I love living and working in Japan, but I wouldn't recommend moving here unless you're committed to becoming fluent in Japanese and integrating into the culture. This is probably mostly true for any country one could move, but Japanese is one, if not the hardest language to learn for native English speakers.
I do, however, recommend everyone visit! Japan is a beautiful country with a unique culture and has something for everyone. You'll be safe, and have all the amenities you would expect from a first world country.
I stayed and worked as a Lawyer in Japan for a few years, and I wouldn't say it makes a difference whether you want to integrate or not. I would even tend to think that not integrating can result in being better accepted. Just be the French or the US guy they like to hang out with, the one who knows to do stuff they don't know, and everything will be fine. Try to become a japanese, and you'll end up being crushed by the system.
Speaking japanese is a great plus of course - but it's quite easy to learn, reading and writing don't help much - except if you want to explore the vast trove of japanese culture.
But the most important thing is to know that there is nearly zero interest in working in Japan if you're not the boss. Your career will be painful and difficult. You will suffer. It's a worst of two worlds situation.
Luckily the work culture is slowly changing, at least regarding the matter of OT: following the suicide of a new recruit of Dentsu that was ruled to be a death by overwork, several companies started to ask their employees to refrain from doing OT.
However, as an engineer, it is sometimes quite frustrating to work with colleagues who do not want to try anything by themselves, because they want to be taught everything.
This seems to come from the way they learn things at school: the teacher is always right, because he's the teacher; you need to listen to your seniors, because they know more than you. This leads to new recruits being taught everything by senior staffers, even when the methods are bad. And of course this limits innovation, because nobody wants to do something new.
On the other hand, for sure living here is great if you can live with the caveats of the Japanese society.
>However, as an engineer, it is sometimes quite frustrating to work with colleagues who do not want to try anything by themselves, because they want to be taught everything. This seems to come from the way they learn things at school: the teacher is always right, because he's the teacher; you need to listen to your seniors, because they know more than you. This leads to new recruits being taught everything by senior staffers, even when the methods are bad. And of course this limits innovation, because nobody wants to do something new.
In software engineering I've had the same experience with anyone from a rote-learning culture. Software engineering is problem solving. If you can't solve problems, what can you do?
Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a consultant! You're presumably an expert and have technical authority that is not anchored to the company hierarchy.
Hate to go off on a tangent, but there was that article about how NIH lead I think nextdoor to abandon cron and make their own alternative. I wish we could do both, be willing to learn and understand history and context but be willing to break the mold. We seem to be off in the reinvent everything mode because we all want to innovate, even when that innovation is unwarranted.
> this limits innovation, because nobody wants to do something new.
Curious. The stuff that I've read about Toyota says they have "continuous improvement" as a core principle[1]. Does that just not carry over into the way they do software, or is Toyota an anomaly among Japanese companies, or what?
In short, Toyota does not see themselves as a software firm (and they aren't in a broad sense); Sony also failed to transition beyond their best years of the 90s largely because they did not understand the importance of software and the Internet on consumer electronics as Apple did. I say this having worked at Toyota building some of the very first websites and web services for Toyota globally as well as working at Sony as well (I built the Internet services for the Network Handycam as well as other things.)
The OP is making stereotypes, and they aren’t universally true (as is usually true for stereotypes).
Japan is a big place. There are all kinds of people, and plenty of innovative organizations. It’s frankly embarrassing, the amount of nonsense that people are spouting in this thread.
That sounds like top-down improvement such as 'agile' development, not bottom-up improvement like hacker culture. That said, I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese who are curious and self-motivated, and there are plenty of non-Japanese who don't want to put in any individual effort. It's just that the cultural narrative told by each society highlights different things.
>> who do not want to try anything by themselves, because they want to be taught everything
Anecdotally, from a recent podcast on military history, I heard this same explanation for why the Japanese Army did very poorly in some WWII battles where they lost commanding officers early in the fight: The footsoldiers were unable to think for themselves, unable to adapt/improvise, and unable to organize anything other than suicide charges.
Source? Because that's distilling a lot of complicated history down to a simple motivation.
Given that glorification of suicide was specifically taught to military recruits, and that various commanders promoted or dissuaded it to their subordinates, it would fair to say that many times Japanese suicide charges were ordered in-spite-of better ideas.
Better support for overly rigid, hierarchical structures would come from the performance of upper echelon commanders during the war, and an inability to adapt doctrine to rapidly improving technology (e.g. mixed air-ground-sea task forces, carrier tactics, and radar).
You misunderstand. My point was that your attribution of motivation...
> The footsoldiers were unable to think for themselves, unable to adapt/improvise, and unable to organize anything other than suicide charges.
... is overly simplistic.
The soldiers were not necessarily unable to think of alternatives: they were doctrinally taught to reject those alternatives in favor of frontal assaults. They, their superiors, their superiors' superiors.
So "Japanese soldiers were unable to innovate" does not follow from "Japanese soldiers were prone to conducting frontal assaults."
"Japanese military doctrine in the 1930s strongly discouraged lower-level innovation" would be a more accurate statement, without attempting to tie it to capability.
> not integrating can result in being better accepted. Just be the French or the US guy they like to hang out with, the one who knows to do stuff they don't know, and everything will be fine. Try to become a japanese, and you'll end up being crushed by the system.
My grandmother spent a lot of time as an English teacher in Japan.
The conclusion that she and my mother came to was that the Japanese will easily accept foreigners being foreign. However, after they've known you for a certain amount of time, the expectation will grow that by now you should know the right way to behave. Trying to keep your "foreign" status indefinitely is dangerous.
I think it all goes to every other foreign countries. You must adapt to its language (unless it's English) and adapt to its culture. It's an SOP if you want to migrate or work into any other country, not just Japan. People like to live in Japan for many other reason as it is one of becoming one of the most livable city and you can almost leave your bike outside your house without getting stolen. And I almost forgot, there's pikachu and mario almost everywhere, how'd you like that?
I really think any techie would appreciate the consitency of two of the three alphabets in Japanese. (Hiragana and Katakana) The very fact that both of these alphabets are the exact same phonetic pronunciations, but written slightly different to visually distinguish them, is the only complication. But that they are designed specifically to distinguish between Japanese and foreign words is just brilliant.
Their Kanji script/written alphabet is a travesty left over from cave paintings and Chinese. But the spoken language is easy, easy to learn. The variations with polite (public or hierarchical relationships) vs common speaking, seem to mainly affect verb conjugations.
But their sentence structures are reversed from ours, but many languages seem to be, but they have fewer words, and make a number of a assumptions about context that make speaking actually less complicated, but require more understanding.
Also, they don't have any exceptions in pronunciation like English, which is huge. The extra effort saved on this alone can balance out the other complications.
This is my limited experience with a few years training in the language, family members learning it and a few relatives that lived there for years. (one permanently now)
Feel free to correct any errors I've thrown out.
My point is that Japanese can be easier to learn than other languages, but for reasons that may not be obvious.
Sorry, but I really strongly disagree with this. I've studied Japanese for 6 years, Chinese for 3 and am currently in Japan.
Some of your comments come off as extremely ignorant. For example, neither the kana syllabries nor the logographic kanji system are alphabets.
The distinction between Hiragana and Katakana is more of a distinction between emphasis on sound (Katakana) and normal writing of words. Katakana is used for more than foreign words.
Kanji / hanzi is absolutely not a travesty. In fact, Japanese would be nearly unusable without it (in my opinion). But your calling it "left over from cave paintings" seems to imply that you're simply not familiar with it, so I'll do my best to explain:
A very small percentage of kanji / hanzi are pictographic (in the range of 1-3%) with a similar percentage being ideographic. Thus nearly all kanji / hanzi have written forms that have nothing to do with what they mean.
There are around 200 radicals which make up kanji. They're compounds of these simple pieces, much like letters make up a word. For example, it doesn't make sense to ask why there's a "t" in water and it doesn't make sense to ask why a radical is part of a character (in general, there are exceptions to this in both English and Japanese).
I wouldn't describe Japanese sentence structure as strictly reversed. For simple sentences it often is, but in general sentences are just structured in an entirely different way.
Japanese "exceptions in pronunciation" are in fact the hardest part of the langauge in my opinion. Pronunciation of kanji in Japanese can be a bit messy, especially compared to Chinese. In fact the island of Iwojima was famously misread by Japanese admirals. The island's name's proper pronunciation would be something like iwotou.
Despite the pronunciation issue with kanji in Japanese (especially in edge cases), the written form is useful and beautiful enough to justify the cost.
Japanese is a truly beautiful language and I recommend anyone with the patience to commit thousands of hours to it, to absolutely go for it -- you'll be rewarded.
I'm very sorry if this comes off as insulting by the way. It's 12:40am here and I got triggered by this comment and felt a strong compulsion to add my thoughts and opinions.
I was waiting for a response like this so I wouldn’t have to type it myself. Almost everything that looks simple about Japanese at the beginning is complex and deep underneath.
For example, one of the things I was told early on is that pronunciation is easy, since all the sounds already exist in English. First, that’s not even true. Second, if it’s so easy, why have I never met a foreigner with an accent that even I, as a non-native speaker myself, could mistake for native?
Agreed with everything you said. Japanese pronunciation is easy to hit in the right ballpark because Japanese uses a near-subset of sounds found in English and other common languages. But refining your Japanese pronunciation takes effort and is not something to shrug off. Anyway, here are some examples where I think English-speaking Japanese learners butcher their pronunciation:
* し is [ɕi] (tongue fronter), not [ʃi] (tongue rearer).
* ふ is [ɸɯ] (mouth more open), not [fɯ] (teeth touching lips).
* お is [o] (monophthong), not [ou] (diphthong).
* え is [ɛ], not [eɪ]. (e.g. さけ)
* つ is [tsɯ], not [sɯ]. (e.g. つなみ)
* Anything with the Japanese r. The alveolar flap does exist in American English, though it's not consciously recognized as a distinct sound. Japanese sounds funny but still intelligible when the native [ɾ] is replaced with [ɹ] (English R) or [ʁ] (French R).
* Anything with small y (e.g. kya, nyo, myu) should have a quick [ʲ] sound, not a long [i] sound. e.g. きょうと is [kʲoːto], not [kiouto].
