I Love You Mum, But I’m Never Returning to Australia From Japan
Australia’s a beautiful country, with some beautiful people. But I won’t be moving back there, now or in the future. Here’s why.
“You can’t beat this place, can you?” Mum said, as we walked along the beach on a sunny Autumn day at Rainbow Bay, on Australia’s Gold Coast. “I bet your girls would love to live here.”
Ohhh sneaky sneaky mum, bringing my daughters into it like that, I thought to myself.
Every time my wife, two young daughters and I go back to Australia from Japan, my Mum finds ever-more creative ways to jab subtle little hints into me about us returning.
Well, here it is: I love you mum, but I won’t be leaving Japan to move back to Australia with my family.
Not now. Not ever.
Here are three reasons why.
Safety
Hard to believe I’m so conservative and protective as I mature, but I’m a dad now to two girls aged 7 and 5, and their health, happiness, and safety are my biggest concerns in life.
No matter how you want to swing it or whichever statistics you want to cherry-pick, Japan is infinitely safer than Australia, the US, or any other Western nation.
And a lot of that comes to down to Japan’s zero-tolerance policies:
- Zero tolerance on drugs
- Zero tolerance on drink-driving
- Zero tolerance on guns
Yeah yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking.
Rest assured, I’ve heard it all before, especially regarding drugs.
Just pause first and take a long, slow look at the Western world without the delusion-tinged glasses on: it’s broken, corrupted, corroded.
Some might even say dead.
And drugs and crime are smack bang in the middle of everything that’s wrong.
Ice epidemics, cocaine ubiquitous, used syringes full of diseased blood in the streets. Entire neighbourhoods of cities overrun by addicts that resemble zombies.
Sure, not all drugs are the same, but if Japan dictates I must sayonara the availability of a merry choof on a summer beach reefer in order to forgo all the accompanying shit that comes with other drugs, I’m all in.
Especially if it means my daughters aren’t exposed to the evils of drugs or the crime and fear for safety that follows.
I’m even deeper in the pool when it comes to gun laws.
Coming from Australia, I’ve never experienced a culture of guns like that which exists elsewhere, such as the US.
It is utterly unfathomable to me that pretty much any Hank, Chuck, or Rosy can walk into a store and buy themselves a weapon of mass destruction, walk out the door, and start shooting away at whoever they deem looked at them the wrong way three years ago.
It’s even more gobsmacking that the laws allowing such behaviour remain intact and enshrined in some countries.
Thankfully, Australia outlawed guns back in the 1990s, but their presence among crime gangs is still rife.
To be clear, I’m not here right now to debate gun ownership.
I’m simply stating that Japan’s zero-tolerance policy on guns, and the almost non-existent gun crime that exists here, absolutely suits my proclivities as a protective father.
Indeed, between 2013–2022, there were 36 TOTAL gun-related deaths in Japan, including homicide and suicide. 36 in 10 years, in a nation of 120 million people!
In contrast, in 2023 alone (until August 1st), there have been more than 25,000 gun-related deaths in the US, including suicide-related deaths.
In Australia, there are between 200–300 gun-related deaths each year, and about 600 knife-related crimes annually.
If you want some sources, please see these:
I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves, and when you’re done picking your jaw up off the floor, I’ll repeat: for relative safety, Japan — especially my rural prefecture — is at the top of the pack, and it’s a huge reason I want to stay.
Cost Of Living
Even though it’s one of the most highly developed and advanced societies in the world, it’s amazingly cheap to live in Japan.
Forget about the overdramatized bla bla bla about how a single watermelon costs $20, or how 1 sq/ft of cement in Tokyo costs the same as a date with Brad Pitt’s dreamy eyes for a night.
Japan is cheaper than Australia and the West for almost everything.
Cheap Housing
A good example is housing.
Again, forget central Tokyo or Osaka, where prices are blown out of all proportion.
Honestly, have you ever met anyone who’s said they’re yearning to live in a high-rise monolith in the middle of Tokyo’s 14 million people? In my 20 years here, I certainly haven’t.
Every person I know, both Japanese and foreign, is trying to find ways to unclasp the choking cuffs of heaving, claustrophobic cities like Tokyo.
And if you do manage to get out, the rewards are there, as the cost of a new place in an unspoiled, rural paradise is stunningly cheap.
For instance? I bought a house in 2017 in Miyazaki, SW Japan, that is a 5-minute drive from great surfing beaches, a gorgeous seaside shrine, and all the wellness amenities an enlightenment seeker could ever dream of.
2 levels, 4 bedrooms upstairs, big outside garden and lovely wood deck for BBQs and beers. The price? USD $155,000.
Where I grew up on the southern beaches of Sydney, something similar these days would go for well over USD $1.5 million.
If you’re not up on your math, that’s 10x the price!
And to top it all off, the interest repayments on our bank loan here in Japan are locked in at 0.75% for 10 years.
Australia? The current variable interest rate for home loans is…6.60%!
I’d pay double the value of my house in Japan just on interest repayments alone if I returned and bought a house in Australia now.
Yeah. Nah. I think I’ll stay right where I am here in Japan, thank you.
Sure, there’s typically no upward price movement on housing in Japan, especially in the rural areas, so you’ll never turn a profit, nor make money on housing investments like you could in the West, especially Australia.
But who cares? I don’t.
Shelter is one of the three most basic needs of living. Why should a fundamental necessity of life be so unaffordable for so many and an economic plaything for the greedy?
I have no interest in Excel spreadsheets and exponential growth charts spinning dollar signs.
We’ll have our house paid off within five years, and when it is, I can rest content knowing that my daughters will forever have a place to call their own, in a gorgeous part of the world.
That’s safe.
Respect for Things
Japan is a top-down, hierarchic society. Yes, that causes problems in certain facets of life here, but it sure is nice to see young people show respect to older people. Seldom a word out of turn or a disrespectful smirk or smartass backchat.
Kids respect elders, no matter how forced or imposed you believe it might be. It’s just an aspect of culture that’s taught from a young age and pushed down through the generations.
And it works.
It’s so damn refreshing not seeing older people laughed at or victimised or abused or robbed like I do when I go back to Australia. Yeah, it happens in Japan, but comparatively seldom, especially in public.
Japanese people, including kids, also respect public domains and spaces.
There’s no ugly graffiti on trains, no spraypaint on common facilities, garbage doesn’t litter the streets, and public toilets have mirrors intact and toilet paper stocked.
Australia? Not quite.
Case in point: in Tweed Heads, near my mum’s home on the Gold Coast, a new skatepark was built for youths some years back. Within 3 days of it opening it was painted all over with rude words, offensive male body parts, and all sorts of other puerile crap.
Not to mention the trash left daily from the nearby McDonalds. It was disgusting.
Here in Miyazaki?
There’s a skate park along the Oyodo River I’ve been to numerous times over 15 years. Never a spot of graffiti, never a loose-blowing paper, never a speck of dirt in a decade and a half!
Just respectful kids enjoying the public amenities.
What more can I ask for, especially as a dad? Seriously.
Summing Up
Australia’s landscape is truly breathtaking. It still is.
Unfortunately, most other things have changed since I grew up there, including the typical demeanor of the laid back Aussie and the dereliction of society that ensues when the cost of living pressures become unreachable for many.
I love my mum, I love my friends, I love many things about Australia. But I won’t be taking my family back there to live.
Japan is our home now.
