deals with people who speak 0 Japanese all day long! How are they supposed to know that you can read the basic alphabet and know a few phrases for ordering? It's not like you have "I CAN ORDER IN JAPANESE :DDDD" written on your forehead or glowing on a neon sign right above your head. Of course they're flipping the menu over to the English side. They're doing it to be polite and save both of you some trouble, so STFU.
"It's so hard to get a boyfriend here!/It's so hard to have a serious relationship here!" What the hell are you talking about? Japanese men are the easiest in the world to have relationships with. If you're willing to date them, you have it made, unless you are such a hideous ugly gorgon (or psycho ) that even Japanese men aren't willing to touch you. And if you are a hideous ugly gorgon (or psycho), then of course none of the foreign people here teaching English are going to want you... but chances are that if you are such a hideous ugly gorgon, even men in America won't want you, so it's not that it's hard to have a relationship here, it's that it's hard to have a relationship anywhere. Trim your unibrow and go to Roppongi and you'll find lots of guys willing to have a, uh, relationship with you. Foreign girls are lucky-- we can get awesome guys. It's the foreign guys who end up with lots of gross girls that only go out with foreign people because Japanese guys don't want them (because the girls are nuts, but we won't get into that).
Seriously, why even bother living abroad if you're going to have such a horrible attitude about it? Give up, go home, do boring work in your own country where you never have to use your brain for things like ordering your super-sized big mac meal because everything is in your native language.
Argh.
[EDIT] I just wanted to mention that even though I my Japanese is very good now-- good enough to have conversations with people who know not a word of English, good enough to order food items not written in katakana or by pointing, good enough to shriek angrily at people who grope me on the train, etc. However, the first time I came to Japan, "konnichiwa" was about the extent of my Japanese, and I got along just fine not being able to communicate in Japanese.
This country is very easy to live in.
[EDIT #2] Fixed some really dorky typos caused (I say) by sleep deprivation.
OK, so I just made a bitchy post about the train system failure a few days ago... but that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's just that people act so damn helpless. I read LJ's of other expats and wonder, why the hell are you even here? If it's so fucking hard, why don't you go back to America where everyone speaks your devil tongue fluently (except for the illegal Mexicans! :D)
I want them to shut the hell up.
"Oh, it's so hard to take the trains!" Shut up. No it isn't. There are maps everywhere in English, there are signs in English, there are station employees who often speak enough English to help you if you're too retarded to figure it out on your own. If you have a phone, you can use the phone internets to plan your route and avoid getting lost. If you don't have a phone, you can plan out where you're going in advance and check it on the real internets.
"Oh, it's so hard to order at restaurants/fast food places!" JESUS. SHUT UP. You have an index finger, POINT AT WHAT YOU WANT and they will bring it to you. Alternatively, you can learn to read katakana/hiragana and a few basic phrases, which will allow you to order 70% of food items on menus at food-related establishments.
"...but I hate it when I go to McDonald's and the people at the register automatically flip the menu over to the English side! It's discrimination!" I HATE YOU SHUT UP. Come on, the staff there deals with people who speak 0 Japanese all day long! How are they supposed to know that you can read the basic alphabet and know a few phrases for ordering? It's not like you have "I CAN ORDER IN JAPANESE :DDDD" written on your forehead or glowing on a neon sign right above your head. Of course they're flipping the menu over to the English side. They're doing it to be polite and save both of you some trouble, so STFU.
"It's so hard to get a boyfriend here!/It's so hard to have a serious relationship here!" What the hell are you talking about? Japanese men are the easiest in the world to have relationships with. If you're willing to date them, you have it made, unless you are such a hideous ugly gorgon (or psycho ) that even Japanese men aren't willing to touch you. And if you are a hideous ugly gorgon (or psycho), then of course none of the foreign people here teaching English are going to want you... but chances are that if you are such a hideous ugly gorgon, even men in America won't want you, so it's not that it's hard to have a relationship here, it's that it's hard to have a relationship anywhere. Trim your unibrow and go to Roppongi and you'll find lots of guys willing to have a, uh, relationship with you. Foreign girls are lucky-- we can get awesome guys. It's the foreign guys who end up with lots of gross girls that only go out with foreign people because Japanese guys don't want them (because the girls are nuts, but we won't get into that).
Seriously, why even bother living abroad if you're going to have such a horrible attitude about it? Give up, go home, do boring work in your own country where you never have to use your brain for things like ordering your super-sized big mac meal because everything is in your native language.
Argh.
[EDIT] I just wanted to mention that even though I my Japanese is very good now-- good enough to have conversations with people who know not a word of English, good enough to order food items not written in katakana or by pointing, good enough to shriek angrily at people who grope me on the train, etc. However, the first time I came to Japan, "konnichiwa" was about the extent of my Japanese, and I got along just fine not being able to communicate in Japanese.
This country is very easy to live in.
[EDIT #2] Fixed some really dorky typos caused (I say) by sleep deprivation.