This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
Often, when we hear that somebody has been somewhere we have never been or that someone has done something we have never done, we want to know what it was like; so we ask questions: How was it? What did you think? Would you do it again? Etc.
Since coming to Japan nine years ago, one of the most common questions I have received from people both in Japan and abroad is, What shocked you when you first came to Japan? People love to ask me variations on this question. And I, in turn, love to ask other people variations of this question when I hear about their travels and experiences. It’s an interesting question, one that sometimes produces really surprising answers.
When it comes to me and my experiences with transitioning to life in Japan, however, that is not the case.
The one thing that really turned my world upside down when I first came to Japan was the fact that I couldn’t just walk out the door of my apartment and get a cheap cup of coffee from any street corner that I wanted. The year was 2009, and there I was, in the middle of a city with a population of 800,000 people, surrounded by convenience stores, kisatens, supermarkets, and restaurants, and nowhere, absolutely nowhere, could I get a cheap cup of takeout coffee to bring to the park with me or enjoy as I walked down the street. It blew me away.
Where I came from in the United States, you could quickly and easily buy a cup of coffee for little more or less than a dollar at any gas station, convenience store, or supermarket you came by. Every one of them had hot, steaming pots of the stuff waiting and on the ready.
When I first came to Japan, though, there was nothing like this. There weren’t coffee pots in the convenience stores. There weren’t diners that served bottomless cups of coffee for a dollar or two. There were only vending machines, vending machines that served warmed cans of coffee (which I found undrinkable). And there were warming shelves in convenience stores too, which held more cans of warm coffee. That was it.
Of course, if you wanted to get a good cup of coffee (and pay the price for it) there were plenty of coffee shops, both new and old, all over the city, but they often required finding, and in many cases they didn’t have paper cups, so unless you carried your own mug or thermos around with you, you couldn’t get a cup of coffee to go even if you wanted to.
Now, fast forward nine years to today and you can find single brew coffee machines on just about every street corner in Japan, coffee machines which sell both hot coffee and iced coffee for less than two dollars.
If I were to come to Japan today for the first time, I wonder what would surprise and shock me. Maybe it would be all of these bean grinding coffee machines.
For those of you have been to Japan before, what surprised and/or shocked you?
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.
That's interesting. I wonder what changed between then and now. I'm so fascinated by cultures. I've been really digging into Norway recently.
Coffee has always been popular in Japan. I think it just took the right push and advertising to set this in motion. The cans of coffee are still here. This is just another option now. I’m not sure which chain started it, but I have a feeling it was 7-11, which obviously has examples from all over the world to draw from.
Sounds like they are desperately in need of a Dunkin Doughnuts, what's nice about being in New England is that you are seldom more than a mile or two from a Dunkin Doughnuts. I tried Nespresso recently, I had a machine when I was on vacation, that shit is pretty amazing.
There’s an interesting story there, actually. Dunkin Donuts came to Japanin the 60s or 70s and for some reason became a different chain. In Japan, what used to be called Dunkin Donuts is now called Mister Donuts, or Misudo for short. The stores, though, are more similar to an IHOP than the corner mart drive thru Dunkin Donuts stores that are common in the US now.
That's funny, I don't often buy things at Dunkin but I find them very convenient public restrooms. The egg cheese and sausage on a croissant is good though.
That’s hilarious.
I was a courier for a while and I would hit Dunkins like twice a day.
That explains it. I imagine you had one or two stores that were always on your route and made for your go to pit stop places.
You often see taxis in Japan lined up next to parks because of the public restrooms. It seems like each taxi driver has his own favorite park to post up.
I had wide ranging routes, what's great about Dunkin was that I had so many options, there were some I would hit more than others but lots of times I would just be like "I'll just wait until the next Dunkin".
I enjoyed the coffee from the vending machines and was surprised to find beer, fried chicken, cheeseburgers, and eggs (10,not 12) in vending machines. Once at a game arcade we saw a claw game but instead of trying to grab a stuffed animal, your prize was a live lobster.
You enjoyed the can coffee? I remember the first time I bought one from a vending machine. It was heated, and I didn’t know it. When I touched it, it was like being shocked. I was so surprised, I jumped back. I’ve grown used to the black canned coffee here, but I still can’t stomach the ones with cream and sugar in them.
A UFO catcher with live lobsters? Now that’s something I haven’t seen yet. It sounds nds like something that might catch on in Maine.
