6 ms·

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

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.

bojo 8y ago
Not the parent but same situation. Been here 11 years. A lot of people can get around without speaking Japanese, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll get a much more meaningful and deeper experience out of living here if you can converse with everyone. Randomly stopping and bullshitting with a bored old guy for an hour can be quite fun! Sadly the developer pay here is pretty dismal, even more so if you come with US expectations. I’ve mentioned this before when it comes up, but the IT sector has organically migrated to a 10am-7pm schedule, so if you factor in commuting and the inevitable overtime then the only time you get to yourself are weekends. Taking multiple days off is frowned upon, although as a foreigner you get a little leniency because you are probably spending two days flying when you visit family. That all said, it is an extremely convenient country to live in. Great public transportation, great food, friendly people, low crime rates, social health insurance, etc. I really love the living aspect of Japan. I have a wife and child, and while I could imagine myself living here indefinitely, career wise it’s a dead end - they have trouble fitting you into their social structure. If you are perfectly happy with being a cog in the wheel (or carry your team on your back), and mostly work to live, then it probably isn’t that bad of a choice. I’d definitely encourage anyone closer to 20 than 40 to give it a shot, living abroad is an amazing experience. That said, I’ll finally be heading back to the US in a couple months once visas clear. The 40-60 age gap is right in front of me, and retirement is taking a stronger grasp on the mind. Much easier to consider options in a higher paying English speaking developer job.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  Just want to say that I can totally understand this as well. If you can't get a normal salaryman job, it can really be hand to mouth. I haven't even tried to get an IT job here and I'm pretty worried if I end up without a remote contract after my current gig is up. Also, super +1 on the bored old guy thing :-) Best part of my day (although I'm rapidly becoming the bored old guy...)
  - bojo 8y ago
    I worked at mobile game companies. Lots of different opportunities ranging from backend infra/dev to game client programming. Sadly it’s a risky business, two of the three places I worked went out of business because they focused on expanding and not getting solid products in place. If you have any level of experience I'm sure a company would interview you and take you in, especially if you speak the language.
- mirsadm 8y ago
  There are other places in the world that offer good public transportation, food, friendly people, etc. Unless you are attracted to Japanese culture in particular it would be so much easier to move somewhere else to experience living abroad.
  - magduf 8y ago
    The only other such places seem to be in Western Europe, and perhaps a few other Asian places like Hong Kong. America isn't on the list; public transit is terrible, food is expensive, and health insurance is ridiculous. It's a bad place to raise children and a bad place to retire unless you want to move to a backwards southern state. For me, I'm thinking pretty seriously about exploring options in living abroad, and Japan and Western Europe easily top the list, but the cost of living in Japan seems like it's quite a bit lower as long as you don't expect an American lifestyle. The lack of crime in Japan should make it quite possible to live in low-cost places, whereas in America and to some extent Europe living in low-cost places exposes you to much more crime.
- codesuki 8y ago
  In case you stay in Japan contact me. Where I work it's no problem to take several weeks off. Otherwise we have a good work climate, too.
  - bojo 8y ago
    I appreciate the offer, but I would be surprised if a Japanese company would be willing to come even remotely close to my current compensation.
    - codesuki 8y ago
      That is a valid concern! But trying (if needed) can't hurt. Anyways good luck with everything! :)
  - instakill 8y ago
    Please ping me via email (contact in my profile). Might wanna hit you up about this :)
- propman 8y ago
  Thanks for the reply! I like how everyone’s experiences in this thread have many similarities. Speaking Japanese is important, life there is great but developer pay is poor. There is some good advice on finding higher paying jobs here that might make you change your mind, but I agree with what you’re saying. I think this is definitely a possible move in the future for me.
mikekchar 8y ago
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 in Japanese in that the average 10 year old speaks better than me, understands more, etc, etc. I can read relatively well -- street signs, menus, comic books, novels aimed at junior high school students, and I can struggle through a newspaper if I have to. But (and I'm incredibly ashamed to admit this), I can't write a lick. I used to be able to, but I haven't actually done it in so long that I can barely write my own name. Crazy, isn't it? Discrimination at work: I currently own my own consulting company and do contracts for foreign companies. I'm currently on a very long term contract with a UK company. When I first came to Japan, I intended only to come for 1 year to learn Japanese (ha ha! one year... so naive). I taught English at a high school. I fell in love with Japan and this area and decided to stay. I taught English for 5 years and it was fantastic (highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity). So the only opportunity I've had for discrimination at work was at the school. Keep in mind that I was on a year to year contract and I was an "Assistant Language Teacher", which means that I was on the bottom rung with no career advancement possible. Nothing to do with where I came from, just you need actual teaching credentials to advance ;-). Also in a public high school (where I was teaching), you need to get your teaching license which is ridiculously hard (basically, you need to know everything that is taught in high school for every subject, and you need to have a university level understanding in your specialised subject). I could easily pass the English tests (even the grammar!) and the interviews, but there is no way I could pass the general test (remember, I can't even write my own name!). So there's a filter there and in the history of Shizuoka prefecture there have only been 2 foreigners who have passed the high school teaching license -- both Chinese (I checked). It's actually a dream of mine to pass the license even though I'm too old now to realistically teach in a high school by the time I could pass. Having said all that, I worked with some magnificent people and I worked with some horrible people. Now, normally I'm not that judgemental about people, but the school I worked in is very near the bottom of the school system (schools are ranked) and so the worst teachers are sent there to be reformed. This means that you get some real stinkers, but that the principal and vice principal are usually quite good because they have to deal with these horrible