Tokyo Traveler

How to make friends in Tokyo

I just recently spent an amazing week in Taiwan and realized I cultivated more quality friendships in that one week in Taiwan than I have in the past year in Japan. Maybe that speaks to my personal flaws on making sincere friends in Japan, or some significant cultural differences.

There are in fact vast differences in how to cultivate and maintain friendships here than in other countries and cultural groups.  A recent survey highlighted in a Japan Times article explains how 150 Japanese university students were asked by an American psychologist to rank 18 social skills in order of importance from first to seventh.  Only 51 percent of those students put friendliness in the top 7. And friendliness ultimately ranked fourth after politeness, gratitude and the ability to apologize. Three stereotypically common traits we experience every day in social interactions in Japan.

The author of that article says that “Certainly this finding contradicts the popular Western stereotype of Japanese people as being aloof and disengaged. From my psychological perch, their reluctance to engage in quick soul-baring or intense emotionality is often misinterpreted by Americans as unfriendliness or coldness. The result? Resentment and then withdrawal (Hoffman).”

That is a common interpretation of the process of making friends in Japan. An Austrian friend pointed out to me how the Japanese seem to be expert at talking for long periods of time without saying anything significant. And significance may perhaps be merely opinion in many instances, but the low context of Japanese communication, which leads to the habit of leaving many meaningful opinions and statements unsaid can be very challenging to interpret.  

There are of course superficial elements of every person. You, me, everybody. But when I attempt to communicate with someone and they are only willing to discuss the most superficial of topics, I feel like I don’t really know this person. I feel like Japanese culture’s focus on ignoring negative realities places unneccessary limits on human interaction. I can’t usually disclose as much to my  Japanese friends as those from other countries. They are unnaccostomed to reacting to such genuinely friendly behavior. And so  How much we decide to disclose to one another in the friendship cultivating process becomes another issue.

 From my perspective, when I feel comfortable enough with someone I am willing to disclose personal stories and opinions though I have occasionally in Japan felt like that willingness to disclose and engage another human being in an honest discussion is not usually reciprocated.

Another point mentioned in that Japan Times article is that “recent psychological studies show that calmness rather than excitement is associated with personal well-being among the Japanese. In their eyes, a smooth, orderly social interaction has the best seeds for growth, not one marked by exuberance, giddiness or glad-handing (Hoffman).”

I would definitely agree with this statement. I often feel like my attempts to be spontaneous and fun clash with the calm façade of social interaction here in Japan. 

Cultivating genuine, meaningful friendships can indeed be a challenge because of these things. But maintaining a friendship can be even more challenging. I often feel like my Japanese friends are just giving me excuses when theycontinuously say they are too busy to meet me. One of the reasons I decided to come to Japan was I had several Japanese friends I felt I had cultivated very close, quality friendships with while they were studying abroad at my university. I often had great discussions with them about cultural differences, and their personal and English language problems and many other memorable interactions. And yet, now that I have been here nearly 2 years, I have only met them a couple of times. It’s as if re-immersion into Japanese society has somehow negated the quality of those friendships cultivated outside of Japan.  I am not complaining, just stating the facts. I have actually found some wonderful friends here in Tokyo, here in Japan. But there are many culture based challenges to making long-lasting quality friendships here.

i’ve made friends through trial and error human interaction.  Sometimes I just walk around when I’m in a good mood and I happen to meet someone friendly and if they don’t seem to put up a wall of antisocial resistance then I might have met someone worth getting to know.

 If you want more options for socializing, there are many resources available. There are several International parties around Tokyo each month.  I never liked them so much though. I’ve been to three. Each time I felt like the other people there were much older and more professional than the university age people I’d prefer to socialize with. So I joined some facebook  and twitter groups for international students in Tokyo. They often invite me to events around Tokyo where I can meet Japanese and international students, which is great.

There are also a lot of other online options I’ve used in the past like Japan-guide’s friendship classifieds and other penpal websites. Though  many Japanese use these for a few emails of English practice without the willingness to enter into an awesome friendship.  Anyway, good luck.

monkey island

When i first heard of monkey island i was looking forward to playing with the monkeys of course. But there weren’t any there. Sarushima is so named because of a myth of  priest lost in the ocean and a white monkey swam by and led him to the island. Nobody knows what happened to that white guy, or why the priest thought he was a monkey. maybe he was a white guy with a tail.

    It’s an enjoyable little island off the coast of yokosuka near yokohama. so anyway, after the train to the yokosuka chuo station, we took a boat to the island.  we arrived in the early morning as the last boat from the island leaves at about 5 pm. From March to November the boat runs from 8:30 to 4:30 and the last boat back at 5 pm. From december to february the boat runs from 9 am to 4:30 pm. and costs 1200 yen for adults and 600 for kids for a round trip.

  The beach was mildly crowded, and some people were swimming.  One guy playing volleyball wore work gloves on his feet. maybe the sand was hot or a white monkey stole his sandals. It doesn’t take long to walk all the paths, and visit all the beach areas open to the public. Most of the construction and tunnels from the war were sealed off and we couldn’t walk in them. though i tried to wander from the path several times to explore some places, the thick vegetation on the island made it difficult to get to anything intersting. though it was nice to relax on the beaches, play with some tiny crabs, and climb some hills.