Long-Term Residents Say It's Overrated. Like It Anyway.

Spend a few months around other foreigners in Japan and you'll pick up a second language nobody mentions in the guidebooks. It's the language of being unimpressed.

That ramen chain with the little solo booths? "Tourist ramen." The famous shrine? "Overcrowded, skip it." Theme cafes, robot shows, the big crossing, the observation decks, the giant character stores. All of it gets filed under "for tourists" with a tired little sigh.

I spoke that language fluently for a while. And at some point I noticed something uncomfortable: I wasn't actually having a worse time at those places. I was just pretending to.

The unwritten rule: never look impressed

There's a quiet status game in a lot of expat circles. The longer you've been here, the less you're supposed to enjoy the obvious stuff. Liking the famous thing marks you as new. Rolling your eyes at it marks you as someone who "really knows Japan."

It makes sense where it comes from. When you first arrive, everything is loud and exciting, and you make plenty of rookie choices. Later you discover the tiny local places, the neighborhood festivals, the shops with no English sign. Those discoveries feel earned, so the famous stuff starts to look cheap by comparison.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of people stop asking "did I enjoy this?" and start asking "what does liking this say about me?" That's a completely different question, and it rarely leads anywhere fun.

Your taste is allowed to be simple

Here's the honest truth about a lot of "overrated" things in Japan: they got popular because they're good at something.

Chain ramen is consistent, fast and open when you're hungry and tired. The packed shrine is packed because it's beautiful. The busy crossing is genuinely a strange, impressive thing to stand in the middle of. None of that stops being true just because you have a residence card now.

You can love a hole-in-the-wall shop run by an old couple and also love a bowl from a chain at 11 p.m. Enjoying both isn't a contradiction. It just means you like ramen.

The same goes for the "tourist" things you used to do in your first month. If the observation deck at night still gives you a little rush, that's not naive. That's you still being able to feel something about the place you live. Plenty of people would trade a lot for that.

Cynicism is lonelier than it looks

The sneering usually feels like bonding. Everyone groans about the same tourist traps, everyone nods, and for a minute you feel like part of a club.

But think about what that club actually does together. It mostly complains. Over time, the list of things you're "not supposed to" enjoy gets longer, the list of things you actually go out and do gets shorter, and your weekends shrink to the same two bars and the same conversations about how Japan used to be better.

In my experience, jadedness often means your world got small. It's not that Japan ran out of things to enjoy. It's that you stopped letting yourself enjoy the ones right in front of you, and stopped meeting people who might show you new ones.

And it costs you socially in a quieter way too. Many Japanese people are genuinely proud of their famous spots and foods. If your default reaction is a smirk, you're closing a door that could have started a great conversation.

Go back with fresh eyes, and good company

If you've talked yourself out of half the country, try a small experiment. Make a list of the things you're "supposed to" be over. Then go do a few of them again, on purpose, and pay attention to how you actually feel.

A few things make it work better:

• Go at an odd hour. Early morning shrines and weekday evenings change the whole experience.
• Go with someone who's excited. A friend visiting for the first time, a coworker who has never been, someone new in town.
• Ask a local what they love about it. You'll often get a story you'd never find yourself.
• Notice the details. After years here, you can see things a first-timer can't. That's the upgrade, not the eye-roll.

The biggest one is the company. Enthusiasm is contagious, and so is cynicism. Pick people who still get excited. It's much easier to enjoy a place with someone who enjoys it out loud.

Find people who share the fun

If your current circle mostly bonds over what's overrated, it might be time to widen it. Not to drop old friends, just to add people who make you want to go out and try things.

That's where SewaYou can help. It's a map-based friendship app for meeting people nearby and anywhere in the world. You can find people in your own neighborhood who want to show off their favorite spots, explore another city or country from home, make online friends without any travel plans, or connect with someone before a trip and meet once you're there.

Look for the Japanese local who wants to take a foreign friend to the ramen place they swear by, the newcomer who wants a buddy for the big famous sights, or someone halfway across the world who can't wait to hear what living in Japan is really like. Their excitement might remind you why you came.

You don't owe anyone a cool, unimpressed version of yourself. Like what you like, out loud.

Download SewaYou to meet people nearby or anywhere in the world, and find friends who still think Japan is worth getting excited about.