Immigrants in Japan

It’s a grey Sunday morning.  My leopard print skirt, black leggings and glittery leg warmers are curled up on a chair by my window. Hazily looking at survivors of a drunken 80s fancy dress party I sit here drinking my tea while listening to the BBC world service in my western style appartment. Am I really in Japan?

Recently the news has been rife with the debate about immigrants in Western countries: the influx of Poles to England, Zimbabweans to South South Africa, Mexicans to America. The debate pivots around the usual topic of integration. To what extent should immigrants accept their new country’s culture, customs, beliefs, religions, language and to what extent should the host countries welcome what is essentially “foreign”?

Are we JETs here in Osaka stubborn, patriotic expats? (And why expats and not immigrants as a friend from home  recently pointed out) How much do we bend ourselves to accept Japan’s culture and customs, do we adapt and change our behaviour and attitudes enough to fit in to this homogenous society. Are we the immigrant in England upon whom we frown for not being able to comunicate fluently in our mother tongue, the immigrant who we glare at in contempt when he is merely laughing and talking loudly with his friends on a train in joy, the immigrant who makes the superficial changes in culture when it suits him? 

When my friends and I were running around town with flourescent tights, glitter hair and leg warmers, were we merely confirming negative steretypes of Westerners in Japan or were we looked at kindly as some foreigners having fun? In a country completely different from your own, is it better to always blend in and constantly try to integrate or should you give yourself occasions to go crazy, not care and be yourself regardless of what people think?