[…] something that has concerned me is the notion of foreigners as Gaijin. Your reply has partly quelled my presumption of the Japanese people’s fear or disrespect against foreigners, however I still have mixed reactions concerned to this notion and wonder if the same sentiment about foreigners is unique to that particular place in Japan. Do the Japanese feel threatened by foreigners? Are Japanese girls attracted to foreigners? (Probably saw this question coming)
 
I’m currently studying for my year 12 HSC and at the stage of my life where I begin making decisions, my imagination is quite short.
[…]
At this stage of my life, a lot of people are telling me to do what I want, but in order to do this, i’m just trying to learn off others who have taken the path.

If you could briefly describe these aspects of Japanese life, it would be very valuable to me.

- Work schedule
- Leisure time
- Overall happiness factor compared to Syndey (Is it as laid back as Sydney?)

Thank you in advanced,
Have a nice day tomorrow

There are definitely many Japanese girls attracted to foreigners.  But are they really just wanting something different to a normal life?  Japanese men, after university, become salarymen, dedicated to their work, a tradition based on samurai culture, where you gave your life to your retaining lord.  If the boss finishes at 10pm, so do you.  If the boss goes drinking, so do you.  It burns the family.  I really need to insert here a book’s worth of knowledge, almost completely ignored in any modern society, about marriage and its spiritual meaning and how its spiritual depth is almost completely lacking.  A friend of mine thankfully did here .

That aside (the article linked will probably be more useful than anything you’ll ever read again in your life by a long stretch) Japanese people work 9-5, or as I said above, 9 until whenever they get to go home.  Foreigners get paid quite well for teaching English, so for example, it’s not impossible to work part-time for full-time pay. You go home when your classes finish too, so none of what Japanese salaried workers have to suffer.  Since many companies don’t want to have to pay for compulsory health insurance, they often only give teachers part-time hours, under the limit where it becomes compulsory to pay it.  This only after a number of companies were fined heavily for not paying it for their full-time foreign workers.

Leisure time - it’s the same as being a foreigner in any country, you do the same kinds of things, such as travel, go drinking or whatever you enjoy.

It’s not as laid back as Australia.  Japan is very rigid in its ways.  Everything has a place, and while foreigners making mistakes is tolerated, once you’re in a workplace, you’ll have to tolerate often totally insane decisions from managers, junior staff having no other attitude other than to do as instructed.  The upside is that there is less uncertainty (you know the trains will be on time, almost all the time).  I’m not going to say that Japan is better or worse than anywhere else, because the good and bad are different here.  Everything in the world is only how you see it or accept it.

I sympathise with your position at the end of yr 12.  Culture doesn’t really give us anything useful to decide our direction in life outside of study and work.  In my life, the only things that ever had anything other than a superficial meaning were helping others and self-realisation.  The latter goes against the world that wants to make one a prisoner to the superficial and material.  At your stage in life, I’d say don’t be afraid of your choices or of failure.  I highly doubt you’ll ever end up homeless or sleeping on the street, the rest is just experience.  What you learn from your experiences and the choices you make is more important. When you die, that’s literally all that you’ll take with you.