
For the amount of time I've spent thinking about this, it could certainly permit a book but that wouldn't embody the [silent](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0630/d3fa5dc1bfc197051e9eec1c74867ab8b3bb.pdf), minimalist qualities that make up Japanese culture. For one moment, I'm going to break stride with the conventional Japanese wisdom of "speech is silver, silence is golden" in an attempt to poorly articulate why I moved to Japan.

The shortest answer is:

_yumei deshita_

which loosely translates to _It was a dream_.

It's hard to say how that dream started, but it was clear after three college semesters of Japanese that Japan was somewhere I wanted to be for an extended period of time. I think part of the allure was the challenge of both the language and the culture. It's also common for Americans to only speak one language whereas many other parts of the world can converse in two or more, which I think is unfortunate because language has such a profound ability to [shape how we view the world](https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/11/02/your-native-language-affects-what-you-can-and-cant-see/). Becoming good at a second language is in the bin of _stuff_ that is good for your brain, and I really enjoy _stuff_ that is good for my brain.

I think [Sakuragi Hanamichi](https://slamdunk.fandom.com/wiki/Hanamichi_Sakuragi) had a role in it, too. If you haven't ever watched Slam Dunk — drop what you're doing right now and go watch all 101 episodes.

<img style="margin: 0 auto 35px auto;max-width: 290px;display: block;" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/0b/1b/340b1b3a096f23e2b1b0cfbdbfcb6446.gif">

Between 2015 - 2018 I visited Japan a few times and eventually decided that I would enjoy calling it home. While visiting, I wanted to make sure that I hadn't fallen into the trap of creating an idealized version of Japan through the media I consumed, so I kept an anti-tourist agenda on my last trip. This included working remotely, riding on crowded trains, and surveying the general day-to-day of life in Japan. On that last visit, I interviewed with a few different companies and received a couple of offers — _yokatta ne_!

_Small aside:_ The Japanese language and culture have an earnestness to it that translates _very_ poorly but is something that I wish English and Western culture had. _yokatta_ has many different usages, but one of them is to convey relief and _ne_ can be loosely asking for confirmation which, all together, translates to: _what a relief, right?!_ I also frequently find myself saying, _I'll do my best_ ( _ganbarimasu_ ) in English without any sense of irony or shame.

![inaka-field](/images/why-i-lived-in-japan/inaka-field.jpg)

I biked a lot in Japan. I had two extended bike trips where I traveled from Sendai to Fukuoka and from Tokyo to Kyoto. The first trip, from Sendai to Fukuoka, I picked a few places I wanted to visit and then packed my bike and put it on the shinkansen. The second trip was from Tokyo to Kyoto and only paused and stoppped due to the pandemic. The first trip was focused on seeing as much of Japan in as little time possible; however, the second trip I didn't use the shinkansen or train. The mountains of Japan can be very punishing, but they almost always have some reward for you at the top.

Like cycling, not everything in life was easy and I underestimated the weight that interpreting and functioning in a different language would have over time on me. When I first moved to Japan, I couldn't understand the foreigners who were not putting everything into learning Japanese but two years later I came to realize their disposition all too well. If you don't have a support system, i.e. classes, friends, and a routine, it's going to be hard to make progress in the language. Even though I'm what you would call an "intermediate Japanese learner," which people frequently identify by the JLPT test numbers N2/N3, daily aspects of life like bills, work contracts, and health related things made ever becoming fluent feel insurmountable. In the beginning it's fun, "_Hey, look! My first Japanese bill_," and then, "_Hey, I can read 30 pacento <sup><a href="#notes">[2]</a></sup> of this!_," and finally, "_Ugh, new bill. Does someone want money or have I already given them money?_"

If it weren't for finding [Lindy Hop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop) during college and sticking with it over the years, I think the move to Tokyo would have felt a lot scarier. These days, cities all over the world have dance scenes and it's incredibly comforting to know that there are people across the planet that you can connect with just by showing up to dance.

I _loved_ to meet people who couldn't converse in English well or at all. There's sort of an unspoken rule of using the language that a group is most comfortable in, so if you have Japanese friends who are great at English and your Japanese is bad — they'll switch to English. I don't know of any superpower that allows you to force people to deal with bad Japanese, but I will keep searching. While in Japan, I felt a certain comradery with other foreigners when speaking Japanese with them. There's something nice about knowing others share some of the same struggles that you do, like differentiating the word [candy and rain](https://blogs.transparent.com/japanese/japanese-pitch-accent/).

Speaking of non-natives, there was a Nepalese restaurant in my neighborhood where I loved to occasionally eat. The lady who seated you and took your orders was probably one of the warmest, most cheerful human beings I've ever interacted with and you could hear that in her Japanese. If you had a favorite that you ordered more than twice, she had your number. In a culture where people can be sometimes be aloof, she stuck out in the best of ways.

I knew before I wrote this that this post that it would be inconclusive. Friends (new and old) and strangers would often ask, "_Why did you move to Japan?"_ Truthfully, each day I woke up while living there, I felt that there was a different reason for being there, and my original ambitions for moving have been muddied by reality. I think as time moves on and the memories fade and congeal into an image of Japan, I will continue to not have a definitive answer but I will always have great stories.

