My Life is More Interesting Than I Thought It Was
In my last post, I wrote about my yearly review and what it’s like to be a tour guide in Japan. I share a lot about my life, but I probably dip into the category of oversharing. I guess it’s sometimes a good thing my content isn’t popular… sigh. Still, I will share my experience of the difficult challenge of living in Japan.
One thing I often write about is the difficulty of living in Japan. Most of the content about Japan portrays the country in a positive light. Videos, articles, your friends, and even your aunt who visited once on vacation only have good things to say. If there are any complaints, it’s usually something trivial like “there aren’t enough trash cans.” The cold, hard reality is that while Japan might be a wonderful place to visit, living here comes with its own set of struggles and challenges.
Japan’s Loliness Epidemic, The Shared Suffering and Sorrow of The Populous
The entire world seems to be struggling with a loneliness epidemic. This problem feels amplified in Japan, especially in regions like Kanto, where the culture revolves around not upsetting the status quo.
The Nail that sticks out gets hammered
What visitors see as fun cultural experiences—like dining solo at Ichiran Ramen, sitting silently on public transportation, or renting a private karaoke box—are all inherently closed experiences. You’re not expected to interact with anyone outside your immediate party. I sense an almost collective guilt among people here—a fear of being a burden to society. To quote one of my favorite Rakugo performers, “Japanese people are always suffering.”
For foreigners, loneliness can hit even harder. Many English-speaking foreigners, especially younger ones, arrive here in one of three ways. Teaching English, a foreign exchange program, or to complete their college degree. As an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT), you’re often sent to the countryside. This is not bad in itself, but with little Japanese ability, zero cultural understanding, and a limited support network. It’s no wonder so many foreigners struggle with loneliness in their early years.
Eight Years in and I Want Out
In my recent blog posts, I have realized that the amount of people willing to move to a foreign country to uproot their entire life is a small fraction. While moving cities or states is challenging enough, moving countries is especially hard. I chat with a friend from home now and then. She tells me I’m brave to have taken that leap of faith. She wants to move to another country but finds it hard to leave the safety of what has been “home” behind. I’m not sure I’d jump if I had to make the choice again. Was it youth angst, arrogance, or naivety that caused me to? Perhaps a combination of the three.
Why not just leave then? Well, the answer isn’t really that simple. While moving with no possessions is easy. Moving when you have to save up moving costs is more difficult. There is also things like my pension, medications, and other factors that make it a more complicated problem. It’s easy to just buying a plane ticket and arriving home.
I tend to be a downer when I write and reflect on life. That’s probably due to the fact of generally not being happy. While I don’t have a problem being alone for a large majority of my time, being alone and loneliness are two different things. I don’t think I’m exactly happy with my progress in many areas of my life, but I’m doing better than before.
Not Always Alone
Despite all my time in Japan, I’ve managed to make a few friends. I’m not entirely alone. I’ve got people in Nagano, Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama. While I don’t have a large circle—evidenced by the number of RSVPs on my 30th birthday—those friends do exist. To say otherwise would insult them. That said, I’ve never been popular, whether due to my negativity, personality, or something else entirely.
Most of my hobbies—gaming, and motorsports—don’t lend themselves to large social groups. Instead, they’ve helped me cultivate a small circle of like-minded friends.
The sad fact of reality is that a lot of us don’t spend much time doing things we want to do. As a result of our modern, technology-driven, post-industrial, dystopian, almost cyberpunk society we spend a lot of time doing things we have to do. Also known as spending a lot of time at work.
Finally Having Peers In The Workplace
Humans spend a third of their lives at work. It would be nice to have peers in the workplace—something new to me. My job as a tour guide is the first time I’ve had coworkers I can relate to. Granted, we’re spread across the country, but it’s still better than before.
After college, I had peers at work, but that ended when I moved to Japan. As an ALT, I was often the lone young foreigner in a school full of career teachers over forty. My elementary-level Japanese and my refusal to take myself too seriously meant the only relatable people around me were the students. For obvious reasons, that didn’t help the loneliness.
Japan Career Summary
Working at an international school was a slight improvement. The kids were older and came from all over the world. This was refreshing, but I still felt like I was on an island. Once again, all the teachers and office staff were well-established adults in their forties or older. After “being let go because of COVID” (still salty), I had to take a job at a Japanese fabrication shop before landing another position at an international school in Iwate (North Japan).
