You've Lived in Japan a Long Time When...

 

…you notice you’ve forgotten how to tie shoelaces.

…you rush onto an escalator and just stand there.

…you find yourself bowing while you talk on the phone.

…you leave your expensive bottle of Royal Salute with a sleazy barkeeper and don't worry.

….you buy a potato-and-strawberry sandwich for lunch without cringing.

…you phone an English-speaking gaijin friend and somehow can't bring yourself to get to the point for the first 3 minutes of the conversation.

…you stop enjoying telling newcomers to Japan ‘ all about Japan’ .

…you think 360 yen to the dollar is a reasonable exchange rate.

…people stop complementing you on your Japanese, and start asking you where you had your nose and eyes done.

…you noticed 7-11 changed its onigiri wrapping houshiki for the third time.

…you think "English literature major" is a polite way to say peanut-brained bimbo.

…you are not surprised to wake up in the morning and find that the woman who stayed over last night has completely cleaned your apartment, even though you’ll probably never ever meet her again.

…you get blasted by a political speaker truck and think "sho ga nai…"

…you think it’s cool to stand in the "Japanese only" queue at Narita Immigration.

…you’ re talking to your mother on the phone, and she asks you what "genki" means.

…you think the best part of TV are the commercials.

…you think wet umbrellas need condoms.

.. your mother talks about "you foreigners."

…you have mastered the art of simultaneous bowing and hand-shaking.

…your hair is thinning and you consider it "barcode style" .

…you think the natural location for a beer garden is on a roof.

…you think nothing about seeing 20 ads for women's sanitary napkins during one movie.

…you have run out of snappy comebacks to compliments about your chopstick skills.

…you think "white pills, blue pills, and pink powder" is an adequate answer to the question "What are you giving me, doctor?"

…you have discovered the sexual attraction of high school navy uniforms.

…when you no longer find anything unusual in the concept of "Vermont curry."

…you think 4 layers of wrapping is reasonable for a simple piece of merchandise.

…you don't find anything strange about a city that puts a life sized, red-and-white painted Eiffel tower imitation in its center, as well as a scale model of the Versaille Palace for its Crown Prince.

…you are only slightly puzzled by "Melty Kiss."

…a new gaijin moves to your neighborhood and you know immediately you will get his mail for a while.

…you think the meaning of a red traffic light is: "Hurry up! Ten cars now in quick succession, and then we’ll think about slowing down."

…when you get on a train with a number of gaijin on it and you feel uneasy because the harmony is broken.

…you ask fellow foreigners the all-important question "How long have you been here?" in order to be able to properly categorize them.

…when looking out the window of your office, you think "Wow, so many trees!" Instead of "Wow, so much concrete!"

…you think NHK is "the Japanese BBC."

…you think curry rice is food.

…you think it is quite OK to play volleyball with 12 people per team.

…in the middle of nowhere, totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren’t surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply…

…and when you think nothing of it when that lonely vending machine says ‘ thank you’ after you buy a coke.

…it takes fifteen seconds of deep thought to recall the first name of the President of the United States.

…you have a favorite bush to pee behind.

…a non-Japanese sits down next to you on the train and you get up and move. You’ re not prejudiced, but who knows what they might do?

….you only have 73 transparent, plastic umbrellas in your entrance because you have donated 27 to the JR and various taxi companies in the past few months.

…you have over 100 small, transparent plastic umbrellas in your entrance even *after* donating 27 of them to taxis and JR recently.

…you realize it’ s perfectly reasonable for the Post Office to designate you as the local redistribution agent for all letters addressed in yokomoji.

…you absolutely do not possess the ability to mispronounce Japanese words "like a non-Japanese would."

…your arguing with someone about the color of the traffic light being blue or green…and you think it’ s blue.

…you think rice imports should be prohibited, because Japanese consumers would never buy imported rice.

…you think one kind of rice tastes better than another kind.

…you get a "Nihongo ga joozu" and feel really insulted.

…you see a road with two lanes going in the same direction and assume the one on the left is meant for parking.

…when you think Japan actually has only four seasons

…you pull out your ruler to underline words.

…having gaijin around you is a source of stress.

…you watch the grocer’s with interest to see when the price of mikans will break.

…on a cold autumn night, the only thing you want for dinner is nabe and nihonshu.

…you return the bow from the cash machine.

…you can't find the "open" and "close" buttons in the elevator because they're in English.

…you think children should have to walk around in the freezing cold with only short sleeves and shorts.

….you don't mind corn on your pizza..

….you know which stores sell clothes or shoes that will actually fit.

….driving you see an oba-san crossing the street (nowhere near a crosswalk), and she gives you the "What are you doing, driving on a street in a car?" look.

….Y500 a drink during Happy Hour seems like cheap drinking..

….you know who Papaya Suzuki is..and the singing/dancing group he used to belong..

….you compare the subtitles with the spoken English and find them misleading)

          (and you find yourself sitting through the entire length of credits at the end of that move)

....you stop laughing at the oba-san who wipe her dogs butt after taking a poo..

…you know about 10 different ways to say "Goodbye" …

…you think American candy is too sweet and too colorful

… you think your Kansai-ben, Tohoku-ben, Okinawa-ben or whatever really rocks…and makes you WAY cooler than any lame-o hyojungo-speaking foreigner

… you frequent Fashion Health establishments

… you care about how the Japanese baseball players in the States and football players in Europe are doing even though you never cared less about the sports

… every time you leave the country for longer than a week you start to really miss your miso soup, rice and o-shinko (not to mention your Fashion Health)

… (non-smokers) you’ve ceased caring that everyone else in the restaurant is smoking, and you light your boss’s/sensei’s cigarettes for him without reservation

… (smokers) you hate it when you are in Chiyoda-ku and can't light up as you walk

… you no longer wash your shoes in the washing machine because that's dirty (a case of not knowing your kuso from your miso)

… you wear dark slacks and black dress shoes, but white socks

… you wash your car every Sunday and are thinking of trading it in for a new one because it’s old (3 years, now), even though you only drive it on weekends

… you’ve got all kinds of jangly junk hanging off your keitai strap

… you call a mobile phone a keitai because it’s easier

… you’ve stopped longing for the luxurious privacy of a cubicle, and ceased to mind working in a huge room full of rows upon rows of desks with a kacho at the head of each one

… you are comfortable telling any female worker, regardless of experience, to go run you some copies or fetch you a cup of tea

… you’ re proud when Japanese people say you are "more Japanese than a Japanese"

… you think yakisoba and cup noodles are great beach food

… you carry flowers upside-down

… when you get on the elevator you promptly turn around and face the door

… you care about which brand of green tea you buy from a vending machine

… on visits home you wish they sold green tea in vending machines, and onigiri in convenience stores too for that matter.

  

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