You’ve been in Japan Too Long when…
Updated January, 2001
The following were collected from various Usenet groups, most likely soc.culture.japan and fj.life.in-japan, during the mid-1990's, and some were added by me. "Lifer" gaijin or those who have spent many years living in Japan, who can get all the jokes, should be extremely amused. These aren't all mine so please feel free to distribute them around, add to them, whatever. Links to this site are always appreciated, too.
You've been in Japan too long 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 think US$17 isn't such a bad price for a new paperback.
...you don't hesitate to put a $10 note into a vending machine.
...when you are talking on the telephone to your parents and your father says, "Why are you interrupting my explanation with grunts?"
...you see a gaijin get on the train and think "Wow, it's a gaijin!"
...you start thinking can-coffee tastes good.
...you have trouble figuring out how many syllables there really are in words like 'building'.
...when you wait for the first day of summer to wear short sleeve dress shirts.
...when the first option you buy for your car is a TV set.
...you don't think it unusual for a truck to play "It's a Small World" when backing up.
...you really enjoy corn soup with your Big Mac.
...you think the opposite of red is white.
...you leave your expensive bottle of Royal Salute with a sleazy barkeeper and don't worry.
...you can listen to the ads in FEN without falling around the floor laughing.
...you pore over the jikokuhyo looking for ways to avoid riding the Shinkansen.
...you appear for your first skiing lesson with brand new Rossignol high performance racing skis and an aerodynamic racing suit with color matched goggles. And then snowplow down.
...you buy a potato-and-strawberry sandwich for lunch without cringing.
...when you do "yanki-zuwari" waiting for a bus to come.
...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.
...you automatically remember all of your important year dates in Showa numbers.
...you think every foreign movie title contains the word 'love.'
...people stop complementing you on your Japanese, and start asking you where you had your nose and eyes done.
...you still remember your first drive in your brand new Toyopet.
...you wonder why Prince Akihito is already getting grey hair, and why you don't see much of the Emperor these days.
...you think Masako is beautiful and Hillary is cute.
...you noticed 7-11 changed its onigiri wrapping houshiki for the third time.
...you find a beautiful new way to eat natto.
...you are not worried about speeding in the rain, because you know the cops are only out there in good weather.
...you think birds cry.
...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 its cool to stand in the "Japanese only" queue at Narita Immigration.
...you go to New Zealand and consider traveling around by train.
...you develop a liking for green tea flavored ice cream.
...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."
...your children call you Otosan/Okasan.
...matter of fact, you've never even been skiing, but the rack looks great on the car...
...you have mastered the art of simultaneous bowing and hand-shaking.
...when you think it's alright to stick your head into a stranger's apartment to see if anybody's home.
...your hair is thinning and you consider it "barcode style".
...when you find nothing unusual in a television commercial for candy in which a model dressed in a high school girl's uniform comes up behind another model dressed in a high school girl's uniform, grabs her left breast, gives a devilish grin, and skips away.
...you think the natural location for a beer garden is on a roof.
...you think that you can impress foreigners by drinking Budweiser.
...you ride a Honda Cub with a sidecar.
...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 remember when Yamamoto Linda came on at the very end of the show (NHK's Yume de aimashou) and kept her mouth shut.
...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."
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