Live data from Hacker News

Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream

bloomberg.com

151–160 of 223 posts

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

#151

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.

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.

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

#152

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…

> two [...] alphabets in Japanese

They are syllabaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabary

> distinguish between Japanese and foreign words

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, ...)

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

#153

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?

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.

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

#154

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.

And you think moving to Japan will alleviate that?

> And you think moving to Japan will alleviate that? :-)

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

#155
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

> 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 woul…

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.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 use…

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 i…

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.

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

#157
post #14

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…

> 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 personally have no experience with Japan.)

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

#158

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…

Not Tokyo but another major city in Japan (Fukuoka):

Rent and bills for a 1 bedroom 1 kitchen room apartment: 500 USD

Fiber connection: 40 USD

Food: 200-300 USD

Transport: 100 USD or less ( I walk to work).

Office space(1-3 person) subsidised by the city: 200 USD

All in all very liveable.

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

#159

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…

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 use…

> Kanji / hanzi is absolutely not a travesty. In fact, Japanese would be nearly unusable without it (in my opinion).

How is it possible to communicate in speech?

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

#160
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…

I'm curious if the work culture differs outside of large cities like Tokyo, Yokohama, etc.?
Post reply on HN