
Doing Business in Japan - waffle_ss
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/
======
dkrich
The overall theme (as an American who has never visited Japan) seems to be one
of risk-aversion vs. risk-insensitivity.

In the U.S., the culture embraces risk and risk-takers, if most of us don't
actually live out these ideals ourselves.

It seems employees in Japan don't want to risk unemployment, while companies
don't want to risk losing employees, while apartments don't want to risk
extending credit to anybody who doesn't have a job with a recognized company.

In the U.S. it could certainly be argued that we're way too credit and risk
embracing. However, it's also very likely that most of our economic growth in
the last century is because we've been able to get credit and that we're a
society that takes risks. Americans can be irresponsible, but this description
sounds like the other extreme.

~~~
jmadsen
From living in Japan for 11 years, I would say that is a very astute
observation.

Japanese are extremely risk-averse, and extremely safety-minded in general. It
is helpful to keep that in mind when considering the "weirdness" of many
things they do.

Add to this a strong sense of community first - which means that it is more
important that you fit into a readily understood place in society, the
company, etc.

A self-employed foreigner? We don't have a checkbox for him. His name doesn't
fit into our kanji boxes. What if he doesn't take the garbage out in the
correct manner?

It sounds ridiculous, but it's really no more than "that's not how we do
things around here" you'll find anywhere, but taken to an extreme.

That said, I find most _people_ to be quite kind and helpful. The _system_ is
what usually gives the problems.

~~~
escherplex
True. Tight hierarchical social conditioning from birth. If reasonably fluent
in Japanese and of European stock what is an all too frequent response to
unorthodox queries? Shikataganai. In English that's usually translated as "it
can't be helped" but the kanji suggest an even deeper meaning. A more literal
translation would be: an official received methodology does not exist (so no
action on my part will be taken). By extension this suggests that only
received ways of doing things should be employed (which you should know
already, gaikokujin). At least that's the way the social concept was explained
to me by a Tokyo-based book illustrator friend with a philosophical bent
during a recent visit.

~~~
boyaka
I always heard "shouganai" rather than "shikataganai". Looked it up and found
out neither is wrong [1]. Shouganai is actually shortened from shiyouganai
(using the same shi kanji as shikatagani) so that can be used to get the
kanji. Although apparently the meanings are almost identical according to this
answer.

[1] [http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8231/how-do-
thes...](http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8231/how-do-these-3-ways-
of-saying-it-cant-be-helped-differ)

~~~
escherplex
'Shouganai' struck me as more urban where the locals chatter at 200 words per
minute. If you ever visit the back-country like Okayama Prefecture and pose
one of those 'riyuu o fushigi ni omoi masu ...' (wonder why ..) questions you
can still elicit both a stoic face and a 'shikataganai' in response. BTW, Jim
Breen's Monash U website:

[http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-
bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1E](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1E)

is still a good haunt for researching J-colloquialisms (ad nauseam) when and
if you're in the mood. He's a retired IT prof and a friend of Jack Halpern,
composer of a popular JE character dictionary.

------
shinymark
I lived and worked in Japan for a few years and can vouch for everything the
author said.

I worked in the game industry in Japan and the salaries were terrible.
Salaries were half or less compared to California, while the cost of living in
Tokyo was similar (at least back then, it could easily be more expensive in
the Bay Area now). I ended up leaving my job to do consulting from home for
clients both in Japan and abroad and more than doubled my income.

Living abroad was a a great experience though. The process of studying a new
language and using it in day to day life successfully was incredibly
satisfying. I'd love to do that again in another country.

~~~
euske
As a Japanese programmer who's terribly paid according to the many American
fellow programmers, I have to defend this practice. Why an engineer has to be
paid, say, like three times than janitors? Because of the markets. Not because
their job is inherently more noble than the lowly paid ones; they're equally
contributing to the society. But what if the market is set up in a way that
both salaries are roughly equalized? This is somewhat how the Japanese salary
system works, and I believe this is The Better Way. I believe people are
better off in a more egalitarian society. I'm not claiming that Japan is
anywhere close to that overall, but as long as the salary goes I think this is
a saner system. (I also worked in a US corp, and _hated_ their salary gap.)

~~~
maratd
Your compensation isn't determined by nobility or a sense of equity.

It's determined by the difficulty of the job.

The more difficult the job, the less people are able to do it, the smaller the
supply of labor for that position, the higher the paycheck. It's that simple.

When a market doesn't reflect that, it is horribly broken and will be horribly
abused by the participants.

~~~
dan-f
> Your compensation isn't determined by nobility or a sense of equity.

> It's determined by the difficulty of the job.

I _strongly_ disagree. Example: working in a sweatshop is infinitely more
difficult than being a software engineer and pays infinitely less.

Your compensation is determined by a big set of factors that I'm sure a
sociologist could spell out for us all. I argue that the difficulty of the job
is in fact not nearly as important as other factors like race/ethnicity,
gender, mental health, etc.

> When a market doesn't reflect that, it is horribly broken and will be
> horribly abused by the participants.

Eh... I'm not sure such a market exists.

~~~
adrianN
I think with "difficult" he didn't mean how physically taxing it is, but how
hard it is to find people who can do it. Almost anybody can to the work in a
sweat shop after a couple of days (weeks?) of training. Becoming a programmer
is not something everybody can do and even for those who can it takes years of
study before they are competitive on the job market.

~~~
xorcist
That's not the complete truth either. Where I live there has been a nurse
shortage for a long time, but they're not paid better anyway.

Before you say education, some specialist nurses have almost as much education
as doctors. They don't receive close to the same pay.

Most of the answer is cultural expectations.

------
drzaiusapelord
This really does sound like working in a union shop in the US, especially as a
public sector worker. Seniority, loyalty, etc matter and things like
competence and productivity are someone else's problem. Jobs are wielded as
political weapons (The Democratic Party leader in Illinois, Mike Madigan
famously has a list of every union job he's gifted and calls on favors from
that list), etc. Inefficiencies are continually introduced.

I find the far-left often bemoans a lack of paternal aspects in US society, by
my god, this blog posting horrified me. I would feel to trapped and powerless
in that structure. I think it also explains the milquetoast offers, especially
in regards to software, these types of companies deliver.

There's something wonderfully rebellious and wild about US culture, in
general, that leads to enough weirdness that somehow gets results. All the
early pioneers of the things I love were pretty out there and let their freak
flag fly. I can't imagine personalities like these thriving in that type of
environment.

