Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by m3at » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 12:30 AM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #136

m3at wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Salaries are indeed low on average for locals, but are much higher for the kind of jobs westerners get in tech.

Taxes are high for corporations, not that high for individuals usually below a quarter of your salary, including insurance, pensions and local and national taxes.

Overall Japan is not the country to go to if you want to maximise your salary.

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

#202

Post by throwaway936396 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #182

thaumasiotes wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Exactly. People can understand each other just fine without explaining which word they are using in Kanji. Korea was able to jettison Chinese logograms (Hanja) entirely from its education standards, and the only reason Kanji remains is due to tradition instead of any inherent superiority over the syllabaries.

Actually this is just incorrect.

Spoken Japanese is much more ambiguous. There's a reason subtitles are ubiquitous here. Americans who didn't understand the language tried and failed to get rid of kanji after world war 2. The langauge just does not work without them.

Additionally spoken Japanese uses pitch accent to distinguish homophones such as 雨 and 飴. Long strings of kana are difficult to read period. Native Japanese people struggle and can easily be confused by them in my experience.

Korean isn't comparable because it's phonetically much more diverse and uses spaces.

Kanji / hanzi work just fine for over a billion people. They make skim reading easier and add a lot of character and depth to the language. Westerners have a perception that kanji are hard to learn, and perhaps they're a bit harder than an alphabet, but in the age of computers, it really is a non-issue to learn and use them.

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

#203

Post by throwaway936396 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 1:37 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #159

throwaway936396 wrote: post #135

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…

> 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?

Pitch accent + clarification when needed. Subtitles are extremely common here. See my response to a response of this comment for more details.

The tl;dr is that the language is harder in speech than in writing. If you stick to well-worn paths people will know what you're saying, but I often have to discuss the written form of the more obscure words I say or just write it down and show it to my conversational partner.

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

#204

Post by throwaway936396 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #180

throwaway936396 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Chin…

In commonly spoken English we have one word for alphabet, and that is alphabet. Just like a doctor can say "oesophagus" for "throat" doesn't mean saying "throat" is wrong. Kanji is an alphabet to us, so it hiragana and katakana in every Japanese class I took in America. The wikipedia article on hiragana[0] call it "syllabaries", which may be technically accurate, I would consider this pedantic for the average America…

That's a fair point and I agree in general. However, in this specific case I disagree.

To show that I agree, allow me to point out how in my earlier comment I used the word "radical" in a technically incorrect but more useful (in my opinion) way. Technically each kanji has only a single radical and the rest are pseudo-radicals, but for most purposes it's simply more useful to just refer to them all as "radicals". Additionally, I don't know of a more proper term than pseudo-radicals and the distinction isn't very important anymore because radical order dictionaries have essentially become obsolete by technology.

I fully acknowledge that excess pedantry can be a roadblock to clear communication.

Now I'll explain why I disagree in this specific case:

The issue is that "alphabet" is a very specific term like "x86 CPU". While it's not too wrong to go around calling the things inside GPUs and most phones "x86 CPU"s, it's technically incorrect and to those with in-depth knowledge, it's needlessly confusing when there's a perfectly good word that we can use to describe them, "CPU" or in the case of writing systems, "writing system".

Although, I do agree that syllabries and alphabets are not too dissimilar, logographic systems and alphabets are quite dissimilar.

Perhaps it's simply a matter of who I've talked to, but I've never heard anyone who knew how to use these writing systems refer to them as "alphabet"s, so I felt the need to correct it. I'd be willing to believe that my friends are much more pedantic than the average person.

Thus, it is somewhat pedantic but I feel that it's a useful distinction and that an adequate alternative word exists. Additionally due to this being on HN as opposed to a casual conversation, I think using the more correct, more precise, and more useful word when possible is a fair goal to strive towards.

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

#205

Post by propman » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #39

propman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. Are you fluent in Japanese? Have there been any major instances of discrimination at work? I know you’ve been there 10 years, but is this a place you’d be happy for the rest of your life to start a family and potentially retire? Please ignore if any of these are too uncomfortable or invasive.

