Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I left Japan after 10 years

blog.uchujin.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 287 posts

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#71

Post by ramchip »

cannonpr wrote: post #52

I haven't spent ten years in Japan, but I have spent some time there. Some of his complaints do ring true especially around civil rights, however his experience of it feels very weird. I was praised for my language skills, accepted and invited to family outings, never had issues with restaurants that had no foreigner signs (after I spoke Japanese even badly it was all fine so long as acted within their cultures manne…

I feel the same. I've been stopped by the police 0 times in 7 years, never been refused service anywhere, younger people (e.g. in my old university club) always call me ~san or ~sempai, etc.

There's real issues with things like the legal system and independence of press, but I think this post wildly exaggerates what it's like to live in Japan as a foreigner. I'm not sure how to explain OP's experience. Maybe he comes off too confrontational? He does call the police "fascists" in another blog post...

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#72

Post by zdkl »

EliRivers wrote: post #48
ThrowAway29112 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you for real? Go read the article, he knows Japanese. And there's your civility, acting all indignant and calling people full of shit without bothering to understand what's going on. Maybe you are the throwaway of author's?

Civility? I made no guarantee of civility to you. I asked you what country you come from that excludes people based on, as you stated, how they interpret Japanese signs. No such country, as we all know. You're talking nonsense, and now that you've been called out on it, you're pretending this is about something else. Look at you now, deleting your comments even though you're using a throwaway ! The whole point of the…

Rule #1: bow out of situations bearing risks of public shame.

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#73

Post by brucephillips »

taneq wrote: post #51
lentil_soup wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't make it any less racist

Now we're entering into a debate of whether perfectly rational behaviour should be eschewed in favour of virtue signalling.

You think the desire to protect individuals from racism is merely virtue signalling?

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#74

Post by tanilama »

arnioxux wrote: post #23

The "JAPANESE ONLY" sign was probably meant for chinese tourists. The kanji below it, "謝绝中国人", translates roughly to "decline chinese people" which is understandable given their notorious behavior abroad: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/12/30/shanghaiist_2016_embarrass... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/world/asia/bad-manners-ch... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/10/07/commentary/wo...

It makes sense: if you can read Chinese, they told u to fuck off. If you cannot read Chinese, they still tell you to fuck off. The chinese and english translation serves its targeting audience pretty well respectively.

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#75

Post by collyw »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #64
collyw wrote: post #54

Sounds like Japanese are happy with their culture and don't want it changed especially not by foreigners. It seems like a reasonable enough position, but I wonder if there a way to express this desire in a way that couldn't easily be criticized as being "xenopohbic"? Is there something inherently wrong with this attitude? (I personally wouldn't want to be a foreigner living there is what he describes is true, but no…

It doesn't ring as being particularly Xenophobic to me, they just have a strong cultural backbone unlike the west. I wouldn't even consider moving to another country unless I was prepared to integrate and abide by cultural norms.

Like I say, it seems like a reasonable enough view, yet I can't find a way of describing that view that couldn't easily be criticized as xenophobic. (If I imagine taking any of the attitudes described in the article and doing the same thing here, many people would criticize them as being xenophibic).

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#76

Post by markburns »

brucephillips wrote: post #49
markburns wrote: post #34

It's kind of ironic how much he generalises Japanese people. See bad thing - link to Japanese people as a whole or in general, rather than the individual. It's an easy mistake to make. Especially if you do ever hear it in the inverse direction. "Foreigners do X or Y", etc. If he aimed to replace generic instances of 'Japanese people' or 'in Japan' with specific reference to the instance or person, I think he'd have h…

> As the use of the word Japanese is often irrelevant in this post. You think the word "Japanese" is irrelevant in a post describing Japanese culture? Cultures have traits. Some of those traits can be good. Others can be bad. It doesn't mean all of those people exhibit those traits. We shouldn't judge individuals based on those prejudices, but it's equally mistaken to fault people from talking about cultures generall…

It's a difficult nuance in the point I'm trying to make, so I apologise.

It's probably not a great analogy but, I think that if you were in e.g. the USA and there was use of White American Judicial System, or White American Police Force or something along those lines it would really scream out at you.

