Reverse culture shock is an interesting beast. It’s been six weeks that I’ve been back in Canada after living in Japan for four years, and I am in a weird headspace. People ask how the adjustment is going; it is certainly bewildering. I feel that I have not actually adjusted a single bit, but that I have simply been plucked mid-step from one life, one world, and shoved straight into another.

I’ve always felt a certain affinity with the little green men.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about this strange land since arriving/returning. I realize that some of these points might touch on sensitive subjects, so please take them for what they are: not criticisms or statements made to be inflammatory or offensive, but raw observations and unguarded thoughts of a person seeing their home country with fresh eyes.