I’m taking a break from my helpful posts to discuss some very real topics. This post is kind of a damper, but cultural fatigue in Japan needs to be discussed. A new country isn’t always going to be perfect and sometimes you will get worn down. I looked up a great article about Cultural Fatigue on Vagabond Journey. According to the writer, cultural fatigue is defined as a state of being where the small, adverse intricate of the culture begin to bother you out of reasonable proportion after living in another country for an extended amount of time.
Sometimes you get sick of the small things like how much attention to have to pay to interactions or how much more time you need to spend at the grocery store, and how you fit into the society you live in. I particularly have cultural fatigue in Japan.
Japan is just as diet crazy as anyone in the UK or US. What I don’t appreciate are the fat comments from doctors, men, and women. They easily toss around body negative comments like a salad and usually I just shrug it off. Most of the time I’m like, “Meh, your opinions don’t matter.” However, three years of this crap is really starting to get under my skin.
I felt good about myself before Japan and now I feel awful. Since I started Cross Fit, my muscle gain is described as fat and makes me want to punch the guys who say so in the nose.
It’s also no secret being white is amazingly beautiful in Japan. I never conformed to anyone’s beauty standards and if I looked in the mirror and decided I needed to be tan, I would always wear sunscreen and spend more time at the pool with my friends. Problem solved.
Some days, I need a time out and go for massages to appreciate what my body does for me. The receptionist, who had seen me many times, was the icing on top of my cake. She commented on how my skin was so much darker since the last time she saw me, I needed to wear the UV protectant sleeves when I was driving, stay out of the sun, and wear more sunscreen. My initial thought was… Did I ask for your opinion on my skin? I felt it was uncalled for and unwarranted. Unfortunately, I lack the Japanese language to explain how they are being rude and defend myself. I’ve never cursed my ability to understand Japanese until that moment.
Whether she wanted to help or not was not the question. My body is my body and I take care of it just fine. My body is my business. It is not something put on display for Japanese people to pick apart on why it doesn’t fit their beauty norms or standards.
I feel so fatigued some people feel the need to push their beauty ideals on me. Yes, I will be respectful and follow Japanese rules, but I WILL NOT change the way I look. Leave me alone. I like myself the way I am.
I feel tired, fed up, and fatigued. Sometimes I feel like I can only see riddles with the Japanese, realize I can never understand, but still try anyway. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m trying to be mindful and see where people are coming from. I came here ready to take on a new place, new ideas, and understand the bigger picture of the world I live in. Two months out until my return to America, I just don’t want to try anymore.
It’s not the big things about this culture that wear you down. It’s the little things. I can deal with eating with chopsticks, taking off my shoes indoors, and bowing. What I cannot deal with are the passive aggressive attitudes prevalent in many people because confrontation is uncomfortable, the hidden social cues, and the snide comments about my weight and skin. The fact I need to be on guard all the time is breaking me down.
Some days, I’m consumed with anger and frustration. I have coping mechanisms like writing more positive messages on my blog to help others, writing my frustrations in my journal, Cross Fit, zoning out to a good K-drama, or swimming in the ocean. Other times, I want to throw in the towel.
As an expat, you can never be on autopilot. Your actions and your words must be carefully considered before action is taken. Facing some of the same ridiculous challenges every day wears you out. I feel like this challenge of people trying to pick apart my body is causing me some commotion.
Of course, going around thinking everyone is going to attack you on your appearance or be passive aggressive is not the way to be. There are good and bad people out there and I have friends who know it’s wrong to impose their ideas on how others should be. All I’m saying is, I don’t comment on people’s appearances and tell them they should change. I’m sure the people who tell me to lose weight or be lighter haven’t thought of what it feels like to be in my shoes.
