What’s It Like Living in Japan As a Foreign Woman?

I’ve constantly been asked throughout my tenure on social media, “What’s it like living in Japan as a foreign woman?” This is a question I’ve struggled with because where do I even begin after a three-year experience in Japan?

I spent most of my very young 20s on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean traveling through amazing places in the country. I also wrote about what it’s like living in Korea and I thought I’d share my experiences in Japan as well.

In this Japan post I’ll talk about everything from dating, culture, cost of living, fashion, and everything in between.

Blog Posts You Might Like

• Amazing Books To Read Before You Visit Japan
• A Complete Guide To Solo Female Travel in Japan
• How To Get a Job on the JET Program

A Little Bit About Me…

If you’re just finding this post, (or you’ve been here awhile) hi and welcome! My name is Gina and I’ve lived abroad in Japan and South Korea dor almost a decade.

I grew up in an old Italian neighborhood in Chicago and spoke three languages in my home growing up. Since I was 12, I dreamed living in Japan one day.

I eventually made that dream come true when I was accepted onto the JET Program and taught in Okinawa from 2012-2015. If you’d like to know more about my journey, check out the about me section of my blog.

While living in Japan, sometimes I felt like people thought my life in Japan was a fairytale… Which was anything but. Going through life is hard enough, but throwing in a different country, culture, and way of life will make anyone’s head spin.

I have never forgotten my time in Japan. It made me more well rounded as a person and taught me so much about life.

My experiences have made me strong, and going to therapy has healed a lot of the traumas I ran away from in the States. Since then, I have developed three major life mantras.

1. I’d rather be alone than in bad company.
2. Life is too short to dwell on jobs, people, or things that don’t make you happy.
3. If it’s not feeding me, fucking me, or paying me… Fuck it. I don’t need it.

My Experience Living in Japan As A Foreign Woman

My experience is vastly different compared to a woman who fits Japanese beauty standards of what a Westerner should look like. I’m talking about the very thin, white-skinned, with blonde hair and/or blue eyes.

If this jars you or pisses you off in any way… Sorry not sorry, you’re living in a fantasy world, and living in Japan probably isn’t right for you.

If you’re a white girl who feels your experience is the only experience and you had a great time… Good for you. There’s nothing wrong with being white; however, if you leave comments trying to diminish my experiences in any way… You’re gonna get a snarky response (and blocked because my blog is a dictatorship, not a democracy).

Answering Your Frequently Asked Questions About Japan

1. Is Japan a good place to live?

There is no perfect place on earth. I’ve echoed that sentiment many, many times on my blog and social media. There are many lovely things to celebrate about Japan such as a low crime rate, national health insurance, and Japanese are very polite.

2. How much money do you need to comfortably live in Japan?

So exactly how much does it cost a person to live in Japan? You need about 40% of your salary to live comfortably in Japan. The average amount of money needed to live in Japan is about 138,000 yen per month.

3. Is it expensive to live in Japan?

In my experience, Japan is one of the most expensive East Asian countries. In cheaper prefectures such as Okinawa and Hokkaido, rent can start at 32,000 yen.

Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world where rent starts at about 89,000 yen. Average food costs per month can be anywhere from 20,000 – 40,000 yen per month depending on how many groceries you buy and how much you eat out.

Utilities such as gas, electricity, and water can range from about 20,000 – 25,000 yen per month.

4. Is it safe to live in Japan?

Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. So yes, it’s pretty safe there. That doesn’t mean crime doesn’t happen there because it does. If you’re planning on visiting Japan, check out my Complete Guide To Solo Female Travel in Japan here.

Daily Life in Japan

My life was pretty much that of a normal English teacher in Japan. I would get up at 7am and get ready to go to work.

After getting ready, I would start work at 8:15am and go to the morning meeting at 8:30am. (I eventually started excusing myself from these because everyone spoke too fast and did not affect me personally. If it did, my supervisor would fill me in.)

I taught 3-4 classes per day and worked a typical salary job in Japan.

After work when the weather was nice, I would go to Zanpa Beach and swim. I took up hobbies like playing the Sanshin (an Okinawan 3-stringed snakeskin banjo), karate, and Cross Fit.

I spent my weekends with my friends drinking and partying. We attended Japanese festivals. Whenever there was a long holiday, I would take the opportunity to travel somewhere cool in Japan since exploring the country was my main goal.

Also, if a new movie came out, I would go on base with my friends to watch it because Japan typically does not get new releases until three months after it hit US theaters.

Japan In Comparison to America

Just to clarify, I am American, born and raised. I spent 22 years in the United States and moved back in 2021. In this section, I will be comparing Japan to the United States, my home country.