teachers. Next step in your career past that school if you are on the way down is to get fired (and that's incredibly hard to do in the school system). So like I said, I worked with some people who I have to say rank as some of the worst examples of humanity that I have ever met in my life. They were petty, vindictive, mean... Let me just give you an example. One person I worked with hated one of the students. I don't know why. He was a nice guy, but she just hated him for some reason. She tried to get him kicked off of the baseball team. For no reason. Just because she hated him. He complained to the principal and the principal asked everybody in the department (including me) what the deal was. We all said that she's just crazy and so the guy was allowed to stay on the baseball team (and the teacher was lectured -- you have no idea how long... maybe 8-10 hours!) So this poor guy was having a hard time at home and one day his mother threw him off the second floor balcony of their apartment. Luckily he didn't die, but he broke his arm. The school intervened and offered to set up a foster home for him, or if he wanted they would find an apartment for him and set him up with a job with a local company (quitting school). He chose the latter since school wasn't going well for him either. That teacher started crowing the next day how she was right about him and what scum he was since he gave up on school. Complete nutcase. Anyway long story short... in 5 years of working even with people like that, I was never involved in any discrimination at work. On he contrary, people often complimented me on picking up "the Japanese way" and doing things appropriately. Which is not to say that I've never experienced discrimination in Japan -- I have, but never at work (YMMV, of course). The worst discrimination I've received in Japan were from expats who complained that I enjoyed Japan too much, spoke too much Japanese and hung out with too many Japanese people. "They'll never accept you, you know. You should just be yourself." On the contrary, those people never accepted me and I was being myself. My Japanese friends were perfectly happy for me to be whoever I wanted to be. I had one incident where the husband of a friend of mine refused to speak to me ever. I could never figure out why until my friend said, "I'm sorry. He doesn't like Europeans". Which floored me, but... I know lots of people in Canada and the UK who don't like "brown people", so it was an interesting experience to be on the other side. Is this a place where I would be happy to be for the rest of my life, to start a family and retire: Yes. Absolutely no question. This is my home. I'm a bit old to be having kids (I'm 50), but I got married here. My wife is Japanese and we met while I was teaching here. My wife's family is amazing and I've had absolutely no problems at all. My mother in law refers to me as her son and often introduces me that way. Sometimes people do a double take, but nobody has ever said anything (they are Japanese after all!). When I go travelling with my wife, foreigners are supposed to give their passport or foreigner registration card to the hotel so that they can make a photocopy of it. But given that my wife and I speak Japanese together and I'm perfectly at home here, I think most people assume I'm a naturalised citizen. I have an accent when I speak (which people kindly say is not that bad), so it's obvious I'm not from here originally. Somewhat strangely, I'm not even a permanent resident yet. After I got married, my wife wanted to see what it's like to live in a foreign country, so we went off to the UK for 2 years. That reset my counter. I'm not actually sure when I can apply, but I think I can probably do it soon. Due to British ancestry I can work in the UK, but if I get Japanese citizenship, I'll have to give that up. My wife's mother is getting older (in her 80's) and while it's hard to think about, after she passes away we might go back to the UK for a while. However, when we are done travelling, I will definitely apply for citizenship. In fact, I'm always worried that something will happen, or the rules will change or something like that and it's very tempting to do it now. But yes, this is home for me and hopefully this is where I'll retire. Hope that rambling account was interesting for you. I've lived in 4 countries in my life: Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. All have advantages and disadvantages. All have challenges. I fit in here better than I fit in anywhere else. Not everybody is like that. Some people (many, many people to be perfectly frank) do not like living here at all. You have to become Japanese if you want to be treated as a Japanese person. If you are not willing to do that, then it can be very difficult to live here long term. However, if you only want to live here for a year or two, then it's no problem at all (and in fact, can be considerably easier).
lmiller1990 8y ago
Also not the parent but I have been in Japan for three years now (but leaving to move to my home country soon). I'll share my experience. I had basically no truly "negative" experiences based on my race. I am fluent (understand 95% - 98% of what's going on, including complex convos about tech stacks and so on (I work in software engineering). Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand, but as soon as I reply in Japanese they talk to me like they would a normal Japanese person. One could consider this a "negative" experience (why judge whether I can speak Japanese based on my skin colour??) but I don't think they have negative intentions, so I don't take it personally. I think living here without speak good Japanese would be a pretty mediocre experience. There are tons of awesome tech meets all the time, but noone speaks English. Living here but not being able to live with the people here would be a pretty lacking experience, you would really miss what makes Japan Japan (the people and culture). I would be happy to raise a family here (I don't think I will, but I wouldn't be against it either). At least until high school age. The Japanese university system does seem nearly as good as my country (Australia), though, so I would my kids to study overseas. I think Japan is a safe place and good environment to raise a family, and has an excellent healthcare system. One thing I noticed is developer salaries (at least if you work in a regular Japanese company, like me) are very low - I earn 50% of what my friends back home do). Maybe if you work at a company with many ex-pats you can have a higher salary.
- devilsbabe 8y ago
  I've heard that salaries are on average much lower but companies offering competitive wages do exist. Like you said, you will have an easier time fitting in and earn more if you work for an international company rather than a Japanese one. I'm a software engineer in an American tech company's Tokyo office with 1 yoe and have around ¥13M total comp.
  - lmiller1990 8y ago
    That's nuts, I have 4 yoe and only on like ¥5M. Like a parent comment stated I am content with low pay and carrying an entire team with several years exp on me, though. You don't come to Japan for the money, or at least I didn't. Good to hear you found a well paying org (I hope you can get the chance to use and learn Japanese there as well).