* Vowels are never reduced; きもの is [kimono], not [kəmounou].
* But the appropriate times to suppress vowels entirely. e.g. です, ～ます, して.
* The concept of doubled consonants, not grasping it.
* The concept of long vowels, not grasping it.
* Stress is often on the first syllable, not the second.
* Intonation is flatter than in English.
* How to use high/low/rising/falling tones correctly on particles.
* A natural and even pacing of syllables, not the choppy speech that foreigners seem to exhibit.
I think you need to do this blind folded. If you see someone is a foreigner you'll believe you're hearing an accent. If you had to do it without seeing them I think you'd find there are plenty of foreigners that have native level accents.
I've gotten in taxis more than once at night, gave the guy directions, had a conversation, and then when he finally stopped and turned around to get the fare nearly jumped out of his seat because he was startled he had been talking to a foreigner the whole time. That's happened at least 3 times.
I'm not trying to brag, it's just my experience. I know others that can do the same.
I think the main difference between your post and the post you are replying to is how high-level or low-level your analysis is. I dont see many disagreements between you and the OP, your post added a lot of detail which is all correct but none of which violates the spirit of the parent.
Eg what is an alphabet vs character vs whatever.. in a very colloquial sense, the list of graphemes used to represent the language is commonly referred to as an alphabet.
Re: kanji, I believe this was a frustration in character-based approaches vs phonetic approaches, particularly for a language with relatively few phonemes, and particularly coming from a quasi-phonetic language like english.
I respectfully disagree. As someone with knowledge on the subject, the post I responded to was just incorrect.
Alphabet is a specific term with a specific meaning and connotations. It's factually incorrect and misleading to call anything other than romaji that Japanese uses an Alphabet. Very little intuition about alphabets applies because they're just not alphabets.
The issues with Kanji are unqiue to Japanese. Chinese does not have them.
I'm going to stop posting because it seems people more calm and well-spoken than me with knowledge on the subject are posting.
Sorry again for the poor tone. I'll try harder next time.
In commonly spoken English we have one word for alphabet, and that is alphabet. Just like a doctor can say "oesophagus" for "throat" doesn't mean saying "throat" is wrong.
Kanji is an alphabet to us, so it hiragana and katakana in every Japanese class I took in America.
The wikipedia article on hiragana[0] call it "syllabaries", which may be technically accurate, I would consider this pedantic for the average American. And alphabet is accurate enough.
>The issues with Kanji are unqiue to Japanese. Chinese does not have them.
First sentence from wikipedia: [1]
"Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system"
I am an amateur, and I made that clear with my post, I only know what I have been told and experienced, and I stated nothing inaccurate or out of the ordinary regarding Japanese language from the American perspective.
That's a fair point and I agree in general. However, in this specific case I disagree.
To show that I agree, allow me to point out how in my earlier comment I used the word "radical" in a technically incorrect but more useful (in my opinion) way. Technically each kanji has only a single radical and the rest are pseudo-radicals, but for most purposes it's simply more useful to just refer to them all as "radicals". Additionally, I don't know of a more proper term than pseudo-radicals and the distinction isn't very important anymore because radical order dictionaries have essentially become obsolete by technology.
I fully acknowledge that excess pedantry can be a roadblock to clear communication.
Now I'll explain why I disagree in this specific case:
The issue is that "alphabet" is a very specific term like "x86 CPU". While it's not too wrong to go around calling the things inside GPUs and most phones "x86 CPU"s, it's technically incorrect and to those with in-depth knowledge, it's needlessly confusing when there's a perfectly good word that we can use to describe them, "CPU" or in the case of writing systems, "writing system".
Although, I do agree that syllabries and alphabets are not too dissimilar, logographic systems and alphabets are quite dissimilar.
Perhaps it's simply a matter of who I've talked to, but I've never heard anyone who knew how to use these writing systems refer to them as "alphabet"s, so I felt the need to correct it. I'd be willing to believe that my friends are much more pedantic than the average person.
Thus, it is somewhat pedantic but I feel that it's a useful distinction and that an adequate alternative word exists. Additionally due to this being on HN as opposed to a casual conversation, I think using the more correct, more precise, and more useful word when possible is a fair goal to strive towards.
Exactly. People can understand each other just fine without explaining which word they are using in Kanji. Korea was able to jettison Chinese logograms (Hanja) entirely from its education standards, and the only reason Kanji remains is due to tradition instead of any inherent superiority over the syllabaries.
Spoken Japanese is much more ambiguous. There's a reason subtitles are ubiquitous here. Americans who didn't understand the language tried and failed to get rid of kanji after world war 2. The langauge just does not work without them.
Additionally spoken Japanese uses pitch accent to distinguish homophones such as 雨 and 飴. Long strings of kana are difficult to read period. Native Japanese people struggle and can easily be confused by them in my experience.
Korean isn't comparable because it's phonetically much more diverse and uses spaces.
Kanji / hanzi work just fine for over a billion people. They make skim reading easier and add a lot of character and depth to the language. Westerners have a perception that kanji are hard to learn, and perhaps they're a bit harder than an alphabet, but in the age of computers, it really is a non-issue to learn and use them.
Pitch accent isn't necessary either. Just like English, Japanese has many different regional accents that sound different, yet people from one region can still understand people from another.
The difference is that people write with more homophones than they speak with, just as written English is different from spoken English (more subtle word choice for brevity), but that is not necessary for communication, and written language can adapt just like children's books which don't use Kanji.
Hanja worked fine in Korea, and there still remain a contingent who insist on it, just like there remain people who insist that Kanji is necessary. The fact that people born blind can speak and understand both languages shows this to be a lie.
> without explaining which word they are using in Kanji.
Actually if you spend any length of time in Japan as a speaker, you will notice native speakers writing kanji on their hands to figure out words their interlocutors are using ("wait, you mean this 'kou'? or this one?). If people are not physically present (e.g. phone) you'll hear them describe the radicals (components) of a kanji or ask "is it the 'kou' in 'kousoku' or the one in ...?
Pitch accent + clarification when needed. Subtitles are extremely common here. See my response to a response of this comment for more details.
The tl;dr is that the language is harder in speech than in writing. If you stick to well-worn paths people will know what you're saying, but I often have to discuss the written form of the more obscure words I say or just write it down and show it to my conversational partner.
>"Sorry, but I really strongly disagree with this"
You disagree that I think something is easy? Is it possible for you to provide evidence that I am wrong that I think it's easy?
I know very little Japanese and I was able to visit there and have a great time. Again, multiple relatives that are American that don't have a hard time in Japan speaking with people there.
I had a great time conversing and talking with people. If it's hard for you, maybe it's just personal or your needs are very specific.
Just comparing the i-before-e-rule (except all the exceptions to the exceptions) compared to Japanese, and there you have it.
Conversational Japanese is way easier (my expeirence) than English (many Japanese friends over decades and many conversations with my relatives they had with Japanese)
Just because it's hard for you, and you can technically explain why it should be hard, doesn't mean it is for everyone else.
Lastly, Japanese seem to love it when Americans care enough to speak their language and were impressed with my limited abilities and were a joy to communicate with. Even if I stink at it.
There are occasionally Japanese words written in katakana (e.g. ラーメン) and foreign words written in hiragana (e.g. たばこ). Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ).
> Kanji script [...] is a travesty left over from cave paintings and Chinese
There is no evidence that Chinese characters come from cave paintings. You haven't explained what makes kanji a travesty, so I'll grant you the assumption that you think it's hard because there are thousands of characters to learn.
I assure you, from all the people I've met who can read kanji/hanzi (including Chinese, Korean, and American people), they agree that the writing system makes sense and delivers a lot of meaning in a small space.
> the spoken language is [...] easy to learn
Again, no justification given. I would say it's a mixed bag. Some aspects of spoken Japanese are easy to learn, such as most phones overlapping with other languages (i.e. not needing to learn many new sounds), no European grammatical stuff like {plurals, subject-verb agreement, noun genders, case}. But some parts are harder, like distinguishing long consonants and vowels, politeness levels for verbs and nouns, dropping subjects and other information implied by context, and the postfix word order.
> they don't have any exceptions in pronunciation
There are a couple I can think of. The consonant g can be pronounced [g] or [ŋ], for example in が. The consonant in ず/づ can be pronounced [z] or [dz]. And the major one is that many -u and some -i should be suppressed (e.g. です, ～ます, して); in fact if you don't do this, you sound noticeably non-native.
I think overall, Japanese is okay to learn at a casual/colloquial level. The pronunciation structure is transparent, the particles make it easy to prescribe some known-good sentence structures, and the vocabulary seems reasonable. But mastering Japanese, oh boy, that will take a lifetime. (e.g. Just to name some off the top of my head - politeness, nuances over vocabulary, onomatopoeia, different registers like manga vs. newspaper vs. legal, classical Japanese, classical Chinese, reformed spellings and grammars, multiple on'yomi and kun'yomi readings, how to read personal name kanji, reverse-engineering loanwords, studying kanji, puns, distinguishing homophones in speech, ...)
AFAIK ラーメン is not a Japanese word. It is Chinese "Lo mein". 中華そば is a effectively a synonym for ラーメン. Also no Japanese restaurant guide lists ラーメン under Japanese cuisine. They either list them on their own or under Chinese cuisine.
I'd say one of the hardest parts is the multiple ways to say every kanji with almost no rules, just memorization. Example: 行, 実行, 行う, 膝行, 売れ行き or 先生, 一生, 芝生, 往生, 千生り, 埴生, 平生, 弥生, 蓬生, 生り, 相生, 下生え, 生える
Kanji were imported into Japan from the continent via scholars or printed material. Many of the different pronunciations happened because kanji came during different time periods or from different parts of China where words were pronounced differently.
> There are occasionally Japanese words written in katakana (e.g. ラーメン) and foreign words written in hiragana (e.g. たばこ). Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ).
If you look back far enough (but as recent as the beginning of the Showa era), you'll even find entire sentences written in katakana+kanji.
>There is no evidence that Chinese characters come from cave paintings.
Sarcasm.
>Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ).
Cool, didn't know that.
>...they agree that the writing system makes sense and delivers a lot of meaning in a small space.
