Carly

Hihi~
I'm actually a pescatarian and I'm Jewish so I actually don't even eat so much fish besides things like tuna or salmon but it is a pretty limiting diet here mostly because vegetarianism or dietary restrictions in any capacity are uncommon here. I think if you're vegetarian you absolutely should know how to read/speak the relevant Japanese. In terms of buying food... I know all the words and kanji for the foods I will and will not eat, especially because sometimes if you just ask if there is meat in something, the server will say no but you'll get it and find.... all sorts of things in it that this person chose not to consider meat. You just have to be really diligent when you buy or order food. I bought a vegetable kuroke a while back and the label in the bakery said nothing about having meat in it but lo and behold.... so don't trust the first thing a server says or food labels unless they are properly made for something packaged. I also just know a lot about Japanese food because of my dietary restrictions so now I know which foods not to trust kind of thing. Though sometimes I honestly get lazy about working my way around traces of meat rather than actual pieces of it in my food because it feels so impossible ....

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For work, I have to bring lunch every day because the school lunch always has meat in it. That gets exhausting sometimes though. And I do try and cook at home a lot because, like you said, it's easy to do if you live here.

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It really is a great opportunity. Japan is such a fun place to live and you'll have an amazing time. But of course, every place has its frustrating qualities that you will have to adjust to. Here are a couple that I've dealt with.

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Quite a few things are frustrating when you live here. Most of them have to do with the language barrier for me. The English literacy rate here is significantly lower than in other countries so if you live outside of a major city, it's especially difficult to get any assistance from an English speaker. Even within a city like Tokyo, it's still difficult if you don't know Japanese fluently. A lot of things are only written in Japanese as well. Really simple tasks become so time consuming and exhausting when they can't be done as quickly because of language issues. I sometimes take my language abilities for granted here because I get frustrated when I don't understand everything, but there is a lot that I do understand and I often overlook how helpful that is.

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Another frustrating thing is how people treat you when you are a foreigner. I think because people from a variety of backgrounds live there, it's more difficult to pick out someone who is a "foreigner". But if you don't look Japanese or Asian at all, people notice you quickly and often assume that you can't speak any Japanese. Sometimes this isn't so bad if they go out of their way to help you under the assumption that you don't know any Japanese. For example, writing the price down for you at the register instead of just saying it to you. But, it gets really annoying when you can understand the kinds of things people say about you in Japanese when they assume that you can't understand them. My American friend's parents are from Hong Kong and Singapore and people often assume that she can speak Japanese or even is Japanese because of how she looks and so her experience here is really different than mine. Historically, Japan has been rather closed off from the rest of the world so I think that mentality still exists here. And it shows in the low level of foreign language fluency and lack of understanding of foreign people and cultures.

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However, that is certainly not true of all people who live here. I have met some really cool people in my small inaka city who are really into learning English and are so excited to speak English with me and take me to some of their favorite places in the area. I think that Japan can be a very frustrating place to live if you can't just let some things go and be easy going. If you are able to just kind of blow some annoying things off instead of allowing them to bring you down, I think it will be a much more enjoyable experience.

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