~~~
ajross
> I find the far-left often bemoans a lack of paternal aspects in US society

Obviously politics are way out of scope on this site, but I think I can sneak
in a meta point. I found this bit of frame-above-fact language absolutely
hilarious. It's almost Orwellian, really. Bravo.

Those crazy democrats. Always bemoaning the lack of paternalism.

~~~
e12e
Let me just comment that US Democrats are a little right of right, and nowhere
near "far left". It's a small point, but as the discussion resolves around
global comparisons, it's an important one.

I also find the extreme feelings towards organized labour in the US somewhat
bemusing... what's the alternative? Waiting for fast food chains and
supermarkets to decide to increase pay, sick days and holidays, and reduce
hours out of "efficiency reasons"? Or maybe wait for invisible hand-me-downs?

~~~
warcher
You know, having worked for a union in my youth, I was gobsmacked by the... I
guess you'd call it indifference to the quality of your work. Your production
has nothing to do with your job.

Then sampling the cutthroat nature of capitalism on the 'management' side of
things, I understood what the unions were fighting for. (Even if I think they
fundamentally fucked things up along the way.)

And now, as a vaguely paternalistic employer, I try to enact the kinds of
things which unions would try to do (reasonable work hours, good wages,
respect for the people working for me and their efforts on our collective
behalf), and eliminate the failings of the union system (mostly by ruthlessly
culling dead weight-- verboten in a union).

And all in all, I find myself concluding that management is an art, not a
science. It can't be process-ized, or bound up by rules. The tyranny of Wall
Street excel spreadsheets in bleeding workers dry is wrong. The indifference
of unions to the economic output of the companies that employ them is wrong.
And the people who can square that circle are not interchangeable cogs that
can be replaced at will.

------
aragot
> No, really, the most formidable Japanese low-touch SaaS entrepreneur I know
> figured out how to sell SaaS door-to-door in Tokyo.”

Seriously, from all the inefficiencies pointed out in this article, how is the
economy of Japan not in the verge of collapse?

\- They spend hours choosing the text of buttons,

\- they're expected to learn the Way We Do Things In This Company until their
30s,

\- they attend work for extended hours,

\- the workforce capacities are planned dozens of years in advance,

\- decision-making is centralized in the hands of the major companies,
investments are interlocked between company-arranged rents, company-arranged
investments and company-arranged paperwork,

\- and they have competition from foreign products which were produced by more
officient economies, e.g. the iPhone

I guess there are other employment markets like France and Russia which have
friction too, and others like China which may lack the special salt of SV to
be exactly as dominating, but how come Japan still succeeds to have major
companies and keep selling products?

~~~
x0x0
There's countervailing inefficiencies in America. Just to touch on a few:

We don't train people; they're expected to self-finance virtually all
training. This often leads to a severely undertrained workforce, partially
masked by immigration. When potential employees self-direct training, it also
leads to mismatches between employer needs and employee training.

Following the lead of employers, employees have discovered theres no loyalty
at all and hence treat employment as an adversarial relationship. Witness, eg,
the bullshit from asshole Mark Suster. Your employer retains the right to drop
you for any reason, or no reason at all, with no termination pay or help...
but you better not go down the street for a better offer. Loyalty flows
upwards only!

It's an enormous risk to develop very deep skills in a tiny niche: that niche
may go out of need, and as an employee, you're just fucked. No serious
assistance retraining. Zero assurance that, after your one year of
unemployment benefits are up, society won't shrug and say, "Tough fucking
luck; welcome to poverty."

The incredible overpriced mess that is us healthcare. We spend roughly 2x as
much as anyone else in the developed world, for mostly worse outcomes. With
way more friction.

The debacle of US infrastructure, particularly in a place like the valley.
Poor and overpriced telecommunications. Incredibly high housing costs.
Terrible transportation. No real attempt to address any of the above. Endless
whining that there aren't enough engineers, but an unwillingness to pay
trained engineers from the midwest or west or south enough money to afford
anything like an equivalent life. Contrast to tokyo: if an engineer were paid
$50k to live in the valley, they'd be living in their car. In tokyo, there's
developed enough transportation systems this is manageable.

Lack of support for parents: from very modest time off for parents, to
expensive daycare ($300-$500 per _week_ for an under-two year old child), to a
dozen other issues. One parent takes a huge productivity cut or the parents
hire a nanny for $25k+/year.

~~~
pastProlog
> It's an enormous risk to develop very deep skills in a tiny niche: that
> niche may go out of need, and as an employee, you're just fucked.

Not to mention if you've been at a company for a long time and they have you
in charge of the legacy systems, which are moving farther and farther away
from the profit center systems with all their shiny new bells and whistles.
Again and again and again I have seen people punished and let go due to their
"loyalty" in maintaining the legacy systems, as opposed to working on the
systems with constant new features that are where the business growth and
revenue is.

------
fenomas
Dev based in Tokyo since '99 here - this is a great article across the board.

If I could offer an addendum, it would be that working for a small
non-$MEGACORP company is more common than you might get from the article. I
work mainly with web designers and the median engineer I meet typically works
at a 5-50 person company, often a startup. Also small places tend to be more
progressive than megacorps in some ways (e.g. not expecting lifetime
employment, Saturdays off, etc.). But most of the article (company as family,
etc.) applies equally to small companies.

Also as an aside, there's plenty of modern cutting edge web design here! Many
of my JP colleagues have TheFWA awards and so on. It's fair to say that webdev
inside the megacorps is behind the times, but I imagine that's true of most
places outside silicon valley.

~~~
minikomi
Yep I work for a small design firm doing web, interactive displays etc. Its OK
but not great. I'm sure it depends on the company but there's a lot of things
which are stressful.. Like, working with [large advertising company] art
directors who want responsive design / animations everywhere but also want it
to viewable on IE7 on their company provided XP box.. dealing with the
multitude of weird Sony/sharp android phones and their respective browser
quirks, occasional weekend "emergencies" etc etc

~~~
fenomas
Yeah, I hear you. At least general webdevs usually no longer have to worry
about feature phones - now that was a pain. (But even that's not true in the
game industry - I know companies who still make a decent part of their revenue
doing Flash Lite work. Flash Lite!)

There are clients pushing the bar though - Uniqlo comes to mind...

------
jrockway
First off, this was a fascinating read. I've never worked in Japan (on any
permanent basis), but I did go to high school in Tokyo. So this is like
another side of the world that I knew existed, but didn't know much about.