I've done translation work with Greek, Spanish, English and dealt with Japanese in college (helping translate/edit my Japanese room mate's papers), and why on paper, many things may look a certain way, on a computer screen it's an entirely different world.
All the Spanish and Greek stuff took up more space, Spanish especially. But with the Japanese, the keyboards took up more space and were slow to type with. So, the comparisons between space and efficiency and all kinds of other metrics are not universal.
>But some parts are harder, like distinguishing long consonants and vowels, politeness levels for verbs and nouns, dropping subjects and other information implied by context, and the postfix word order.
Sure, but this is all subjective to you. "Harder" by definition is subjective. So you can't claim your statement (is harder) is any more or less valid than mine (is easier).
>"...in fact if you don't do this, you sound noticeably non-native."
So? Not a single Japanese could pronounce "level" or "really" correctly that I ever met. The details that iron out an accent are irrelevant in the question "is this language hard to learn".
>"I think overall, Japanese is okay to learn at a casual/colloquial level."
I guess I should have put that in my post. But again, I have relatives and friends that speak fluently and they've never had an issue saying it was harder than other languages. And everyone polyglot I've met said English was very hard.
I'm currently married to a Chinese born wife who has lived in the US for the past 15 years, but spent most of that time in academia with other foreign born academics. She had developed a habit of saying "BE CAREFUL!" very loudly whenever I was driving and something unexpected happened in traffic. I was patient at first, hoping that she would come to understand that I am quite careful (I'm a bit of a stereotypical asian driver myself) but one day, I snapped at her when the car ahead of me abruptly braked to a stop, then backed towards me to parallel park in a spot they'd spotted last moment.
We did talk about it, but whenever we argue, it seems that she thinks I'm lying when I tell her that saying "Be careful!" in that context sounds like an admonishment.
Japanese grammar structure is almost total inverse of English, worse, it has particle 'screws' system to make sense of any sentence.
Japanese vocab is not robust to noise, i.e. it is high-entropy. Unlike English, there are tons of homophones, plus, its intolerance to dropped/swapped phonemes usually lead to words confusion and incomprehensible sentences to beginners
No. You won't be able to read anything that isn't designed to be read by kindergarteners if you can't read kanji (at least primary-school level [1]). But even learning the most common ones is really useful.
I traveled in Japan with friends, and we were all Japanese language learners. We could all read kana, but only I could read kanji, so I took the opportunity to evaluate how our experiences differed. In terms of street signage (e.g. train station names, place names, restaurant menus, merchandise shopping), it's very hit-and-miss if you only read kana.
Place names are almost always full kanji (especially on maps), but trains and buses usually display the kana version (as well as romaji). Kana will allow you to identify products named with foreign words, as well as some Japanese words that are written in kana for various reasons. Otherwise, any real sentence is written with kanji, with kana only acting as the glue between the substantial words.
Bottom line is that if you don't read kanji, you are missing out on a lot of Japanese text. It would roughly be the equivalent of bleeping out every English word that is more than 6 letters long.
I used to live in Japan and I found the language fairly easy to learn (compared to other languages I have attempted, like French, Spanish, German, and Finnish). Japanese is consistent in its pronunciation and grammar, doesn’t have all the tenses English has, and uses tons of English words. As an engineer, Japanese made a lot of sense to me. The only real difficulty I had with it was reading Kanji.
I haven’t had any negative experiences based on my race, personally. I’ve never been denied service or anything like that, and I’ve been stopped by a police officer once in 3.5 years (no way to know if that was even racially motivated, either). There is some stereotyping, sure, but I don’t take it negatively. People get some interesting ideas about what is normal in America from movies :)
There isnt a mono-ethnic country in the world where you won't face racism much worse than in multicultural societies as you will always be different. People don't call it racism there. its normal for you not to be treated like a japanese as you re not one. and don't worry they will make you feel that everyday. especially when they will see that you speak japanese and that you re not a tourist
I wouldn't call it racism, either. Recognizing that different cultures and peoples are different isn't racism, and I wouldn't ever expect people to treat me as a Japanese, because I'm not one. That doesn't mean I'm not treated as an equal, it just means I'm not treated as the same (as I'm obviously not).
I'm thinking of writing a blog post or something about this in a positive light, since most of what you read about Japan in English is from the perspective of people who have a bone to pick with their experience. There's positives and negatives of being an integrated minority in what is by some definitions an ethnostate. I might even say there's some "minority privilege," depending on the situation.
> especially when they will see that you speak japanese and that you re not a tourist
I've read this many times before that Japanese love a tourist but when they learn you're a resident somehow they turn on you. Not once seen this happen or heard of an incident of it happening to anyone I know.
I lived there and lived in south korea. try to have a mixed child for instance, try to speak with older people around you, with your coworkers and you will find out stuff. in korea its more obvious as people are generally more expressive of what they feel but in japan its deeper. obviously it is same everhywere on earth. many french people don't mind or like tourist but they won't see immigrants the same way it's an obvious thing...
I'm not Japanese but if Japanese culture is like Korean culture, there is subtle racism for foreigners but far from a crazy American level. More racism with darker shades of skin color.
If this is an example of collective Asian cultures and racism- I'm Korean-American but I'm not considered Korean in Korean culture. If anyone watched Crazy Rich Asians, it's exactly like that. You might have a Chinese face and speak Chinese, but you will never be Chinese or one of us.
well if you don't know anything abut china but its language (which is already a start) then yeah you 're not chinese to someone who lived all his life in china. you are an american.
It’s still there at an institutional and cultural level - I think the most glaring example of this is the amount of landlords who either openly or discreetly (with a phone call to your realtor) will not rent property to foreigners.
I think this has more to do with the fact that the landlord is not comfortable dealing with someone who doesnt speak the same language. Also I have heard ( no citations) from my Japanese collegues that the laws are heavily biased in favor of the tenant. Its very hard to evict them. So a Japanese home owner ( conservative as they are) wouldn’t want to take a risk for no additional advantage.
If foreigners are perceived as being higher risk, and they probably are, then I don't see any problem with landlords discriminating against them in general. It just means that the standard will be higher to offset whatever the risk is. There are some landlords who probably won't rent to foreigners at all, and that's fine, too. There are plenty of places available.
If this kind of thing would bother you, I would strongly recommend not considering moving to Japan.
If they are a higher risk, it's just risk mitigation. If English teacher foreigners are 25x more likely to break their lease than a Japanese person making the same salary, then it's not worth renting to them for the same price.
You can call it whatever you want, but it's part of being a foreigner. If you don't like it, then stay in the country of your citizenship/heritage.
If in the US, a black man is 2X more likely to have committed a murder than a white man, is it not worth associating with them?
This is absolutely the root of racism. Acting out of fear and self-preservation in a self-sustaining loop.
The most insidious kind of racism to me isn't the mindless hatred that you sometimes see. It's the thoughtful, logical-sounding explanations that justify the behavior.
I don’t really care who you choose to associate or not associate with regardless of the reason.
If a landlord doesn’t want me because I’m a foreigner, that’s fine with me. If I ask why and he explains the risk profile, I can offer to pay for my 2-year lease up front to mitigate the risk.
If the landlord won’t take 2 years payment up front, that’s her prerogative and I’ll find a different place.
I don’t understand the obsession with wanting to force people into economic transactions they don’t want to participate in.
Fortunately for me, I’ve literally never been denied an apartment or a service or anything at all due to my race in Japan. But hypothetically, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Discrimination laws are a violation of freedom of association and they increase the cost of transactions because people can’t state their prejudices publicly.
Insurance companies charge men more than women for car insurance because the data shows they're more risky. Is that gender discrimination? There's a line somewhere between -isms and data driven decisions.
Is it gender discrimination: Yes. Is it legally protected gender discrimination: Also yes!
Welcome to systemic problems!
"Data Driven Decisions" are almost always about "this consumer/user group will probably do X". This is discriminatory against people in the group who don't/won't do X. Insurance companies (and college admissions boards, and police deciding where to send officers) do their best to try and remove broad categories (race, sex, etc) and tailor their data to a specific outcome, but that doesn't mean data can't be used to discriminate. "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" after all.
There is a line, but it moves, and it's blurry, and sometimes it's not really a line but more of a circle. The point is, sometimes these things are bad/discriminatory but they're allowed to keep happening because that's how we've always done things or something to that effect.
Dealing with people as groups is at the heart of -isms and stereotyping/discrimination. It's also how data/statistics tend to treat people.
I'll just note for posterity that I was arguing that these stereotypes about 'foreign people' are just as toxic as stereotypes about 'black people', not that I believe in these stereotypes about black people or foreigners.
Everywhere else immigration and Japan are mentioned on HN, the consensus seems to be that Japan is doomed to lose its unique culture and societal cohesion due to immigration and the loss of its ethnic homogeneity... but apparently not when "we" are the immigrants.
Don't get me wrong, Japan is truly a wonderful place to visit but living there seems like playing life on "hard mode" as compared to other countries: new language and culture, never truly becoming "one of them", and relatively poor working conditions.
Unless you have existing ties to the place, it seems hard to believe that people will move in droves; although I can understand a few people moving.
Japan is notorious for very formal work culture, very long "working" hours (really, "working" just means "staying in the office" - it's customary not to leave the office before your boss does, but perfectly acceptable to spend the waiting time playing solitaire).
It's one of these countries where "an engineer is just an engineer" and management, even if it's middle management, is god.
They do need tech workers, which is probably why this propaganda piece got published. But I doubt they're getting many applicants, except maybe from 3rd-world countries as shown in the article.
> Unless you have existing ties to the place, it seems hard to believe that people will move in droves; although I can understand a few people moving.
The opposite is also true. You can grow so bored of western culture that Japan become interesting with its different way of life. It is however quite a bit "western" in some ways (compared to China, some of the middle east, etc.) so moving there can sound like a challenge without being scary.
Is this born out of experience or is it from looking outside? Differences are fun to experience, hence why people go on vacations if they can. But enduring those differences when you've had a long day and just want a drink or coffee to relax, it isn't that fun. Living in Japan is more than adopting a new language. And even if you fit in with the culture, you'll never be one of them. I really don't think you'll get how hard that is until you experience it first hand, and being Japan, not fitting in isn't "cool" or "interesting," it's a dire place to be in.
