Why I left Japan after 10 years

I have no idea about "deliberately", but I also experienced a far lower typical level of english than what I would have expected.

In my former job I had regular meetings with japanese engineers, as my ex-company had contracted a big project to a big japanese company. I was fresh out of university (in germany), and expected that conversation in english for engineering projects was just standard thing and no big problems should arise. However in those meetings I unfortunately realized, that that's still not the case internationally. We had lots of meetings where the persons on the other end of the phone call could only read out their prepared slides and further discussion was not possible since our questions were not understood. Situations where we had to wait for 20 minutes for simple questions to be answered were also common. And often it was still not obvious after the answer if the other side really understood the question. So the best strategy was to create a written summary with very simply and direct language use afterwards and ask for confirmation again.

That said things got better during the years, and least in my last regular meetings there were some (presumably younger) engineers and project managers on the other side with a solid level of english.

I'm with you on national, racial and cultural identity being fluid imprecise concepts. It's tangential to the point I was making in this post. But there's only so much appending of extra information/editing I can do and still communicate reasonably well in a reasonable amount of time.

The simplified version of there being eight permutations of being racially/nationally/culturally Japanese are lost on a lot of people. Here I was referring to the shorthand version where all those things are unquestionable ticked boxes.

In general aren't people only referred to as American in America when they have the nationality box ticked?

> Japan is not involved in all the military conflicts in the Middle East regions where terrorism is based, and so does not show up on the target list of IS and other groups,

It does actually. IS beheaded a Japanese journalist in 2015[0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Goto

Japan does have terrorist incidents, they just tend to be linked to other, non-Islamic sources, such as Buddhist cults or Korean protestors.

Lived in Tokyo for 5 years, doing business there for 8. I strongly disagree with many of the claims in this article. Many of them are absurd or simply untrue, so I’ll just pick a couple here.

     “At every place I ever worked, however, I was always referred to by my first name “Adrian” or at best “Adrian San” even by much younger staff members.”

I worked as a software dev at 2 very traditional Japanese companies. I was usually referred to “First name” - san, sometimes as “Family name”-san. Close friends or colleagues would sometimes call me by first name. I’m quite sure this is due to Japanese people’s misunderstanding of first and second names in the West. If you introduce yourself as Adrian, they will probably call you Adrian-san as they may not be sure if it’s your first name or family name. That’s how their own naming convention works, as you can see by observing how they introduce themselves. They are not purposely trying to offend you or show a “lack of disrespect”!

     “I was stopped many times just walking down a street minding my own business, often surrounded by 3 or more officers who stood within a few feet of me and did their best to be as intimidating as possible. “

I was never stopped once in 8 years, nor were any of my many Western friends. All my dealings with the police were pleasant, they were always respectful and willing to help me.

     “Bag searches are common practice “

No. They’re not.

     “a police force that was ordered by 3 time former Tokyo Governor Mr. Ishihara to “regard all foreigners as suspicious”? “

Shintaro Ishihara is an extreme right wing, xenophobic lunatic. This is a guy who also blamed Japanese people for the 2011 earthquake stating, that “punishment from heaven' because Japanese have become greedy”, and denies that the Nanjing massacre ever happened. He is unpopular even in Japan and is hardly a credible data point.

     “It is not that uncommon, even in Tokyo, to see shops, bars or other establishments with “No foreigners””

This is also not true. They do exist, but it is not common. (I would struggle to think of anywhere in the thousands of place I’ve been to in Tokyo and greater Japan).

     “Don’t, for example even get me started on cycling in Tokyo.”

Have you tried cycling in Dublin? Or Paris? I think the author is just searching for things to complain about now.

     “The level of English in Japan is shockingly low, despite everyone studying it for 6 years at school. I honestly think it is kept deliberately low”

This is the quote that actually prompted me to reply, because it is so absurd and divorced from reality. Does the author actually believe that the Japanese government would systematically prevent their nation in becoming fluent in English? Their domestic market is shrinking and so they need their companies to expand outside Japan if they are to survive at all (just look at the disasters at Toshiba, Sharp etc.)

On the contrary, METI (i.e. the Japanese government) have actually rolled out a new program since 2014 to reform the English education system in Japan to address the poor level of English. Not to mention that Tokyo will host the Olympics in 2020 and the lack of English will be a national embarrassment if they don’t get their act together. To suggest that English is “kept deliberately low” indicates that the author is delusional at best.

Some of the points made by the author are valid, particularly regarding gender equality and sexual exploitation. Japan has serious issues there that renders it very outdated and alienated from modern societies.

However during my time living there (and still today as I do business in Japan regularly), I made lasting friendships and formed incredibly close and rich relationships with many Japanese people. I’ve attended their weddings and dined at home with them and their children. I find Japanese people (for the most part) to be extremely kind, helpful and considerate. Of course there are some unpleasant and offensive people, but that is no different to any other country in the world. Therefore I needed to challenge this misinformation, out of respect for the many Japanese people who have been so good to me over the years.

I’m surprised that the author lived there for so long, and still came away with such a distorted and narrow point of view. Overall, this article portrays years of pent-up frustration and homesickness by the author. I hope that a break in London will help to see things in a different light.

Every new person I meet would assume I'm a foreigner. That's what gives rise to the feeling of being "forever a foreigner". You never escape it. It's very simple.