Somehow Google got dragged into this. Google has some benevolence (advice
about how to eat healthy, paid gym memberships, etc.), but it's not quite like
the Japanese companies he describes. Nobody is managing your rent, or setting
you up with dates. (Too bad, I hate dealing with landlords.) You can quit, do
a startup, and come back. People that can't program don't end up doing
planning meetings and making spreadsheets.

Certainly, if you like your job, your responsibilities will probably expand to
take more than the 40 hour workweek. It's been that way everywhere I've ever
worked in the US. (I probably err on the side of spending too much time at
work, but I'm rewarded in many ways for that time, so I'm not complaining too
much. But I'm not the "show up at 9 and set my alarm for 5 and leave when the
alarm goes off" type of person.)

I worked in the Tokyo Google office for a month last summer. People go home at
6. People come in as late as 2. It's very much like working in the US. I came
in on Saturday a couple times and didn't see many other people around. If 60
hour workweeks are endemic to all companies in Japan, the fact was hidden from
me. I don't know if working for Google counts as being a salaryman, though, I
didn't ask anyone.

Japan is a big country. There are certainly paths you can take that lead to 60
hour weeks and low salaries. There are other paths that don't.

Edit: and oh yeah, my one piece of advice for living in Japan: just because
someone tells you you're good at Japanese, doesn't mean you are.

~~~
jpatokal
In general, if somebody tells you're good at Japanese, it means they either a)
think your Japanese is awful, but are complimenting you for making the effort,
or b) you just made some sort of horribly ungrammatical blooper that reminded
them that you're not, in fact, native, and thus need the compliment.

~~~
jrockway
Not always the case, sometimes the compliment is legitimate. One should
probably not take it to mean "you're done studying forever" though.

------
e_modad
The whole time I was thinking "Man, this is crazy, don't they see how that
hurts productivity?" And then I thought about Europe compared to the United
States. To our European colleagues: Do you think of us as working ourselves to
death?

~~~
johansch
(I am Swedish.)

I think Silicon Valley-style working hours are actually sometimes required to
win in the race of building world leading products. Of course, in the vast
majority of the time it's probably being applied in a stupid way, just like in
Japan.

It all comes down to how hard it is to scale up a team. ("The mythical man
month", etc.) You can actually borrow against future productivity by running a
team really, really hard when it really matters. (Compare with the stories of
how iPhone 1.0 was developed.)

In Europe pulling off something like this is only feasible in a small start-
ups where everyone knows what's at stake, and there is a reward mechanism in
place that works.

~~~
tiles
Just curious, where can I find stories about how the iPhone 1.0 was developed?
I'm not sure what to search for.

~~~
Scuds
A book would be a fairly heavy undertaking since it's a compilation of
interviews, casual chats, etc.

For casual chats, the Debug Podcast:
[http://www.imore.com/debug](http://www.imore.com/debug)

[http://www.imore.com/debug-39-nitin-ganatra-episode-i-
system...](http://www.imore.com/debug-39-nitin-ganatra-episode-i-
system-7-carbon) with the former Director of Engineering, iOS Applications at
Apple Inc, Nitin Ganatra

[http://www.imore.com/debug-40-nitin-ganatra-episode-ii-
os-x-...](http://www.imore.com/debug-40-nitin-ganatra-episode-ii-os-x-ios)
Debug 40: Nitin Ganatra episode II: OS X to iOS

[http://www.imore.com/debug-41-nitin-ganatra-episode-iii-
ipho...](http://www.imore.com/debug-41-nitin-ganatra-episode-iii-iphone-ipad)
Debug 41: Nitin Ganatra episode III: iPhone to iPad

[http://www.imore.com/debug-47-melton-ganatra-episode-i-
demoi...](http://www.imore.com/debug-47-melton-ganatra-episode-i-demoing-
software-steve-jobs) What's it like to demo software to Steve Jobs
[http://www.imore.com/debug-48-melton-ganatra-episode-ii-
unde...](http://www.imore.com/debug-48-melton-ganatra-episode-ii-
understanding-apple) Part II

Why am I posting this into a talk about Japan? Oh well.

------
gknoy
From reading previous things of patio11's, this has not yet surprised me much
-- but I am blown away by the depths of details he's included here. I've only
finished the section on the salaryman relationship, and it's phenomenal
reading.

Edit: the link to "An Introduction to Japanese Society" seems to be broken.
Try this if you're interested:

[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Japanese-Society-
Yoshio-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Japanese-Society-Yoshio-
Sugimoto/dp/0521705193/)

~~~
patio11
Thanks, fixed it. I can never remember which parts of Amazon URLs are safe to
cut off.

~~~
msherry
A bit off-topic, but why not make it a referral link? I clicked it (when it
was still broken, unfortunately), and imagine others will, too. You have a
popular blog with not-insignificant hn traffic, I believe -- I don't think
many here would begrudge you that.

~~~
patio11
I don't take money for promotion, as a matter of policy. Partly that is for
aesthetic reasons and partly it is because a reputation as being honest and
reliable regardless of short-term commercial incentives is very valuable for
me.

Also, work the conversion math out if you'd like: 40k visits, 5% will open
that link, 3% will purchase, ~8% affiliate fee on $15 book = $72. My weekly
rate is $30,000. This post took, essentially, half a work-week to write. It's
not worth bothering with.

~~~
jcdavis
Wow. Blog post about how are able to charge $750/hr?

~~~
hueving
It's very simple, but nobody actually pays it. :)

~~~
crazypyro
I think you are mistaken if you think patio is bluffing about his rates.

~~~
jacquesm
Rates are important, but what's even more important is that your rate is an
instrument that allows you to slide without stops from 'unemployed' to 'full
timer' (and beyond for the workaholics). You get to determine exactly how much
you work and how much free time you have if you have a valuable marketable
skill.

The most interesting bit is how fast his time has increased in value, four
short years ago he was still employed at some reasonably (by SV standards) low
monthly wage working insane hours and now he's making as much or more _per
week_ as most of his former colleagues make _per year_.

That's a pretty good raise. And it did not have the risks associated with
doing an all-out start-up associated with it either he's applying the lessons
he learned running his own smaller business to larger businesses that are
prepared to pay for that knowledge.

------
petecooper
Related to this, Derek Sivers (formerly CD Baby, now of Wood Egg) has a range
of annual guidebooks [1] aimed at entrepreneurs moving to and/or starting a
business in Asia. 14 countries covered individually, or the whole range in a
single volume. I have read a selection of them, more for curiosity than need,
and I'd recommend shortlisting them should a relocation be on the cards.

