Japan has a reputation for being a futuristic wonderland. Bullet trains. Robots on asteroids. Toilets that sing, spray, and warm your backside to the perfect temperature.

And then you move here. Suddenly you discover that the same country that can build a Shinkansen can’t figure out insulation, dishwashers, or lint traps. Welcome to Japan, where technology is both brilliant and baffling, often in the same room. So let me give you a step-by-step guide to living in this paradoxical country.

Step One: Learn to Suffer in Silence

In Japan, complaining is rude. Don’t like your freezing house? Too bad. Put on another sweater and smile. The walls are made of paper, and insulation is seen as optional—like guacamole at Chipotle. You can blast your heater all winter, but most of the heat will politely bow and slip out through the walls.

The cultural logic is simple: life is hard, so embrace it. Comfort is overrated anyway. If the kids at school can stand outside in the rain for assemblies without pockets for their freezing hands, surely you can endure your living room being the same temperature as Siberia.

Step Two: Downsize Your Expectations (and Your Plates)

Let’s talk appliances. Japanese appliances are tiny. Not “small but efficient” tiny. More like “you’ll do three loads of laundry today” tiny. Washers and dryers here aren’t designed to save you time. They’re designed to remind you that laundry is a lifestyle.

And the lint trap? Forget the simple, one-piece design perfected decades ago. In Japan, each manufacturer reinvents it like they’re competing for a Nobel Prize in inconvenience. My current dryer has a three-piece lint trap that requires disassembly every time. It’s less “housework” and more “escape room puzzle.”

Dishwashers are no better. They’re so small they only fit a single meal’s worth of dishes. Pots and pans? Nope. Tall glasses? Absolutely not. Ramen bowls? Don’t make me laugh. The solution? Buy smaller plates. In Japan, even your dishes must conform.

Step Three: Accept the Galapagos Effect

The Japanese call it “uniqueness.” Experts call it the Galapagos syndrome. Japan evolves products in isolation until they become so specialized they’re useless anywhere else. It’s pride disguised as innovation. “We’re different, so it must be better.” Except sometimes “different” just means your dryer lint is stuck under your fingernails.

Step Four: Revel in the Toilet Paradox

And here’s the kicker. You’ll freeze in your bathroom, but the toilet will cradle you like royalty. Heated seats, built-in bidets, music to cover embarrassing sounds. Truly, the pinnacle of comfort. While your breath fogs in the air, your backside is toasty warm.

It’s the perfect metaphor for Japan’s technology problem: they’ll put a rocket engine on a bicycle, but they won’t give the bicycle wheels.

The Bottom Line

Japan is proud of its uniqueness. But when that pride keeps you from adopting obvious improvements the rest of the world figured out decades ago, it’s not uniqueness—it’s stubbornness.

So if you move here, bring patience. Bring humor. And maybe bring a decent lint trap from home. You’ll need it.