I have a Friench friend who, for years, has been critical about Australians. When i first met him he could continually rave on about how people in Paris are so

I have a Friench friend who, for years, has been critical about Australians. When i first met him he could continually rave on about how people in Paris are so much open with their emotions and how us Aussies are too closed by comparison. Or how the nightlife here sucked by comparison. Or how French music was better, the food tastier, the culture richer. The list went on... The ironic part was that he would begridgingly list all the good points about living here too. In the end, he became a tangled mess. He disliked and liked being here, and also disliked and liked the idea of returning home. Sounds kindof the the same with the dude in this article. You feel like telling him to just pack his bags and return home, but you know that he won't because he'd miss the good parts of living in Tokyo and end up complaining about the US instead. A major part of this is to do with always drawing comparisons to your original culture as a source of familiarity. The natives don't draw such comparisons. To them there is no "better" or "crappier" place. It's not Japanese work-life, it's just work-life. It's not Japanese food, it's food. Home is home, and that's just how things are. After listening to my French friend, reading this article, and reading your comment, it seems to me that romantacising aspects of your home culture whenever you're pissed off about something in your host culture (and vice-versa), though inevitable, alomost never leads to happiness.