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Japan has changed in important and visible ways

noahpinion.substack.com

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Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#251

Post by izacus »

notch656c wrote: post #208
izacus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, good for you if you refuse to learn the language of your society.... As long as you don't attempt to write opinion pieces about that society you have no hope of integrating or understanding. That's what the article writer did.

My country has no official language and the lingua franca of my neighborhood is not a language I speak. Shit just got weird because basically no one would not consider me part of this society and I sure as hell understand it roughly as well as anybody else in my hood. Maybe America is just weird but you can come here and not learn English and if someone refuses your right to comment on our society they'll probably ju…

Your country isn't the whole rest of the world. I thought that would be obvious for an average HNer?

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#252

Post by bloak »

YouMeWeThem wrote: post #14
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…

This is a common misconception. The reason you don't hear more about English-speaking westerners gaining Japanese citizenship is because they don't recognize dual citizenship. Renouncing your non-Japanese citizenships is a prerequisite to gaining Japanese citizenship, which is understandably too big a hurdle for many.

Is Japan any different from the USA in that respect?

From what I've heard it goes like this: British person applies for US citizenship. He has to "renounce" his British citizenship and hand over his British passport to the US authorities, who shred it. The next day he goes to the British embassy, tells them what has happened and asks for a new passport. The British authorities give him a new passport and, of course, they don't say anything to the US authorities.

(There might be different cases to consider here, depending on how you acquired your British citizenship. As I understand it, if you were born in the UK of British parents then you have a right to a British passport regardless of how old you are, where you have lived, and what other passports you've had. It's not possible to "renounce" that right. It might be different for someone who acquired British citizenship in some other way: perhaps some people could "renounce" their citizenship.)

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#253

Post by bigpeopleareold »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #161
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…

It’s the one thing where I’m That Old White Man by now. My favorite is user groups meetups in Germany where there are one or two people who don’t speak German, and then request the talk to be held in English. Imagine me attending a meetup in London as the only German and requesting to have the talk held in German. It would be ridiculous.

I upvoted you because I appreciate the sentiment a lot.

As a non-native speaker in my country, if I seek to participate in meetups, etc. with the expectation that the language used will be the local one, I would prefer not to switch to English. I deliberately go to tech meetups partly for that purpose. It's fine to switch to English if the presentation is specifically in English, but I do not want the audience to accommodate to my lacking; I'd rather be clueless than be accommodated.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#254

Post by amrocha »

vasco wrote: post #111
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…

So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? I don't think you must've lived more than one place abroad, or somewhere with good English. For example I speak 4 languages, understand another 2, but don't speak the language of the country I've lived in for the last 3.5 years, and I'm not even learning. At some point it's just absolutely not worth it and I'm just gonn…

If you're living in each place for a long time then yeah, you should learn the language. If you're just a temp worker then it's nbd, but then you also shouldn't be writing articles about the culture you clearly can't integrate in and don't understand.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#255

Post by nmcela »

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'm finnish and work with a lot of international people, many of whom have lived here for decades. None of them speak Finnish, and I, and all the other Finns I know, would never expect them to speak it. It's not that big of a deal.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#256

Post by ajsnigrutin »

epups wrote: post #230
noch wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What an odd mindset. Anecdotally, prior generations of Europeans (and expatriates) valued being multilingual. Having a working knowledge of German, Italian, French, English was fun, valuable, and normal especially when doing business in diverse countries and with d…

Prior generations of Europeans were also xenophobic as hell, to the point of going to war with each other. I really don't understand which idyllic past you refer to here.

Everybody has gone to war with eachother in every continent all the way through history.

If you go live in a country (long-term, which 10 years is), you should learn the language and not expect the locals to try to conform to your not-knowing the language... you're there, it's their country, their language, not vice-versa. How can you expect a country where people employed there don't know the local language to even work? Imagine a postman, a service worker, etc. not knowing german.. how is that going to work? When stuff like this happens, you get immiggrant ghettos and yes, in turn xenophobia, because people there cannot get normal jobs and expect the germans to adapt to them instead of vice-versa.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#257

Post by izacus »

epups wrote: post #230
noch wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What an odd mindset. Anecdotally, prior generations of Europeans (and expatriates) valued being multilingual. Having a working knowledge of German, Italian, French, English was fun, valuable, and normal especially when doing business in diverse countries and with d…

Prior generations of Europeans were also xenophobic as hell, to the point of going to war with each other. I really don't understand which idyllic past you refer to here.

And the new generations will increasingly become xenophobic again as arrogant foreginers with no will to learn local language move in.

It's a massive trend in Europe again and it will not end well for the expats.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#258

Post by izacus »

nmcela wrote: post #255
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'm finnish and work with a lot of international people, many of whom have lived here for decades. None of them speak Finnish, and I, and all the other Finns I know, would never expect them to speak it. It's not that big of a deal.

That's great, but you also wouldn't expect them to write a relevant critique of society and culture since they can't even read the local news paper much less understand the living mindset of people.

Everyone here keeps anectoding about their trip to other places when the issue is not daily living but writing an opinion piece about a society they don't understand enough to live in.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#259

Post by ajsnigrutin »

vasco wrote: post #111
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…

So if you live in 4 countries over four decades in your adult life you will learn 4 new languages? I don't think you must've lived more than one place abroad, or somewhere with good English. For example I speak 4 languages, understand another 2, but don't speak the language of the country I've lived in for the last 3.5 years, and I'm not even learning. At some point it's just absolutely not worth it and I'm just gonn…

Why does the number of countries matter? You go to a foreign country for a week, and you learn a few phrases (please, thank you, where is the toilet, ...) before you enter, just in case someone there doesn't know english, because why should they, if they're not from england/usa/canada.

If you live there for 10 years, you should definitely be able to learn the language enough to do daily tasks in the native language there.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#260

Post by izacus »

robocat wrote: post #178
onethought wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about non English speakers not learning English. I’m missing some sarcasm?

It is referring to English colonisation of Australia a few hundred years ago. The English did not learn the indigenous languages there, and they brought English law with them. It also refers to the fact that a lot of convicts were sent to Australia. Joke: An Englishman gets off the plane, and immigration asks him if he has any criminal convictions. He replies “I didn’t know you still needed one”.

Yeah, not sure if attitude of english speakers toward natives in Australia is something to be widely joked about or satirized.
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