Am I Too Tall?

I�fm a thin, 5�f11 or 6�f0 female and I�fve always wanted to travel to Japan.. ever since i was little. But as i grew up i realized people in Japan are a lot shorter than me :( my anxiety spikes up when i think about people in Japan staring at me because of my height. I know i shouldn�ft let something like height stop me from traveling but i really don�ft want to stand out :( I just want to know if my height is rare or not.. and i could maybe use some kind words to help boost my courage :�f) Thank you.
-Emily

At 5' 11'', you'd be above average height for a woman in Japan, and a little taller tan the average man.

You ask "Am I too tall?" If you mean will you be so tall that riding trains, walking through shop entrances, and sleeping in hotel rooms will be difficult because of you size, the answer is no. You're likely to find all of them smaller than what you're used to in your hoe country, but not so much that they'll present a problem.

You're not so tall that Japanese people will think you're a giant, or the tallest woman they've ever seen, so you're unlikely to encounter anyone "staring" at you because of your height.

However, you probably will notice people "looking" at you, by combination of your being a visible foreigner and unusually tall. No one will think you're a freak, cower in fear, or point and laugh. But you do have two traits that will attract attention, and so people will be more likely to notice you, and as a result look at you. This isn't done with any negative feeling or intent - it's just things that are different from the normal pattern catching the eye, like if you got on a train and there were 20 people wearing black jackets, and one person wearing a blue jacket, you might look at the person in the blue jacket for a moment longer than you would the other people.

You mention your "anxiety spiking" and "not wanting to stand out," but for an enjoyable trip in Japan, you might want to try to separate those two feelings, if you can. While Japan sees more international travelers now than it did in the past, the majority of the country is still ethnically Japanese, and especially so in rural areas (I'm not sure where you'd like to travel in Japan). As such, it's going to be impossible for you to completely blend in, and so if you make "not standing out" a key requirement for your trip to Japan, you're probably not going to be able to go anytime soon, if at all.

But as I mentioned above, "standing out" doesn't mean that people will think you're doing anything wrong or your presence is unwanted - it's just that you're different from what they're used to seeing, and so draw a little more of their attention. Again, this isn't a negative thing. I've had lots of great experiences traveling in Japan where locals/shopkeepers/etc. were much more likely to strike up a conversation with me specifically because they knew I wasn't from around the area.

Tall but not tall enough to stand out.