I'm not white in America, so I know how that feels, but I'm not delusional: the times I've visited Japan I stick out like a sore thumb and it's the usual glares/distrust here x100. Seoul was a bit worse from than Tokyo from that perspective, but using it as a proxy because they have similar attitudes towards foreigners, the only time I actually felt visible was when I was with my former classmate who was Korean. The difference was night and day, the night before I was ignored to the face by a street vendor, the next day with her, a street vendor offered us free food after buying a delicious set of fried snacks.
If you want to experience an Asian metropolis, I recommend Singapore because diversity is something they sort of believe...and uphold by force. I fit in because I look malay or indo, but if you're white, you'll be a minority but not enough to feel out of place for the most part. Otherwise, go if you have an SO in Japan so you can be the token foreigner girlfriend/boyfriend or something. Don't go and live alone.
Nope. Just like tiny fraction of a fraction of silicon valley. A ridiculous small portion of americans ( even in silicon valley ) move to japan and vice versa. But it gets a lot of clicks and views.
The Japanese (and Korean) work culture, or at least the external perception thereof is the biggest factor that turns me and others off. Who wants to work most of their life and put in twelve or more hours a day six days a week or more? It's worse than America which is already quite bad and off-putting. I don't know what it is about hard work that people have fetishised, but it's not all that it's cut out to be and frankly, if one doesn't have to work that hard, working that hard is stupid. Not to mention unhealthy. Doing it for low pay borders on insanity or disease. Workaholism is no different than alcoholism at its core. Both are extremely destructive. Well at least with the former, there will hopefully be money to pay one's medical and early funeral bills.
You are generally right, but in the tech sector the work culture is highly variable---I'm saying this as a native Korean having worked for Korean tech companies for a decade, and I have heard similar accounts for Japan. South Korea also enjoys a universal healthcare for everyone; there are mandatory healthcare plans for long-term foreigners as well AFAIK. They do generally have lower tolerance on diversity issues (even while the workplace can be much better, the society is not), so that's something to keep in mind.
Recently, there was a long autobiographic thread on twitter about a young US woman who could not make it into an adequante job in the gaming industry, simply because she is a woman. For women, it seems to be very hard to find a job generally, with few exceptions. For example, plenty of Nanny jobs seem to be available in Japan.
Any non-Japanese person who wants to work there should think long and hard, and give it a trial first. Poor pay, strong work culture, stifling weather and crazy weather events for much of the year...it's no paradise. You'll frequently see things happen which are downright illegal in the Western world. For example, being explicitly denied service because you're not Japanese. You might not see these things as a tourist but live there and you'll see it.
It's sad that some introverted/vulnerable people seem to gravitate towards Japanese culture. If the Japanese themselves have a tough time in their own society then why do outsiders expect to fare any better.
> For example, being explicitly denied service because you're not Japanese. You might not see these things as a tourist but live there and you'll see it.
There are very few such places. I haven't seen any myself, and I don't know first-hand anyone who has seen any themselves either. The rare cases I heard about were all a shortcut made to essentially mean "can't serve people that don't speak Japanese". As in, they did actually serve foreigners that speak Japanese. Which is somehow understandable, although the form might not be appropriate.
Speaking of form, it is worth noting that when combined with poor English, the signs can be huge fails in meaning. For example "Japanese only" can mean "Japanese people only" or "Japanese language only". I'm sure there are many ways people with good intentions can end up with badly worded signs. And obviously, a foreigner seeing a badly worded sign is unlikely to tell them the sign is badly worded, keeping the status quo in place.
I've actually heard of instances of foreigners telling about signs, with the signs being replaced as a result.
It happened to me twice (as a tourist, overall being seven weeks in Japan).
My strong feeling was that the proprietor of those places were afraid that they won't be able to communicate appropriately and that they may lose face if they can't make me happy. I never felt discrimanted against, really.
On the other hand I had fantastic experiences walking into places, where nobody spoke an English word, throwing a hearty Omakase! (essentially: you decide) at the chef. Smiling and an occasional Oishii! (delicious) delivered with a smile also go a long way.
You have to be aware that they're really scared to lose face and that you could leave unhappy. A very big no!no! in Japanese culture.
I had fantastic experiences, let alone extremely tasty meals with this approach.
I see this argument frequently, that it's actually a rare occurrence, and that foreigners are just misinterpreting a reasonable request to speak the local language.
Well I've tested this. When you're confronted by owners saying "Japanese only!" while shooing you out of an establishment before assessing your speaking ability, it's clear that it isn't a misinterpretation. This isn't out in the sticks either, busy parts of Tokyo in touristy areas. I'm a middle aged academic too, not exactly the type to ever cause trouble. Deny service in Europe in this manner and see what happens.
I don't even care, personally. They can serve who they want. It just may be a shock to people who assume that the Japanese will be largely welcoming of outsiders.
> Congratulations, you've found the goose that laid golden eggs. And now you say all geese lay golden eggs.
I mean I saw these signs frequently. Although yes, on the whole, people are pleasant and accommodating. This 'discrimination' will not ruin your life. It's a mild inconvenience and personally I don't care about it.
Essentially my point is that you're probably not going to move to Japan and integrate yourself into society. You'll always be an outsider, and you may sometimes be shunned in an explicit way, which is quite shocking.
And I believe you're right that it's illegal to discriminate on this basis there.
While it's true that salaries are low on average, a tech worker relocating from overseas wouldn't (and shouldn't) settle for an average offer. Same goes for work culture.
Sugoi! I'd be interested in hearing the price breakdown for living in Tokyo at current exchange rates ($USDJPY = 110.00)?
For a moderate two bedroom in a cool neighborhood? As well as office space. And how is the availability of gigabit residential fiber options. Say, comparable to Verizon FIOS (~$150/mo)?
In short, if anyone has set up a remote office for 2-3 months or even permanently I'd love to hear their experiences ;)
Fiber to the home (ftth) is dead cheap here, only about US$50 (¥6500) for 1Gbps unmetered. Rent for a cheap 2LDK really depends on how far to the station, how new, etc. As a bachelor you could get a nice 50-60sqm 2 room plus Living/Dining/Kitchen in Yoyogi for ¥150,000-200,000 per month. The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application without being hired by a local company. Rent guarantee companies can be used to avoid having to find a Japanese guarantor. Serviced apartments run by foreign companies will be large and well positioned, but start around ¥500,000 per month.
A short term stay in an AirBnB of 2-3 months might be possible, but you’ll only be able to get a tourist visa, so no earning an income locally and be really careful of overstaying.
Investor visas are not so hard to come by compared to US (lower monetary bar) but you’ll still a handsome sum to get one.
> The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application
It was 10 years ago, so I wonder how much the situation changed. For me this was a pretty severe issue.
Below 120,000 yens/ month, even with a long term visa, years of residency and a stable employment covering 3x the monthly lease amount and a co-signing by a Japanese spouse, getting the landlord to even see the application was hard.
We would show up at the agency, and whole swaths of offers would just be set apart under a 'no foreigner' policy, and the rest was direct negotiation with the landlord.
Above 150,000 I felt we had more choice, but then we were into mildly premium territory.
Housing discrimination is a very real issue even today. Large swathes of properties have a "No foreigners" policy. One of the most shocking experiences I had in Japan was when I went with my friend to go house hunting and had to sit through the estate agent calling different apartment owners and try to plead his case. Some of the owners asked things like "What does he look like?".
When I got my current apartment in Japan I thanked the estate agent profusely and said that he'd been a great help and that it's often difficult to find a good place. He said "No worries, you're not Chinese like him!" gesturing towards a Chinese customer sitting on the other side of the shop.
The flipside of this is that when you're in you have a lot of rights as a tenant.
What kinds of places are you and the grandparent looking for? I’ve visited tons of places in Japan and talked to plenty of friends and coworkers about their apartment searches and never heard of one place with a foreigner restriction (including ten years ago and more recently).
Are you talking about super countryside or something? My searches have always been in Tokyo.
I moved about 6 times for various reason, including pure curiosity. Everytime I had the issue.
Now, the vendor might not explicit the restrictions. Sometimes we talked for 10~20 min, I ask for the full binder of offers to look for myself and am told some of them won’t be available.
Or some of the agency people woud pre-filter the offer they hand over, and when you ask to see some they removed they’ll explain those “were burned by previous foreign renters” (that’s the canned response)
Also your friends and co-worker might be part of other demographics where they are exempted. For instance single white women in their 20s will get a pass on basically most conditions (except revenue of course).
Also working in a super top tier national company (i.e NEC, NTT, Sony, softbank etc.) will open a lot of doors. You are asked upfront about your employment so you won’t hit further roadblocks at this point.
Oh okay, thanks for elaborating! Yeah, most of the people I know looking for places work at a famous multinational, so I guess that explains why I haven't seen the issue even when self-selecting places from online listings. And other friends might be just accepting the pre-filtered options from their agent.
Regular single occupancy apartments (Either studios or 1K).
I think some estate agents are a lot more smooth about it than others. They'll only show you pre-vetted "foreigner ok" apartments. My experience is that if you go on a property site, draw up a list of places you're interested in then prepare to be disappointed.
When I was first starting out I ran into a few opportunities in Japan, but it looked like the salaries were very thin compared to expenses. (US $40-50k starting.) I never got as far as looking into Tokyo taxes, but for entry-level work it seems like they'd make the difference between awkward (>1/3 income on rent) and concerning (>1/2 income on rent).
Salaries are indeed low on average for locals, but are much higher for the kind of jobs westerners get in tech.
Taxes are high for corporations, not that high for individuals usually below a quarter of your salary, including insurance, pensions and local and national taxes.
Overall Japan is not the country to go to if you want to maximise your salary.
* residential gigabit (min 1 year contract): $60/month
* food for one month, either eating out or buying decent groceries and cooking: $800/month
---
Those are off the top of my head. I'm not very interested in living in a cool neighborhood and rent where I live is more like $1400 (office space is presumably correspondingly lower).
