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Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

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Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#21

Post by dbjh »

jimmywanger wrote: post #9
mikekchar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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…

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.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#22

Post by xaranke »

ericdykstra wrote: post #8

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…

Can you comment on whether racism is still a thing in Japanese society?

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#23

Post by lifthrasiir »

mnm1 wrote: post #19

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 fr…

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.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#24

Post by jimmywanger »

sofon wrote: post #17
jimmywanger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plural of anecdote is not data." Then present some data other than a wikipedia article which doesn't appear to support your case.

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women#History_of_the_i... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine#Post-war_issue...

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#25

Post by mrpopo »

mikekchar wrote: post #6
jimmywanger wrote: post #2

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. [0] https://en.wikipedia…

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.…

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 :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan#World_War_II

[...] 670,000 Koreans, were conscripted into labor [...], about 60,000 died [...] Many were stripped of their nationality and denied repatriation by Japan.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#26

Post by larrysalibra »

mikekchar wrote: post #7
dawhizkid wrote: post #4

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 o…

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.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-22/crypto-tr... which was started by American and British co-founders who moved to Hong Kong.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#27

Post by cgarrigue »

soufron wrote: post #14
ericdykstra wrote: post #8

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…

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…

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.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#28

Post by toomanybeersies »

latchkey wrote: post #3

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 guess we all have our own preferences.

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.

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#29

Post by sofon »

jimmywanger wrote: post #24
sofon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The plural of anecdote is not data." Then present some data other than a wikipedia article which doesn't appear to support your case.

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 experim…

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?

Re: Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

#30

Post by CitizenTekk »

ericdykstra wrote: post #8

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…

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?
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