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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

#131

Post by xaranke »

dunpeal wrote: post #82
xaranke wrote: post #18

Are there really a lot of these people? 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…

I'm guessing not a lot. 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…

Doesn't look like they're getting many applications from anywhere: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-30/japan-wan....

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

#132

Post by theandrewbailey »

Someguywhatever wrote: post #123
RobertRoberts wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would it be possible to learn only Hirigana/Katakana and ignore Kanji altogether?

No. Even the word for Japanese in Japanese is 日本語 (Nihongo), all Kanji.

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #111
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 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…

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by yathern »

ericdykstra wrote: post #119
kazagistar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perceived as being higher risk Yep. That's what racism is.

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.

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

#135

Post by throwaway936396 »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #111
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 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…

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.

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

#136

Post by Bartweiss »

m3at wrote: post #120
ArtWomb wrote: post #104

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 experie…

Personal breakdown in an area at cycling distance from a big banking center (Otemachi): - 1 bedroom in a quiet neighborhood, small designer appartement: $1100/mo - 1G fiber: $23/mo (special 1 year price, need to change vendor yearly, ~$40 otherwise. Search on kakaku) - monthly expenses: $400 restaurants & groceries, $100 subway (Source : I've been living in Japan for two years)

What's the tax situation like?

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).

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

#137

Post by oh_sigh »

ericdykstra wrote: post #119
kazagistar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perceived as being higher risk Yep. That's what racism is.

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.

Replace foreigners with "black people"

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

#138

Post by toomuchtodo »

yathern wrote: post #134
ericdykstra wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#140

Post by prestonh »

ericdykstra wrote: post #127
irq11 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, there is a lot of innovation happening in Japan. Most of it isn't software or sexy industries that get all the news in American press, though.

Could you give some examples? Not challenging you, just curious.
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