this was recently asked on an e-mail group i belong to. i didn't answer there, because i wasn't sure what i could say. the person who posed the question really seemed to be in a downward trend in culture shock, and i didn't want to make her more upset with my answer.
i've been thinking about it for the past few days, though. my answer, no japan does not feel like home. there are many many reasons why, but i don't think i have the time (or energy) right now to answer them all. one thing, though, is my inability to have japanese girlfriends. why is that?? not that every foreign woman i meet becomes a bosom buddy, but i have quite a few canadian, american, british, kiwi and australian friends, but no japanese. i think it has something to do with me, but there you go. although, this evening we were out while the neighbors were, with their kids, and now the woman around the corner and i have plans to go to costco tomorrow. hm.
one person on the e-mail group said she didn't feel like japan was her home until her daughter was born. but i don't have that same feeling. too often, when i go out with my kids, it's almost like a traveling side-show. i know my kids are gorgeous, but getting so much unwarranted attention is annoying. and divisive. hm.
it's funny, because the other day i was telling a very close friend how i just didn't feel like an adult. here i am, nearing 35 and i feel like i'm playing at grown-up. i don't feel like this is my house, my car, my job (although i do like being a SAHM, it's not forever, and to be honest, spending so much time with my beautiful, but ACTIVE, children is exhausting and i almost want to get a job just to get a break!! lol) and i don't know when i'll feel like i'm there. i used to think i was still a ten-year-old in a older body, but these days i think i'm more like sixteen. not feeling at home at japan probably contributes to me feeling like a child.
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some time ago, chelle asked about wii fit. i am embarrassed to say that i haven't used it much lately. lol the main reason is i just don't have time! it's fun, but i'm not progrssing, since i'm not getting any exercise otherwise, and wii fit seems to be more for training (yoga and simple exercises) than burning fat (although that's what the running and hula hoop is for.) i *have* been getting up earlier, now that yoshi is getting up earlier, so maybe, once my body has adjusted to this new time, i can do some wii training in the morning before the kids wake up.
also, the kids have discovered my neighbor totoro, and we've watched that at least four times a day every day this week! and, if they're awake when i get out the wii, they want me to do the ball balance game, and nothing else!
March 27, 2024
22 hours ago
5 comments:
>when i go out with my kids, it's almost like a traveling side-show
J overheard me telling my mum the other day that whenever I go out with K and R the dog, I feel like (and get treated like) a circus act! He said "what do you mean by circus" and I explained, but I don't think he quite got it, lol.
I can only image the reaction to you going out with 3 kids (and gorgeous kids at that!) You're a brave woman for even leaving the house (lol)
I so want a wii fit!
Although time is a factor here too. When I play the wii my daughter is all over me!
When we lived in the US it never ever felt like home and i was totally relieved to come back to Canada. I can only imagine what it is like there. Plus ... not to be crass but some Japanese women are SO RUDE! (not that all races do not have rude people!) My husband is "half" Japanese and I still got slack form some women in CANADA.
We're also on a Totoro jag over here!
I only made friends with Japanese women who were wholly uninterested in English and foreigners. But those tend to be the women who shy away from you if you're foreign...I just happened to be around for other reasons and we hit it off...
But I always hit a point where I felt like I HAD to get out of Japan, at least for awhile.
I can totally relate to you feeling as if you are playing 'grown-up'. I was just the same until I started to work again and got a bit more Japanese under my belt. Up until that point, everything of importance had to be done by my husband so it was like being 'mothered' all over again.
As for J friends, I think I've said it before but I never had any until the kids started kindergarten or school so there is still time for it to happen. Yes there are those who just want to be your friend for the exotic/English experience but there are a lot of others who are just like us - lonely and looking for a friend.
After 25 years of living here, Japan does feel like home now and I doubt I'd ever go back to the UK to live - another country maybe, but not the UK! That's not to say that I always feel totally accepted or don't have bad days but most days are good. Again, once your kids are a bit older and you have time to do things for yourself, things will get better. (I was a SAHM for 11 years and the last few of those I was demented!)
I feel like a child here because no one will take me seriously and treat me like a grownup no matter how long I am here or what I say and do.
I have been here almost 15 years, more often than not know what I am doing better than most of the Japanese people(women) around me, can function just fine language wise, but end up feeling like I am 3 years old because of the attitude people give me all the time. You know the one where they are constantly asking me if I and everything about and related to me is "daijoubu" because it is different from them and theirs. Their refusing to listen to me when I make suggestions or offer advice to the questions they have raised, even when I know exactly what the answer is - like how to get somewhere by bus in our city. The talking down to me like I am mentally challenges simply because I didn't know one word out of the 1000 they just said. Their sticking me in a neat little cubby hole where they think I belong based on something stupid like how wore my hair that day or what I packed in my kid's lunches.
It is endless the way this society makes me feel like a child, which totally pisses me off because, despite being married, in almost every way I am living life as independent single mother in a country that seems to go out of its way to make things more difficult for me, yet I always overcome the challenges by myself. Still I am treated like a child here.
I doubt I will ever feel this is home because home to me is an envirmonment that helps me feel good about myself. Here I have to find ways to feel good about myself despite my environment and the people around me.
Having kids enter school didn't change much for me in the way of friendships with Japanese women. I really and truly do not like most Japanese women and make no apologies about it. I like who I like and most of the Japanese women I have met over the years just end up irritating me. At kindy I have found a few that annoy me less than most so I call them friends for lack of a better word, but they aren't really my friends. Everyone has a different definition of what friendship is though I guess.
Having said all that I am not miserable here, most days happy, and have plenty of foreign friends. I guess my point it that if you are going to live here for a long time, you are going to have to find a way to make yourself feel valuable and at home, at least in your own house, for your own peace of mind. I think a large part of that is accepting that you feel the way you feel and that there is nothing wrong with feeling that way, despite what some other foreigners might say or think, and then moving on.
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