It should come as no surprise to our readers to hear that we’re big fans of Japan. Pretty much everything here works as it should, the food is amazing, the culture rich, and people are on the whole likeable and friendly. But there are times when Westerners, and Japanese who have spent any amount of time abroad for that matter, realise that Japan gets some things not just wrong but horribly wrong. So join us after the jump as we redress the balance no doubt offset by our constant admiration of Japan by discussing\u00a0the<\/strong>\u00a010 little things that drive us nuts<\/strong>\u00a0in this otherwise great country.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The following is for the most-part written from a Western perspective, and the collective thoughts of both our own staff at RocketNews24 who have around 100 years’ experience of living in Japan between us, and comments shared by foreigners on dozens of online forums. As the office Brit and thus having been born with a master’s degree in complaining (and revelling in doing so), it fell to yours truly to put together this short list of irks and “seriously Japan, WTF?” moments. Read, laugh, nod along or disagree completely – this is all intended as a fun poke at a country we love, but it is nevertheless 100 percent true.<\/p>\n Ten things Japan gets horribly wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Movie releases<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Tsutaya<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Look, we get it, it takes time to prepare subtitles or record new voice tracks for foreign films, but for movie buffs – both foreign and Japanese alike – the wait for new movies to arrive in Japan can be absolute agony, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever, with some releases taking a couple of months while others arrive the best part of a year late. Other Asian countries like Taiwan and Singapore often get to enjoy Hollywood blockbusters barely weeks after their release in America and Europe, but Japanese moviegoers routinely have to wait until long after films have been made available to rent or buy on Blu-ray and DVD (and even posted on naughty torrent sites to download) in other countries before they appear on the silver screen in Japan. Here are a few examples of recent flicks, and their respective release dates, that Japan had to sit around waiting for:<\/p>\n Django Unchained<\/em> Man of Steel<\/em> Seeking a Friend for the End of the World<\/em> The Avengers<\/em> Up<\/em> Wreck it Ralph<\/em> The World\u2019s End<\/em> Some Western movies that make it over to Japan far quicker, but the majority seem to take an age. In short, being a movie fan in Japan kind of sucks.<\/p>\n 2. Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Okashi Moi<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Now that Halloween has come and gone, Japan is already switching to Christmas mode. Shop-fronts are being decorated with tinsel, trees are popping up in hotel lobbies, and you\u2019ll find a plastic Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa outfit outside many branches of KFC in the city. But for the build-up and affection for the festive season Japan seems to have, when it comes to actually delivering, Christmas here is pretty awful.<\/p>\n Since this is not a Christian country, Christmas Day is just another working day in Japan, so you won\u2019t hear of many families getting together to exchange gifts first thing in the morning, or spending the afternoon sitting by the tree sipping on wine and eggnog. In fact, after December 24 \u2013 which is considered to be one of the biggest days of the year for romance and dating \u2013 everyone pretty much forgets about the season.<\/p>\n That is, of course, except for \u201cChristmas Dinner\u201d, which since the 1970s has become almost completely synonymous with Kentucky Fried Chicken.\u00a0That\u2019s right, boys and girls, Japan replaces the biggest and best roast dinner of the year with a family-sized bucket of the colonel\u2019s finger-lickin\u2019 chicken, with even hamburger chains like Japan\u2019s own MOS Burger serving only chicken on the big day, and sometimes taking orders well in advance. Sure, there\u2019s no rule set in stone saying that everyone in the world should eat roast turkey and stuffing on December 25, and fried chicken with the family can be a ton of fun, but after explaining to a Japanese friend of mine that Kentucky for Christmas is to Westerners what presenting a Japanese family with a round of Big Macs instead of\u00a0traditional\u00a0New Year\u2019s food<\/a>\u00a0on January 1 would be like, they agreed that Kentucky Fried Christmas is probably pretty depressing for foreigners.<\/p>\n 3. Cheese<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Cheese Dreams<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n And what Christmas dinner would be complete without a nice big cheese board at the end of it? It may sound like an incredibly minor quibble, but Japan really just doesn\u2019t \u201cget\u201d cheese. Sure, you can find some decent Gouda or Camembert\u00a0if you go to some more up-market stores, but the vast majority of the fromage you\u2019ll encounter in Japan is heavily processed, wrapped in plastic and fairly tasteless.