bojo 8y ago

Not the parent but same situation. Been here 11 years. A lot of people can get around without speaking Japanese, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll get a much more meaningful and deeper experience out of living here if you can converse with everyone. Randomly stopping and bullshitting with a bored old guy for an hour can be quite fun! Sadly the developer pay here is pretty dismal, even more so if you come with US expectations. I’ve mentioned this before when it comes up, but the IT sector has organically migrated to a 10am-7pm schedule, so if you factor in commuting and the inevitable overtime then the only time you get to yourself are weekends. Taking multiple days off is frowned upon, although as a foreigner you get a little leniency because you are probably spending two days flying when you visit family. That all said, it is an extremely convenient country to live in. Great public transportation, great food, friendly people, low crime rates, social health insurance, etc. I really love the living aspect of Japan. I have a wife and child, and while I could imagine myself living here indefinitely, career wise it’s a dead end - they have trouble fitting you into their social structure. If you are perfectly happy with being a cog in the wheel (or carry your team on your back), and mostly work to live, then it probably isn’t that bad of a choice. I’d definitely encourage anyone closer to 20 than 40 to give it a shot, living abroad is an amazing experience. That said, I’ll finally be heading back to the US in a couple months once visas clear. The 40-60 age gap is right in front of me, and retirement is taking a stronger grasp on the mind. Much easier to consider options in a higher paying English speaking developer job.

