On May 11, 10:28 pm, mtfes...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Same time frame; I started because I wanted to live somewhere really
> different (which eliminated Europe and Australia), with a decent economy
> (eliminating a lot of other areas)... took a year of Mandarin and decided
> 88,000 characters was too much to live in Taiwan, so that left  S Korea
> and Japan. The ROK was still a bit, er, "authoritarian", so Japan it was.
>
> Plus, I really like their more traditional architectures, their graphic
> arts, etc.
>
For me it was because there were a lot of Japanese exchange students
at my college, so I had some friends. Though I did go to ROK first,
which was a very unique experience. I earned very little, worked a lot
to earn it, and always under the thumb of my school's director who was
quite the little dictator.

John W.