Well, I was up north, in Aomori, so hot coffee was nice on a winter day, always black. In the summer, it was always cold green tea, which I still buy here in the US whenever I'm at Daiso or another Japanese market.
Those hot cans do make great hand warmers in the winter. I’m going to have to look and see if I can find a Daiso in my hometown when I’m back this summer.
Hah, I agree. And now I'm the exact opposite... I find the gas station and convenience store just-brew-a-pot-and-leave-it-out coffee undrinkable whenever I visit home (I swear, they must use the worst quality coffee for brewing it, as well as the nastiest unfiltered water) and I rather like the vending machine coffee here in Japan. Funny how that works out.
But yeah, I remember back in the day. Non-vending machine coffee was much harder to find. There was only one starbucks here and it was in a very inconvenient place yet always with a 10-20 minute line, so I rarely went. The only other choice being the various kisaten which are usually overpriced and give too little. But at the same time, I found (and find) the (almost always) old people running them to be delightful and learned a lot about Japan by visiting them.
Like you, I am often asked this question. My answer always varies. Hmm... I don't know. One thing that shocked me was all the smoking. It was just like my childhood in the 80s, before smoking has started the process of mostly disappearing from public life in the US. Everywhere. I remember visiting a bank to open an account and being shocked that the clerk was smoking. I'm certainly glad Japan has changed from those days, at least in regards to smoking.
I was also surprised by how nice the roads were. Not the pothole infested things we call roads in the States. Here, potholes are rare in mid-sized and up cities, and really not that common in smaller towns either. Not nearly as common as in the US anyway, where roads are more pothole than road.
I guess my shocks are less shocks (I never really had culture shock) and more just observations.
That’s funny. I was talking with a Canadian last week and she said, I just don’t understand why the roads in Japan are so bad. And I was like, What!?! Are you kidding me? You obviously haven’t spent much time driving in the US. I think the roads here are in great shape too.
Perhaps the shock of moving to Japan is just how easy it is to transition to life here. I didn’t really have any expectations when I came here, but in hindsight, I think I expected things to be a little more exotic here.
I’m heading back home soon. I’ll have to keep an eye out for the reverse surprises.
The Japanese have the rich culture with tradition. Coffee is the most popular drink here. Japan is advanced in modern technology. Everywhere in this country we can prove it. Thanks for your article.
Thanks for reading. Do you think coffee is more popular than tea in Japan? I often wonder. I suppose it depends on the time, situation, and place.
I can't wait to go to Japan, 2019 for sure
Come for as long as you can. There’s a lot to do and see.
This is a tough one for me. I first came over in 2001 so my memory is a little foggy about the little things that I am sure I noticed back then, but are normal to me now.
One thing I clearly remember was the scents. Everything smelled different, both good and bad. Incense, yakimo, air fresheners, the plants, etc. all foreign.
Some obvious things, toilets(holes in the floor), delicious food everywhere, an amazing transportation system that ran on time(fuck you MUNI), the vastness of the Tokyo. The latter still blows me away to this day. I have wandered the streets here for years and I only know a very small fraction of the city. Even then shops come and go.
A good cup of coffee is still hard to come by though. We have some great brewers in Tokyo now, but like you said, it's taken years. I was spoiled with Dietrichs & Kean.
Dietrich’s & Kean? That’s a brand I don’t know.
That’s interesting that you remember the scents. That doesn’t stand out to me. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about all the new sounds over here, which there are many, but if they hadn’t have been pointed out to me, I don’t know if I would have noticed them.
For most of the time when I was there, I had a cheap home coffee maker and a vacuum flask, so I was largely spared canned coffee. But yeah, on days where I didn't have time time to make my own for some reason, I'd drop some coins into the 自販機 and got a can of "coffee" with an aroma that reminded me of my parents' living room table for some reason. The varnish…
Something that throws me off for a couple of days after either going to Japan or coming back to the States is the difference in the height of curbs. Like, I'll step off of one and then have that moment of panic you have when there's one more step on a staircase than you thought there was. It's weird. Am I the only one?
I’ll let you know in a few weeks. I can tell you this, though, I was in the American Embassy in Tokyo recently and I couldn’t believe how high up on the wall the urinal was. My son almost needed a ladder to pee in it. So, I imagine the curbs are probably different as well.