I could easily turn around to a man and say, “You’re just jealous because you’re not as strong as me.” Or I can say to the women who call me fat and tell me I need to be lighter, “Have you gone to the dentist? Your teeth are so yellow and crooked!” or “Look at the terrible sun freckle you have! It’s so big! Do you need some sun cream?” Coming from me, it sounds awful right? Well, when they say hurtful comments like that, it’s just as bad, culture or not.
For me, this is only a sign of learning. I can’t change Japanese people, but now I’m only motivated to learn more Japanese to defend myself. The patterns are becoming more obsolete, the people more real, and I’m beginning to see my place in this society… Sometimes the lack of respect I get when people discuss my breasts and behind makes me want to explode.
Cultural fatigue is like a defense mechanism. Sometimes I don’t like what I see and I have enough sense to know what it truly represents. I can let these comments keep ruining my day or I can decide to take a body positive route where I appreciate the one body and one life I have. The lesson I have to learn is indifference. It’s one of the best travel skills to cultivate and one of the best life skills to have in some areas. I need to learn to stand emotionally separate from the action and not dwell on the past. When the fight is over, it’s over, and I should leave it there.
I can’t fight or change people’s ideals. All I can learn is how to defend myself and keep pushing forward. I’m thinking about starting some side pieces on my body positive journey to try to combat negativity and bring in positivity. What do you think? Do you guys have any suggestions on bringing positivity and body positive energy into my life? I’d like to hear if any of you have felt culturally fatigued and what you did to combat it?
14 Comments on Cultural Fatigue in Japan
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This post just makes me want to give you a hug!
The feelings are real…for me it’s like every little comment or stare is like a tiny barb in my skin. I actually sometimes have dreams like that. I’m stuck full of tiny needles by faceless Japanese-speaking figures. Each needle is connected to a wire and I can’t move, but I can feel them tugging on the wires and slowly taking me apart. Ugh!!
Anyway I stand with you in solidarity. I hope you get some real refreshment when you go home.
Yay! Virtual hug back!
Oh my goodness! How frightening! Needles and Japanese-speaking figures? I hope your nightmares go away! In real life, it does feel like they are picking you apart and trying to will you into something you’re not. Thanks for the support and I’m excited to go back home for refreshment.
I think I left a similar comment on the guest post you did on Grace’s blog, but I completely empathize with your post. Failing to meet Japanese beauty standards–even though I don’t want to meet them–wears me down, too.
I never had a whole lot of self esteem about my looks, but since Japan it’s become a struggle for me. When I was thin enough to be considered attractive, I was still too masculine and too strong. When I started presenting more feminine, I (because of aging, as far as I can tell) gained weight so I became “fat” (and therefore unattractive). Now, after three years of weight lifting, aerobics, and other activities (like acrobatics) I’m still too fat and too strong, and to top it off I’m also too muscular. The only good news from all of this is that the friends I’ve met at the gym don’t seem to feel that way about me. Many of them want to be strong, don’t mind muscle, and haven’t said a word about my weight (which is a nice surprise, since many of the regulars in my gym classes would praise me for losing weight… and I would have to awkwardly tell them that I wasn’t trying to).
So far it’s been months since I’ve gotten comments on my weight or body shape. I have control over what doctor I go to for my yearly checkup and the one I chose just records the facts; no judgments (I think I mentioned but my previous workplace gave you letter grades! wtf). And I learned my lesson from the fat shaming doctor to check the “NO DO NOT GIVE ME ADVICE ON MY LIFESTYLE” box. Chances are I know more about health and weight than they do, anyway. The only one who has given me crap about this is myself; I hope that the lack of negative feedback (and some of the positive feedback I’ve been getting) will help me get back to a place where I’m ok with myself.
Maybe I’m a terrible person, but I would love to see that. 😛 I’m mostly joking, but part of me does feel that it would serve men right, especially in Japan, because of how women have had to live with being treated as “the weaker sex” and, more recently, been discouraged from doing activities that make us strong and muscular.
I’d love to read this! Unfortunately I don’t have much to contribute, but I’d love to hear what you (and/or other people) have done that has worked.