---

<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>

<b>\*</b> - Possibly coming soon is an image gallery of all of my favorite images of Japan. Message or tweet at [me on Twitter](https://twitter.com/olingern) if you'd like to see that come to life.

1 - Japanese characters are not used in this post because most readers will not have the fonts installed.

2 - "pacento" is a loan word written as パーセント ( pa—sento ) which means percent.

3 - This wants to be a bad [joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent), but the argument could be made that Japanese people are pitch-perfect within the context of their language.


A personal essay documenting my journey to Japan.

Why I lived in Japan for two years


<div style="color: #555; font-size: 1rem; padding: 20px; background: #fff; margin-top: 40px; box-shadow: 0 1px 1px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.14), 0 2px 1px -1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12), 0 1px 3px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);">
    <div style="color: #303336; display: inline; font-family: serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 1.2px; line-height: 50px; padding-right: 15px;"><b>perfectionism</b></div>
    <div>\ pər-ˈfek-shə-ˌni-zəm\</div>
    <b>1)</b>
    <div style="margin-left: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px;"><b>a:</b> the doctrine that the perfection of moral character constitutes a person's highest good</div>

</div>
<div class="text-xs"><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perfectionism">Definition of perfectionism from Merriam-Webster</a></div>

Beginning with a definition feels cliche like something from academia, but I think it's easy to take language for granted or have an opaque idea of a concept in your mind that is misconstrued over time by experience and reconditioning.

Working in a profession where you put your mind's best (_well, most days — right?)_ into something to be interpreted by a machine and grokked by others can lead to a healthy paranoia of _is this good enough?_. But, what happens when this spirals out of control?

As a self-identified perfectionist who often feels the paralysis of perfectionism's grips, I can tell you what happens: _nothing_.

**Fear of producing**

For me, and maybe many others out there struggling with producing works they're proud of, the paralysis stems from a disconnect between my ambition, what I'm capable of, and time. There will be some idea that crosses my mind and festers into a full-blown start-up or a highly successful open source project. And because of this grandiose style of thinking, getting started becomes increasingly more difficult.

**Subscribe to meaning rather than "Just do it"**

Since you're reading this, it means I've overcome _some_ part of my perfectionist nature. One subtle, but very meaningful change I've made is identifying my motivation for something I want to accomplish.

I think about previously failed or goals that I either didn't meet or had no interest in meeting. One of those goals that I _thought_ I had interest in, but never completed was a goal set at my first job out of college as a Junior .NET programmer by my manager.

_"We want you to become the .NET guy,"_ he said in one of my quarterly reviews. He went on to explain what that meant and how getting an ASP.NET certification would be a great goal for me.

I was not excited.

_"Grinding out a bunch of API's that are going to inevitably change every three to four years isn't programming,"_ is what I told myself. I wasn't wrong, but ten years later I know it's more nuanced than that. Understanding the internals and design decisions of a well-architected ecosystem would have benefitted me enormously, but that's not how I framed the task because I didn't have the experience to know _how_ it would benefit me. Though, in the grand scheme of time and the enormous list of 'things that can make you a better programmer', getting a certification is still pretty far down on that list.

I think you can see that I was destined to fail and arguably failed before I did not start. Why? Because my motivation was extrinsic rather than intrinsic.

You've probably seen the internet meme of [Shia LaBeouf of screaming, _"Just do it_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0) (_volume beware_). I appreciate the sentiment of pursuing your dreams, but what if you've been groomed to want something you actually don't want to do? This was exactly my predicament and in my case was an **extrinsic motivator**.

> _Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual_

<div class="byline"><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-extrinsic-motivation-2795164">verywellmind.com</a></div>

This is not to say extrinsic motivation is bad or inherently wrong, but I think how potent a motivator is will vary person to person depending on its source.

Some people in this world have the will and motivation to grudgingly push through about anything. If that's you, congratulations — but if it's not, why not ask yoursel, "_Is this for me?_"

**Embracing it**

Though perfectionism can lead to anxiety and paralysis, I think there are some positives that can be distilled from it.

- **Belief in oneself**

  You've seen how well crafted or well-done something can be and you believe that you can do it. Even if it's out of your reach, the belief in yourself can act as a [self-fulfilling prophecy](https://www.britannica.com/topic/self-fulfilling-prophecy) where eventually you realize what you're after.

- **Fighting complacency**

  Often, I've achieved a goal to only move the goal post further to continue progress down a certain path. If you acknowledge the accomplishment, I think this can be a healthy way to live alongside perfectionism.

- **Thoroughness**

  In Japan, certain trades or professions demand a high attention to detail. Doing a little digging may lead you to explore [monodzukiri](https://uttana.com/blog/lean-art-monozukuri-much-making-things/) (ものづくり) or the rail system's [shisa kanko(指差喚呼)](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/10/21/reference/jr-gestures/#.Xk9LlmaRVhE).

  In western cultures, _"Move fast and break things,"_ is often the philosophy many businesses embrace because of the correlation between time and money, but I've found the opposite in Japan. In Japan stability — whether business or interpersonal — is highly valued which I think it could be interpreted as perfectionism in western culture.


A personal essay on the struggle of having a mind that always aims too high

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