Socialize in Japan

No matter the main purpose and length of your stay in Japan, we imagine you’ll want to meet locals to speak Japanese with, have a bite to eat, or do other activities. We therefore offer you this article with lots of good tips and advice to help How to Socialize in Japan.

In Japan, searching for contacts and friends via the internet and social networks is the most common method. This is the first step.

You will therefore need to be connected. If you are not 3.0 in Japan you will really make less friends. It might be difficult for you to socialize here; the Japanese are not the type to send smoke signals to each other to communicate. So, if you can have a smartphone, that’s the best, even if it’s very expensive here! A PC is already great, but you won’t have the apps. At worst, take a tablet.

The Japanese are very connected people: they have their noses permanently glued to their smartphone, in the street, in the metro and even in bars and nightclubs! And we mean smartphone, not phone. Everyone here has the latest model with all the apps and options. With an iPhone 4, you will pass for a peasant here. To approach these humans of the 3rd millennium, it is therefore better to adopt their tools and their ways of doing things.

Here are already the apps and sites we recommend you go to and the apps you’d better have on your smartphone:

Line

The app that all Japanese people use, we think. They all have a Facebook profile too, but they are less often on it. Usually, we are asked for the Line first before Facebook in Japan. It’s free messaging for those who don’t know, much like WhatsApp. You can use it on your computer but you have to activate it via a smartphone.

Tinder

Yet another fairly used social network in Japan. It’s used a lot as a network in Japan, although of course here too this app has a bad reputation. It’s nice to have a smartphone to use it too. The fairly new network operates a bit like a dating site. If you like the other person’s photos and him/her too, you can start chatting. It’s pretty straightforward as a method, but it lets you know directly what the other one looks like, the opposite of the blind date.

Meetup

A great site to find groups that are organizing events. There are groups on all topics and in all cities of Japan, just search by keyword. For example, international, cultural exchange or language. You can even create your own group. Once accepted into the group, go to the vents and meet the people. It’s that simple.

WhynotJapan

A great site for all things nightlife and travel based in the city of Osaka. A good way to meet lots of Japanese people who want to party. The parties are organized in several cities and their schedules are very comprehensive and available well in advance. They offer other activities like travel and also a “miscellaneous” tab where you can find and contact other people.

Elan International Parties is an organization that organizes international parties and meetings in the cities of Tokyo, Sapporo, Sendai, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka. They organize a lot of events and manage to bring together a lot of people. The audience is predominantly made up of Japanese students looking to make contact with foreigners. 

Facebook

The classic, everyone knows. This social network was not that popular in Japan but in recent years, the number of new users is increasing and taking over compared to 100% Japanese networks like Mixi. Look for groups or organizations that create cross-cultural or international style events. There are quite a few, but sometimes you have to search a little to find them.

The Japanese are also very fond of mail. They will write to you a lot on your personal e-mail address and on that of your telephone (because Japanese telephones have an e-mail address). They will often send you emails to your Hotmail or Gmail address from their smartphone. The SMS system is used very little.

If you are present on all these social networks, you will find friends very quickly and easily.

If you are in Tokyo or in the Kansai region, we also recommend the Gaitomo evenings which allow foreigners and Japanese to meet during quiet evenings in bars. It’s fun and we often meet good people. The Japanese are very open and always come to talk to us.

Tips:

• If you live in a hostel, you will often have flyers or magazines at the front desk that advertise various things. Sometimes there are some who have parties so this is also a good place to start looking. The guesthouses organize, once a month on average, evenings between tenants so that you can meet your roommates in a festive setting. Sometimes you can even go to the parties of other guesthouses.
• For the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, etc.), there is also the Kansai Scene magazine. It’s in English and you can find announcements from people who want to hang out, chat and chat. You can also advertise there for free to find friends. It’s a monthly read by 20,000 people in the region apparently.

You can also advertise in other magazines and on other websites.

After you’ve researched contacts online, you’re going to need to meet them.

