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Making Japanese Friends On Facebook — 12 Comments

  1. Japanese have definitely jumped from Mixi to Facebook. My Mixi newsfeed is like a ghost town. Not even tumbleweeds pass by.

    In fact, I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s newest book and even HE mentions Facebook in the book. That really shocked me!

  2. My wife, and her friends and family all use Facebook. And all of my wife’s Japanese work friends use Facebook. I actually asked then if they used mixi but they all said they have never used mixi. In fact one of my wifes frieds said she would never use mixi because she believed it is just a place where people look for sex friends. I think a lot of it is due to the popularity of the iPhone in Japan, nearly every person I saw, especially young people have an iPhone. (Which has integrated Facebook support.)

  3. Never used mixi for two reasons: 1. It’s too complex to sign up. 2. It doesn’t appeal to me.

    I’ve always used facebook for communicating with Japanese people. All I did was build a small foundation of Japanese facebook friends and ended up with loads because of that. Now my facebook wall is full of Japanese posts and I have Japanese people to talk to when I want to. There is no point in mixi anymore.

  4. As someone who dislikes Facebook and all it represents, I’ll stick with Mixi.

    I do find the reports of it’s demise a bit hasty… and it’s definitely not hard to sign up if you do have a .edu e-mail.

    And being intrinsically in Japanese is a plus in my book.

    • I agree with this, though my main problem with facebook is that it does massive surveillance of the users and wants to become a king of the internet, while Mixi isn’t anything as greedy

      • I’m following a few communities on Google+, and it seems to have a pretty large Japanese userbase. I don’t know what the social conventions for making new friends are, and whether Google or Facebook is the greater evil is… open to debate at best :) Still, it’s another option worth mentioning.

  5. I have a Mixi, but I never actually used it much. I had more luck with Twitter when it came to talking with Japanese people. I like Ameba too, but I don’t use it much.

    With Google Circles, I feel better about keeping more things private. It’s easier to keep in track of who are your online friends and who are your real life friends and how much you want to share with each circle. A little like Mixi in a way. I’m hoping things will transfer over to Google+ someday. I don’t mind Facebook and I like its services and how I can keep in touch with friends. But I do feel Facebook is greedy and I don’t like that. I don’t like how they force people to share their real information either.

  6. Wow that sure sums up a lot, well i was about to register in Mixi and i encountered every issue that was mentioned in this post, am going to try to follow the tips as carefully as i can, as i am really interested in both learning Japanese and having Japanese friends, i do really hate of being mistaken with some kind of a stalker (>__>) i know a little bit of Japanese but the last time i tried to use it with a Japanese female it didn’t work out well even though i was completely polite and just wanted to test my skill in initiating a conversation but that girl gave a strange look so i end up saying it was nice to talk to her and walked away, i just think that japanese people are very sensitive to an unbelievable level, maybe its just me and thats why i wanna know more about their culture.

  7. This is a very interesting idea and I shall give it a try to see how it works out and give you a feedback. I had always wondered why there are not too many Japanese people using Facebook. As for the Chinese, I know their govt blocked Facebook. I was very puzzled by this considering that the co-founder of Facebook Zuckerberg is married to a Chinese woman! What an irony! But life is riddled with ironies! hahehahe WENDY WAFCO ON WHY THERE ARE NOT TOO MANY JAPANESE ON FACEBOOK

  8. adam i spent 2 years on kyushu at itazuki afb in the early 60’s and would love to revisit there soon. i would also like to make friends with the folks over there. i known things have changed since then. i lived downtown for two years with a wonderful family. i need to contact someone to bring me up to date and get advice on the changes and customs. adigato for any info you could give me. please reply. i will include any info you need.