In the minority

You know, as a white guy growing up in middle class America, one thing I've never been is a minority. But that's exactly what I am now.

Sure, things are new and interesting here. But when everyone else you see is Japanese, and they all speak Japanese, and the things you buy are labeled in Japanese, and the food you try to order is in Japanese, and made for the Japanese pallet, and half the time you don't get what you think you're ordering, because despite having taken Japanese for one and a half years, you still can't speak it...

You can start feeling kinda lonely.

And despite what you might have heard, most Japanese do not, in fact, speak English.

Heck, even the English majors I've met barely speak English.

The country isn't going to adapt to you--you have to adapt to it.

And that's a pretty tall order, if you've never tried it.