mild aspergers and moving to japan
05 Jul 2019, 10:05 pm
I am new to this platform. so allow me to say a little myself. i am considering moving to japan.I consider myself to be a bit socialy awkward. at parties and at social gatherings i can be a bit of a wallflower when i do not know people there well. In addition if i dont know someone well tend to emote zero emotion and mean like some soviet type s**t(well at least initially if i don't know you well)due to my extreme shyness. However because my aspergers is very mild i do not experience such things such as meltdowns or anything of that nature. I am very much so in control of my emotions. as far as me having complete blank expressions i am not sure if this can be offsetting in social situations in Japan. i know you are exspected to be social in settings like nonomikai.only problem is that alcohol has a melatonin like effect on me making even more withdrawn and it can take alot from a person pyre something out of me.
06 Jul 2019, 12:03 am
I'm actually flying to Japan tomorrow for a vacation, I'll probably create a thread about it in autism discussion when I return so I can talk about what it's like from an autistic perspective.
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07 Jul 2019, 10:24 am
Exactly.
A lot of Japanese people do not like foreigners, usually the ones who are far right in politics.
(There's only right and far right in Japan's political environment. Liberals don't quite exist)
So if you don't look like East Asian, you have to get used to people staring at you, or even refuse to sit next to you on the train.
07 Jul 2019, 1:14 pm
I did parts of high school and college in Japan. So let me see if I can clarify some things.
^ These are stereotypes of Japanese culture, not completely factual statements. However, like most stereotypes, it is based on a grain of truth. Excluding the Kansai region (which is culturally more hug-friendly and loud than other parts of Japan), a lot of Japanese people do not feel comfortable outwardly broadcasting their emotional state in the same way Americans do. BUT this is at least in-part BECAUSE it is considered culturally rude to only worry about your emotional state over someone else's. Expressing your emotions is still important in Japanese culture, BUT caring for someone else's emotional state is also considered far MORE important than in US society I have noticed. In fact, Japanese people often express their emotions by showing that they are caring for other people's emotions. This leads to rather different (and in my opinion, equally aspie-challenging) ways of expressing feelings than what we are used to experiencing in the US.
For example, if you work in a company in Japan and are going on vacation for a week, other people in your workplace must do your work for you while you are gone. So it is really important that you express your appreciation for your coworkers after you get back. This is often done by giving small souvenirs along with thanks upon returning to work after you've been away.
Now, nothing is more touching than realizing another person has been thinking about how you're doing, especially while living and making new friends abroad. However, these cycles of thoughtfullness can get a bit convoluted for my comprehension sometimes, and I can find myself easily stuck. For example, My host grandma upon first meeting me gave me a tomato from her garden which she peeled by hand and offered to me as a snack. Well, I hate tomatoes, but I appreciated the gesture and so I thanked her and made myself eat the whole slimy business. Well, wouldn't you know, the next time I visited her, she had two peeled tomatoes waiting for me, saying "These were my last two from the bush". I felt so bad, since I really don't like tomatoes, and didn't mean for her to ruin her bush just for me. She should have enjoyed them herself!
Another example: My boyfriend at the time's mom asked me over for dinner the night before I took a short flight to Okinawa. She told me that she had made my favorite meal, but intentionally excluded garlic and meat because she knew that I would be flying in the morning, and she didn't want me to feel embarrassed by smelling like garlic or meat (which I never once in my life thought about until then). Although I was touched that she made my favorite meal, it was also supposed to be a meat and garlic dish, and excluding these two items made it really weird. So we all just suffered through it and pretended it was fine. I felt like there was a better way to have handled this, maybe prevented it, but can't figure out to this day how. Should I have known that she would remember my favorite meal but worry about me feeling embarrassed on the plane, and should I have realized this in advance so that I could tell her to please make another meal??? I never in 1000 years would have been able to come up with this.
This kind of reciprocal putting-others-first stuff is something I've never quite figured out how to do. -And it is NOT the same as Japanese people expressing no emotion. In fact, it's quite the opposite, very emotionally challenging.
