I’m sorry to comment on such an old thread, but I was clearing out the posts I tagged “watch comments” in my reader, and it was really disappointing to have that be the last comment. :)

My family relocated to Hong Kong when I was 13-years old. I am an Asian-American and was 5’1″ and about 115 lbs at that time. My schoolmates there teased me relentlessly and called me “fat girl” in both English and Cantonese on a daily basis. It was, needless to say, a traumatic experience. I had never had issues with my body before that.

A few years later found me teaching English in Japan. My weight never exceeded 130 lbs while I was there (the max I reached due to late night visits to the convenience store on the corner and the bakery I had to pass on my way home). No one ever commented negatively on it as people had done on a regular basis in Hong Kong. I had no trouble finding clothing to fit in Japan, even at that weight, which by the sound of today’s standards would just barely be acceptable. In Hong Kong I always bought clothing at the night markets where you could find “One Size Fits All” or as my family joked, “One Size Fits None.” My brother joked that by Chinese standards, I was morbidly obese.

Strangely enough, I felt better accepted in Japan than I ever did in Hong Kong, which I didn’t expect. It’s also interesting to me to see the number of people who have immigrated to the US from Hong Kong and are now fat like the Americans they made fun of. I like to see what’s in their baskets while standing in the checkout lane in Costco.

Perhaps there was a language problem?

I seriously doubt it. I was in the office several times, and there weren’t any real problems with communication. I speak Japanese and he spoke a bit of English. I always prepared for appointments by taking notes on what my problem was and looking up medical terms I didn’t know that might come up beforehand. I made sure that what I wanted to say was communicated properly. However, I think one of the problems may have been that the doctor was scared of dealing with a foreigner; I was the only one who lived in town and he always seemed REALLY nervous whenever I came in (small town of 9,000 in a really rural area). Not very many 21-22 year olds (my age at the time) went into the office, either; there were very few in the town, period, and he was used to dealing with seniors. His main goal seemed to be to prescribe me something to get me the hell out of there. This may more have been a problem with an individual doctor and my location rather than a problem with the medical system. If I had gone to a GI specialist, perhaps I might have gotten better treatment.

Now, I also had people try to rip me off outrageously, including my own employer, but that story sort of exemplifies the best of the Japanese work ethic.

It’s like an episode of Family Guy I saw the other day, where Peter met his dad the first time in Ireland. They had a drink off, so Peter could prove to his father that he was acceptable as a son. So while they were both drunk, the dad said “Why aren’t you slender and good looking like other Americans?” and Peter explained, that most Americans look nothing like they do on TV.

Most people realize that there is no perfect country, even though Japan has been popularly romantized lately. They understand that going to Japan isn’t like, visiting Hello Kitty world or what have you. It’s like saying a foreigner who comes to the US, expects Mickey Mouse to be president.

The age of consent in Japan ranges from 13 to 18. It depends on the individual province (state?).

people can buy used panties of schoolgirls in vending machines.

That’s supposedly illegal. Even the Snopes entry, while saying that the claims are true, mainly relies on conjecture and unsubstantiated accounts that those vending machines still exist.

I certainly don’t have any illusions about Japan being perfect. Their treatment of rape victims is appalling. Women who are raped completely blame themselves and often express a preference of death over rape. However, despite that, Japan has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world and one of the lowest reported and unreported rape rates in the world.

My Chinese and Korean friends agree that our cultures are not as polite or as organized as in the Japanese culture. Only someone without experience w/other cultures would assume that every individual Japanese are the same since human beings have individual differences and experience same events differently. Or that making this type of generalization implies that everything and everyone is the same in every way.

Few of my Japanese friends were frantic to leave Japan because they complained that they felt stifled by have to conform to social norms there. This is also true to varying degrees in other Asian cultures as well. But many /most? Japanese like their culture and find that it suits them.