<\/p>\n Sliced and pre-grated cheese, tubs of parmesan to sprinkle on pasta and spreadable Kiri\/Philadelphia cheeses are pretty much everywhere in Japan, but even if you order a cheese platter in a swanky restaurant, when you see the pathetic slivers of the stuff they dish out you\u2019ll wonder whether wartime rationing is back on again, not to mention why the kitchen staff decided that a piece of rubbery cheddar the size of your thumb was worthy of a spot on the board.<\/p>\n If you do some research you can find some quality cheese online or at specialist stores, but be prepared to pay up to twice what you would in the US or Europe. Oh, cheese, how we miss you.<\/p>\n 4. Rented accommodation and the cost of moving house<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Inlink<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Moving house is never cheap regardless of the country you live in, and with the cost of land so high in Japan it\u2019s little wonder that even tiny plots the size of the average American backyard are so expensive. But even renting an apartment in Japan can cost a small fortune, and we\u2019re not just talking about monthly fees, either. If you\u2019re arriving in Japan for the first time, or your employer has provided you with temporary accommodation and you\u2019re looking for something more permanent, you\u2019ll be needing to hand over plenty of cash before you get the keys to your new place.<\/p>\n Usually when you sign up to rent an apartment in Japan, you\u2019ll need enough money to cover:<\/p>\n – the first month\u2019s rent up-front, naturally.<\/p>\n – a \u201cshikikin<\/em>\u201d security deposit. Again, this is also common elsewhere. This payment is usually mostly refundable at the end of a tenancy and covers any damage to the property during your stay, along with anything that is replaced as a matter of routine such as\u00a0tatami matting<\/a>,\u00a0shouji<\/em>\u00a0paper doors and the like. This payment is usually equal to around one or two months\u2019 rent.<\/p>\n – \u201creikin<\/em>\u201d gratuity. And here we meet the payment that leaves most foreigners scratching their heads. Written with the kanji characters \u793c\u00a0\u201dthanks\u201d and \u91d1 \u201cmoney\u201d,reikin<\/em>\u00a0is paid by the renter to the landlord and is not in fact some kind of cashback incentive to attract new tenants. That\u2019s right, if you want to move into an apartment, in some cases you have to pay the landlord up to two months\u2019 rent as a \u201cthank you\u201d before you spend even a single night in there. Oh, and you won\u2019t get a penny of it back, either.<\/p>\n – letting agency fees. After all, the people who take care of all the paperwork and advertise the property in their window or online have to make money somehow. Throw in roughly a month\u2019s rent here, too.<\/p>\n – Home\/fire insurance. This of course varies from property to property, but most letting agencies require tenants to sign up for at least a basic insurance plan covering damage in the event of a fire or earthquake.<\/p>\n Supposing that the average one-room, inner-city Tokyo apartment like the one pictured above costs around 60,000 yen (US$610) per month, adding up the individual costs of simply moving into an apartment (excluding transportation costs, movers\u2019 fees etc), you\u2019re looking at a minimum of around $2,500 right off the bat. Although many property owners and estate agents are now coming to realise that compulsory gratuities are incredibly old-fashioned and ask only for partially refundable security deposits, there are still nevertheless hundreds of thousands of landlords who demand a non-refundable cash payment just for the privilege of, well, paying them cash every month to live in their property.<\/p>\n 5. Bureaucracy<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0andplus<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n All this talk of silly traditions and long-standing rules like gratuities paid to landlords brings us nicely onto the general theme of bureaucracy in Japan. We know that this is technically a list of things that Japan gets wrong, so what we\u2019re essentially saying here is that Japan gets bureaucracy so very \u201cright\u201d, in that it positively excels at making inane processes even more laborious and painful, and that changing even a single rule requires a Herculean effort.<\/p>\n We realise that part of the reason why we can enjoy living in a country like Japan where everything runs so smoothly \u2013 trains arriving on time every single day; first-class customer service; everything from scheduled roadworks and deliveries being carried out bang-on-time with zero fuss \u2013 is because there are so many rules and expected standards here. As large-breasted country singer Dolly Parton once quipped, \u201cIf you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain,\u201d and she\u2019s right. But when it comes to bureaucracy in Japan you\u2019d better bring a rain coat, umbrella, and maybe even a change of clothes, because when it rains it positively pours.