Living in Japan
Why So Many Foreigners Who Move to Japan End Up Hating It
These are five very common reasons why many decide to say sayonara to Japan.
Published in
9 min readApr 19, 2022
“I’m moving back. I’m fed up with this country.”
An acquaintance announced that she was packing her bags and moving home.
“Done and dusted,” she emphasized, with a certain weariness that spoke to her profound disillusionment. She highlighted that she had lived in six countries, and Japan was the worst that she had lived in.
The oft-heard story of the foreigner who moved to Japan, only to hate life in the country is an exceedingly common one. A YouTube video on this phenomenon has already gotten over six million views at the time of writing!
I’ve lived in Japan for close to six years now. I’ve seen foreigners who were initially excited to move to Japan turn quite bitter and ultimately end up hating Japan and leaving the country.