Don't get me wrong. I love Japanese culture and Japanese people, but I do sometimes feel like when I slip up I cause a lot of damage unintentionally. If you mess up and hurt someone's feelings, they won't always tell you, because they don't want you to feel bad about it. It makes figuring out what to do hard sometimes.
07 Jul 2019, 1:34 pm
^ These are stereotypes of Japanese culture, not completely factual statements. However, like most stereotypes, it is based on a grain of truth. Excluding the Kansai region (which is culturally more hug-friendly and loud than other parts of Japan), a lot of Japanese people do not feel comfortable outwardly broadcasting their emotional state in the same way Americans do. BUT this is at least in-part BECAUSE it is considered culturally rude to only worry about your emotional state over someone else's. Expressing your emotions is still important in Japanese culture, BUT caring for someone else's emotional state is also considered far MORE important than in US society I have noticed. In fact, Japanese people often express their emotions by showing that they are caring for other people's emotions. This leads to rather different (and in my opinion, equally aspie-challenging) ways of expressing feelings than what we are used to experiencing in the US.
For example, if you work in a company in Japan and are going on vacation for a week, other people in your workplace must do your work for you while you are gone. So it is really important that you express your appreciation for your coworkers after you get back. This is often done by giving small souvenirs along with thanks upon returning to work after you've been away.
Now, nothing is more touching than realizing another person has been thinking about how you're doing, especially while living and making new friends abroad. However, these cycles of thoughtfullness can get a bit convoluted for my comprehension sometimes, and I can find myself easily stuck. For example, My host grandma upon first meeting me gave me a tomato from her garden which she peeled by hand and offered to me as a snack. Well, I hate tomatoes, but I appreciated the gesture and so I thanked her and made myself eat the whole slimy business. Well, wouldn't you know, the next time I visited her, she had two peeled tomatoes waiting for me, saying "These were my last two from the bush". I felt so bad, since I really don't like tomatoes, and didn't mean for her to ruin her bush just for me. She should have enjoyed them herself!
Another example: My boyfriend at the time's mom asked me over for dinner the night before I took a short flight to Okinawa. She told me that she had made my favorite meal, but intentionally excluded garlic and meat because she knew that I would be flying in the morning, and she didn't want me to feel embarrassed by smelling like garlic or meat (which I never once in my life thought about until then). Although I was touched that she made my favorite meal, it was also supposed to be a meat and garlic dish, and excluding these two items made it really weird. So we all just suffered through it and pretended it was fine. I felt like there was a better way to have handled this, maybe prevented it, but can't figure out to this day how. Should I have known that she would remember my favorite meal but worry about me feeling embarrassed on the plane, and should I have realized this in advance so that I could tell her to please make another meal??? I never in 1000 years would have been able to come up with this.
This kind of reciprocal putting-others-first stuff is something I've never quite figured out how to do. -And it is NOT the same as Japanese people expressing no emotion. In fact, it's quite the opposite, very emotionally challenging.
Don't get me wrong. I love Japanese culture and Japanese people, but I do sometimes feel like when I slip up I cause a lot of damage unintentionally. If you mess up and hurt someone's feelings, they won't always tell you, because they don't want you to feel bad about it. It makes figuring out what to do hard sometimes.
Interesting. It reminds me of something I read in Susan Cain's bestselling book Quiet, about how social anxiety, equally if not more prevalent in Japan than in the West, is about fear of embarrassing others rather than oneself. It struck me, because this is largely the same form as my SA took as an adolescent.
07 Jul 2019, 2:41 pm
That's really interesting, and rather different from my experience. By nature I tend to be a bit more of a bull in a china shop when it comes to delicate social situations. Usually I beat myself up about it after the fact, worrying about whether what I did was right or not later on- but at the time I'm in the interaction itself, none of that even occurs to me. I just act without thinking.
