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Japan has changed in important and visible ways

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Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#151

Post by astrange »

golemiprague wrote: post #36

What's so great about immigration and growing population? Japan is a small country without any resources, why would they want to share what they have with immigrants? What good did immigration do to western Europe? All I hear about are problems and all the good things happened even before immigration, otherwise immigrants wouldn't have come there in the first place.

Japan is the 3rd largest economy and recently in the top 10 by population, it's not a small country.

I'm sorry you have to accept war refugees.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#152

Post by cycomanic »

bogantech wrote: post #105
rullelito wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. You haven't been to Sweden then.

Idk why this was downvoted? There's not much pressure to learn Swedish because everyone here is fluent in English. While doing my Swedish language course I met people that had lived here for 20 years and never learnt it

That is certainly true, but your experience is quite different if you speak Swedish or not. I definitely experienced a barrier when I mostly spoke English. I was working in an environment where everyone was speaking English, so it was harder to learn Swedish, however my relationship with swedes definitely improved after I tried to use more Swedish.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#153

Post by 0xmarcin »

hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

I agree with you in principle. In practice English is often all you need if you live in a big city. When I look at my country (Poland), I can see that a person can live in Warsaw (capital city) or any of the biggest 5 cities without knowing any Polish. Even having an appointment with english speaking doctor is not a problem. OTOH when you adventure outside of big cities you suddenly find yourself in a land where nobody can understand English very well (in that case it's better to chat with teens than adults, most pupils have B2-level English at school).

That being said I know a person that spend 3 years in Denmark and they do not even attempt to learn Danish. Their argument was that the language is very niche, and they are not sure for how long they will stay there. If I was in their place I would probably at least learn Danish to B2 level, just in case e.g. an accident to be able to call a police or an ambulance.

I think the real problem here is that learning a language is a lot of work and requires a lot of efford. If you live comfortably with English they why to put extra effort for something that will provide little or not benefit at all.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#154

Post by kleene_op »

hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

Seems pretty weird to me as well.

I don't understand how you could love a country enough to live and work there for a decade but not try to learn its language.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#155

Post by totetsu »

karaokeyoga wrote: post #93
eric4smith wrote: post #27

Visited Japan and loved it. BUT. The rest of the world treats Japan as something "special". All the media/manga/anime/pr0n/temples/culture and people. What I've learned traveling to various countries in the region? There's nothing really special about Japan, it's people, or it's media. The country and its denizens have been blown out of proportion with a kind of reputation that's out of this world... for the past 50…

I've lived here for over ten years and generally agree with you. I love it here, but I also feel that some westerners treat Japan with a "specialness" or "exoticness" that it doesn't quite deserve.

Yes. I've been here almost that long. Mostly in the rural areas. It's just a nice normal place.. I think there are a few problems with perceptions of Japan. not being part of the anglo-sphere, most of the everyday stuff doesn't make it in front of western eyes. What does is filtered through journalists, like the BBC guy, who have to fit their stories into certain safe tropes. Another big place of interflow of culture is with manga/anime subcultures, which are produced and consumed by a very specific part of Japanese society in the first place, then exoticised a great deal by the types of internet communities where it is popular.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#156

Post by tpm »

sho_hn wrote: post #109
hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason t…

But they do speak English? You can live with that comfortably in Germany and in Berlin especially, probably much less so in many other countries.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#157

Post by lelanthran »

hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it.

How many languages do you know?

I live in a country with 11 official languages; please come stay for half a decade.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#158

Post by astrange »

danielscrubs wrote: post #136
astrange wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Median wealth in Japan is 119,999 USD whilst in USA it is 93,271 USD. Median Japanese person is 10 years older than median US person (48 vs 38).

Good point. But I wonder how much of the American wealth is gotten by raised property value which would also be considered “productive”. Half of my personal wealth comes from owning an apartment.

For those who own a home it's most of it (data is in https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm somewhere).

I'm not sure how much measuring median personal wealth makes sense though - you can generally rely on household/family members/close friends in a way that's not measured. I'm sure children of billionaires have access to a lot of resources they don't own.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#159

Post by petodo »

Aeolun wrote: post #60
famahar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some people with citizenship. All it requires is fluent Japanese. They came from a d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶d̶ developing country so getting citizenship was an almost no brainer for them. There's no real complicated test, it' just that the whole process is done in Japanese so you'll have to fill out paperwork and do interviews in Japanese. >Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while,…

Well, it kinda sucked when they wouldn’t let the permanent residents into the country during the first year of COVID, so you were essentially unable to visit family (or worse, unable to return to your life, home and work after such a visit).

Who the heck downvotes this and think it's normal for person LIVING in country for years not being allowed to return to their home and family, just because they don't live there long enough to gain citizenship yet? It's extremely xenophobic/racist approach (which should not really come as surprise in Japan).

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#160

Post by zekrioca »

lmm wrote: post #12
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

I thought this was a good read, but I think there are some things he minimizes. For example, he talks about increasing foreign worker visas, but only has this sentence about citizenship: > Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years. I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people…

> I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people try. Did they substantiate this claim at all? All available public information is that the vast majority of those who try succeed. People largely don't apply for citizenship, in part because Japan requires them to renounce other citizenships to do so, and in part becaus…

Can a country revoke one’s citizenship as easily as it can revoke one’s permanent residency?
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