Sounds similar to Providence, RI regarding expenses. I'd wager a similar lifestyle in Boston, MA would go for $1k more than what you've listed, finding a 2 BR in a cool neighborhood of Boston area is probably going to be $3k or more.
Just came back from a trip and most restaurant prices match the US in cities. Cheaper places go for around $6-7/meal. Most end up being around $20/meal (+/- 5).
Obviously cooking at home or snacking ($1-3/snack) from convince stores lowers that amount.
This sounds oddly familiar to me, I worked in Japan for a year and a half despite taking a large paycut from my job back in the US because I wanted to explore something new. I ultimately left to Silicon Valley ironically because they were offering nearly 4x the pay and better learning opportunities (the Japanese compensation structure is not kind to new grads and SV has ridiculous COL). However I loved my time in Japan and my ultimate career goal is to somehow move back there but with a better opportunity. Good to see some people finding gainful employment over there, it really is a great place to live.
I know this is about Japan, but I did something similar. I went from San Francisco to Saigon about 2 years ago. Significantly lower cost of living, motorbike culture, great food and craft beer, super friendly people, easy travel to other SE Asia countries. I don't regret it one bit.
I visited Saigon (and the rest of Vietnam) a couple of years ago with an eye to maybe moving there and working remotely.
It didn't take me too long to decide that I wasn't going to move. The main reason was just the lack of creature comforts. No offence intended to Vietnam, but everything there was just a bit shitty and in a state of disrepair. I just felt like everything was put together with a minimum of effort, and then no effort was made to maintain it. Whether it was motorbikes, or roads, or buildings.
The other things that you might think were obvious downsides weren't actually problems for me at all. I didn't mind the traffic, or the pollution, or the noise. Riding motorbikes everywhere was actually fine as well. The heat was pretty bad, but I'd get used to it.
I think at the end of the day the main reason that I didn't move was that my reason for wanting to move was the lower cost of living, so I could save money. I don't think that saving money is really a good reason to move countries. Instead, I moved to another country with similar cost of living but higher wages.
That's why I find these articles interesting. What works for one person really might not work for others. I've seen stories posted/linked to on HN about people who moved to Japan and hated it.
Good on you to at least explore your options, that is 90% of the battle!
Agreed, Saigon (and VN in general) is not for everyone, but that is changing over time as more western influence starts to happen here. Case in point, Landmark 81 is now open. I'm not sure that is good or bad... It also is a city that you live in, not visit.
Those 'creature comforts' are not easy to find as a tourist, but they exist. Having friends and dating locals helps a lot. My google maps is unreadable now cause I've marked every single place I've been to and I know that I'm missing out on tons of things cause I don't know the language.
It took me about a year to get used to the heat, but you do (I actually find that I get cold more easily now).
I originally found a company that 'sponsored' me as a consultant. Then I've had a number of jobs while I've been here. I'm currently remote consulting for a global company based out of NYC. Yes, it means I have a nightly 10:30pm standup, but that is an ok price to pay to get to live where I want to.
If you're ethnically Asian but don't speak Japanese, Japan will not be welcoming at all.
If you don't look ethnically Asian, Japanese people will give you allowances and defer to you. However, if you're Asian and not Japanese, they look down on you. Read about ethnic Koreans in Japan and how they're oppressed[0]. They speak fluent Japanese and their families have lived 3 generations in Japan.
My student who was of Korean decent but was the most popular person in high school and went to a good university would disagree with you. As would my friend who was born in Korea, married a Japanese woman and moved to Japan. There is discrimination in Japan, but it's frustrating to see this trotted out time and time again as if you'll be systemically discriminated against no matter where you are. It's just not true.
But if you don't speak Japanese, it doesn't matter if you are Asian looking or not, you won't fit in here. There are lots of other ways you won't fit in here too. Not speaking Japanese well is an absolute deal breaker, though.
Edit: I should point out that there is nothing wrong with the Wikipedia page. As far as I understand what it states is absolutely correct. It's simply that Japan does not have dual citizenship at all. So if you want Japanese citizenship you can have it -- you just have to give up your other citizenship. Japan also does not give citizenship automatically if you are born here. You have to have at least 1 parent who is a citizen. However, you can apply for citizenship and you will get it -- as long as you give up any other citizenship. Otherwise you will essentially have permanent resident status. The latter point is admittedly crazy and it is very unfortunate that many Koreans are born into this situation, but they can fix it by naturalising. They don't want to. BTW, the student of a friend of mine was American and had exactly the same issue. It's not an issue of racism.
While I was thinking about moving permanently to Japan, I had a fun notice: in order to get japanese citizenship, I have to give up mine russian and I could be counted as a traitor in Russia (no peace treaty for 74 years and counting!).
Everything you are talking about regarding Japanese citizenship is true, although you are framing it as if it's something that is written in stone and immutable. Some of the ethnic Koreans in Japan are descendants from the Koreans that were __forcibly__ moved to Japan during Japanese occupation pre-WW2. It would only make sense to have some special exceptions for them. The occupation ended, and they didn't choose to be there in the first place.
EDIT: regarding the ethnic Koreans forced labor in Japan, see this reference :
[...] 670,000 Koreans, were conscripted into labor [...], about 60,000 died [...] Many were stripped of their nationality and denied repatriation by Japan.
The plural of anecdote is not data. And Korean people have been oppressed in the past, and no attempt to rectify the situation has been made by the government. That's why a lot of Korean people born in Japan gravitate towards less savoury activities.
Plus, Japanese took Chinese and Korean women and forced them to become whores or "comfort women" for the Japanese soldiers stationed in the mainland. As recently as 2014 the Prime Minister of Japan said there was no evidence that the Japanese government took "slaves".
And the second point, which you don't touch upon, is if you look even vaguely Japanese at all, you are expected to follow all the social norms. If you don't, they give you a pass.
I already mentioned that Koreans in Japan have obtained a special status that is AFAIK better than any other nationality as a direct result of WW2.
As an example of an attempt to rectify things what about this long list of official apologies that are somehow forgotten in this kind of "discussion"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statemen...
And you are again being disingenuous with what you care to mention. From the list above:
January 1, 1992: Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, in a press conference, said: "Concerning the comfort women, I apologize from the bottom of my heart and feel remorse for those people who suffered indescribable hardships".
Are you perhaps trying to raise the bar? In 10 other official apologies the suffering of the comfort women is acknowledged. You will also see that the Japanese government didn't only spend words on this issue, but also allocated funds.
March 1, 2007: Prime Minister Shinzō Abe stated in a newspaper article that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves, even though the Japanese government had already admitted the use of brothels in 1993.
Your quote doesn't invalidate anything I wrote. My response proved jimmywanger's claim "no attempt to rectify the situation has been made by the government" to be false. Also note how he moved the goalposts. In his original post he talks about how Koreans are oppressed, while in the second post he changed it to have been oppressed in the past. I have no interest in discussing the definition of "slave". I do find it irritating he brought up WW2 within 2 hours after the article was posted, just because it was about Japan. I get the impression he just wanted to use the opportunity to bad-mouth Japan.
> I do find it irritating he brought up WW2 within 2 hours after the article was posted, just because it was about Japan. I get the impression he just wanted to use the opportunity to bad-mouth Japan.
Trying to read somebody's motives (who you have never met) is mostly incorrect. Japanese people in Japan are incredibly racist towards other Asian people. And the Japanese government is backpedaling and still visits a shrine with convicted war criminals celebrated as casualties.
> and still visits a shrine with convicted war criminals celebrated as casualties.
Not trying to be apologetic, but I recently learned that the Yasukuni shrine is _also_ the "home" of Sakamoto Ryōma and others involved in the Tokugawa shogunate overthrow and the following Meiji restoration, so it's not /that/ simple.
Survivors of the so-called "comfort women" issue have focused on changing the stance of the Japanese government and less on seeking compensation (most survivors are now decreased anyway, soon there will be nothing available to compensate). When the government allocates funds and at the same time disagrees the issue, it is natural to think that it wants to wait til a storm of publicity ends---a good reason to be condemned. Also note that the government's opinion on the issue has been steadily deteriorated since 2010, as jimmywanger correctly puts. It's right to worry about.
The wikipedia article indicates that as recently as 2007, the Prime Minister of Japan did not believe that the Japanese government seized the comfort women by force[0].
When we riot over Confederate statues, and yet we're ok with their government officials visiting shrines which celebrate war criminals[1]?
Of course the United States is not blameless. We gave amnesty to the leaders of Camp 731 in exchange for experimental knowledge and the Tuskegee experiments are of course unforgivable.
You're talking about the Japanese PM, and it's possible to make a case that current and past PMs have been racist.
That's not the same as saying that the population in general are racist and Asians are oppressed i.e.: "if you're Asian and not Japanese, they look down on you. Read about ethnic Koreans in Japan and how they're oppressed"
So... data that shows that non-Japanese Asians are oppressed in Japan?
On top of that, is there data that shows that racism in Japan is quantitatively worse than other countries?
I don't know about quantitatively worse. But if you look here, a UN rep stated that Japanese racism "primarily affects three groups: national minorities, descendants of former Japanese colonies, and foreigners from other Asian countries"[0]. He also said that racism was "deep and profound." This was in 2005. We're (United States) still trying to get rid of racism, even after the civil rights movement of 1950. Racism doesn't go away after 12 years.
Which goes back to my ORIGINAL POINT which is that if you're a non-Japanese Asian in Japan, you got nothing coming.
ok, so... no data then, just a series of quotes and observations about individuals.
I'd honestly be interested in learning about racism in Japan, and if it is different/worse than other countries. But all that's been presented is anecdotes.
I cited wikipedia and a UN observer. What else do you want as data? Survey data? Who would answer a survey asking if you were racist, specifically if you're racist towards certain ethnic groups? What are you realistically asking for that will change your mind?
Yes, survey data. And to be clear, the world value survey has asked questions covering racism. In particular:
"Would you accept someone of a different race as a neighbour?"
and
"How often do you see racist behaviour in your neighbourhood?"
You could also look at mobility of foreign workers of as opposed to native workers of a similar background. Unfortunately the world value survey results don't really support your case. You'd want the racism broken down by ethnicity I guess if you believe that the Japanese are particularly racist against other Asians.