Anyway, enough about me. I hope that the changes you’re making in your life help fix the cultural fatigue and feel better about things in general.
Did you ever feel such a high pressure to conform in your home country? I never felt any pressure in America and I’ve never had strangers tell me to lose weight. (Of course, I’ve had the jerk marines in Okinawa tell me I’m fat after I refuse to go home with them, but that’s another story.)
I totally feel the same as you. I’ve always struggled with my weight and after doing Cross Fit, I felt good about myself. Exercise makes you strong and happy! Perhaps, the fact Japanese don’t encourage young women to exercise and only diet is the reason they feel so down about themselves! I would be miserable if I had to diet all the time too!
I don’t know what you look like, but what Westerners would describe as fat is not what the Japanese would. I feel like the people you surround yourself in the gym with are the body positive and goal oriented ones. Many gym goers go to better themselves!
I find it so surprising the doctors here have NO IDEA about health and fitness. It’s an emerging field in Western countries and people studied it at my university to become nutrionists or personal trainers. I think the doctors in Japan are full of shit and have no idea what they’re talking about half the time anyway.
I actually had a Western guy tell me I shouldn’t push my Western ideas of strength on Japanese men. I never pushed my ideas on them. They’re pushing their ideas of “feminine” on me. If I had to describe where Japan is mentality-wise, I would say they’re rooted in the 1950s with their ideas of man and woman roles. They probably feel emasculated by strong women and they continuously choose frail, tiny, short women. Which is fine, because I don’t want a weak man like that anyway. And by weak, I mean mentally. If he can’t deal with our strength, then he’s a wuss.
Thanks for wanting to follow me on my journey. I’m going to do a lot of research into being body positive and do my best to be confident in myself and not let the shitty words of others hurt me!
No, but I might feel differently if I lived in the US now. I cared less when I was younger, I was in a more alternative and progressive crowd, and until my late 20s I was considered “too thin” because complete strangers would ask my family if I was anorexic and try to micromanage my food intake.
I’ve never got it from strangers, but certain members of my family like to make inappropriate comment about people’s weights. At least two of them that I know of have actually paid other family members to lose weight. So, while the weight talk in Japan puts me off, it’s not nearly as bad as what I heard when I was at home.
It’s amazing how fast USian and other Western guys switch to insulting a woman by calling her names (fat, b****, w****, etc) when she doesn’t do what he wants. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.
Yeah, back when I got fat shamed by the Japanese doctor I went to a US one for a second opinion. I told him what the JP doc said and he laughed because the thought of calling a 5’6″ 150lb person “fat” was absurd to him.
I mean, there are still a lot of doctors in the US who are clueless about health (they use the BMI, refuse to treat people they consider to be fat until they lose an arbitrary amount of weight, etc), but I feel like a lot of doctors (GPs in particular) in Japan are… way too clueless to actually be practicing safe medicine. I wonder if doctors in Japan have to renew their license or do anything to prove their knowledge is current?
Wow. Maybe they shouldn’t be pushing their Western stereotypes about Asian men being weak on Japanese men!
But, yeah, gender roles in Japan are still… very rigid. I think the younger generation is a bit better, but most people tend to go through life just absorbing and accepting what they learn from their environment. In this case it’s that women should be skinny, feminine, weak damsels who nurture their families and that men should be thin (but muscular is ok), masculine (although what counts as “masculine” is broader than in the US), leaders who take care of their families by working themselves to death and not doing anything to help around the house. The pressure that people put on themselves and the people around them is so toxic… I do my best to push back against it when I can, but it’s hard.
Like, it’s not just when people are being jerks about it, either. Even when they are cool with something, their surprise at me not conforming (or their shame if it’s them who doesn’t conform) to what they expect a woman is like is kind of tedious. For instance, a while ago a friend and I went out and he pointed out a caterpillar, I went over to look at it and he was like, “Oh, you aren’t scared?” and I was like, “o.O No? It’s not dangerous or anything, so why would I be scared?” And it was a non-issue (we both started talking about how roaches freak us out even though they’re harmless), but I get really sick of people making weird gender-based assumptions about me.