I realise he is out of Japan now and the blog post is not necessarily targeting people in Japan, but a lot of foreigners in Japan will prefix Japanese things, people, institutions etc with the adjective Japanese, particularly when talking about negative experiences or encounters.

When really the adjective should be redundant in those environments.

And yes I agree that the Japanese penal system is terrible. But the problem is more the continual strong association and reinforcement with everything and everyone Japanese.

He could have explained why he chose to leave Japan and then stop the continual references. I'm positing that the continual references, throughout the article, to Japan and Japanese people etc are both overkill and could reflect inherent biases. I'm not saying they definitely do, but I think he'd have an easier time if he stopped associating the negative things in general with Japan and Japanese people and attributed them more to the specific situations, institutions and people.

Within context: "The police are awful" is better for your mental health than "The Japanese police are awful".

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#77

Post by tormeh »

frozenport wrote: post #21
ThrowAwayInd wrote: post #4

> Policemen are everywhere, more than London There's a reason why London has had more than 20 people killed this year in terrorist incidents and Japan has 0. London has crime, Japan doesn't. Also, your attitude comes as realy hostile in your blog, maybe it was your body language that caused that? I'm sick of these "i'm superior to you" white boys

3/5 you missed the chance to connect lack of foreigners to low crime rates.

Japan has a very special culture that keeps crime low. It would get watered down with immigration. I don't see how those are not widely accepted facts, and I don't see how the conclusion can be anything else than that higher immigration would lead to more crime in Japan. Now, personally, I don't really like Japanese culture, and more crime is a price I'm willing to pay to not live in such a hierarchical, conservative and authoritarian(?) society. But let's not pretend that a culture like Japan's have no benefits or that it could withstand massive immigration without changing.

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#78

Post by barrkel »

arnioxux wrote: post #23

The "JAPANESE ONLY" sign was probably meant for chinese tourists. The kanji below it, "謝绝中国人", translates roughly to "decline chinese people" which is understandable given their notorious behavior abroad: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/12/30/shanghaiist_2016_embarrass... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/world/asia/bad-manners-ch... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/10/07/commentary/wo...

How many Chinese people would understand English text that says Japanese only?

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#79

Post by uniclaude »

Except for the police/law part which is obviously scary, I find some of those points to offer quite the silver lining.

I have been in Japan for a while, and the fact that you will never be accepted is totally OK for me. I appreciate feeling like an outsider, and as long as people are polite to me and my friends/family, I have no objections to people not calling me uniclaude san.

You see, when you're not a white male, it sometimes feel like you're an outsider even in your home country (provided the said country is mostly white), so for the first time, in Japan, I'm not the colored dude, I'm an outsider, a foreigner, and that's it. To be honest this is not a "Japan-only" thing, the same point could be made for some other countries like China.

Then, because this is HN, let's bring a second point:

The glass ceiling faced by foreigners in Japanese companies is a dream for us startup founders. It's rare for a potential prospect to have more room for growth in a Japanese company than in your startup if that person is a foreigner. It's sad, but it helps a lot when hiring top talent. Let's also note that the visa situation for engineers is very easy compared to many other first world countries like the USA.

Re: Why I left Japan after 10 years

#80

Post by brucephillips »

markburns wrote: post #76
brucephillips wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the use of the word Japanese is often irrelevant in this post. You think the word "Japanese" is irrelevant in a post describing Japanese culture? Cultures have traits. Some of those traits can be good. Others can be bad. It doesn't mean all of those people exhibit those traits. We shouldn't judge individuals based on those prejudices, but it's equally mistaken to fault people from talking about cultures generall…

It's a difficult nuance in the point I'm trying to make, so I apologise. It's probably not a great analogy but, I think that if you were in e.g. the USA and there was use of White American Judicial System, or White American Police Force or something along those lines it would really scream out at you. I realise he is out of Japan now and the blog post is not necessarily targeting people in Japan, but a lot of foreign…

> Within context: "The police are awful" is better for your mental health than "The Japanese police are awful".

Except the entire purpose of that section of the post was to describe Japanese police.

Post reply on HN