As you will have noticed from my country flag, I have left Japan and now live in Belgium. I am not planning to live in Japan again soon. But I will of course continue to manage this website and forum with Thomas. I will probably put more emphasis on the European section of the forum, and work more on Eupedia than JREF. Anyhow, I am pretty satisfied with the Japan Travel Guide and various article sections on JREF.

A word now regarding my recent mood and behaviour, and the reasons why I left Japan.

As regular members who have known me for a year of more have noticed, I have been particularily irritable in the last few months, and often lacked patience and tolerance to criticism. I know I have been harsh with some forum members, but that is how I behave when I am stressed and irritated. After all, I am only a human being, and happen to be quite sensitive to stress.

Life in Japan has been stressful overall. In my first year, I had to learn the language intensively, learn as much about the system and culture of the country where I chose to live, got married, had to look for a job, etc. But Japan was new to me and still exciting. The second year was more routine, while I continued to learn everything I could about the country and its people. As I have explained in this post and the following one today, where I come from it is expected of foreign residents (no matter how long they plan to stay) to learn the local language, culture and system, and "to go native". So that's wh I tried to do. I have explained in those posts that the Japanese system is such that it discourages foreigners from becoming "Japanised", as Japanese people will continually treat a long-term foreign resident as the first newly arrived tourist who doesn't know anything about Japan.

This attitude has exasperated me to no end. It has been the object of numerous topics on this forum that showed how it irritated me on a daily basis. I have often associated it with the strong belief of the Japanese people that their culture and language are so unique that foreigners cannot understand it, and their own inability to understand the differences between Westerners (not all are Americans, not all speak English, not all eat hamburgers...). My thoughts on this matter has been expressed, among others, in these topics :

=> Are Japanese more hypocritical with foreigners ? (29 January 2005)
=> Should all Japanese directly address foreigners in Japanese ? (19 February 2005)
=> Common Japanese misconceptions regarding foreigners and foreign countries (9 March 2005)
=> What the Japanese should not say to Westerners (4 April 2005)
=> Why don't the Japanese differentiate more between foreigners ? (19 September 2005)
=> Assumptions that gaijin cannot speak Japanese (at all) (4 October 2005)
=> Cute racism a la japonaise ? (22 November 2005)

(Note that I was in Europe in May and June 2005)

You can see from the date I started these articles that my stress and irritation amplified seriously from early 2005, just after coming back from 2 weeks in my family, where I met many people with my wife and noticed that indeed the attitude they adopted was completely different from the attitude Japanese people have toward me when first introduced. No stupid question, no mistaken stereotypes, no misconceptions or whatsoever about Japan from my family, friends, and I noticed again in the last two weeks, from anybody, from any socio-economic background. If you come from a country where people behave more like the Japanese (I think especially to the USA), it may not bother you. But for me, this Japanese attitude to treat me like a newcomer, even after several years and a lot of learning about the country, was hell.

This was combined with actual experiences of discrimination of my part, including being checked by the police many times for no reason (sometimes to check my bicycle registration, but also to ask my alien registration card). I didn't feel at ease to go out of my house anymore, especially on my bicycle, which was unfortunately necessary for me to move around, given the place where I lived.

=> Have you encountered discrimination or prejudices in Japan ? (29 March 2005)

=> Role of the media in emphasizing racial discrimination (18 October 2005)

There were also other factors, such as noise and annoying or bad-mannered people (yes, in Japan !) :

Do you find life in Japan noisier or quieter than other places where you have lived ? (2 July 2005)

Street manners (30 September 2004)

Bad Japanese manners (8 June 2004)

I therefore apologise for my erratic and overreactive behaviour, and often harsh words, in the last months. Please understand that I was more irritable and frustrated than what is normal. I felt better immediately after leaving Japan and hope to avoid unnecessary disputes on the forum from now on.