I think this definitely all comes down to body shaming. Too thin? I had a friend in high school who suffered from hyperthyroidism. She would eat and eat and eat and sometimes cry because she couldn’t gain any weight and wanted boobs. People need to stop skinny shaming too.
At least two of them that I know of have actually paid other family members to lose weight.
Paid to lose weight? That’s something I haven’t heard of before! Crazy… It’s sad to think the people closest to us can be so harsh. I think their comments hurt pretty bad too.
I definitely think the younger generation is open minded. My students constantly remind me I still have faith in the future of Japan. In some ways, the US still has those views now too. Only recently has fit become the new “skinny”. I really do wish the men would stop working themselves to death. I think their children deserve some daddy time. I really agree with you about the high pressure. It’s suffocating and toxic. This toxicity creates a sort of aura that spreads like wildfire.
Gender roles are so strange. The views on the shame on nonconformity cause people isolation and that’s why so many foreigners feel so on edge in Japan.If you are the standard of beauty and foreign, you will be loved. If not, they ask why you’re not. It can be tiring.
Doctors in Japan make me want to scream. The GPs are awful and I think it would be better to go to America. Your doctor in the US was right to laugh at the Japanese doctor. I thought doctors were suppossed to know that all bodies and humans are different? They must have skipped that part in their anatomy class. 5’6 and 150lbs is a beautiful size! It’s healthy and in the average for an American woman!
Hey, I just want to say I really appreciate your blog. I am Moving to Japan as a JET Spouse and I have been following for a little while. You are very positive from what I have read but I also appreciate the honesty and raw emotion here. I want to prepare myself for what is expected and it is nice to know some of the obstacles that will arise. That being said, thank you for this. I am under no unrealistic notion that this move will be easy. In fact, it took me a while to jump on board. I am excited now. But I am trying to keep a steady and realistic head on my shoulder. And for most woman, the judgement of others can tear you apart. I too want to learn to be indifferent but that is a huge battle. Let me know when you figure out how to do this 😉
Michelle,
Thanks for following! I’m always honored when people comment and read my blog! As a JET spouse, it will be a little easier in terms of coping. You will have your spouse with you and you can be a strong support for each other. I often hear married JET spouses talking about that. I’m excited for your new adventure and I agree 100% with you. You gotta get rid of your expectations and stay realistic. It’s the only way to survive. Women are the worst at tearing each other apart. I’ve had some great discussions with other expat women and they’re all on board with a body positive movement. I’m not sure how to approach it yet, but I’m working on it! 😀
Gina, funny that you mention hyperthyroidism because I have hashimoto’s (a thyroid disorder) and because of that the time that i was considered “too thin” I was actually experiencing hyperthoridism due to my disorder. Combine that with 1) the fact that I was a super picky eater; and 2) that I tend to lose my appetite when I’m stressed; and a lot of situations where people made the anorexic comments were ones in which I was stressed and/or given a food that I wasn’t familiar with. I really wish people would be taught not to body shame.
Yeah, my family is all kinds of messed up when it comes to weight. The best I’ve managed is to make sure that no one gives me unsolicited comments on my weight, health, or fitness–basically by making my responses so harsh that they feel like I’m “scary” and that they have to “walk on eggshells around me”. I do my best to discourage them from talking about other family members’ weights around me, but so far it hasn’t been very successful.
Exactly.