Cost of Living in Japan

If you’re bad at money management and have student loans, Japan can be an expensive place to live. Japan is a cash is king society so it’s a bit harder to track what you’re spending. I recommend getting an expense-tracking app like Everydollar.

Food portions were much smaller and I found it overpriced considering the larger portions I was used to.

I spent the majority of my paycheck on rent, yearly taxes on my car, gas, and sending money back for student loans. Because of my situation, I found it very hard to save money especially after the Japanese yen fell hard in 2012.

Japanese Culture

I personally found it difficult to adapt to cultural and societal expectations in Japan. I felt like a bull in a China shop never knowing who I was going to piss off because I didn’t know Japanese societal etiquette.

I’ll give you an example. Once, I was passing by a coworker in the hallway. I didn’t know if she was a teacher, a parent, or a staff worker from the office, so I didn’t say anything to her.

In an American workplace, sometimes the office or business is so large, you don’t know who all your coworkers are and it’s not uncommon not to greet people you don’t know.

In Japan, not greeting the faculty is a big no-no. She once told another close teacher friend of mine I was rude for not having acknowledged her.

After observing Japanese culture for two years, I figured out it was polite to greet everyone. After that, my relationship with my one coworker got better. She even apologized for not realizing I didn’t understand what was proper in a Japanese workplace.

So what can we learn from this? If something that small can cause resentment toward you, think about what other things you don’t know about Japanese culture and society can do.

After having admired the culture of Japan from afar for so long, it was fascinating for me to take it all in. I tried integrating myself into society to get along well with Japanese society. Granted, I didn’t always agree with the way things are done, but at least I learned another way of life and thinking.

Dating in Japan

Dating in Japan as a foreign woman was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Living in Okinawa, I didn’t have that great of experiences. But that’s okay because I have a whole blog series on my gripes with dating in Japan! You can check them out here:

• Cheating in Japan
• Dating Military on Okinawa
• My Experiences Dating as a Foreign Woman in Japan

Please take into consideration when I wrote these posts, I was still in my very early 20s. A lot has changed since and the reason I leave them up is because Baby Gina’s experiences are so genuine, unfiltered, and mine.

From what I observed, most women with Japanese boyfriends were white. This isn’t to say that only white women had boyfriends. However, Japanese men see scoring the woman with blonde hair and blue eyes as status points with the bros and nothing more.

For Japanese men, I was too fat, too tall, and too opinionated to be taken seriously in Japan.

Let me reiterate that I do not think any of the above of myself. I like my body, my height, and my ability to speak my mind. But by Japanese standards, I was way too much.

Japanese Fashion

Japanese fashion is ugly and only suited for Japanese.

If you don’t like my opinion, then that sounds like a you problem. I’ve never been a fan of booty shorts, oversized t-shirts, and frilly everything.

Even the dresses are boxy to give the figure a shapeless experience. The lingerie there looks like it was designed for a ten-year-old with all of the ruffles and lace.

Most fashion is bland with basic colors. No one wants to stand out from the crowd and what is popular. What you see on Harajuku’s Takeshita Street is an extreme subculture of Japanese fashion. In Okinawa, Crocs were a staple and so were rash guards, sunbrellas, and long sleeves to keep from getting tan.

I’m a US size 12 and plus size isn’t really a concept in Japan. Most of the clothes made for bigger women are not fashionable and very expensive.

Friendship in Japan

I found it very hard to make Japanese friends unless they had worked or lived abroad. I also hardly ever hung out with Japanese who didn’t work on the American military bases. It’s hard to reach out to someone who has never remotely been in the same boat as you.

Even when I could speak conversational Japanese, it was hard to make friends. I used to Cross Fit with Japanese teammates and while I learned a lot conversationally, they were never my friends outside the box.

Japanese and Okinawan Food

My favorite place to eat in Japan is Osaka. I love all the comfort foods like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and kushikatsu.

So very, very unhealthy, but so satisfying in your mouth. Other than that, I’m not really a fan of Japanese food.

Many Japanese dishes are seasoned with light flavors. Homemade or store-bought bento boxes had heaping servings of white rice.

I’d never eaten as much rice as I ate in Japan, and let me tell you, I got really fat in Japan. When I lived there, Okinawa didn’t get a lot of foreign imports like tortillas, cheese, or turkey. Even though I was living in Okinawa with a large military presence, you couldn’t find foreign foods.

Learning Japanese Language

The first thing I’m gonna say is… Don’t be a dumbass like me and at least learn basic Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana before you go to Japan.

Heck, even learn some common Japanese phrases. I recommend using Japanese Pod 101 and getting a Japanese word of the day sent to your inbox completely free!

From my experience in Japan, I am so grateful I was forced to learn Japanese and quickly. It made my life easier in terms of communication and whenever I want to travel there, I can easily do whatever I need to do.