[1] [http://woodegg.com](http://woodegg.com)

~~~
sumedh
Thanks

------
bemmu
I've lived in Japan for 6 years, first exchange student, then self-employed
but Japanese wife works for a large company. Just thought I'd chime in. It's
really hard to say anything generic about anything though, as I only have very
limited personal experiences to draw from.

From what I have gathered the parts about Japanese company life are accurate.
Yes, coming home at 7pm is "early". Midnight is not out of the question. Not
all companies require you to work on weekends, but it's not unusual to get
phone calls or be expected to complete some minor work at home.

It's possible to get a stable job again after quitting your previous one,
although I can believe it would be difficult if you don't have a good reason.
This wild concept of "changing your job" (tenshoku) seems to be becoming more
common too.

Part about company molding you seems true. To me it's bizarre that people get
hired to work for a software company, despite having no such background. You
could go from a completely unrelated degree to suddenly being a programmer,
totally possible.

The part about critical Japanese parents didn't ring true to me. No-one has
tried to pressured me to have a normal stable job. Perhaps because everyone
knows I'd be a terrible employee for a Japanese company, as I like to do
things like have hobbies, take vacations lasting for over a week, be paid a
decent salary etc. But I think the relationship to work is just different.

Yes, people always assume I am an English teacher.

------
tptacek
This is the longest setup to the best punch line about Google ever.

~~~
cperciva
Google finds wives for its employees now?

(For clarity, I say "wives" because that's the case Patrick referred to; I
have no idea if Japanese companies help employees find same-sex partners, or
if "salarywomen" exist in meaningful numbers.)

~~~
cskau
No.

------
myth_buster
I think the trick to have a good work-life balance in Japan is to work for an
MNC from a different country. The reason for this is that they bring their own
work culture there and don't mimic the Japanese one. This lets you have time
to explore the fascinating society that is Japan. If I get an offer to work
there again , I would pick it up in a heartbeat (provided my wife agrees to
relocate). I'd life altering experiences there.

Edit: Just remembered that there was a company policy that no one should stay
in office after 6PM in which case your manager will be called in to reason the
next day.

------
freddealmeida
Most of what he says is true for most firms. Non-global Japanese firms. Global
firms are moving to larger salaries by far. I was making into the 200K USD
range here in Tokyo (non-finance tech) so I would disagree that ALL salaries
are suppressed. It is just a cultural point to ask for less money in Japan.
Most firms also have very low revenue points in comparative markets abroad. So
one could argue this is market pricing. Japan is still half the size of the US
by population but with an economy that has been stagnant for many many years.

Like anywhere in the world, you get what you aim for.

Of course this does not take away from some factual statements he made. It is
very hard to hire in Japan. Business practices are archaic in many ways.
Technology is outdated (so few people know anything of Meteor, Angular, Go, D,
R, etc).

I still prefer it though in many ways. There is a order to social life here
that you don't have in the US or Europe. A tacit agreement to work together.
Sadly not always in a productive fashion, or even healthy, but still to a
fashion.

------
smanatstpete
Interesting read and captivatingly well-written. OT question: How long does it
take you to write such pieces? I am trying to better myself in expressing
written opinion and looking at these examples I am feeling more intimidated
than encouraged. Thanks.

~~~
patio11
This particular post took roughly 20 hours, spread over four days. That's
rather longer than typical for me -- usually, I get a post out in a single
workday, but this ended up being longer than usual and it needed a tone edit
or three. (The first draft felt bitter/cynical, which is a piece of my
relationship to salarymanhood, but only a piece.)

~~~
johan_larson
"In an ideal world there would be no racists, but in the less than ideal world
that you may find yourself living in, at least hope to run into ruthlessly
capitalist racists, because that’s something you can work with."

Best line in months.

------
pheon
As someone who also a "foreigner" who also owns and runs a company here in
Japan, much of the article was thats so entertaining... now... but was so not
funny at the time.

Unfortunately the vast majority of foreigners here are 20-something year old
assholes who demand Japan to be the same as their home country or clueless
tourists enjoying the sights and sounds. Its though this lens that Japanese
people experience either directly or indirectly foreigners and like everywhere
on the planet, people remember (and exaggerate) the negative aspects like it
was yesterday, but quickly forget the neutral and positive experiences.

If you can digest the above, then its easier to understand the Japanese
perspective which is, all interaction with foreigners has substantial risk
attached. All this means is, if a task has a local interaction then its likely
got an additional risk management component to it.

This risk component is probably different, possibly offensive based on your
own cultural norms, but if everyone has the same expectations and culture as
you, then your not living in a foreign country.

------
moriokumura
As a Japanese born and grown-up 27 years exclusively in Japan, I completely
agree with the article.

As a programmer and would-be entrepreneur living in Japan, finding good
prospective co-founder, investor, or mentor in Japan is really hard. Finding
Japanese girl who acknowledges entrepreneurship is also hard, unless you're
already very successful or wealthy.

I'm shocked when I know how ideal Silicon Valley's culture and environment are
for start-ups. I want to work or start business at SV, not in Japan, though I
have not lived there. That's why I'm reading HN and found this post.

------
ddellacosta
I really enjoyed this piece, there was a ton of truth in it and some really
funny anecdotes. I've been lucky to only work for a Japanese company for a
short time, and it was in fact a rather unusual company, so I haven't had to
suffer through a lot of the other salaryman pain described in the piece,
although without a doubt this is an accurate description based on hearing
stories from many friends and family, both Japanese and non-Japanese.

However, I would caution against making this kind of comparison:

 _That said: is racism a bigger problem in Japan than e.g. in the United
States? Oh, yes. Unquestionably._

First of all I don't think the piece makes any egregious mistakes in how it
discusses racism--I want to make that clear. But as with many complicated
things, the answer is "it depends," and in this case it specifically depends
on who you are. (As a white guy living in Japan,) I think it's really hard for
a white guy living in Japan to get a sense of how to accurately compare--as a
random but probably highly pertinent example in the case of their respective
countries--the experience of an African-American with that of a Zainichi
Korean. The U.S. has a history with regards to those of African heritage, and
Japan has a history with regards to those of Korean heritage, and those are
both enormously complicated things. So I think it's simply best to
acknowledge, "yeah, Japan has some stuff to work on, just like the U.S. does,
and probably everywhere."

But I can say that it's absolutely the case that a white dude really doesn't
have it that rough, and the racism I've experienced up until now (after 3.5
years here) is on the level of persistent annoyance, and I think Patrick
absolutely _nailed_ the most annoying thing I encounter day-to-day, which is
this:

 _Imagine walking the tax return for your multinational software company into
the local tax office and being asked, in a clerk’s best speaking-to-a-slow-
child voice, “Who can I call (mimes phone) if I have a question (shrugs) about
this paper (points)?”_

...it makes me want to scream on a bad day, but I think he's also entirely
correct that

 _Few things in life are worth fighting over. Fights that are worth fighting
are usually worth winning._

At some point, your response just ends up being a shrug and the familiar
Japanese "shouganai..."

(EDIT: a little for grammar and to clarify quoting from the piece.)

------
jacquesm
> Your company loves you and wants you to be happy, though, so they’ll suggest
> two days for your honeymoon, two if a parent passes away, and one if your
> wife passes away. You can take that Saturday off, too, because the company
> is generous. There, that’s like four full days — five, if you time it with a
> public holiday.

I can't help but wonder how one would time the demise of one's wife to
coincide with a public holiday.

