So you’ve just arrived in Japan. You’re going to work, study, teach, go on a homestay, or become the spouse of a Japanese. But how will you become familiar with your new surroundings, so that you can thrive in your new home? This course focuses on the first—and most crucial—part of the acclimation process for newcomers: your entry. How can you move smoothly off of your entry point and begin to navigate effectively in your new environment?

This is the third version of At Home in Japan: What No One Tells You, and we are now expanding the site to include all the characters above. During the past six years over 500,000 learners from 84 countries have learned from this site. From them we received an avalanche of feedback that was overwhelmingly positive. Most felt they had gained practical knowledge that had actually helped them to function appropriately in Japan. So we’re keeping the same focus in this version: rather than “textbook learning”, this course presents the kind of learning you need for being there—whether you are learning to get along with co-workers, make friends, or perform your duties in a student dorm. Even if you are learning about Japan from a distance, and don’t have any plans to go there, this course allows you to understand Japanese culture as if you were there. The vantage point of “being there” utilizes anthropological approaches to culture (and language) which focus on “doing”, or performance.

Learning how to transition smoothly beyond your entry point is a crucial challenge for newcomers anywhere, not only Japan. But while you might think this transition is largely automatic, and requires little effort on your part—the truth is just the opposite. If you don’t make an effort in the beginning you may end up “getting stuck” at your entry point. Many newcomers to Japan find their entry situations to be both appealing and comfortable, and assume that they are experiencing “Japanese society”, but what they are actually experiencing is interactions directed toward them as newcomers. Others are dissatisfied with their entry point situations, but give up on ever being able to improve a situation they find disappointing. The first group feels their stay is unblemished by any problems, while the second group often becomes dissatisfied—and sometimes bitter—about situations and relationships they find very unsatisfactory.

From our perspective, both of these groups have gotten “stuck” at the entry point; they never really began the process of acclimation to Japanese society. This means they have missed a challenging and sometimes baffling process that nonetheless can be deeply rewarding, and produce lasting relationships for both sides. This is true even if the newcomer takes only small steps beyond the entry point.

Crucial in the failures of both groups is a critical minefield in the cultural communication process: the things that no one thinks to tell a newcomer. These are not mentioned, precisely because it is assumed that everyone must already know them. Yet ironically, these are the very things one most needs to know in order to adjust successfully, and they may not be obvious to the newcomer at all. While this minefield exists for all cultures, in Japan it is compounded by cultural expectations of not speaking directly; because others are expected to intuit what one is not saying. It goes without saying that this is difficult for newcomers to manage.

Our goal in this course is to present a program of practical learning that will allow you to grasp what you need to know in order to move beyond your entry point. Much of this learning involves things that no one tells you—but assumes that you will already know. This course focuses on you, because the crucial aspect of moving beyond your entry point is that the experience centers on you. Through a process of trial and error you must learn the appropriate things to say and do to get beyond being a perpetual newcomer.

The course consists of a series of interactive modules which replicate the trial-and-error learning process that you face in “being there”. The seven characters who entered the scene above are important to your learning. You are encouraged to identify with the character that most closely approximates your own situation (and you are also encouraged to “try on” the other characters as well). This will allow you to participate as a fly on the wall in their learning situations—and you get to escape the social repercussions your errors would produce in real life.