The feeling of isolation only grew stronger in Iwate. The internet in my apartment was so bad I couldn’t even play online games—something that had helped me stay connected with friends. Most of the people I genuinely bonded with were gamers who hung out on Discord, but without reliable internet, I lost that lifeline.
Once again, all my coworkers were established adults, while I was still a clueless young adult in my twenties, trying to figure out what I wanted out of life. After leaving that job, I floundered in joblessness for almost six months, crashing on my cousin’s couch. During that time, I felt like I had just one person in the world I could relate to. Eventually, I got hired as a tour guide in Japan by a company called 80 Days.
Alone with Your Thoughts
Compared to U.S. workplaces, Japanese offices can feel stifling. Since coming here, I’ve often felt like Kid Cudi’s “Man on the Moon”—a separate entity floating in space, dreaming of better things but struggling with isolation. Being alone with your thoughts isn’t all bad, though. During that time, I wrote blog posts, made art and videos, and even finished some single-player games. The loneliness also pushed me to read, improve my skills, and exercise.
Still, loneliness and being alone aren’t the same. Triumphing alone is like standing at the peak of a mountain; loneliness is like being swallowed by darkness in a cave
I Felt Like I Belonged Somewhere Finally
When I became an ALT, I quickly bonded with other overseas colleagues during our initial training period. We were all thrown into this new experience together, navigating the cultural shock, language barriers, and the surreal feeling of starting fresh in a foreign country. It was like we were our own little makeshift family for a brief moment. But that camaraderie was short-lived, as we were soon scattered across Japan, assigned to different towns, villages, or cities. For many of us, the isolation hit hard once we found ourselves in rural areas with few other foreigners nearby.
Years later, when I attended training for my current job as a tour guide, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years—a sense of belonging. Here was a group of people from all over the world who shared a deep appreciation for Japan. Some of them loved cars, music, or video games, while others were into hiking, tea ceremonies, or history. Unlike my ALT days, this group wasn’t just thrown together by circumstance; we had all chosen this path because we wanted to be here because we were passionate about what we were doing.
For once, I didn’t feel like the odd one out. My scattered interests—whether it’s motorsports, gaming, or photography—didn’t feel out of place in this group. Instead, I found myself connecting with people who had their own unique stories and passions. Conversations weren’t just polite small talk; they were rich and meaningful. It felt like the first time in years that I was part of something bigger, with people who actually understood where I was coming from.
Social Lubricant
After getting to know the other guides, I finally felt like I had peers again, something I hadn’t experienced since working at the Children’s Museum. Months later, during the busy season, I found myself drifting back into the same feelings of isolation I had experienced when the ALT group was dispersed across the country. The rush of work and lack of consistent connection with others had started to take its toll.
One of my senior tour leaders, noticing I had a rare free day, invited me out for drinks at a bar he helped to manage. I don’t want to sound like an alcoholic, but there’s something about sharing a few beers that opens the door to conversations you don’t typically have otherwise. After a couple of rounds, we both started talking and sharing about our lives in a way that only happens when the mood is relaxed, and the words come a little easier. It was the kind of conversation where the alcohol wasn’t the focus—it was just a social lubricant that helped us both reflect and connect on a deeper level.
Yeah . . .Your Old Boss Sounded Pretty Involved. . .
Over drinks one night, a senior tour leader and I vented about busy season frustrations. I probably said something existential like, “How did my life end up this way?” After some silence and more beer, he replied, “Think of it this way: a lot of people say they’re going to travel, and here you are. Also… your old boss in the countryside? Might’ve been involved in extracurricular activities.”
I took a minute to pause and think. Everyone is on their own path in life. Although I wasn’t where I wanted to be financially, my life had been fun and interesting. No sane person perceives their own life as very interesting, but after reflection, I continued.
Oh That Makes Sense
“Wait… my old boss did have me wash his car a lot, and he had tattoos… oh.” We both laughed as I slowly realized my former boss might have had ties to a certain Japanese organization. That explained a lot: the coworker who vanished overnight, the manager who said he “couldn’t leave,” and the cryptic night meetings.
In hindsight, I’m thankful I left that job before anything sketchy happened. The pay and hours were bad, anyway. I laughed and said, “Well, I guess my life is more interesting than I thought.”
Living in Japan isn’t the dream many make it out to be, but it’s taught me resilience and perspective. The struggle for connection is universal, but maybe it’s those small, fleeting moments of shared understanding that make the effort worthwhile.