I don't mind answering what I can. Of course the answers are limited by my actual life :-) Fluent in Japanese: There is a difference between fluency and proficiency. I am very fluent in Japanese. If I want to say something, I open my mouth and the words come out. If someone is talking to me, I understand what they are saying -- unless I don't, in which case I ask them to explain and then I do. I'm not very proficient…

Thank you so much for that detailed account! Seriously gave me more insight than any article or vlog I’ve seen. Really enjoyed that, and I’m sure your account will help others too. And props for being so unbiased and truthful. Happy for you and your wife and wish you all the best!

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

#206

Post by sofon » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #192

sofon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan. I was still shocked by how high the numbers are for Japan. It's mostly dominated by people over 50 (27.8%) those under 29 only replied positively 10.5% of the time. The numbers for the US are fascinating…

> Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan. Is that enough? Other countries are more racist - East/South Asia is in general extremely tribal and racist. Thai people hate Vietnamese, Koreans and Chinese HATE Japanese, and Chinese people look down…

> Like I said, I'm not saying other countries aren't racist. I'm saying that the Japanese are incredibly racist towards other Asians.

You have supplied no data to support this statement, beyond anecdotes.

The data I've seen doesn't support the notion that the Japanese are "incredibly racist" against anyone at all.

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

#207

Post by gpetukhov » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:18 AM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #49

larrysalibra wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you have any tips on how to get into China?

6 months ago made the move, and it's been great. Was working in an international corporation in the US but was looking to move to China, finally one day they had an open position in Shenzhen, I applied and easily got an offer. After that getting the work visa was not a problem.

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

#208

Post by glandium » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:03 AM UTC

ericdykstra wrote: post #147

throwaway936396 wrote: post #135

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 was waiting for a response like this so I wouldn’t have to type it myself. Almost everything that looks simple about Japanese at the beginning is complex and deep underneath. For example, one of the things I was told early on is that pronunciation is easy, since all the sounds already exist in English. First, that’s not even true. Second, if it’s so easy, why have I never met a foreigner with an accent that even I,…

Here's an example of close-to-native pronunciation: https://m.youtube.com/user/Dogen

He gives valuable pronunciation lessons on Patreon.

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

#209

Post by hrktb » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

aikinai wrote: post #193

laurieg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 J…

What kinds of places are you and the grandparent looking for? I’ve visited tons of places in Japan and talked to plenty of friends and coworkers about their apartment searches and never heard of one place with a foreigner restriction (including ten years ago and more recently). Are you talking about super countryside or something? My searches have always been in Tokyo.

Tokyo, 1~2LDK (~60m2) range.

I moved about 6 times for various reason, including pure curiosity. Everytime I had the issue.

Now, the vendor might not explicit the restrictions. Sometimes we talked for 10~20 min, I ask for the full binder of offers to look for myself and am told some of them won’t be available.

Or some of the agency people woud pre-filter the offer they hand over, and when you ask to see some they removed they’ll explain those “were burned by previous foreign renters” (that’s the canned response)

Also your friends and co-worker might be part of other demographics where they are exempted. For instance single white women in their 20s will get a pass on basically most conditions (except revenue of course).

Also working in a super top tier national company (i.e NEC, NTT, Sony, softbank etc.) will open a lot of doors. You are asked upfront about your employment so you won’t hit further roadblocks at this point.

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

#210

Post by laurieg » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 9:41 AM UTC

aikinai wrote: post #193

laurieg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 J…

What kinds of places are you and the grandparent looking for? I’ve visited tons of places in Japan and talked to plenty of friends and coworkers about their apartment searches and never heard of one place with a foreigner restriction (including ten years ago and more recently). Are you talking about super countryside or something? My searches have always been in Tokyo.

Regular single occupancy apartments (Either studios or 1K).

I think some estate agents are a lot more smooth about it than others. They'll only show you pre-vetted "foreigner ok" apartments. My experience is that if you go on a property site, draw up a list of places you're interested in then prepare to be disappointed.