Originally Posted by Scifience
As everyone else has said, it takes time to get used to the differences. Culture shock is a [insert expletive of choice].
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Honestly, the trick (at least for me) was to simply come to terms with the fact that
it is never really possible for a foreigner to completely assimilate into Japanese society, realise that I will always stand out as "different," and just stop caring so much.
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It'll get better over time and Japan will start to seem more normal and comfortable.
"It'll get better over time and Japan will start to seem more normal and comfortable." -- unless, of course, it doesn't.
Culture shock is a well understood phenomenon. It can be considered an 'acute' psychological reaction. But there is another aspect to this that is not so frequently noted or discussed, which might be described as the 'chronic' form. I call it 'culture fatigue'.
I'm not talking about Japan specifically, as I've never spent any extended time there. But I think my principle applies universally. When an expat (or immigrant) makes the effort, over a period of years, to assimilate into the local culture -- learning the language, adopting the customs, even converting to the religion -- it can be an extremely disheartening realisation when it finally dawns on you that all your emotional investment has been futile and you will never really be accepted as one of them. It is then, much more than at the beginning when everything is strange, that you truly wonder, 'What am I doing here?'.
This obviously does not happen to everyone but neither is it unusual.
cheers,
Henry