5 Things I Learned about Japan after My Trip Home
The best way to learn about a place’s uniqueness is to contrast it with another
After you’ve been living in Japan for a while, some of the quirks of Japan that would have sounded the culture shock alarm fade into the background and lose their novelty.
On my recent trip home to Singapore, I had my reverse culture shock moment. I had been stuck in Japan for over 2.5 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These things made me appreciate some unique things about Japan, and I also made new observations.
After all, traveling somewhere else is a great way to gain clarity and objectivity. A fish doesn’t know it’s living in water until it’s taken out of it.
Japan has been experiencing deflation for so long that inflation feels odd
For decades, Japan has been plagued by deflation.
A good thing for senior citizens who are retired, since the real purchasing power of their savings increases — and there are a lot of them in Japan. But not fantastic at all for younger folks since deflation puts a damper on their wage increments.
