Japan, for better or worse

Some days I wonder what the hell I'm doing here, other days I feel so fortunate to have made it. Such are the contradictions too of this country.
First the good, otherwise this'll sound like the usual rant. Japanese food is something else; healthy, imaginative and often hilarious. You may not always know what you're eating but it almost always tastes good. And there's so much variety of restaurants and eateries that boredom is not a possibility. And it's cheap, much cheaper than Britain despite what some may think.
Convenient seems to be the most popular adjective in Japan, and so much of what goes on here is. Life, shops, gizmos and products in general all seem geared to making your days easier, and that means more time for you. An amazing concept.
The trains are brilliant and always on time, as are buses mostly, and despite the occasional calamitious crash they run efficiently and can be relied on. In Britain when it comes to public transport you can't rely on any of it, ever. In Japan, apart from Shinkansens, the trains are again cheaper.
Respectful - that's one word that comes to mind when I think of Japanese attitudes to others, and this idea that you respect other people no matter what has largely disappeared in Britain, sadly.
Taxes are lower here. I pay 6%, which on an average salary makes me feel rich enough to send wads of it home on a regular basis. In Britain the taxes are laughable because despite being so much higher (22 or 40% +17.5% vat, + 9% health ins, + 80% on petrol, cigarettes and alcohol, 40% death taxes - we're basically working for very little - AND because public services are so awful it would make any rational person stunned with fury at trying to wonder WHERE IT ALL GOES). Japan, on the other hand, seems to be content with my 6% + 5% Vat + small local taxes.
But there are downsides to this place:
The average Japanese male seems to be obsessed with comics and pachinko games. In no other country in the world can you find so many men reading manga comics which often have sadistic and perverted sex fantasies as their running stories. And they read them on the train. That alone makes this weirdsville. Pachinko is like pinball but you can win on it, plus they are situated in large deafening halls, making it a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
Watch adverts for a while on TV here and you get to realising how advanced the sense of juvenilia is; the squeaky voices, the cartoon characters that are used to sell everything, the maddening voiceovers. It all makes you just want to scream grow up!
Japanese workers tend to be perpetually overworked. At any one time a third of the people in train carriages are asleep, past the point of exhaustion. I've tried sleeping on a train - it's virtually impossible. They do it as a matter of course. Or they pretend to be asleep so they don't have to give their seat to an old or pregnant woman. When I give up my seat the person is so shocked that I could do such a thing that makes me wonder where their chivalry went, or whether they ever had any.
Society is so rigid that there are norms of behaviour which are acceptable. This would be okay but some things which they find totally acceptable are like coughing in crowded places without putting a hand to their mouths, or sniffing wads of snot back down their throats at regular intervals - a vile noise which has few equals. And yet they frown on people who blow their noses and put the tissue in their pockets, which is by far more pleasant and respectful to others than sniffing and coughing into other people's faces.
The rigidity of the culture means that when people go outside those barriers they really do it in a big way. Our neighbours have long shouting and screaming bouts that last for hours, often in the middle of the night, and yet nobody seems to complain as it's just not done. This is freakish and totally unacceptable behaviour. Murders in Japan, whilst few and far betweeen, are often gruesome and of the school children beheading their classmates in breaktime variety. When they go off the rails all this incredible pent up frustration comes out, which makes you wonder why they don't have better outlets for their frustrations than manga and shopping.
Suicide is so popular in Japan, and nobody seems to care that much. Some metro lines in Tokyo are more popular than others for jumpers. Something like 34,000 died last year; imagine if 34,000 troops got killed and how unacceptable that would be.
As drivers they are awful - the number of road deaths here is shocking. Maybe they fall asleep at the wheel because they work too hard.
People often die from overwork. Hard to believe.
People live in tiny cages so small as to wonder if they don't violate human rights.
Tokyo is a large sheet of concrete with a few miniscule parks.
There seems to be a lack of creativity here; when you ask people what their interests or hobbies are they tell you shopping and driving, neither of which needs much engagement at all. There often seems like there's no one home that when you do find yourself talking to a person with real character it's quite a surprise. Perhaps they're too busy working.
The weather here is hilariously bad. Japanese like you to know there are 4 seasons, to which I feel like replying, yes, and they're all awful. Winter is bitterly cold, summer garishly hot and humid, and in between they have the rainy season with its biblical storms, and outside that yet more rain and misery. And not forgetting the typhoons in Sept and Oct which rip parts of the country to shreds. And don't get me started on earthquakes and mosquitos and the fact that for 5 months of summer the only thing holding your sanity together is the air conditioning system; yes, Japan has the world's silliest weather.
On the whole it's an amusing place to be although it does do your head in sometimes. It's a fascinating and funny country that you can warm too, but perhaps most foreigners find hard to love. Me? I'll be here another few years then head back to Europe, grateful that I did it but much more grateful to be nearer home.