What is your impression about Japan and Japanese?

Question:

Answer:

Oh gosh... well it's hard for me to generalise. Everyone everywhere is different and has their own traits and personality and beliefs. I love Japan and a lot of Japanese culture, but I don't think it's flawless.

I love the fashion in Japan. Yes it can be very label-focused or a bit gaudy, but I was amazed at how well-dressed everyone looks! I mean, everybody seemed to wear their best and take a lot of pride in their appearance, which is great. Personally speaking, I find a lot of Japanese very attractive to look at as well.

I think the work culture in Japan is awful. I could see people sitting in their offices till quite late at night, and I know a lot of this is down to cultural pressure to stay longer or until the boss leaves, and not necessarily be working hard all those hours. Everyone walking along in the same suits at rush hour... that would really grind me down.

People-wise... well, there's such a mix and I hate to paint everyone with the same brush. The politeness is good, but personally I found it a little stiff and unnerving at times. Maybe a little two-faced sometimes (I mean people come across as polite, but you think that it's forced). Some genuinely lovely people too, who go to embarrassingly extreme lengths to help out!
I would prefer bowing to shaking hands... probably more hygienic!

I think the attitude to foreigners is often at best naive and at worst unhealthy and damaging. The impression I got is that a lot of Japanese people feel foreign people are like another species... and honestly, people are not that different wherever you go. I was so embarrassed and unnerved by being stared at and photographed all the time! Sometimes it was kind of nice, because people would be very sweet but other times the attention was really horrible and I even got forced out of a cafe by this old guy once in Kyoto.... A lot of xenophobia around. I'd stress that not everyone was like this though.

Tokyo is a lot more boring than I thought it would be! A lot of this 'crazy' stuff that people outside Japan think you can buy/do there is pretty hard to find, or rather I've seen a lot of the same things here in the UK. I didn't really like Tokyo at all. The teenage girls in Harajuku are also often pretty intimidating and a lot of them seem very vain. One even bared her teeth at me!

I like a lot of the food, even natto and omochi, which I don't think a lot of foreigners would like. Some of the traditional food's a bit bland, but still pleasant to eat.

There are so many electricity lines around! When I think of Japan I think of electricity/telephone wires! I know this is because of potential damage to underground cables in earthquakes.

Hakone/Mt Fuji has a lot of tourist traps... and lots of cheesy gift shops!

Trying to think of what else... Well, basically I think Japan is a really interesting place because it can be so different to the UK. It intrigues me. The art is beautiful, as is much of the literature and history. I love reading about the Heian period, and the poems. The mix of old and new- postmodernism- in Japan is really something else.

I have a lot of impressions!