~~~
cperciva
There is some evidence that Americans will schedule their deaths in order to
save on taxes ([http://www.columbia.edu/~wk2110/bin/dying-
final.pdf](http://www.columbia.edu/~wk2110/bin/dying-final.pdf)). I wouldn't
be surprised if the cultural equivalent is scheduling one's death to give your
loved ones more vacation time...

~~~
sfrank2147
As the paper mentions, it's also possible that people are lying to the IRS
about the date of relatives' deaths. (I personally think that's the more
likely interpretation, but I guess it depends on your priors).

------
robbiet480
Is there as great of a guide as this for the US? I'm an American citizen (by
birth) but have many friends that want to move over for work here and I am a
horrible explainer.

~~~
tlb
I would like a book, Introduction to American Society. While there are
thousands of books addressing some slice or theme, I don't know of a single-
volume overview.

~~~
ianmcgowan
That would be a tough book to write. As a (still) English citizen living in
the US for 25 years, the thing that amazes me is how _varied_ everything is.
It's less homogeneous than anywhere I've lived or visited, taken as a whole.
Can you compare SF to Fort Wayne, NY to Toledo or Chicago to Tallahassee in
any meaningful way?

~~~
eastbayjake
Someone on HN previously posted "Which of the 11 American nations do you live
in?" And while I don't agree with all of these -- Dallas and Austin are
certainly not "Greater Appalachia" and probably deserve some kind of Texas
"nation" of their own like "Tidewater" \-- it's certainly true that "American
Society" has many distinct parts. (Moving from Colorado to Connecticut to
Mississippi felt like living abroad in three separate countries.)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/wh...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-
of-the-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/)

------
notax
Becoming a salaryman sounds about as appealing as doing time. On the plus side
conjugal visits are a bit more frequent.

~~~
tzakrajs
I had much better (unfounded) opinions of Japan before reading this. Now I am
sad.

~~~
cthalupa
I'm not sure sadness or lowering your opinion of the country is necessarily
the right takeaway here.

I've been enamored in Japanese culture ever since I visited the country, and
have gained a handful of penpals in my quest to learn 日本語 - at times we
discuss the different in culture relating to employment. To them, the
riskiness in American (and to a large extent Western culture in general) is
insane.

I am not risk averse in the slightest - I've gambled my future on gut feelings
and judgement calls for as long as I can remember. But I don't think this
makes me better than someone who takes a safe approach to things. Is risk
taking inherently better than a safer approach? Why would it be?

Our way of life sounds just as dismal to a large portion of the Japanese as
the salaryman way of life does to a large portion of Americans.

~~~
tzakrajs
I love parts of the culture and Tokyo was really fun to visit -- I will
definitely will be returning soon. It was disheartening to hear of the
misogyny that permeates the work culture there. It wasn't that I think they
don't enjoy risk, but rather how they don't seem to exercise choice? I can't
imagine being satisfied where things are so rigid. Between their socially
conservative laws, the misogyny and rigidity of employment, the idea of
working there is really off putting.

~~~
cthalupa
I'll give you the misogyny, but that is something that is honestly changing -
and a lot of female Japanese professionals are actually refusing to date
seriously or marry specifically because they don't want to give up their
career and are advancing in their companies.

------
hardwaresofton
Fantastic in depth guide.

The salaries have kept me from returning to Japan for years now.

One question - I was informed that only a Japanese citizen (national) can
create a traditional company... Is that not true (OP kind of touches it but
kind of doesn't answer my question as far as I read)

~~~
patio11
False, though depending on your status of residence that could potentially
create trouble for you with regards to immigration. Speak to your friendly
neighborhood attorney if you want confirmation.

~~~
glimcat
At a minimum, one could start an American company, which could at some point
start a Japanese office (with all the accordant overhead in terms of paperwork
and politicking, including the usual risk of immigration taking a dim view or
otherwise filing your paperwork in the "do not pass go" column).

How closely that approximates the desired scenario with regards to e.g. hiring
and social signalling is another question. It would presumably be bounded by
the status of e.g. Microsoft Japan, which is in turn bounded by Sony. Which is
to say, not as good, but possibly good enough for most intents which don't
involve hiring new grads shoulder-to-shoulder with Sony.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Yeah, that is the easiest way to do it, and I think with Abe's supposed
promises to favor/help startups, this would be a good time for something like
that to fly with a 1-5 person "company"

------
kazinator
Language lesson, how to answer the bank manager (and not have him believe
you):

Q: Will you use the card to buy alcohol?

A: _ゼッテー_ そんなことしないぞ！

:)

------
oldspiceman
I'd love to see Doing Business in Taiwan / Korea / Hong Kong.

On a personal note, I found life in Osaka/Tokyo depressing compared to Taipei
and Hong Kong. It felt like Japan's time had come and gone.

------
crdr88
I was just reading about what Andreesen had to say why America is a good
innovative country. This was a nice supplement. Thanks for the article.

~~~
patio11
You're welcome.

FWIW, one of the most commonly believed things about Japan (domestically and
internationally) that I believe is dangerously false is some variant of "Japan
is not good at coming up with original ideas. It is good at perfecting ideas
made elsewhere." There exist fields/time periods/etc where Japan has clear
sustained leadership in innovation, just as there exist fields/time
periods/etc where the same is true of the US.

"CRUD web applications between 2004 and 2014" has not been a particularly
great example of Japanese technology leadership. Videogames in the
80s/90s/2000s or "Every mobile music device prior to the iPod" or "Robots,
1970 through present, excluding drones 2010-2014" or "Cell phones considered
as hardware artifacts, prior to the iPhone turning them into software
platforms" are all good examples.