mikekchar 8y ago
Just want to say that I can totally understand this as well. If you can't get a normal salaryman job, it can really be hand to mouth. I haven't even tried to get an IT job here and I'm pretty worried if I end up without a remote contract after my current gig is up. Also, super +1 on the bored old guy thing :-) Best part of my day (although I'm rapidly becoming the bored old guy...)
- bojo 8y ago
  I worked at mobile game companies. Lots of different opportunities ranging from backend infra/dev to game client programming. Sadly it’s a risky business, two of the three places I worked went out of business because they focused on expanding and not getting solid products in place. If you have any level of experience I'm sure a company would interview you and take you in, especially if you speak the language.
mirsadm 8y ago
There are other places in the world that offer good public transportation, food, friendly people, etc. Unless you are attracted to Japanese culture in particular it would be so much easier to move somewhere else to experience living abroad.
- magduf 8y ago
  The only other such places seem to be in Western Europe, and perhaps a few other Asian places like Hong Kong. America isn't on the list; public transit is terrible, food is expensive, and health insurance is ridiculous. It's a bad place to raise children and a bad place to retire unless you want to move to a backwards southern state. For me, I'm thinking pretty seriously about exploring options in living abroad, and Japan and Western Europe easily top the list, but the cost of living in Japan seems like it's quite a bit lower as long as you don't expect an American lifestyle. The lack of crime in Japan should make it quite possible to live in low-cost places, whereas in America and to some extent Europe living in low-cost places exposes you to much more crime.
codesuki 8y ago
In case you stay in Japan contact me. Where I work it's no problem to take several weeks off. Otherwise we have a good work climate, too.
- bojo 8y ago
  I appreciate the offer, but I would be surprised if a Japanese company would be willing to come even remotely close to my current compensation.
  - codesuki 8y ago
    That is a valid concern! But trying (if needed) can't hurt. Anyways good luck with everything! :)
- instakill 8y ago
  Please ping me via email (contact in my profile). Might wanna hit you up about this :)
propman 8y ago
Thanks for the reply! I like how everyone’s experiences in this thread have many similarities. Speaking Japanese is important, life there is great but developer pay is poor. There is some good advice on finding higher paying jobs here that might make you change your mind, but I agree with what you’re saying. I think this is definitely a possible move in the future for me.

mikekchar 8y ago

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 in Japanese in that the average 10 year old speaks better than me, understands more, etc, etc. I can read relatively well -- street signs, menus, comic books, novels aimed at junior high school students, and I can struggle through a newspaper if I have to. But (and I'm incredibly ashamed to admit this), I can't write a lick. I used to be able to, but I haven't actually done it in so long that I can barely write my own name. Crazy, isn't it? Discrimination at work: I currently own my own consulting company and do contracts for foreign companies. I'm currently on a very long term contract with a UK company. When I first came to Japan, I intended only to come for 1 year to learn Japanese (ha ha! one year... so naive). I taught English at a high school. I fell in love with Japan and this area and decided to stay. I taught English for 5 years and it was fantastic (highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity). So the only opportunity I've had for discrimination at work was at the school. Keep in mind that I was on a year to year contract and I was an "Assistant Language Teacher", which means that I was on the bottom rung with no career advancement possible. Nothing to do with where I came from, just you need actual teaching credentials to advance ;-). Also in a public high school (where I was teaching), you need to get your teaching license which is ridiculously hard (basically, you need to know everything that is taught in high school for every subject, and you need to have a university level understanding in your specialised subject). I could easily pass the English tests (even the grammar!) and the interviews, but there is no way I could pass the general test (remember, I can't even write my own name!). So there's a filter there and in the history of Shizuoka prefecture there have only been 2 foreigners who have passed the high school teaching license -- both Chinese (I checked). It's actually a dream of mine to pass the license even though I'm too old now to realistically teach in a high school by the time I could pass. Having said all that, I worked with some magnificent people and I worked with some horrible people. Now, normally I'm not that judgemental about people, but the school I worked in is very near the bottom of the school system (schools are ranked) and so the worst teachers are sent there to be reformed. This means that you get some real stinkers, but that the principal and vice principal are usually quite good because they have to deal with these horrible teachers. Next step in your career past that school if you are on the way down is to get fired (and that's incredibly hard to do in the school system). So like I said, I worked with some people who I have to say rank as some of the worst examples of humanity that I have ever met in my life. They were petty, vindictive, mean... Let me just give you an example. One person I worked with hated one of the students. I don't know why. He was a nice guy, but she just hated him for some reason. She tried to get him kicked off of the baseball team. For no reason. Just because she hated him. He complained to the principal and the principal asked everybody in the department (including me) what the deal was. We all said that she's just crazy and so the guy was allowed to stay on the baseball team (and the teacher was lectured -- you have no idea how long... maybe 8-10 hours!) So this poor guy was having a hard time at home and one day his mother threw him off the second floor balcony of their apartment. Luckily he didn't die, but he broke his arm. The school intervened and offered to set up a foster home for him, or if he wanted they would find an apartment for him and set him up with a job with a local company (quitting school). He chose the latter since school wasn't going well for him either. That teacher started crowing the next day how she was right about him and what scum he was since he gave up on school. Complete nutcase. Anyway long story short... in 5 years of working even with people like that, I was never involved in any discrimination at work. On he contrary, people often complimented me on picking up "the Japanese way" and doing things appropriately. Which is not to say that I've never experienced discrimination in Japan -- I have, but never at work (YMMV, of course). The worst discrimination I've received in Japan were from expats who complained that I enjoyed Japan too much, spoke too much Japanese and hung out with too many Japanese people. "They'll never accept you, you know. You should just be yourself." On the contrary, those people never accepted me and I was being myself. My Japanese friends were perfectly happy for me to be whoever I wanted to be. I had one incident where the husband of a friend of mine refused to speak to me ever. I could never figure out why until my friend said, "I'm sorry. He doesn't like Europeans". Which floored me, but... I know lots of people in Canada and the UK who don't like "brown people", so it was an interesting experience to be on the other side. Is this a place where I would be happy to be for the rest of my life, to start a family and retire: Yes. Absolutely no question. This is my home. I'm a bit old to be having kids (I'm 50), but I got married here. My wife is Japanese and we met while I was teaching here. My wife's family is amazing and I've had absolutely no problems at all. My mother in law refers to me as her son and often introduces me that way. Sometimes people do a double take, but nobody has ever said anything (they are Japanese after all!). When I go travelling with my wife, foreigners are supposed to give their passport or foreigner registration card to the hotel so that they can make a photocopy of it. But given that my wife and I speak Japanese together and I'm perfectly at home here, I think most people assume I'm a naturalised citizen. I have an accent when I speak (which people kindly say is not that bad), so it's obvious I'm not from here originally. Somewhat strangely, I'm not even a permanent resident yet. After I got married, my wife wanted to see what it's like to live in a foreign country, so we went off to the UK for 2 years. That reset my counter. I'm not actually sure when I can apply, but I think I can probably do it soon. Due to British ancestry I can work in the UK, but if I get Japanese citizenship, I'll have to give that up. My wife's mother is getting older (in her 80's) and while it's hard to think about, after she passes away we might go back to the UK for a while. However, when we are done travelling, I will definitely apply for citizenship. In fact, I'm always worried that something will happen, or the rules will change or something like that and it's very tempting to do it now. But yes, this is home for me and hopefully this is where I'll retire. Hope that rambling account was interesting for you. I've lived in 4 countries in my life: Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. All have advantages and disadvantages. All have challenges. I fit in here better than I fit in anywhere else. Not everybody is like that. Some people (many, many people to be perfectly frank) do not like living here at all. You have to become Japanese if you want to be treated as a Japanese person. If you are not willing to do that, then it can be very difficult to live here long term. However, if you only want to live here for a year or two, then it's no problem at all (and in fact, can be considerably easier).