This is the second step. It’s all well and good to chat, but nothing beats a good old-fashioned chat, over a pint of beer, leaning on the counter. And for that, the Japanese are not the last! We give you some advice, from our experience here and which is not necessarily valid all the time with everyone but you will surely be confronted one day with this kind of situation.

Our tips for making friends here:

• We advise you to speak Japanese or find Japanese who speak English. We have noticed that the more you speak their language, the more the Japanese will tend to let go, make jokes and tell personal things: Even if they speak another language well, nothing beats their mother tongue to feel at home. ‘Easy. They are also more likely to ask to see you again. Logical you will tell me, but it is worth noting.
• We also advise you to leave “paper” classified ads wherever you can: International centers, libraries, language schools, cafes, websites, magazines, etc. You will be surprised how many Japanese people will contact you with a little message like: “My name is Keitaro. I want make new friends! “
• To meet your friends in real life, schedule them to meet in a SPECIFIC place at a specific time. The Japanese (the girls anyway) are really noodling when it comes to orientation and they won’t go around the block looking for you if they can’t see you. Besides, if you don’t speak Japanese, it will be hard to explain where you are on the phone.
• As foreigners, you will break social codes without realizing it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to be careful not to exceed the limits of intrusion, especially in Japan. We quote in particular talking with a group of drunk salarymen (a classic and always very funny) and flirting with Japanese women (do not force too much, because it quickly becomes harassment for them).
• Do not expect to have aperitifs, house parties or bottiglione (an Italian word for an improvised aperitif in the street) with Japanese people, it is not in their culture. They go to bars and clubs or even izakayas to drink and basta. On the other hand, you can have afters, as some bars / clubs are open until late in the morning.
• If you are dating a group of english people or between strangers, you will also have a harder time intermingling with other Japanese people. Just go with a friend, your wingman. You will not be alone and you can also type chat from time to time with other Japanese who dare more easily approach two isolated gaijins than a large group of torn Europeans
• The Japanese are very polite and will never tell you to your face that you are ch *** ing them. They will rather fake you than tell you. So, if a Japanese tells you 3 times in a row that he is sick if you suggest an appointment, it is dead. Or, he / she is really sick and go get him some meds.
• If you are a guy, watch out for girls who are trying to befriend you but are actually just trying to slip the rope. It’s cool for a while and it’ll make you think you’re successful, but they just want a foreign boyfriend to parade in front of the girlfriends or worse get married and have kids. The horrible thing.

In summary, we will say that it is quite easy to meet people in Japan and make new acquaintances. They are very curious and love to talk to strangers. The difficulty will be to find a common language to communicate effectively and to keep in touch in the long term if you leave.

We will still have plenty of other advice for you, but we prefer to avoid generalities about Japanese people and make friends with your own style!

Japanese government to fund AI dating services to boost fertility rates

Japanese authorities will fund dating apps that use neural networks to help residents find their mates and boost their fertility, according to the BBC. Financial support for local companies will begin next year, $ 19 million will be allocated from the budget.

In 2019, the number of newborns in Japan dropped to a record low of 865 thousand. The rapidly aging nation has long been looking for ways to solve the demographic problem. Many Japanese people work late and have no time to make new acquaintances. Residents of the country observe social etiquette, it is not customary here to speak openly about their feelings, so many people suffer from loneliness. The high level of isolation led to the emergence of the term “kodokushi” – it refers to the phenomenon when a person dies and his body is found only after a few days or even months.

The government hopes that machine learning services will be able to more accurately analyze data and user requests and find the right satellite for them. Programs should take into account not only the age and income of the Japanese, but also their hobbies, values, social circle and goals. If action is not taken, the population of Japan could more than halve: in 2017, the country had 128 million inhabitants, and by the end of the century there may be only 53 million.

However, sociocultural anthropologist Sachiko Horiguchi believes there are more effective ways to boost fertility than funding applications. The expert emphasizes that the low salary of young people is directly related to the loss of interest in romantic relationships – an increase in the standard of living would help to correct the situation. “If we’re talking about technology, AI robots would be useful to take over some of the household chores or childcare,” adds Dr. Horiguchi.

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