~~~
tsotha
>FWIW, one of the most commonly believed things about Japan (domestically and
internationally) that I believe is dangerously false is some variant of "Japan
is not good at coming up with original ideas. It is good at perfecting ideas
made elsewhere."

Did anyone ever really believe that? When a company is new to a market or
behind the market leader they tend to copy the leader and add their own small
innovations. That's what the Japanese did in the '70s and '80s. When they took
the lead in an industry they were the ones doing the innovation, for the most
part.

I remember the "Japan is going to take over the world!" days. American
companies (and workers) were fond of saying the Japanese never had an original
idea, but even then it was obviously sour grapes from incumbents facing
determined competition.

You hear the same thing about China today, and it's just as wrong.

~~~
icelancer
It was common in the 80s and 90s when JIT and other efficiency ideas were
actually exported from America to Japan, when unions ruled American
automakers. As history shows, the Japanese took this margin and crushed
American carmakers for decades; the pendulum is only recently swinging back
(and that's with government intervention to avoid US automaker collapse due to
their own incompetence).

It's not true, but that was a big driver of the sentiment.

------
vram22
I agree with some of the other commenters who said that it would interesting
to see articles like this about other countries. IIRC, someone posted a link
on HN a few months ago, to a blog in which various people wrote about their
experiences in living in different foreign countries. Forget the name of the
blog right now. The name might have been a play on a word related to travel.

~~~
vram22
Ah, found the name of the blog, in my email where I saved it - istorical.com
(no leading h - that was the word play I remembered :).

Here's an HN comment where I saw it, and that links to some posts about
specific countries on that blog:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053338)

------
captaintacos
Software engineer here living in Japan for about the same time as the author,
and with almost the same work experience.

This article totally nails it.

I have bookmarked this so that every time a non-Japanese comes to me looking
for advice related to moving and working in Japan (which I should mention,
does not happen as often as it used to) I can just send them straight to this
article.

------
rheide
This was utterly fascinating. Is there a Japanese version of this? I would
love to rub it in some people's faces.

~~~
thedufer
A truly awful automated translation of the Japanese at the beginning of the
post seems to say that he's in the process of doing the translation but
welcomes help from someone who could do it faster. So I would assume it
doesn't exist yet but will.

------
throwaway081114
A bit off topic but I went to Japan for the first time earlier this year and
really enjoyed it, specially the food!. Since I've been back I've been
thinking of working there for a while as a dev, I know a friend of a friend
got recruited by Rakuten but he is much younger than me and speaks Japanese.
Considering that I'm in my 30s, not white or asian,can't speak, read or write
a word of Japanese and 10+ years of experience as a dev in Australia, USA and
Latin America, what are my chances of landing a semi decent job in Japan and
is this a good idea? I am specially concerned about the low salaries,being
overworked, xenophobia and not being able to learn the language, I feel too
old for these kinds of adventures but I haven't stopped thinking about this
possibility since I got back.

~~~
crishoj
Perhaps going as an expatriate for a western-based company would be a viable
option for you. This way, you would be employed on western terms, with western
salary, and in all likelihood have your relocation and accommodation taken
care off. Also, there's a higher chance that local language skills aren't a
strict necessity.

------
mathattack
I have had a long standing cultural fascination with Japan, that included over
a dozen trips, and 9 months of living there. Some observations:

1) He's true on who to hire. At one firm I worked for, the women were MUCH
more competent than the men. Why? Because they couldn't compete for the male
top graduates with Sony, Phillips and Toyota, but they could get the top
women. They also have their share of misfits and a group of folks who flip
between multinationals. It seems to work.

2) You can never be Japanese if you aren't born Japanese in Japan, so the
large company policies just won't make sense. As others have stated, best to
work for multinationals.

3) The stereotypes become less and less true over time. Are the business
steretypes of the US in the 70s and 80s still true today?

