If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?
I’ve got a few thoughts, as someone also playing on the lowest difficulty setting (cis ~straight white male, america. (Though ex patting in mere weeks, after years!)):
Japan is an incredible place to be a tourist. Learn a few phrases (すみません、ありがとうございます, etc) and a little culture, be respectful, mind your shoes and manners. You’ll do great, and there’s SO much to see and appreciate. It’s a brilliant culture and society, and so different in lots of ways. Very very safe.
Any Scandinavian country is VERY easy to visit as well. English speaking, easy to get to from the states. See how a proper society can function! (I am biased as a soon-to-be-Danish resident)
I’ll write more soon, dinner time for me
i’ll technically be “ex-patting” too since i’m an american and like most other americans i never gone past the periphery of the american empire. lol
a japanophile colleague made a similar recommendation in the past and my past discussions since then with japanese people in this country who also co-occupied my lgbt spaces with me, gives me the impression that the mainstream gay community barely exists at all in japan compared to other places like latin america or south asia; but it does have relatively well represented niches of its own that are unique to japan and mostly unknown to the rest of the world like my niches are mostly unknown to the world outside of the american imperial core.
also: my similar discussions with scandinavian expats in this country over the decades paints a fantastic and vibrant picture for lgbtq within the confines of their own american-allied imperial-core walled-gardens. they have everything that the american empire has for lgbtq plus more and it’s all a bit different with seemingly endless onion-y layers of niches. my intention of traveling is to leave the american imperial core, so i think that scandinavia would defeat that purpose considering that it’s all part of the nato now.
Oh shit, you meant not to visit but to relocate to? I think I’d have a different set of answers for longer term; I was thinking for a vacation!
Yeah, lots of LGBT+ culture in Scandinavia, and a fair bit in the rest of western Europe (Paris, London, Zurich come to mind). Though I’ve spent plenty of time in eastern Asia (and lived near Shanghai), I don’t know that scene super well there. I did karaoke with a bunch of gay people in 道頓堀 in Osaka, and it was dope, but not much else.
If you’re looking for longer term living outside of NATO, I’d look to some Latin America countries, Oceania, and Switzerland.
If you’re looking to just visit, Japan, Scandinavia, most of western Europe are all very easy. A few places I’ve been are a lot harder language wise, and I don’t know that I’d wanna go right to the hard mode that is Shanghai if I hadn’t even left the states
