Will Miss #80 - a lack of religious judgment

The Japanese are ostensibly Buddhist or Shinto in their religion, but the truth is that the vast majority just go through the rituals at various holidays with no real depth of spiritual feeling. Except for the odd Jehovah's Witness who rings your doorbell, life in Japan is mercifully devoid of proselytizers and people who tell you that you have to concern yourself with their particular religion's rules. Most people who are religious or have a set of beliefs, keep such things private rather than tell everyone else what to believe and how they're going to be judged.

I will miss people keeping their spiritual beliefs out of your business and not talking about how they know what "God" wants for everyone.

Won't Miss #80 - being offered green cards

Because I'm using the internet from I.P. addresses which are recognized as being in Japan, I'm constantly getting advertising for green cards in America or sites telling me that I can become an American citizen.

I won't miss these constant (and almost certainly shady) offers to become a citizen of a country of which I'm already a citizen.

Will Miss #79 - legal bootlegging

Everyone knows that bootleg recordings of concerts are sold through various sources worldwide. In the U.S., I used to buy these through various gray market sources via mail order. Occasionally, I'd run across the odd shop which stocked some bootlegs in some hippy area, but it was uncommon for such shops to stock only bootlegs or a plethora of them. In Tokyo, there are shops that sell nothing but bootleg performances both on video and audio, all with professional-looking covers and many with cleaned up content. Since bootlegs are only purchased by serious fans who already have bought all of the official releases of a musical act, the chances that the sales of bootlegs undermine the income of the performer are very low.

I'll miss the easy, upfront, and bold sales of bootleg recordings that serious fans can take advantage of in Tokyo.

Won't Miss #79 - Japanese don't jaywalk myth

One of the most enduring and absolutely false myths is that the Japanese are so law-abiding that they will stand at a crosswalk in the dead of night on a deserted street and wait for the little man to go green and allow them to walk. The notion is that they are more concerned with not breaking the law than the point of that law. Trust me when I say that I see people crossing on a "don't walk" sign several times a day and crossing where they are not supposed to cross, both on bicycles and on foot.

I won't miss the juxtaposition of this myth with the very obvious reality.

Will Miss #78 - pop cross-cultural promotions

I love seeing Western pop culture icons like the Simpsons being used in Japan to promote things. Part of this is the familiarity, but a bigger part of it is the sense that I'm seeing something special which I wouldn't see in similar promotions back home. This probably harks back to my days of collecting Japanese releases of the rock band KISS. Even though the music was the same, the packaging and presentation was unique and in Japanese which made it much cooler than the stuff back home.

I'll miss these pop cross-cultural promotions and the sense that I'm seeing something cooler just because it's on display in Japan.