<\/p>\n Going to open a bank account? Even if you show up with your application form filled out in perfect Japanese, a valid residency card, passport, Japanese driver\u2019s licence, a bunch of recent utility bills, passport photos, birth certificate and a priest and a lawyer who can vouch for both your identity and character, without your\u00a0hanko<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a tiny little name stamp used to \u201csign\u201d official documents and that anyone could have made up \u2013 you won\u2019t get anywhere. Why? Because it\u2019s the rules! Try to explain to your boss that a return plane ticket actually works out cheaper than buying a one-way and that your company could save money by bending the rules this once, and you\u2019ll be agreed with and then immediately told \u201cno\u201d. Because it\u2019s the rules. Suggest a minor change at work and the bosses who\u2019ve \u201cdone it this way for years\u201d will suck air through their teeth while coworkers squirm awkwardly in their seats wishing you hadn\u2019t made a fuss. When it comes to Japan, change does not come easily \u2013 and not without vast amounts of paperwork and hoops jumped through \u2013 be it in the government or working life, and people often view those who try to affect it as individuals to be wary of as they aren\u2019t pulling in the same direction as everyone else.<\/p>\n They say that if the West invented bureaucracy then Japan perfected it. We don\u2019t know who \u201cthey\u201d are, but they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n 6. Packaging<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Mochikihi<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019re not talking about traditional Japanese packaging or beautiful gift-wrapping here \u2013 that\u2019s fantastic \u2013 we\u2019re talking about Japan\u2019s fondness for going crazy with the plastic and sealing every possible consumer product in its own air-tight prison.\u00a0Japan may well be well ahead of many Western countries in requiring its citizens to separate their waste into burnables, plastics, bottle, glass, cans, and paper (if it\u2019s not in the correct bag or box it won\u2019t be collected), but it still gets through plastic like you wouldn\u2019t believe.<\/p>\n Buy a bag of 20 rice crackers to snack on during movie night and you\u2019ll soon find yourself with an enormous pile of plastic as every single cracker comes in its own wrapper. Grab a tube of Chipstar \u2013 Japan\u2019s own miniature version of Pringles \u2013 and when you pop the top you\u2019ll discover that the chips inside are in fact sealed within a plastic wrapper, which you then have to remove from the tube and open, leaving you with a regular, if elongated, bag of chips (which begs the question \u201cThen why bother with the tube in the first place?\u201d), or awkwardly decant them back into the cardboard tube, which usually ends with the chips going everywhere or refusing to go back in properly. Japan, we Westerners like our chips and our rice crackers to be crisp and delicious, too, but you\u2019re killing us \u2013 and the planet, come to think of it \u2013 with the plastic here, so give it a rest will you?<\/p>\n 7. Art and cultural exhibits<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0nyartbeat<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n If you\u2019re fortunate enough to live in the (relative) countryside and a big exhibit comes to a nearby museum or art gallery, you\u2019ll probably have a great time. But if you\u2019re in pretty much any big city and want to check out the works of Turner, Michelangelo, or even Paul Klee when they come to town, expect to lean, peer and crane your neck to see past the enormous crowds, or else be swept along either by the constantly moving lines of visitors or by curators whose job it is to ensure that guests view the artwork while pretty much in motion to allow the next patron a look.\u00a0No time for quiet contemplation here \u2013 big names pull in big crowds and at the end of the exhibit you\u2019ll feel like you just stepped off a convey belt at the end of a Disneyland attraction rather than having imbibed some culture. As our native Japanese writer Kay comments, \u201cExhibitions here are so incredibly crowded that I rarely want to go.\u201d We can\u2019t blame her in the slightest for feeling that way.<\/p>\n 8. Money and ATMs<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Smartplanet<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Being the home of technology, you might expect everyone in Japan to be paying for their groceries by having their retinas scanned by now, or at least swiping a card of some sort. There are a number of outlets that accept payment via credit card or even from pre-paid commuter passes for smaller items, but Japan is still very much a cash society and people feel uncomfortable walking around with less that $100 in their wallet or purse at any one time, particularly on weekends. Why the weekend? Well, aside from the fact that there\u2019s fun to be had and so many things to buy, the majority of ATMs at banks \u2013 not just the banks themselves but the machines you withdraw money from \u2013 either close completely (literally\u2013a little metal shutter comes down) or charge customers to withdraw their own cash.