The refugee figures help support the idea that Japan is more racist (Japan accept far fewer refugees than other countries), but as this is a political issue, rather than based on the reaction of individual Japanese people, it's harder to draw conclusions from this.
But yes, I don't really find a comment by an individual, or unquantified data from wikipedia very compelling.
Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan.
I was still shocked by how high the numbers are for Japan. It's mostly dominated by people over 50 (27.8%) those under 29 only replied positively 10.5% of the time.
The numbers for the US are fascinating too. Overall only 5.6% of people said they wouldn't want a person of a different race as a neighbour. But the trend is the opposite to Japan, 6% of people under 29 said they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour (4.7% of people over 50).
That young people on average are less likely to want a person of a different race as a neighbour in the US is surprising to me.
> Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan.
Is that enough? Other countries are more racist - East/South Asia is in general extremely tribal and racist. Thai people hate Vietnamese, Koreans and Chinese HATE Japanese, and Chinese people look down on South East asians, and the Japanese look down at everybody. Pakistanis and Indians mutually hate each other, Taiwanese look down on Mainlanders, and Northern Chinese look down on the Southern Chinese for eating strange things and being sly/tricky, whereas the Southern Chinese look down on the Northern Chinese for drinking too much and getting into fights.
> The numbers for the US are fascinating too. Overall only 5.6% of people said they wouldn't want a person of a different race as a neighbour. But the trend is the opposite to Japan, 6% of people under 29 said they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour (4.7% of people over 50).
Like I said, I'm not saying other countries aren't racist. I'm saying that the Japanese are incredibly racist towards other Asians.
According to the xenophobia study, even people under 29 in Japan are twice as likely as the entire US population to object to the presence of neighbors of a different race. Older people are four times as likely to object. And with a UN observer saying the racism is primarily directed towards other Asian people which is more than an "anecdote" despite your assertion since he was sent there to assess this specifically, I have to say that I'm not quite sure what you're saying. How do you design a study about the targets of racism that people answer? You're asking for data that has an extraordinarily low probably of existing and trumpeting the fact that of course you are right, because you insist on numbers, any numbers.
1 in 10 people being racist wouldn't really qualify as being "incredibly racist" in my view. Perhaps "incredibly racist" isn't a very useful term anyway.
Yes, it's important to look at data rather than anecdotes. We can both pick anecdotes to support different arguments. I could point out for example that the 4th largest company in Japan was founded by someone of Korean decent...
Yes, there is racism in Japan. Yes, racism is more socially acceptable than in the US. Yes, it seems likely that it is more often directed against Asian neighbours. You have not presented any data that suggests that it is "incredibly racist" in Japan.
I would be interest in further data that quantifies the racism in Japan. Rather than a series of anecdotes that seem to support an opinion you've already formed.
To name Koreans as an example is disingenuous. If you read the Wikipedia article you will also see that the problems come from both sides. The Koreans the Wikipedia article talks about do not want to fully integrate - they insist on their Korean nationality and demand rights of both Korean and Japanese nationals. At this point in time they have managed to obtain a special status that is the opposite of being oppressed and is actually a source of irritation among Japanese I know. As anectodal evidence to counter your claim, in the Japanese company I work for (in Japan), my direct superior is Taiwanese, one colleague Korean and another Malay and they are all treated like any other.
It might be disingenuous but not entirely false. The integration you describe is not mandatory to be accepted as a member of many societies, and the seeming inability to integrate was historically used as a legitimate reason to discriminate them even after considerable efforts.
There are so many ongoing discriminations specific to Japan [1], including aforementioned pre-1945 Korean immigrants (and by extension their descendants or all Koreans), Ainu peoples, Ryukyuan peoples and Burakumin. Sometimes they result in criminal or problematic acts; for example, Korean immigrants are a major force behind the notorious pachinko industry. Still such phenomena do not mask the underlying problem.
> At this point in time they have managed to obtain a special status that is the opposite of being oppressed and is actually a source of irritation among Japanese I know.
They have managed to obtain a special status because they have been oppressed! You are swapping the cause and the effect. Also you can't use irritation among Japanese as a rationale or whatever because they are naturally biased---it's just that, they feel so and there might or might not be a good reason.
I wasn't swapping anything. I was arguing against the claim that Koreans are being oppressed. They're not. In an attempt by the Japanese government to make amends they have been given privileges that other foreigners don't enjoy. Some Japanese see that as unfair, because why would they enjoy special privileges if they have not been subject to unfair treatment as their ancestors were? That's where the irritation comes from.
Koreans in Japan had been oppressed and are being discriminated today, and the special privileges cover both (with a focus on the former, of course). You can easily say that the oppression and discrimination is different but the border is not clear.
Note that I do not fully agree to their claims; it is rather common that legitimate victims try to maximize their compensations and the Japanese government will have to trade off anyway. But I think you are too generous to Japan on this complicated issue, showing only one aspect of the problem.
“After a decade-long battle, the Supreme Court ruled recently that Chung, the daughter of a Japanese woman and a South Korean man, who was born in Japan and has lived all her life here, could not take the test to become a supervisor at a public health center because she was a foreigner."
Another way to frame this would be she has chosen to "live in limbo". She could naturalise and it would not have been a problem.
Japan makes the zainichi concession because it's got no other option. Force the people affected to become Japanese would cause an outcry. Repatriating them to a country they have never lived in would be little better.
The zainichi status holders that I have met over the years in general identify more strongly with their non Japanese nationality and do not want to naturalise. If that means they cannot become a police officer or a government official it seems fairly reasonable to me.
It sounds like an interesting idea. Certainly Japan is an interesting place. In general I envy those who get to move abroad to work. The adventure appeals to me. These days I might be good enough for it too. It wasn't always that way,but certainly I'm currently one of the more capable engineers on my team. But the ties that bind are too strong still. I will stay here. To those who get to do this, I wish them a good ride.
They found one engineer who wanted to live in Japan and call it a story? You could do this for literally any topic about anything and call it a trend apparently
Is this an appropriate place in HN to say "Me too"? :-) Moved here 10 years ago. Don't regret it for a second.
But seriously, in the past 10 years I've noticed a lot of high tech people either moving here or wanting to move here. When I first came, it was really rare to bump into a foreigner who was a programmer. They were either English teachers or factory workers. Now I run into people relatively frequently (even out here in Shizuoka prefecture).
Not sure this is just a Japan phenomenon - seems like more of a "American tech workers are realizing there's a lot of interesting places to live outside of the USA and it's easier than ever"-phenomenon.
I made the move to China and then Hong Kong about 11 years ago and don't regret it either.
Anecdotally seeing increasing numbers of "high tech" people moving to Hong Kong / China too. 10 years ago it was mostly people looking to source cheap goods.
Fast forward 10 years and in Hong Kong, we finally have our first tech startup unicorn, Bitmex [1]
It will be good for everyone to spread the talent and innovation around.
Getting into China today is very different than it was a few years ago. Many of China's best engineers are eager to be in China for the rise of the Chinese domestic tech firms (BAT & TMD) and even those Chinese who go overseas for higher ed or advanced degrees, 70-80% of those go back to China not only because getting work visas in the US is more difficult but also because the opportunities are more and better in China than in the US.
So as an engineer- you really have to have some specific skillset to be able to shine in China. There are foreign engineers in China but it's not as easy as it was years ago.
I got in just by pinging someone and asking for a job, leading to a 9 year stint at MS China. If you have talent/experience, you should be able to find something in China, trying foreign companies (google, Microsoft, IBM, SAP) is an effective strategy for getting your foot in the door, Chinese companies are less approachable.
6 months ago made the move, and it's been great. Was working in an international corporation in the US but was looking to move to China, finally one day they had an open position in Shenzhen, I applied and easily got an offer. After that getting the work visa was not a problem.
Can I ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. Are you fluent in Japanese? Have there been any major instances of discrimination at work? I know you’ve been there 10 years, but is this a place you’d be happy for the rest of your life to start a family and potentially retire?
Please ignore if any of these are too uncomfortable or invasive.
I don't mind answering what I can. Of course the answers are limited by my actual life :-)
Fluent in Japanese: There is a difference between fluency and proficiency. I am very fluent in Japanese. If I want to say something, I open my mouth and the words come out. If someone is talking to me, I understand what they are saying -- unless I don't, in which case I ask them to explain and then I do. I'm not very proficient in Japanese in that the average 10 year old speaks better than me, understands more, etc, etc. I can read relatively well -- street signs, menus, comic books, novels aimed at junior high school students, and I can struggle through a newspaper if I have to. But (and I'm incredibly ashamed to admit this), I can't write a lick. I used to be able to, but I haven't actually done it in so long that I can barely write my own name. Crazy, isn't it?
Discrimination at work: I currently own my own consulting company and do contracts for foreign companies. I'm currently on a very long term contract with a UK company. When I first came to Japan, I intended only to come for 1 year to learn Japanese (ha ha! one year... so naive). I taught English at a high school. I fell in love with Japan and this area and decided to stay. I taught English for 5 years and it was fantastic (highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity).
So the only opportunity I've had for discrimination at work was at the school. Keep in mind that I was on a year to year contract and I was an "Assistant Language Teacher", which means that I was on the bottom rung with no career advancement possible. Nothing to do with where I came from, just you need actual teaching credentials to advance ;-). Also in a public high school (where I was teaching), you need to get your teaching license which is ridiculously hard (basically, you need to know everything that is taught in high school for every subject, and you need to have a university level understanding in your specialised subject). I could easily pass the English tests (even the grammar!) and the interviews, but there is no way I could pass the general test (remember, I can't even write my own name!). So there's a filter there and in the history of Shizuoka prefecture there have only been 2 foreigners who have passed the high school teaching license -- both Chinese (I checked). It's actually a dream of mine to pass the license even though I'm too old now to realistically teach in a high school by the time I could pass.
Having said all that, I worked with some magnificent people and I worked with some horrible people. Now, normally I'm not that judgemental about people, but the school I worked in is very near the bottom of the school system (schools are ranked) and so the worst teachers are sent there to be reformed. This means that you get some real stinkers, but that the principal and vice principal are usually quite good because they have to deal with these horrible teachers. Next step in your career past that school if you are on the way down is to get fired (and that's incredibly hard to do in the school system).
