You’ve been in Japan too long when…
… you stop noticing all the little (odd) details of Japanese life. One day, though, it hits you that the oddest thing is you yourself, and how much Japan has changed you- partly turning Japanese, partly sinking in the stereotype of the foreigner in Japan and partly finding your own ways to adapt and live with your own life. And so starts the obsession with the signs of whether you’ve been in Japan too long, hence the huge number of such lists on the net. Funnily enough, making such lists is a sure sign that you’ve been here too long! So long that you should go home, or too long to be able to go home? That’s the big question…
Well, here goes with my list, whatever it may mean. Some of them are inevitably insider jokes that you need to have been here for too long to understand, and some probably only I can understand, so to keep the rest of you happy I’ve started with some good old English toilet humour…
“You’ve been in Japan too long when…
… you can’t piss without the sound of waterfalls or bird song, but having a woman mopping around your feet doesn’t put you off at all.
… you make your own rushing water ‘shhh’ and birdsong whistles with your mouth when you go to toilet in your own home.
… you clean your own bathroom while your partner’s still using the toilet.
… you spend more on your new toilet seat than your sofa.
or
… you chisel out your toilet bowl to leave a nice convenient hole in the floor.
And a few others
You’ve been in Japan too long when…
… you are making peace signs in all your wedding photos.
.… your three major food groups are ‘raw’, ‘slippery’ and ‘things with suckers’.
… you are never ever excited by flashing lights in the distance because you know it’s always pachinko
… you’ve paid more than 5 pounds (8 dollars) for a single piece of fruit.
… you wonder what’s wrong if no one stares at you.
… some idiot nearly gets hit by a car by following a jaywalking gaijin across the street without looking first, and that idiot is you.
… using a white handled clear plastic umbrella, having cartoon characters painted on your car, having hair removal at the beauty salon and riding a grandmother’s mama chari bike with baskets all seem non-gender-specific.
Many many more to come…