lmiller1990 8y ago

Also not the parent but I have been in Japan for three years now (but leaving to move to my home country soon). I'll share my experience. I had basically no truly "negative" experiences based on my race. I am fluent (understand 95% - 98% of what's going on, including complex convos about tech stacks and so on (I work in software engineering). Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand, but as soon as I reply in Japanese they talk to me like they would a normal Japanese person. One could consider this a "negative" experience (why judge whether I can speak Japanese based on my skin colour??) but I don't think they have negative intentions, so I don't take it personally. I think living here without speak good Japanese would be a pretty mediocre experience. There are tons of awesome tech meets all the time, but noone speaks English. Living here but not being able to live with the people here would be a pretty lacking experience, you would really miss what makes Japan Japan (the people and culture). I would be happy to raise a family here (I don't think I will, but I wouldn't be against it either). At least until high school age. The Japanese university system does seem nearly as good as my country (Australia), though, so I would my kids to study overseas. I think Japan is a safe place and good environment to raise a family, and has an excellent healthcare system. One thing I noticed is developer salaries (at least if you work in a regular Japanese company, like me) are very low - I earn 50% of what my friends back home do). Maybe if you work at a company with many ex-pats you can have a higher salary.

devilsbabe 8y ago
I've heard that salaries are on average much lower but companies offering competitive wages do exist. Like you said, you will have an easier time fitting in and earn more if you work for an international company rather than a Japanese one. I'm a software engineer in an American tech company's Tokyo office with 1 yoe and have around ¥13M total comp.
- lmiller1990 8y ago
  That's nuts, I have 4 yoe and only on like ¥5M. Like a parent comment stated I am content with low pay and carrying an entire team with several years exp on me, though. You don't come to Japan for the money, or at least I didn't. Good to hear you found a well paying org (I hope you can get the chance to use and learn Japanese there as well).