So like I said, I worked with some people who I have to say rank as some of the worst examples of humanity that I have ever met in my life. They were petty, vindictive, mean... Let me just give you an example. One person I worked with hated one of the students. I don't know why. He was a nice guy, but she just hated him for some reason. She tried to get him kicked off of the baseball team. For no reason. Just because she hated him. He complained to the principal and the principal asked everybody in the department (including me) what the deal was. We all said that she's just crazy and so the guy was allowed to stay on the baseball team (and the teacher was lectured -- you have no idea how long... maybe 8-10 hours!) So this poor guy was having a hard time at home and one day his mother threw him off the second floor balcony of their apartment. Luckily he didn't die, but he broke his arm. The school intervened and offered to set up a foster home for him, or if he wanted they would find an apartment for him and set him up with a job with a local company (quitting school). He chose the latter since school wasn't going well for him either. That teacher started crowing the next day how she was right about him and what scum he was since he gave up on school. Complete nutcase.
Anyway long story short... in 5 years of working even with people like that, I was never involved in any discrimination at work. On he contrary, people often complimented me on picking up "the Japanese way" and doing things appropriately. Which is not to say that I've never experienced discrimination in Japan -- I have, but never at work (YMMV, of course). The worst discrimination I've received in Japan were from expats who complained that I enjoyed Japan too much, spoke too much Japanese and hung out with too many Japanese people. "They'll never accept you, you know. You should just be yourself." On the contrary, those people never accepted me and I was being myself. My Japanese friends were perfectly happy for me to be whoever I wanted to be. I had one incident where the husband of a friend of mine refused to speak to me ever. I could never figure out why until my friend said, "I'm sorry. He doesn't like Europeans". Which floored me, but... I know lots of people in Canada and the UK who don't like "brown people", so it was an interesting experience to be on the other side.
Is this a place where I would be happy to be for the rest of my life, to start a family and retire: Yes. Absolutely no question. This is my home. I'm a bit old to be having kids (I'm 50), but I got married here. My wife is Japanese and we met while I was teaching here. My wife's family is amazing and I've had absolutely no problems at all. My mother in law refers to me as her son and often introduces me that way. Sometimes people do a double take, but nobody has ever said anything (they are Japanese after all!).
When I go travelling with my wife, foreigners are supposed to give their passport or foreigner registration card to the hotel so that they can make a photocopy of it. But given that my wife and I speak Japanese together and I'm perfectly at home here, I think most people assume I'm a naturalised citizen. I have an accent when I speak (which people kindly say is not that bad), so it's obvious I'm not from here originally.
Somewhat strangely, I'm not even a permanent resident yet. After I got married, my wife wanted to see what it's like to live in a foreign country, so we went off to the UK for 2 years. That reset my counter. I'm not actually sure when I can apply, but I think I can probably do it soon. Due to British ancestry I can work in the UK, but if I get Japanese citizenship, I'll have to give that up. My wife's mother is getting older (in her 80's) and while it's hard to think about, after she passes away we might go back to the UK for a while. However, when we are done travelling, I will definitely apply for citizenship. In fact, I'm always worried that something will happen, or the rules will change or something like that and it's very tempting to do it now. But yes, this is home for me and hopefully this is where I'll retire.
Hope that rambling account was interesting for you. I've lived in 4 countries in my life: Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. All have advantages and disadvantages. All have challenges. I fit in here better than I fit in anywhere else. Not everybody is like that. Some people (many, many people to be perfectly frank) do not like living here at all. You have to become Japanese if you want to be treated as a Japanese person. If you are not willing to do that, then it can be very difficult to live here long term. However, if you only want to live here for a year or two, then it's no problem at all (and in fact, can be considerably easier).
I've heard from a Japanese-American girl that moved back to Japan around age 9 that living growing up there as a woman was terrible, especially having been exposed to the relatively egalitarian American society.
The culture is totally different. Gender roles in Japan are much more defined. Especially growing up in the US and moving to Japan, I think it would be hard -- regardless of gender. For example, young men have to get their career going in their early 20s and often are stressed out to the max. Young women, on the other hand have a lot more options. Like I said, it's just different.
To answer your question, I'd have no problem raising children of any gender here. I also really like the school system, which I found a lot better than what I grew up with in Canada. Again, very different -- you need to know where you are going by the time you are applying to high school, but then the kids are raised to understand that.
I don't really know what to tell you. Usually people from one culture have aspects of it that they think are really good. Other people from other cultures may actually have a completely different point of view of it. In some ways women in the US (and Canada) are in a situation where it's actually difficult to take on the same role that their mothers or grandmothers did. I've had American colleagues lecture Japanese students about how they absolutely should not waste their lives with the goal of being a stay at home care taker. When I asked those same colleagues if they would say the same thing to a boy who wanted to be a stay at home care giver, they said "Of course not" -- apparently not aware of the double standard.
This is the kind of culture clash that I see, especially between American people and Japanese people. Both sides see their point of view as being absolutely correct. For Japanese women, feminism is generally considered to be a dirty word. It's not that they don't want fair treatment, but they find the way that it is pushed as being completely alien to their culture -- to the point of being morally wrong.
Long story short, a Japanese girl does not have the same values as an American girl. Neither does a Japanese boy have the same values as an American boy. And while both sides will defend their moral choices, they are dramatically different. If you raise your children in Japan to be Japanese they will generally be happy -- I rarely see unhappy children where I live (male or female). The same goes in America. Mix and match? That's where you can get into a lot of trouble.
I hope that answers your question. It's a super difficult one to answer because there are a lot of unspoken assumptions. In many ways Japanese culture is literally morally wrong when taken in the context of American view points. The opposite is also true, as hard as it is for both sides to recognise. I'm in the middle where I can see and understand both, but it's hard to respond to questions (from either side) without evoking hatred. The one thing that American culture and Japanese culture has in common is that they are both intensely moral cultures. There is a right and a wrong and very little middle ground. The problem is that what's right and what's wrong is often very different.
Thank you so much for that detailed account! Seriously gave me more insight than any article or vlog I’ve seen. Really enjoyed that, and I’m sure your account will help others too. And props for being so unbiased and truthful. Happy for you and your wife and wish you all the best!
Not really difficult. If you are looking at that kind of thing, my biggest advice is to talk to a tax accountant before you do anything. I would have saved a lot of money if I'd done that. Instead I waited until I actually set up the company.
Setting up a company in Japan is fairly expensive. The rules have changed in the last few years and there are some cheaper alternatives, but there are a lot of tax implications, so it's important to weigh the options. I went for 株式会社 (or a corporation), which is the most expensive option. My main reason is because I originally intended to do contracts in Japan and a corporation was much more normal when I started the company. Also, I had a buddy that was going to work with me and I might have needed to sponsor a visa for him. But life got in the way and that didn't end up happening... So I've ended up with a more flexible, but slightly more expensive situation. In the end I think I spent about 40万円 (about $4K) setting up and I think the accountant costs me about 15万円 ($1500) per year (which is an incredible bargain -- he easily pays for himself).
I'm in a good situation in that my wife is both CEO and chairman of the board for my company. In truth, I'm not even an officer of the company. My wife has no other job and handles all the business for the company. I can concentrate completely on programming. This was a serendipitous situation which I didn't actually plan.
In Japan, for a family business, family members can only work full time and have to be paid market rate for their work. My wife didn't want to continue her previous job (care worker in a retirement home), so we wanted her to work for the company. The problem was what job... I was going to train her to be a web designer and then take some small contracts making web pages in the area, etc. However, it turns out that the job of CEO has no defined duties and no defined pay range. So we made her that and it's been a godsend. She deals with all the filling in of forms and talking with the city hall, etc, etc, etc. Probably it would be good for me to be doing that stuff from the perspective of learning Japanese, but I think it would be stressful.
So, my second advice if you want to do that and you don't have a similar situation, and you aren't confident of your Japanese is to hire a business manager. In truth, if (for example) you don't have a visa for Japan and want to sponsor your own visa as a business person, you need to hire a Japanese resident as a business manager anyway.
But anyway, the actual process of setting up the company wasn't too bad. You need to talk to a lawyer that specialises in setting up businesses (I forget the name, sorry). They tell you exactly what you need to do. There is a fair amount of paperwork and you have to buy some expensive hanko (stamps that you use instead of signatures), but not so bad. After that a tax accountant can tell you all of the things you need to do. Like I said, though, talk to the tax accountant first because which options you go for when setting up the company can have pretty far reaching effects with money (especially what you can and can not deduct, or how much you have to pay for retirement and health insurance funds).
If you need to sponsor your own visa, then you also need to talk to immigration. There is a website somewhere on the government pages. When I was thinking of sponsoring my buddy, they bent over backwards to help me on the phone. If you aren't in Japan now, you can talk to the embassy where you are and they will put you in touch with someone. It may cost some money to have them consult with you, but I don't know how much (in some cases they waive the fee and I don't know what the rules are). You need a minimum of 500万円 (about $50K) in capital to sponsor your own visa, but it depends on salaries, etc, etc. Basically the company needs to prove that it can provide for you. Also, you might need to keep in mind that there is a surtax on capital in a company (0.1% IIRC), so you will actually need slightly more than they say, because the payment of tax is not counted in the capitalisation of the company (and I don't even think it's an expense :-P).
Ah, the other headache is getting bank account, believe it or not. Banks do not like setting up accounts for new businesses. We went to a couple of banks and they turned us down. Eventually a local bank that my wife had an account with previously accepted us. But don't think you'll get any credit. We asked to get a corporate credit card and they actually laughed in our faces (in Japan!) Years later we still don't have one.
We've come up with a series of hacks to save money with the banks. One of the internet banks has a really good rate on currency exchange (incoming only) for personal accounts. So we set up a personal account just for the company and all the money is funnelled through there. I think it costs us about 1 yen per GBP on the exchange rate, which is practically free. We then do all of our banking in cash -- take all the money out from the ATM, walk over to the other bank, deposit the money. Stupid, but you do what you have to do. Banks are crazy here.
That's about all I can think of right now. I guess the only other thing if you decide to set up a company is to allocate enough time. It took us about a month to get everything done and I think that was fairly quick. YMMV.
