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Living in Asia Homesickness: Beating the Blues |
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Cure: Japan If you are living in Japan, get out and meet some long term resident foreigners. These guys and girls, have ideally lived here for a minimum of two years, and have no plans of returning home. They DO exist, especially in larger cities. These people are well adjusted and have also been through what you are going through. They can help you lighten up, see things as they really are, (life is a comedy anyway, just you've changed the scenery), and they can help you get perspective. Travelling and seeing all the sights gets your mind off of your problems. See the country while you can, otherwise you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Get a camera and get into recording the country through your eyes. Japan is a great place with lots of images that are so different to your home country, so record them. Sometimes your employer is not that good anyway. Best prevention is to research your employer before accepting work there. You can even check with some websites, as they MAYBE able to tell you if your potential employers have caused some problems, so you should try to find your potential employer on these 'Blacklist' websites. If you think you do have a bad employer, check out the blacklists and compare, and chat to other foreigners, as most employers do have a reputation of some kind. Finally, learning a little Japanese can help a lot. It sounds obvious, but for no apparent reason. Learning even a little of the local language does wonders in building your standing socially. It shows to them that you are willing to learn about them and their country, and that you don't think that it is a one-way affair: you merely imparting English and it's baggage upon them. There is such a concept as 'linguistic imperialism'. This is where the English speaking countries attempt to dominate the world by enforcing our language upon them. I personally don't believe this is the case. But I have had new teachers try to enforce our culture, values and ideals on their students. Usually the students DON'T appreciate this kind of imperialisation. However, learning their language does counter this notion of 'linguistic imperialisation', or as I see it, 'cultural imperialisation'. Prozac, a popular anti-depressant, is available in the country, and you can ask for it, saying that it helps you control your migraines (and it actually does, and especially since their understanding of mental health is not sufficient to help us). Do consider getting a prescription for it for a while, just to help you through. Note: Apparently, you don't need to leave the country if you want to change employers (I'm not 100% sure on the legality). It seems you can just go to a new employer and they can get you a new visa, without you leaving the country. Don't stay in that terrible job "just to see out your contract." Besides, they probably have a quota on how many foreigners they can take in a year, and they maybe at that limit, so they are less likely to report you as AWOL. This gives you time to get the new visa |
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