------
buster
How did you learn japanese? Any tips or recommendations?

~~~
cthalupa
I'm not patio11, but I've been learning for over a year now, so hopefully I
can provide some decent advice. This is purely from a self learner perspective
- if you're okay with taking classes, there's a completely different direction
I have no experience with. (Wall of text warning)

Some general tips first:

1) Pick a method and stick with it. I bounced around from material to
material, hoping to find something that just clicked and immediately made me
feel like I was making progress. This was never going to happen - you need
fundamentals, and it takes some time before you start to 'get it'. This is one
of the toughest parts - but probably not the absolute toughest.

2) Learn the writing system. Learn the kana (Hiragana, katakana) first. This
will help you in a multitude of ways, and will get you away from the awful
romanizations.

3) To expand on two... Do not ignore the kanji. Yes, they seem hard and scary.
There's a lot of them. A lot of them look similar. They can have multiple
readings. But there's a system to them - radicals - and learning them builds
vocabulary.

4) OUTPUT! Something I struggle with to this day. If you spend all of your
time ingesting, and not creating, you might be able to read or listen, but
then struggle when the time comes to speak or write. I'm not necessarily
saying you have to learn how to write all of the kanji - though if you're
wanting to live there it is very helpful. Not necessarily a deal breaker if
you know the kanji and don't mind being slow at filling things out while you
pull up a stroke order guide and butcher the writing - but you need to
communicate with the language. Find some language exchange partners and
penpals. Write back and forth. Skype. Nothing can prepare you to speak the
language fluently except practice.

\-----------------------

Now, for some specific advice on how I would go about it based on my past
experiences:

1) Pick up the Genki series of books. They're great. Two volumes, two
workbooks, an answer guide. These are one of the handful of common textbooks
for classes, and they have some group oriented activities in them (But there
are ways to practice these elsewhere - more on that later!), but they're still
one of the most comprehensive end to end guides on grammar and the
fundamentals you'll need to know. Learn hiragana and katakana while working
through these - after the first few chapters, the roumaji goes away.

2) While working through Genki, start using a SRS (Spaced Repetition System)
to learn the kanji. There are a lot of options here. Anki + the core decks is
free. It's easy to add new words from other sources - things you're wanting to
read, games you're playing, etc. Wanikani is a popular one that runs on a web
interface. iKnow.jp is the one I currently use, because it forces you to
provide output in a handful of different ways and draw the association in more
ways than just character recognition. It is not free. There are community
created courses for iknow as well - including ones for genki, so you can use
it to learn the vocab for a genki chapter as well.

3) Begin doing some basic output on lang-8 after a few chapters of Genki and a
couple hundred kanji. You write a passage in Japanese, and a Japanese-fluent
person will correct your mistakes and offer input. In return, you find a
passage that someone has written in English and do the same. You can use this
for your genki homework/many of the group activities.

3b) Go to the lang-8 group section and check out the skype groups. It might
take a bit to find some serious language partners or pen pals, but reach out
and start searching. You don't need to be fluent to muddle through some basic
conversation.

4) There's some supplemental stuff out there that I've found useful - but
they're not necessarily needed. Kodansha puts out a billion books on learning
Japanese, and most of them have some value, but in particular, Making Sense of
Japanese by Jay Rubin (Haruki Murakami's English translator) was invaluable to
me in picking up several concepts that I was struggling with when learning
from textbook sources. Japanese The Manga Way is also an excellent resource -
it's a serious learner's resource, despite the name, and includes grammatical
concepts that are covered up through the JLPT 3 test. It's very grammar
oriented, so you won't really learn the vocab like you will with Genki.
There's also the "Dictionary of _____ Japanese Grammar" (Beginner,
Intermediate, Advanced) which are very much reference books. You would not
want to try to learn from them, but they can be very valuable when you need in
depth clarification on a grammar point.

5) If you're at this point, you're probably delving far enough into Japanese
you can find your own way when it comes to learning, but this is probably the
most frustrating point for a lot of self learners. Genki was fun, you learned
a lot, but you're still probably struggling to understand native material,
even things that are written for a fairly young audience. You've put a lot of
time and effort into it, but you're not seeing major results. There's also not
really a direct sequel to Genki. The same company produces "An Integrated
Approach to Intermediate Japanese", but my opinion (Which seems to also be the
prevailing one among learners) is that it just isn't as high of a quality
textbook as Genki. Less fun. Less effective.

There's Tobira - which is definitely a good textbook - but there is a gap
between Genki and it. It's not a huge one, and you can definitely be
successful starting it right after Genki, but it's a lot harder and you're
going to have to be ready to reference some outside sources and ask some
questions. Hopefully you've built some friendships with native penpals by now
that don't mind answering questions! After you finish Tobira, though, you
should be able to begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel. You're not
going to be reading native Murakami or Ōe, but young adult level fiction, news
articles, etc, should mostly be in your grasp grammatically. If you've been
diligent with your SRS, you should have the vocab mostly down. You're still
going to need to look things up to understand the finer points or random words
you haven't encountered yet. But you're now past the JLPT 3 level, and
probably fairly close to 2.

From there textbooks are getting less and less useful, and it's time to start
trying to immerse yourself in the language as much as you can, and using
references for the things you don't understand. You can still pick some stuff
up from things like "Authentic Japanese", and if you're taking the JLPT tests,
the Kanzen Master series will be a good study guide. If you didn't pick up the
Dictionary of [Basic/Intermediate/Advanced] Japanese Grammar series before,
you probably should now.

Cliff notes: Genki + some form of SRS to start. Keep up the SRS indefinitely
to learn new vocab. Start creating output as soon as you can. The sooner, the
better. Tobira is a good next step from there, though a little difficult.
After that you can keep going with textbooks, but should really be trying to
just ingest as much native content as possible and look up anything you don't
understand.

~~~
buster
Thank you so much for that extensive text! I've just recently learned Hiragana
on my own (using two Android Apps and pen&paper writing) and learning by
reading a german japanese learning book. Since i self study in my free time i
switch between those all the time (learning hiragana, writing them on paper,
reading book) i was wondering what might be a good next step. Actually i
currently try to learn some Kanji and grammar and did not yet learn a single
katakana.. Having finally learnt Hiragana and learnign some basic sentence
structure i feel like my next step should be to write and read basic sentences
in hiragana only and then move to learn some basic Kanji. Don't know yet when
to learn Katakana, but currently i feel not like learning them as well, since
i just learned the other alphabet and would like to have at least success
doing something with that.

I didn't know about SRS, so that looks like a good way to learn some words
while on the train. I will give it a try! The japanese learning book i got is
only an e-book and i plan to buy a real book, so i am looking at Genki now.

As a reference, i found [http://www.japan-activator.com/](http://www.japan-
activator.com/) (an Android paid App) very useful..

------
sparkzilla
An excellent article. Those interested in going to Japan to work, or to start
a company should know that, especially in Tokyo, it's not necessary to be a
salaryman, or to speak that great Japanese to start a company there. I ran a
successful media business with over 30 staff there there for 14 years. There
are many, many Japanese who are outside the salaryman system who are happy to
work on new and exciting projects, and it's much easier than ever before to
get projects off the ground.

------
bmmayer1
This article seems to suggest it's near impossible to leave a megacorp and
start a company. So how did the first megacorps get started in the first
place? Presumably there is a fair amount of entrepreneurship in Japan,
otherwise they would not have been able to achieve their vast economic
success. But I'm curious what the traditional path to entrepreneurial success
is in Japan, given the way this piece makes entrepreneurship there seem
impossible.

~~~
oldspiceman
These companies have been around for 150 years. Same thing goes in Korea. They
employ a massive slice of the populations of both countries.