Not the parent but same situation. Been here 11 years.
A lot of people can get around without speaking Japanese, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll get a much more meaningful and deeper experience out of living here if you can converse with everyone. Randomly stopping and bullshitting with a bored old guy for an hour can be quite fun!
Sadly the developer pay here is pretty dismal, even more so if you come with US expectations. I’ve mentioned this before when it comes up, but the IT sector has organically migrated to a 10am-7pm schedule, so if you factor in commuting and the inevitable overtime then the only time you get to yourself are weekends. Taking multiple days off is frowned upon, although as a foreigner you get a little leniency because you are probably spending two days flying when you visit family.
That all said, it is an extremely convenient country to live in. Great public transportation, great food, friendly people, low crime rates, social health insurance, etc. I really love the living aspect of Japan.
I have a wife and child, and while I could imagine myself living here indefinitely, career wise it’s a dead end - they have trouble fitting you into their social structure. If you are perfectly happy with being a cog in the wheel (or carry your team on your back), and mostly work to live, then it probably isn’t that bad of a choice. I’d definitely encourage anyone closer to 20 than 40 to give it a shot, living abroad is an amazing experience.
That said, I’ll finally be heading back to the US in a couple months once visas clear. The 40-60 age gap is right in front of me, and retirement is taking a stronger grasp on the mind. Much easier to consider options in a higher paying English speaking developer job.
Just want to say that I can totally understand this as well. If you can't get a normal salaryman job, it can really be hand to mouth. I haven't even tried to get an IT job here and I'm pretty worried if I end up without a remote contract after my current gig is up.
Also, super +1 on the bored old guy thing :-) Best part of my day (although I'm rapidly becoming the bored old guy...)
I worked at mobile game companies. Lots of different opportunities ranging from backend infra/dev to game client programming. Sadly it’s a risky business, two of the three places I worked went out of business because they focused on expanding and not getting solid products in place.
If you have any level of experience I'm sure a company would interview you and take you in, especially if you speak the language.
Thanks for the reply! I like how everyone’s experiences in this thread have many similarities. Speaking Japanese is important, life there is great but developer pay is poor. There is some good advice on finding higher paying jobs here that might make you change your mind, but I agree with what you’re saying. I think this is definitely a possible move in the future for me.
There are other places in the world that offer good public transportation, food, friendly people, etc. Unless you are attracted to Japanese culture in particular it would be so much easier to move somewhere else to experience living abroad.
The only other such places seem to be in Western Europe, and perhaps a few other Asian places like Hong Kong.
America isn't on the list; public transit is terrible, food is expensive, and health insurance is ridiculous. It's a bad place to raise children and a bad place to retire unless you want to move to a backwards southern state.
For me, I'm thinking pretty seriously about exploring options in living abroad, and Japan and Western Europe easily top the list, but the cost of living in Japan seems like it's quite a bit lower as long as you don't expect an American lifestyle. The lack of crime in Japan should make it quite possible to live in low-cost places, whereas in America and to some extent Europe living in low-cost places exposes you to much more crime.
Also not the parent but I have been in Japan for three years now (but leaving to move to my home country soon). I'll share my experience.
I had basically no truly "negative" experiences based on my race. I am fluent (understand 95% - 98% of what's going on, including complex convos about tech stacks and so on (I work in software engineering).
Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand, but as soon as I reply in Japanese they talk to me like they would a normal Japanese person. One could consider this a "negative" experience (why judge whether I can speak Japanese based on my skin colour??) but I don't think they have negative intentions, so I don't take it personally.
I think living here without speak good Japanese would be a pretty mediocre experience. There are tons of awesome tech meets all the time, but noone speaks English. Living here but not being able to live with the people here would be a pretty lacking experience, you would really miss what makes Japan Japan (the people and culture).
I would be happy to raise a family here (I don't think I will, but I wouldn't be against it either). At least until high school age. The Japanese university system does seem nearly as good as my country (Australia), though, so I would my kids to study overseas. I think Japan is a safe place and good environment to raise a family, and has an excellent healthcare system.
One thing I noticed is developer salaries (at least if you work in a regular Japanese company, like me) are very low - I earn 50% of what my friends back home do). Maybe if you work at a company with many ex-pats you can have a higher salary.
> Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand
This has changed in recent years. At least in the prefecture I live in (Aichi), and where I've traveled outside Tokyo, people just start talking to me in Japanese. 15 years ago, when I lived in Japan for 15 months, it would happen that they'd first try English or I'd feel they were hesitant to speak Japanese to me (but still did).
But since I moved to Japan again 5 years ago, nothing of the sort. They start in Japanese without batting an eye. I think that's because there are way more foreigners living here than there used to, and they tend to talk Japanese. And in non touristy places, there are probably more foreigners who speak Japanese than not.
Just another +1. I lived in Japan many years ago, moved away, and live here again now. Before moving back I was assuming I'd have that awkward start to all interactions before they realize I speak Japanese, but I also haven't seen it since I got back.
I've heard that salaries are on average much lower but companies offering competitive wages do exist. Like you said, you will have an easier time fitting in and earn more if you work for an international company rather than a Japanese one.
I'm a software engineer in an American tech company's Tokyo office with 1 yoe and have around ¥13M total comp.
That's nuts, I have 4 yoe and only on like ¥5M. Like a parent comment stated I am content with low pay and carrying an entire team with several years exp on me, though. You don't come to Japan for the money, or at least I didn't. Good to hear you found a well paying org (I hope you can get the chance to use and learn Japanese there as well).
Unfortunately I speak mostly English all day. I'll speak Japanese when interacting with a Japanese colleague directly but everything else is in English. I have to work actively to improve my language skills.
I'm glad to hear you're happy but I hope you try to move to a company that will pay you what you're worth. For a software engineer and team leader, that's way more than ¥5M.
Yeah. It’s a fairly small and young company (5ish years) so I knew I’d be taking a paydrop but I think the experience and Japanese practice was worth it! There are tons of tech events you can use Japanese at, try finding them on compass.com. As long as you turn up and try to speak amd socialize you’ll find your Japanese improving rapidly.
Glad you found a good position with a solid salary! Good engineers who speak English and Japanese are hard to come by, get your languages skills up a hit and you’ll be able to work anywhere you want.
Like I mentioned in another comment, I've heard that companies listed on devjobs.jp pay well. In general companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Indeed try to match their salaries as they're competing for the same pool of talent. I work for one of those. I know an engineer with 3-4yoe who got a very good offer from Mercari (~17M)
devjobs.jp is a good place to start. American companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Indeed pay well. I know a front end engineer with a few years of experience who got an offer from Mercari for 17M.
Thanks for the insight! Glad you had a great experience and I’m sure others will find this helpful if they decide to make the move too. Looks like if you use the other advice here and get the decent paying developer job, it’ll be a great move.
It kind of is, especially in a relative sense. I was in Japan for a few weeks this year. Some of the unique anime things that I found in Japan that I don't see in North America:
* Anime girls (specifically Azur Lane) plastered all over Yamanote Line trains
* Shops playing music from animes I've watched and other recognizable Jpop music
* Conversely, the way that cities, train stations, and other scenes are depicted in anime is fairly accurate to how Japan looks like in real life
This is not to say that Japan is 100% anime, because that is obviously false. All I'm saying is that if you want to see a place that upholds the anime lifestyle more than anywhere else in the world, then Japan is the only answer.
People are mentioning pricing for living there. I just visited, so not the same, but noticed some things.
1. Many things try to round out to a flat amount (¥100 instead ¥253). Some places don't.
2. Cash is king. Many places refuse to accept credit or contactless payments if you carry cash. Some places only accept Cash. You can see this when you look up places on Google Maps.
3. Coins are used for denominations of 1 cent up to $5. $10 is the first bill you get so be prepared to carry lots of coins. Also, I still don't understand the reason for it, but they usually refuse to pay things using two methods (e.g. to get rid of the 35(!!) ¥1 coins I had).
4. Tax is usually included or a second price, higher price is shown with the tax included. As in #1 you may see on receipts with tax included. E.g. ¥2000 first shown as total with a smaller number of ¥1740 as sub total and then the final amount with tax included (same as total).
5. There was never a tip where I went and I believe it's not done pretty much anywhere.
6. Many things in major cities are being adjusted for the olympics so things are actually fairly nice for foreigners to get around.
7. Besides going between major areas most train cards can be used in most other places. Assuming you land in Tokyo (e.g.
HND) you can get a Suica card for the subway and put ¥2000 on it. It takes face ¥500 as a deposit on the card. I used the same card in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka.
sn: That card can be moved to your phone in to Apple Pay if you switch to Japan region in your iOS settings (language and etc doesn't need to change). Apple doesn't require FaceID for it so you can swipe to enter subway super easily with just your phone. Once you do this you get the ¥500 deposit on the card back to use without returning the card.
8. Neat trick for changing prices is put a decimal after first two numbers since your in ¥100 == $0.90 != $1.00, but it's close enough.
9. Restaurants often have english menus, especially in cities, but it's much better experience to be able to read normal menus. At least I'm assuming given I know basically no Japanese.
10. Food and restaurants are comparable to the US. Cheaper meals are $6-7 where nicer sit down restaurants are around $16-25.
11. As far as cheap food: FamilyMart bread is a must try. Also the various Rice+Seaweed+Protein meals are cool.
I'm thinking of moving to Japan myself. Really enjoyed visiting it as a tourist. I learned the language for my side-project and planning to take a language proficiency test this December. Anybody need a Python programmer who worked at Yandex?
If someone were working in Silicon Valley as a permanent resident (not US citizen), and wanted to try working in Japan (say, for a year), could they do that without jeopardizing their ability to go back to the US?
Technically a year is the limit IIRC but I have heard of issues with even six months away. It's at the discretion of the immigration official as to what constitutes abandonment of your permanent residence.
The crazy political correctness is turning anyone working on Silicon Valley into a paranoid person. You are expected to behave and think in a certain way, being an individual is not acceptable.
I do, however, recommend everyone visit! Japan is a beautiful country with a unique culture and has something for everyone. You'll be safe, and have all the amenities you would expect from a first world country.