The loneliness of people living abroad is not just about the language barrier. It is a hard-to-explain fatigue that comes from continually living in an environment where all the basic assumptions of life are different. And when you try to convey that fatigue to others, the assumptions are not shared, so a double loneliness arises: "they don't understand me." Foreign employees working in Japan are in the same situation.
Article
The Loneliness of Not Being Understood -
What People Living Abroad Carry
The loneliness of people living abroad does not come only from the language barrier. Fatigue builds up in an environment where the basic assumptions of daily life are different, and that fatigue does not get through to people who do not share those assumptions. Foreign employees working in Japan are in the same situation.
This page was translated from Japanese by AI. If anything is unclear, please refer to the Japanese version.
Living in a Country Where Everything "Normal" Is Different
I have lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for 13 years.
The difficulty of living abroad is not just about differences in language or food. Social welfare, infrastructure, road conditions, the school system - the very foundations of daily life are different.
In Ho Chi Minh City, motorbikes come driving along the sidewalks. I am raising my children in that environment. There is only one Japanese school in the city, and it does not provide school lunches. There is a school bus, but children have to be taken to and from the bus stop by motorbike or taxi. Because commuting by motorbike is the norm, morning and evening traffic jams are severe, and it takes more time and effort than "taking a taxi" might suggest. Fuel, taxi fares - everything adds up. In the rainy season, flooded roads are an everyday occurrence, which makes it even worse.
When your child gets sick, can you take them to the hospital on your own? Can you communicate properly there? That is frightening.
Living surrounded by a foreign language does not simply mean being unable to hold a conversation. Moving house, shopping, taking a taxi - every single thing comes with stress.
Talking About Hardships Doesn't Get Through - The Loneliness of Unshared Assumptions
To be honest, each of the hardships above is often not a big deal on its own.
But when you try to convey them to someone with a different context, you have to start by explaining the assumptions behind the hardship. How the Japanese school works, what the road conditions are like, what the rainy season is - every individual story needs a long preamble. As a result, telling others just turns into a long complaint. And to begin with, I don't want to speak badly of a country I have lived in for so long. So I stop talking about it. Because I don't talk, it doesn't get through. Because it doesn't get through, the frustration stays inside.
During COVID-19, I was reminded once again that "I am a foreigner." In Vietnam, I received no support "because I was a foreigner" - even though my family is Vietnamese and I had been paying taxes for 10 years. Japan was the same. Even though I am Japanese and work for a Japanese company, I was not eligible for subsidies because I live abroad. While living overseas I do not pay taxes in Japan, so logically that makes sense. But what matters here is not logic or legitimacy. Even after living there for a long time, and even with a Vietnamese wife, I am regarded as a "foreigner" in Vietnam. Even though I was born and raised in Japan, in Japan I am a "non-resident." The feeling of not fully belonging to either country is hard to grasp unless you have experienced it.
There is a big difference between hearing about something and actually feeling it.
The Foreign Employees at Your Workplace Live the Same Everyday Reality
At work, too, managing overseas comes with its own particular difficulties.
"Is this Vietnamese culture, or this person's own opinion?" "Is my message being conveyed correctly?" "Is everyone like this, or just this person?" With few clues for making judgments, you have to move forward while checking each thing one by one. Contracts and laws are all in a foreign language. Everything takes time. Laws change frequently in Vietnam, but because they are in a foreign language, you sometimes cannot keep up.
If you don't get along with the first employees you meet, you may even come to dislike the whole country.
So far, this has been my own experience. But try turning it around.
Foreign employees working in Japan live in the same kind of everyday reality. In an environment where they cannot fully communicate, they have to understand Japanese systems and customs one by one. They face differences in what is "normal" every day, and even when they explain this to someone, it is hard to get across.
This is all the more true for Technical Intern Training participants and Specified Skilled Workers (SSW), who are in a vulnerable position.
Noticing that loneliness can be the first step toward maintaining your relationship with foreign employees. That is what I believe.