Don't be a nail that sticks up. Assimilate.
That's the advice John C. Wocher, executive vice president at Kameda Medical Center in Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture, has for fellow foreigners eyeing a long-term stay in Japan.
Wocher, who was stationed at the Kamiseya base in Kanagawa Prefecture when he came to Japan in 1964 as a sailor, spent nearly three decades assigned to health care duties at various bases across Japan and the U.S., in addition to serving in Vietnam, before landing a job at Kameda in 1991.