This Japanese Life.

Not everyone who moves to Japan is lonely when they arrive, but most are by the time they leave. One can’t reasonably complain about it, of course: We do it to ourselves. But we can try to understand how loneliness works – and we have plenty of opportunity to study that question in Japan.

Most people do not move to a foreign country where they don’t speak a word of the language, but most people are not conditioned toward loneliness. Lonely people are basically social telecommuters: It doesn’t matter where we are, because we’ll feel lonely anyway. May as well get some decent matcha while we’re at it.

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