I feel like a lot of them either weren’t taught that, or are just so used to seeing a certain range of body types that they forgot that people are actually more diverse than just the “average” for their area? During one of the yearly health checkups at my old school (it was a senmongakko, so there were only a few non-Japanese students), one of the doctors looked at my chart (which, of course, said I was “overweight” according to the so-inaccurate-it-annoys-me-that-it-is-still-in-use BMI), looked at me, and then said, “Um, yeah, well, you are a foreigner and this BMI is calibrated for Japanese people. Your weight looks fine to me.” So, obviously, some of them do have at least a very basic understanding of body diversity, but I still feel bad for all the Japanese people who don’t fit into the correct BMI ranking, because I bet he would have given them crap.
Thanks! *^^* Even knowing everything I know about health, weight, genetics, body diversity, body acceptance, etc. it’s still super hard to keep perspective here where the majority of women are obsessed about becoming even skinnier and that anything over 130kg (regardless of height) is considered “fat” (and, of course, “fat” is used a pejorative and not a descriptor).
For the record, I’ve browsed enough of your blog to have seen a bunch of pictures of you and I gotta say that you are gorgeous. Even knowing what I know about Japan, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that you haven’t had people falling all over you here. Because wow, you are stunning and I can’t even begin to imagine how so many people could fail to see that.
I definitely think people should shut their pie hole when saying anything about anyone’s body. 1) they don’t know their lives and 2) who died and gave them the right to judge? Sorry your family is so unsupportive. When my family teases me, I usually just start saying, “Uh-huh, that’s nice.” After they don’t get a reaction, they stop.
I remember when I spent some time in China it didn’t take long for cultural fatigue to kick in. Sometimes I wish I could just wear ear plugs to ignore all the comments made about my chest, butt, and everything else. We can’t help it if we are tan. We will never have “white” skin. For a Latina I’m pretty tall. While I was there I felt like a giant at times and people made sure to remind me of it. It gets annoying, but I’m finally in a place where I’m content with who I am. I admit I did have a mini breakdown one day and locked myself in. Then I decided who cares. It’s mind over matter. I’m beautiful in my own way and do not have to fit into anyone’s ideal beauty standard. It’s not like I agree with traditional gender roles anyways. 😛
Exactly! In Asia, women have to fit into this feminine gender role that us Western Women definitely don’t fit or want to fit into. While some girly girls love it, I’m okay with having tan skin and a curvy body for the most part. People have no right to point out your flaws! I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who has felt this way. Sometimes I do break down, but I decided, I don’t care too! After all, we’d rather be the most unique, beautiful versions of ourselves rather than the cookie cutter standard! 😉
I’m so sorry that you’ve needed to deal with people critiquing your weight. I can’t imagine how difficult that is. I lived in Singapore for a bit and I felt like although people wouldn’t make comments about my body, I felt very self-conscious about my weight, especially considering the “one size” clothes that would not fit me. I’m naturally more olive-skinned and I would get comments about how dark I was getting, but I chose to ignore them and explain how my family was olive-skinned. I hope that your body positivity comes back since it sounds like you’re making incredible progress after starting CrossFit.
I’m living abroad in Europe now, however I haven’t encountered a single situation where anything like you described has happened.
I totally understand how you feel. Asians are just genetically smaller. Hence if you’re “bigger” you’re a commodity. After I left Japan, I didn’t have so many problems with my self-esteem. I went back to America for a month and now I’m living in Korea. When I went back, I was able to refresh and recharge. I was finally a normal size again and clothes fit me. I didn’t have to try and fit my “giant” size feet into shoes or succumb to ugly, frilly underwear. Asia’s one size really means, “We only make up to a size 6, screw you if you’re not.” I definitely felt more beautiful after I went back and realized I was normal size and I feel even more so now that I’ve lost weight in Korea. Leaving Japan was great for my sanity and well-being. Unfortunately, I no longer do Cross Fit as I live too far from a box, but I hike and go running in Korea. Korea’s mountains are seriously awesome sauce.
I’m glad to hear no one bothers you in Europe. I imagine Europeans are a bit more accepting of other people because it’s not so homogeneous. (And the fashion is freaking awesome too!)