~~~
bmmayer1
What about companies like Softbank?

~~~
icebraining
Well, Softbank's founder is a son of Korean immigrants who moved to California
at age 16, attending high school in SF and studying CS at UC Berkeley, after
which he founded a company before moving back to Japan.

Not exactly the typical Japanese citizen.

------
atmosx
Probably the most interesting article I've read in a while. It was eye-opening
in so many respects!

Congratulations to the author for the deep in-sight view and easy-to-read
narrative.

EDIT: Although probably not as interesting as Japan (because of the huge
culture difference, to Greece/Italy/EU to which I'm accustomed) I'd love to
read similar articles for other countries like New Zealand, Australia, Canada,
Russia, Brazil, etc.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Employment in Russia is a pretty boring topic. You send in a resume, get
interviewed and hired, work for a few years and then leave for fresher
experience, more money or maybe abroad. Nobody expects much loyalty or
lifetime stability because of all the history.

For foreigners regular employment may be tricky: you would be expected to
possess some unique skills not present in native workers, otherwise it's
simpler to just hire them - language and cultural barrier is a thing. But if
you do, you may perhaps aim higher.

Oh, and the whole employment in Russia is widely uneven, wages unpredictable,
conditions wildly vary, life quality is love it or hate it. If you really
enjoy chaos you could probably try.

------
neil_s
What's funny is that the first part of the description sounds not unlike many
of the big-name companies in Silicon Valley (other than the lifelong devotion
to one firm). You spend all day there, are regularly expected to work overtime
because you'd be letting your fellow employees down otherwise, and now they're
even building their own dorms!

------
ruggeri
I think this article about Japanese companies' aversion to layoffs was
fascinating when I read it a little while back:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-
il...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-
japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html)

------
html5web
興味深い記事を書いていただきありがとうございます。

------
radikalus
Has anyone recently launched a new startup in Japan under Investor/Manager
visa?

I've never seen so much conflicting information regarding what's necessary.

I'm in the super early stages of rolling out an Asia office and would
massively prefer to be in Tokyo but the hassle level feels like 10x HK/Sing.
=\

------
srem
I'm sorry for picking this out from an otherwise great article (though I
disagree on a few other minor points), but I can't let this slide:

> That said: is racism a bigger problem in Japan than e.g. in the United
> States? Oh, yes. Unquestionably.

I disagree. I disagree so very much I don't know if I can even put it into
words.

Being the "wrong" race in the US can be a matter of life and death. It's not
even fair to compare racism on that level to the kind that exists in Japan. Do
I really need to talk about how pervasive racism is in the US? And how extreme
it is? Pick your poison: income, education, prison sentences, violence, etc.
This should be common knowledge by now. Please, please don't downplay it. It's
huge.

It's interesting nonetheless. You really can see a difference between whites
and non-whites when they talk about racism in Japan. There's a reason why
there's such a difference of opinion. Growing up having the race advantage all
your life and never giving it much thought, only to move to country where it
no longer applies is a huge shock to many people.

Really. Ask non-whites what they think about racism in Japan. I think you'll
find that most people will tell a very different story. It's usually something
along the lines of, "The amount of ignorance is astounding sometimes, but I
haven't really felt hatred/hostility directed towards me because of my race,
which is refreshing." The ignorance is certainly bad, though also isn't all
that surprising if you've had no meaningful conversations with someone of a
particular race all your life.

Yes, if you're talking about anti-discriminatory laws, there's a world of
difference. They're almost non-existent in Japan. Anti-discriminatory laws
didn't come about in the US overnight. A lot of people suffered and fought a
long war before we even saw a positive change. Again, not exactly fair to
compare the two countries here. It doesn't make it right, but let's put it in
perspective please. The US has a very, very dark history regarding race, and
it's not even close to being over.

There's also one other important difference in my opinion. In the US, you're
dealing with extremes on both sides. People who absolutely abhor you for being
a certain race or having a certain sexual orientation, and others who will
loudly defend your rights and speak out when they see injustice. In Japan, you
don't have much of either. Which is worse I guess depends on your
perspective... but it shouldn't be too surprising why a lot of people think
the former is worse. Hostility is a very difficult thing to deal with.

~~~
patio11
A kid's parents can be instructed to not attend public school in Ogaki, by a
school principal, in front of a room full of witnesses, not one willing to
contradict him, on the basis of his race.

I have very little desire to litigate American attitudes on race. As a
positive statement: there is no city in the United States where a public
school principal can literally say "I do not allow $GROUP in my school." at a
PTA meeting and expect to be employed 48 hours later.

~~~
jpatokal
Non-white, I take it? What was the proffered rationale, if any?

Even in Japan, I'm pretty sure that principal was way out of line, but it
would certainly take way longer than 28 hours to do something about it.

~~~
patio11
The rationale was "His presence would be disruptive to the educational
environment." (That's a very _generous_ translation of「皆に迷惑かけるだろ。」) Forgive me
if I have to be oblique about the rest of the story, but it does not include
"When apprised that this happened, people in a position of authority
immediately said 'That is outrageous! Enroll the kid!'" A school which would
take him was eventually located.)

------
badname
A bit into the article I had the strangest feeling I was reading a dark
Orwellian story. OMG - is _that_ how Japanese employees spent their lives?! I
wonder what the suicide rates are over there.

~~~
jacquesm
> I wonder what the suicide rates are over there.

High. Japan is in the top 10 countries world wide, roughly twice as many
suicides per million as in the United States.

------
oliv__
Sounds like a massive dystopia to me. I don't even get how their country
works, it's like a weird totalitarian state

------
dczx
That was an amazingly thorough writeup. I very much enjoyed it. And I no
longer want to move to japan...

------
matthewwiese
Fantastic article, read all the way through it.

------
ebellity
Love the small bank anecdote

------
known
Brilliant article.

------
notastartup
While reading the article, I'm also reminded of the working culture in
Vancouver tech scene without any of the benefits a worker might receive in
Silicon Valley.

Just crappier pay, crazy uncompensated overtime, next to nothing in terms of
salary bump. You don't like the long hours of work with meager pay and high
living costs? You don't like coming in on the weekend? You don't like leaving
at 9+ pm? Quit and good luck finding a job in the tech scene here, forever
banished to the life of high hourly wages from contract jobs serving some
American overlord, getting paid for overtime, not having to commute for hours
in the crap public transportation system.

~~~
jarek
> You don't like the long hours of work with meager pay and high living costs?
> You don't like coming in on the weekend? You don't like leaving at 9+ pm?

Isn't that the games scene, not the Vancouver tech scene? I've worked in a
Vancouver tech company that was happy with me working 11-7pm and paid enough
to rent in the city (28 min commute) and save half of the salary...

~~~
tsotha
Heh. Yeah, if you value your free time at all I don't think the games industry
is right for you in _any_ country.

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tzakrajs
May as well be entitled, "Reasons to never work in Japan."

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beavershaw
> That said: is racism a bigger problem in Japan than e.g. in the United
> States? Oh, yes. Unquestionably.

This is totally ridiculous. I lived in Japan for a year and as a white male,
it was the first time I experienced being on the receiving end of racism. It
sucked, but was a good lesson into how it feels.

That said, I'm pretty sure minorities in America have to deal with the same
experience on a daily basis often with far more tragic results:
[http://www.vox.com/michael-brown-shooting-ferguson-
mo/2014/8...](http://www.vox.com/michael-brown-shooting-ferguson-
mo/2014/8/19/6031759/ferguson-history-riots-police-brutality-civil-rights)

~~~
sosborn
>I lived in Japan for a year and as a white male

Racism in Japan when you are white is not that bad. Ask your Korean or
Nigerian friends in Japan what it is like and you will get a much different
answer.

~~~
notastartup
Add Chinese and other dark skinned Southeast Asians to that list and they will
all agree.

~~~
icelancer
Or being a half-Japanese, half-white American. I seriously believe this is one
of the worst racial profiles to be in the land of my ancestors.

