FROM ODDITY TO ORDINARY

How Japan has changed!

Back when I first landed in Japan 28 years ago, I felt like a rare Pokémon in a sea of Pikachus — an oddity, a curiosity! People would look at me with a mix of fascination and fear, like I was about to unleash a fire-breathing dragon. They hesitated to speak Japanese, probably thinking, “This poor soul wouldn’t understand a word!” And at least in my first couple of years here, they would have been right.

Whenever I did spot another one of the rare species of Westerners, it was like finding a fellow alien in a sci-fi movie. I’d lock eyes with them, and we’d share that unspoken bond: “Hello, fellow extra-terrestrial! How’s your intergalactic journey treating you?” It was a special moment, like a secret handshake.

Fast forward to today, and those days are long gone. Over the span of the last three decades, the foreign population has more than tripled, from a mere 1.1 million in 1996 to a respectable 3.5 million now! It’s like Japan decided to throw a massive international party, and everyone’s invited.

Meanwhile, the number of foreign tourists visiting the country has skyrocketed in the same period of time, from 4.5 million, to a whopping projected 35 million this year!

They're drawn here as much by the Japanese culture — currently enjoying a worldwide boom — as by the weak currency, making the country a very attractive shopping destination.

Once upon a time, the luxury shops in Tokyo's glamorous Ginza district were the playgrounds of the local elite. But nowadays, it's the foreign tourists who are flocking to the Prada and Gucci shops lining the streets.

Imagine this: French women on a cultural expedition to Japan, deciding to grab a Louis Vuitton bag at a steal of a price while they're here. It's like a souvenir, except it's a luxury bag made in their own country, but sold there for much more. So, the bags are first exported to Japan, where they're snapped up by these savvy tourists and then flown back to France in the passenger cabin, rather than a freight container. Those fancy leather goods sure rack up the air miles and are even getting an upgrade along the way!

If I tried to make eye contact with every foreigner I saw these days, I’d need a personal assistant just to keep track of all the “hellos”!

I need to face it: I’m no longer the exotic oddball. It’s a positive development, really (if you ignore some of the unruly tourists in disregard of all regulations, just in order to snap the perfect picture of Mt. Fuji, angering the locals in the process...).

But sometimes, I miss that “special status”. You know, the one where people would treat me like I was a rare artifact in a museum. Now, Japanese folks have realised that learning the language isn’t just for superheroes; it’s actually doable!

So when I walk into a shop, the staff chat with me like I’m just another local. Gone are the days of them trying out their sometimes limited English, which usually ended up sounding like a game of charades gone wrong. Or when they would talk to me in Japanese in deliberately slow and loud speech – just on the off chance that I was not only a foreigner, but also hard-of-hearing.

Now, I find myself in a different kind of awkward predicament. With so many foreigners now working in customer service, increasingly often I encounter a fellow foreigner behind the counter. They greet me in impeccable Japanese, and I’m left standing there, contemplating my next move. Do I respond in Japanese, which feels weird since they're not local? Or do I gamble and switch to English, risking that they're not nearly as fluent in English as they are in Japanese? It’s like a linguistic game of roulette — spin the language wheel and hope for the best!

So here I am, navigating this wonderfully chaotic world where I’m no longer the only foreigner in sight. The nature of the awkward moments may have changed, but there are still plenty of funny situations to be had.