Whenever friends of mine return home for a visit, they've all told me they're confronted by one nagging question when they're there: Should I just stay, or should I go back?

I like it here in Tokyo, yet I'm sometimes surprised that other non-Japanese people like it, too. One acquaintance of mine recently returned to our mutual home country of Germany for a longer vacation, and I could have bet a significant part of my insignificant fortune that I would never see him again, at least not on Japanese soil. He never let on he might be extraordinarily dissatisfied with his life here, but he couldn't fool me — or so I thought.

One way I feel that non-Japanese get assimilated into our adopted home quickly is that we learn to smile away our insecurities and frustrations — be they of bureaucratic, linguistic or social in nature, or all three piled on top of each other. My acquaintance came here for work, without any romantic notion of old or ultra-modern Japan, and without romantic ties to a Japanese national. Asked how long he planned on staying, his evasive answer had always been, "We'll see." The English equivalent of "chotto," another clear sign of assimilation.