How moving to Tokyo improved my mental health
- Luciana Ramírez
- Dec 18, 2025
- 3 min read
I feel morally obliged to say that there is not one perfect country in this world, and I don't intent on romanticizing a city that has a long way to improve mental health towards its citizens. I speak as a foreigner woman that migrated from one of the most dangerous countries in the world: Mexico.
I spent around a year saving for the Japanese dream (cause everyone know the American one is dead) and was working from 10 to 12 hours a day, teaching English in the mornings, being a personal assistant in the evenings and teaching Japanese at night.
After a couple of months, I became exhausted: completely burnt-out, with little to no motivation to keep working.
On the other hand, being a woman in Mexico City meant that ever since puberty arrives, all your relatives will continuously say the following:
Do NOT go by yourself at night! Send me your location and do not go to (Insert dangerous alcaldía) ever!
When you become (or at least think so) a critical thinking young adult, you realize that the quantity of disappearances, murders, accidents, rapes, crimes and whatnot is NOT normal. Every phone call with your grandfather is a complex entanglement of catching up and him warning you:
Do not go out at night Chana, its very dangerous...
You grow up, realize that femicides are a daily occurrence, not only in Mexico but worldwide.
Naturally, anxiousness, paranoia and fear cover your body and fog your brain. Being a woman means you're afraid of leaving your house, of walking in the street, of going out with your friends.
You become afraid of living.
Then, one day, you have the opportunity of traveling abroad. You choose a country that is the complete opposite, with temples and shrines instead of churches, with ramen instead of tacos, with whisky instead of mezcal. Sometimes you just need something that is so different that it might shake off all the fear, anxiousness and paranoia you could feel in your bones.
Japan brought me the safety I needed at the time. It gave me stability, peace and quiet, clean trains, beautiful buses, a very, very fast shinkansen and mostly, a good quality life.
After almost two years in the city of my dreams, my heart is full. I am endlessly thankful for all the coins I tossed in the temples, the clean and perfect streets, and the quiet beauty of Japan. My work brings me joy, I have free time that I so much yearned for...
Yet, a part of me now misses my life back home— the people's raw warmth, the acid humor, the jokes and insults, and even for that overwhelming city I once fled. I would never demonize my beloved Mexico.
To love it is to also hold the weight of its history, to feel its sadness as something profoundly real.
Es una nación podrida con la población herida
It is a rotten nation with a hurting population.
I never knew the exact hue of my home until I viewed it from a different sky. And now, from across the ocean, I see, I understand and feel my culture with pride. I am profoundly proud to be Mexican. To hug without hesitation, to say “te amo” to my people, sharing my emotions, fears, dreams and hopes and knowing I'm heard.
So here I am, caught in the middle. I love my life in Japan—the peace, the stability, it's a gift. But I find myself remembering those nights of laughing until my stomach hurt, the easy, playful albures with friends, and the deep, soul-nourishing talks about everything and nothing.
It’s like my best friend Fatima always says: "The grass is always greener on the other side."
Comments