Tokyo is turning to a 4-day work week in a desperate attempt to get women to have more babies as birthrate plunges

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

17. I've lived there twice ...

... but both times it has been part of an organized program with orientation and support built in. The first time was on the Japanese government sponsored JET program in the early 1990's. I taught English at the two middle schools in a town in Nagano Prefecture (where the Olympics were in 1998). I met my wife, an American teaching at a private cram school (juku), during that year. The JET program and the local Board of Education did a lot to support me and help me fit in.

The second time, in 2003, I spent about 6 months as part of a sister university exchange at Shikoku University. My wife and two sons came with me, and they enrolled in a local kindergarten. The University had an orientation and support program in place that made it relatively easy.

I agree it would be very difficult for immigrants, especially refugees, to navigate the complexities of language and bureaucracy in the country. Unless there was a significant support structure in place. There is also the reality that the Japanese are culturally isolationist and do not particularly like foreigners.

Some Japanese individuals certainly are friendly and supportive and can become lifelong friends or more. But as a system and culture they see themselves as separate from all other nationalities and more or less require that most foreigners adapt fully even with little or no help doing so provided.

It does not make it an easy place to emigrate.