I guess it's like they say, "If you've met one aspie, then you've met one aspie"
07 Jul 2019, 2:46 pm
That's really interesting, and rather different from my experience. By nature I tend to be a bit more of a bull in a china shop when it comes to delicate social situations. Usually I beat myself up about it after the fact, worrying about whether what I did was right or not later on- but at the time I'm in the interaction itself, none of that even occurs to me. I just act without thinking.
I guess it's like they say, "If you've met one aspie, then you've met one aspie"
I'm not shy at all now; I'm quite the loudmouth, and have a knack for making hurtful remarks to and about others without intending to.
07 Jul 2019, 7:21 pm
There is an interesting jobs in japan email that you may wish to subscribe to.
Gaijin Pot i think its called.
Incidentally, i think that if you get married and are recognised as having Autism Spectrum Disorder,
i read that the Japanese Government don't pressure people with ASD find any old job, and give
a form of benefit which can be taken until you find a suitable job.
I think that you have to have a certain type of visa or have nationality for this.
The areas for employment are limited if you are not able to speak Japanese.
Unless you are skilled in a specialised area that is in demand.
The areas that i note appear to be the most common for foreigners is in teaching English.
Which appear to be fairly easy to get. I haven't found many reviews from people saying how much they
loved working as an English teacher though. Sounds like long hours and to some extent disorganised.
There was one job that looked fun that i noticed once, a job for leading teams of holiday makers around Tokyo roads on go karts while dressed as a cartoon character. I don't think Japanese motorists like them much though.
But funny job...
08 Jul 2019, 12:47 am
I'm from Europe and have been living in Tokyo since autumn 2015. I married a Japanese national in 2016 (after knowing her for many years), and work as an architect. I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome before they changed it to ASD, around 2011.
It's possible, but very hard. Things I struggle with daily are mild anxiety, language issues, long working hours, and social isolation. The anxiety is caused by social demands. Japan is a very social country and to be "inside" the society, you need to pay a lot of attention to those around you, concealing/masking, helping, smiling, hiding negative emotions such as anger or exasperation. The language issues come not only from the fact that Japanese is a tough language to learn from a Western point of view, but also that the pedantic speech of people on the spectrum will make it difficult for people to get what they mean, both in English and Japanese (they won't admit it openly, but simply smile and nod). Work is by far the greatest challenge. Teamwork is everything, dedication and sacrifice essential, and even then you will still be at the bottom of the food chain. As for the social isolation, I thought I'd do fine on my own since I didn't care about socialising at all in Europe, but it's real and debilitating at times. You will miss your own cultures where you had at least figured out part of the unwritten rules already since you were born there.
Don't do it unless you're willing to set aside 10 years of your life to an existence of struggle, and even after that there will always be people who don't accept you. Yes, your mileage may vary, and it will mainly depend on how "far" you want to get into the culture. If you're happy living in an expat bubble then enjoy your 4 years here before you go home.
It's just a country. It's populated by NTs as much as your home country. The rules are different. Adapt and persevere, or give up.
10 Jul 2019, 3:54 am
Exactly. Social skills required in Japan is much more demanding than in Europe or USA, it is actually more difficult because things are much more subtle in Japan.
Too often, people read about Otaku or Hikkikomori and thought that the entire Japan is like that.
The only thing I think Japan might be better for autistic people, is that the general public dislikes noise.
11 Jul 2019, 5:17 am
Too often, people read about Otaku or Hikkikomori and thought that the entire Japan is like that.
The only thing I think Japan might be better for autistic people, is that the general public dislikes noise.
But then again, I've heard that strangers are usually very forgiving of social blunders if you're clearly a foregeiner. But apparently, the better you know the language the better you're expected to know the rules, too.
12 Jul 2019, 3:00 am
Too often, people read about Otaku or Hikkikomori and thought that the entire Japan is like that.
The only thing I think Japan might be better for autistic people, is that the general public dislikes noise.
But then again, I've heard that strangers are usually very forgiving of social blunders if you're clearly a foregeiner. But apparently, the better you know the language the better you're expected to know the rules, too.
Depends on the person.
Also, just because they claim to forgive you, doesn't mean that they actually forgive you.
Some Japanese people don't say what they feel.
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