Apart from the obvious "What is your name?", and "Where are you from?", the question I am most frequently asked by people I meet in Japan is "Why Japan?". Usually, I jokingly reply something along the lines of "The weather is better", or "I grew up with Pokemon", considering there is rarely time to go into detail. The full answer to this question is of course a long and complicated one, but I will try to spell it out today, mostly for my own sake since no one is listening anyways.
In reality, I probably had the dream about going to Japan ever since I realised this is where all my favourite anime came from. Also, my favourite video game series, Gran Turismo, is Japanese. This was however, not enough to tip the scale far enough for me to take action. It was probably some time last fall when I realised I was nearing the middle of my twenties, and I would finish my bachelor by the next summer, that I started thinking seriously about what I actually wanted from my life. I also realised that the time of sitting on the fence watching life pass by, kicking pebbles around the yard waiting for my time to come, every summer thinking "just another school year until summer", was nearly over. I realised that the time I had been waiting for all my life was right around the corner, but I had no idea what to do about it.
A considerable amount of thinking later, I came to the conclusion that the natural place to start was figuring out where I wanted to live. Considering I had lived my entire life in Norway, a country time and time again receiving awards(UN rankings) for being the best country in the world to live in, the list started out by looking at which countries share many of the same attributes, like a good education system, good health services, and low crime rates. I also considered other important attributes that are not reflected in these rankings, like local humour, probability of encountering good looking women, and the weather. In the end the list came down to basically just Japan, what a lucky coincidence.
