Have you encountered discrimination or prejudices in Japan ?

[japan*cracked]

I would recommend that anyone coming to Japan thinks about it well before taking the plunge and coming here.I mean if youve got a japanese girlfriend and you have travelled extensively then japan is heaven.Its so safe,people are friendly and there is money everywhere and everyone seems to have it.The problem is that it is a very traditional country and if you are not with somebody japanese then you might (actually WILL) feel like an outsider.Hope that helps..Anyone can make the best out of any given situation and the Japanese are top people..Really!

[Maciamo]

I mean if youve got a japanese girlfriend and you have travelled extensively then japan is heaven.Its so safe,people are friendly and there is money everywhere and everyone seems to have it.

I don't know where you are from, but I rarely had the impression that "there was money everywhere and everyone seems to have it" while I was in Japan. This may be true of the few rich neighbourhoods of Tokyo like Ginza and Marunouchi (indeed where most tourists go), but once you go to the suburbs, or worse, the countryside, my feeling was almost always like I was in a developing country like Thailand (Thailand is definitely the most similar I can think of), with just 10 or 20 years of economic head-start. I suppose it is especially the houses (or hovels), old and cheap-looking taxis, or run-down and poorily lit shops owned by elderly people that made me feel like that. Most of the real estate agencies, pharmacies or clothes shops in my shitamachi neighbourhood of Tokyo looked so old, cheap or run-down that I would just pass my way and look for another one, had I seen them in Europe.

I guess that is why Westerners in Japan usually stick to the "expensive" neighbourhoods of big cities (Azabu, Shirokane, Yoyogi...) and shop in places like Shinjuku, Ebisu, Roppongi Hills, Ginza or Marunouchi. Westerners rarely come to Japan to live in places like Akita or Miyazaki, unless they have to (because that is their girlfriend's hometown or because the JET programme send them there).