I didn’t have any plans to emigrate until my friend introduced me to a small company in Japan that was looking for an engineer.
I applied, but was rejected, so I thought that was that. Then a few months later I got another email. Their initial hire didn’t work out and now they wanted me to join.
I worked remote for about a month while we got the visa process sorted (apparently they needed my actual bachelor diploma in Japan to issue one, so sending that and getting it back was a fun exercise).
Then I moved to Japan. I hadn’t been further than like 1 country over from my home ever before.
To be honest, it wasn’t quite as different as I expected it to be. I didn’t speak the language at all, but western civilization is oddly similar even if the details are different.
After 9 months I was tired of life without my friends, so I said I’ll work remote, and moved back to the Netherlands.
That didn’t quite work out either. While being back was nice, apartments in the Netherlands are expensive (and I wasn’t making so much), so I ended up living with my parents. I’d also grown used to a lot of little conveniences Japan has, and it all added up.
It took me only 4 or 5 months to move back to Japan. I quickly made new friends, and I’ve spent a very happy 8 years here now.
At this point it’s hard to justify moving back because there are no similarly well compensated IC positions in the Netherlands.
This included finding knowledge in western civilizations and innovating on them, as well as wearing suits or hats I think. This is in relation to the industrialization era as well.
I was referring to a way of living, as opposed to civilizations in the west. According to the definition that seems wrong, but I can’t think of a better term.
Daily life in Japan is practically similar to life in Europe. The rituals for buying food, going to restaurants, greeting one another. I’m not sure why I expected it to be different, but it wasn’t.
That is only the external life/rituals (as in, mainly outside the house and office) and I guess, a fairly small part (importance-wise) of their daily life, though. A lot of the rest of it may be quite different from Western, going by books and articles I've read. Even some of their values are different (family, work, etc.) Not passing any judgement either way here.
I think that's just the good old ambiguity of the English language, I read it as: western civilization being oddly similar to Japanese civilisation (I'm a British native, but I don't claim to be any kind of arbiter of the English language!)
Have you been here recently? House prices are going absolutely crazy. To the point where there needs to be come intervention or policy to limit the size of the bubble.
You're a chip designer? There may very well be movement in your area in the coming years in the EU - the EU want to build their silicon capabilities in the coming decade.
In my desired area they’re roughly similar to central Tokyo, so it’s not terrible in terms of price. But that’s in farming village nowhere as opposed to the center of the largest metropolis on earth. I can’t quite reconcile those two things.
Unfortunately I’m a developer. The Netherlands has quite enough high quality ones I think.
Mostly it’s income tax, which is 43% until around 180k in Japan but 51% from 80k in the Netherlands.
Japan isn’t necessarily cheap (though childcare is), but there’s a wide range of options. The Netherlands has sort of settled on one default, but is now slowly making that default (family home) impossible to achieve for the average (and if things keep going like this, even above average) person.
I didn’t have any plans to emigrate until my friend introduced me to a small company in Japan that was looking for an engineer.
I applied, but was rejected, so I thought that was that. Then a few months later I got another email. Their initial hire didn’t work out and now they wanted me to join.
I worked remote for about a month while we got the visa process sorted (apparently they needed my actual bachelor diploma in Japan to issue one, so sending that and getting it back was a fun exercise).
Then I moved to Japan. I hadn’t been further than like 1 country over from my home ever before.
To be honest, it wasn’t quite as different as I expected it to be. I didn’t speak the language at all, but western civilization is oddly similar even if the details are different.
After 9 months I was tired of life without my friends, so I said I’ll work remote, and moved back to the Netherlands.
That didn’t quite work out either. While being back was nice, apartments in the Netherlands are expensive (and I wasn’t making so much), so I ended up living with my parents. I’d also grown used to a lot of little conveniences Japan has, and it all added up.
It took me only 4 or 5 months to move back to Japan. I quickly made new friends, and I’ve spent a very happy 8 years here now.
At this point it’s hard to justify moving back because there are no similarly well compensated IC positions in the Netherlands.