I know the 411 in Japan and how the society operates so I don’t need to spend any time confused or lost in translation.

Healthcare in Japan

I stood by a very stark motto in Japan. Never go to the hospital unless you’re dying. Even then… That’s still questionable.

I once got a needle stuck in my elbow in Japan. Since it was a Saturday, none of the regular clinics were open.

When I eventually found a hospital on the other side of the island, my doctor ended up being a major dickhead. He operated on my arm twice and placed stitches really badly in my arm. To this day, I still have a huge raised scar right above my right elbow.

Going to the hospital at any time was nice if I was sick; however, the medical system often left me frustrated. They would tell me I’m fat and overweight (even though I was in the best shape of my life).

Doctors would also often not prescribe enough medication so I would have to come back for more and they could milk the national health care system.

Low Crime Rate in Japan

One thing I liked about Japan was how I could walk around at night and no one would bother me. While the majority of my experiences were good, being a woman abroad in a patriarchal society does have its downfalls.

That still didn’t stop weirdos from coming up to me and telling me I was easy, touts grabbing me in Tokyo to try and drag me away, and a pedo trying to grab my sister.

Public Transport in Japan

When you’re in a big city, public transport is hella awesome. The buses come on time as do the trains. Transfers are easy.

If you live in rural Japan, you’re going to need a car. In Okinawa, the buses were insanely expensive and never came on time. A bus ride from Yomitan down to Naha was $10. That’s half a gas tank for my old Suzuki Kei right there.

Weather in Okinawa Japan

I lived in Okinawa—which happens to be one of the warmest and rainiest prefectures in all of Japan. Summers were humid and brought many typhoons.

If you’re interested in how to prepare for a typhoon in Japan, click here. The coldest temperatures Okinawa would drop down to would be 15°C (60°F). Okinawa’s temperatures climb to 38°C (100°F) plus humidity which makes it feel hotter.

Though whenever I did visit mainland Japan in the winter, I found the weather to be quite mild and enjoyable. The only place I witnessed heavy snowfall was in Hokkaido.

Why I Really Left Japan

While on my third year on the JET Program, I was planning on staying a fourth year. During my third year, the principal of my school happened to be a huge jackass.

I didn’t speak with him much he was never around. Also, I didn’t have a good relationship with him the way I did with the previous principal. (Who absolutely adored me, btw, and invited me to his house often to eat dinner.)

I didn’t fill out my paid leave paperwork properly and the dickhead saw an excuse not to re-contract me. When the new principal came in, he was much friendlier and wanted me to stay, but by then, it was too late.

In Japan, you sometimes have to kiss the ass of those higher above you, and I’ve never been that kind of person. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons why I left Japan.

Culture Shock in Japan

There were days I was really excited to live in Japan. Other days I wanted to scream because I was tired of being illiterate and feeling like an idiot because I couldn’t read all the kanji.

There will forever be many things I don’t understand about Japan, but that’s the beauty of the Land of the Rising Sun.

I believe your Japan adaptability comes down to your personality. If you just go with the flow and accept everything as the “Japanese way” then you’re probably going to have a better time than I did.

Growing up as a third culture kid, I’ve always questioned whether or not something comes down to culture or someone trying to take advantage of the situation. I don’t trust anyone easily (no matter what country they’re from) so I always expect the worst in people.

Sometimes people proved me right, but there were always amazing people, Japanese or not, who surprised me in the best way possible.

In Conclusion

Despite the good, the bad, and the fucking ugly, life in Japan as a JET was one of the best experiences of my life. I made the best friends a girl could ever ask for and grew into a better person.

Living in Japan is a completely different story than visiting. Many factors can make your life in Japan miserable. For instance, if you don’t like your job or friends, commute long distances, or don’t enjoy the culture, you’re going to have a lot of problems.

In the end, it comes down to your expectations and what you’re willing to accept. I had some expectations about Japan based on the books I read and the entertainment I had consumed from Japan. In no way did those expectations fall short.

For me, there were quite a few things I was not willing to accept about Japan. Some of those were dating men who fetishized my foreigness or dating trashy American military men.

I was also unwilling to continue destroying my skin from the harsh weather of Okinawa. And lastly, I was not willing to sacrifice my happiness because culture shock doesn’t come once and goes away, it goes in bouts.

Even though I will most likely never live Japan again, I love traveling there. I love eating my way through Osaka, buying Japanese products, walking around temples, going to Japanese festivals, and renting kimono or yukata.

Japan will always hold a special place in my heart, the way all first loves do.

This post contains affiliate links which means at no additional cost to you, I make a small commission to help keep Gina Bear’s Blog running. Thanks for your support!

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