<\/p>\n Every weekday evening at around 6 p.m., or before the weekend or a public holiday, it\u2019s common to see people rushing into ATM vestibules, or \u201cservice corners\u201d as they\u2019re called, to withdraw enough cash to see them through until the next working day. Many pubs and bars are strictly cash only, and even debit cards \u2013 where the money comes directly out of your account rather than you paying the bill off later \u2013 are still rare. If you want us to help the economy out, Japan, please let us get at, and spend, our money whenever we want to\u2026<\/p>\n 9. Heating and insulation<\/strong><\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Livedoor Blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n We know, we know: houses in Japan are thin and poorly insulated because they\u2019re designed to be as light as possible in order to better withstand earthquakes. But that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re don\u2019t get insanely cold in winter and are miserable to be in.<\/p>\n A lack of central heating means running an air conditioner, hiding under a\u00a0kotatsu<\/a><\/em>, huddling\u00a0a \u201chot carpet\u201d heated rug, or even using a kerosene-burning stove indoors\u2013all the while opening the door or window to ventilate the room (and losing heat in the process) every hour to avoid breathing in vast amounts of carbon monoxide\u2013to keep warm. When you\u2019re going to bed wearing socks, a sweater and a wooly hat as well as your usual pyjamas, or your showers take 10 minutes longer than they should because you can\u2019t bear to turn the hot water off and venture out into the cold again, you know something\u2019s not quite right. We\u2019re all for safety, but we\u2019re also hoping and praying that one day science will come up with a material that\u2019s ultra-light, super-insulating and affordable, and that Japan starts building houses out of it. Brrr.<\/p>\n 10. Television<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI tried. I really tried to like it,\u201d quoth one of our American writers here at RocketNews24, \u201cbut there are only so many shows I can sit through where they eat something, switch to a close-up of someone\u2019s shaky hand holding the food, wait three seconds, then someone shouts \u2018umai!\u2019<\/em>\u201d We hear you loud and clear, good sir.<\/p>\n Japan may have brought us some quality anime over the years, and even a handful of dramas that fans of Japan love with a passion, but much of programming here is seriously bad. Dull cooking shows, variety chat shows, slapstick comedy involving people wearing wigs, bald caps, giant fake eyebrows and plastic noses, travel and food shows where every dish sampled is an absolute triumph and yet still a complete surprise\u2026 If you\u2019re into variety shows with panels of the same B-list celebrities week after week, each with carefully crafted lines and jokes to reel off (and reactions to others\u2019) and audience members shouting \u201cEeeeeee<\/em>~!\u201d to express their amazement and disbelief at least ten times per show \u2013 all presented in a format that looks like the network just splashed out on some new graphics software and is damn well going to get its money\u2019s worth \u2013 then you\u2019re in for a real treat. The rest of us, meanwhile, make a point of switching our TV sets on only when we know there\u2019s a show starting that we especially want to see or when we\u2019ve run out of\u00a0videos of cats<\/a>\u00a0to watch online. Sorry, Japan, but you get TV so very, very wrong.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s about it for our list of pet peeves. We admit that in the grand scheme of things they matter not a jot and life here in Japan is still pretty good, but it also feels good to get it all out once and for all.\u00a0Let us know in the comments section if there\u2019s anything about Japan you\u2019d also like to get off your chest. Remember, it\u2019s not moaning if we share as a group; it\u2019s catharsis.<\/p>\n And if that was too much negativity for you, be sure to come back soon when we\u2019ll be introducing our \u201c10 things that Japan gets awesomely right\u201d. See, we\u2019re not entirely miserable!<\/em><\/p>\n Title image:\u00a0Raw Store<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Related articles from RocketNews24:<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"10](\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/10-things-Japan-gets-horribly-wrong1.png\")
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\nUS: December 25, 2012. Japan: March 1, 2013<\/p>\n
\nUS: June 10, 2013. Japan: August 30, 2013<\/p>\n
\nUS: June 18, 2012. Japan: April 27, 2013<\/p>\n
\nUS: April 11, 2012. Japan: August 14, 2012<\/p>\n
\nUS: May 29, 2009. Japan: December 15, 2009<\/p>\n
\nUS: November 2, 2012. Japan: March 23, 2013<\/p>\n
\nUS: August 23, 2013. Japan: March 1, 2014<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"10](\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/10-things-Japan-gets-horribly-wrong2.jpg\")
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