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I'm an American living in Tokyo, and it easily has the best quality of life out any city I've lived in. - The public transit is literally the best I've ever se
by raziel414 5y ago
I'm an American living in Tokyo, and it easily has the best quality of life out any city I've lived in.
- The public transit is literally the best I've ever seen, both in America or Europe. The main train line in Tokyo (the Yamanote line) stops at my local station ever 2-3 minutes during peak hours, and around every 5-7 minutes during the off hours.
- The streets are clean, safe, and well maintained. Unlike cities I've seen in America and Europe, garbage doesn't pile up in the streets.
- Service workers, partially in the government, have been friendly and helpful. Even when I didn't speak the language well, I've never had trouble at the government office getting something done.
- nec4b 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ I wouldn't consider that as the best public transit ever.
- junon 5y agoI've moved myself to Germany and enjoy it here but I also love the idea of Japan, perhaps sometime in the future. I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?
- tasogare 5y agoIt's not hard to get a visa if you get a job or for study. The thing is, it's hard to get those while being outside the country.
- presentation 5y agoStudy is pretty easy (assuming the borders open) - anyone can do that tomorrow by joining a Japanese language school. Of course, you have to… actually study and do classes, so it’s not a free pass. Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office. There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.
- johnwalkr 5y agoA few cities have startup visas now, which give you a year or two to meet the capital requirements.
- raziel414 5y agoI transferred to Tokyo though my employer, so they handled the visa.
- ramchip 5y agoThe work visa is very easy to get if you have an engineering degree, as long as a company will hire/sponsor you.
- johnwalkr 5y agoFor skilled people it’s one of the easiest places to get a visa. Unlike US, Canada and Europe which are the other places I’m familiar with, there’s no requirement for companies to try to hire locally first. There’s also a points system to fast track getting a visa. This can also get you a permanent visa in one year. During Covid all of this is virtually stopped, but starting to open back up starting tomorrow, Nov 8.
- rayiner 5y agoA lot of this boils down to Japanese people being efficient and conscientious. I was walking around Ginza one day and noticed that sometimes you had to go multiple blocks to find a cross walk. People did it, and nobody jay walked. In DC or NYC it would have been a circus. Flying back to NYC from Tokyo is always jarring, like traveling back in time.
- I_AM_A_SMURF 5y agoNote that in a lot of major cities, crosswalks are explicitly _not_ the only places where you can walk across the street. In Seattle for example, any intersection has a "crosswalk" in it, some are marked, some aren't, but they are all the same in the eyes of the law. There are many studies that crosswalk actually increase the number of accidents because people feel safer and pay less attention when crossing them, so cities have been removing them in a lot of spots.
- avgcorrection 5y ago> conscientious […] by not jaywalking The term “jaywalking” is a pretty American term (that there is a term at all) invented by the car lobby way back when to stigmatize pedestrians. Of course it makes sense to cross the street (that’s what it’s called—there’s no dedicated word for it) if it is safe to do so. And of course it would be madness on any always-busy street or on a road with four lanes or more.
- throw0101a 5y agoFor a good history of this see Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic
- ghaff 5y agoYou will definitely find places in Europe--perhaps most of all Germany--where people absolutely do not cross against lights etc. (in general). In my experience, Americans--at least in big cities (and maybe especially on the East Coast)--are far more likely to cross streets where and when they can get off with it than in many other places.
- ekianjo 5y agoPublic transit is already completely over capacity and its getting worse every year. Its not sustainable.
- mekster 5y agoAte you a city planner in Japan? The Japanese population is declining, so not sure how it's not sustainable and Covid took many workers off from commuting.
- ekianjo 5y agoBad comment since Tokyo and its suburbs is growing year and year in population as other areas lose people. Thats why its very ignorant to think that the national trend is the same as the local trend. And covid had very little impact on commuting in Japan. Remote work is not a thing yet for most employers.
- chrischen 5y agoThat just means it's getting efficiently utilized. I've honestly only ever had packed trains during specific hours, or during the last train out of the city. That probably can't be solved unless people get moved closer to where they work. Just picture the "sustainable" by unpacking that crowded train into a 4 wheel vehicle for each person and the carbon emissions, energy consumption, and space consumption that is being avoided. It's like we're the latest Intel processors and Tokyo is running on TSMC 5nm M1 Max. Sure we have the space to brute force our economy into competitive performance... but how long will that last?
- presentation 5y agoAgreed - I’m doing my part by not riding the train from 7-9am, an it’s never bad :) and also it’s very viable to live not very far from where you work here (you can get a compact 1 BR apartment 15 minutes from any city center for <$800/mo if you’re savvy), so it’s much less of a big deal IMO.
- joomooru 5y ago
- mc32 5y agoIndeed Tokyo and other parts of Japan are clean and well run. It’s a cultural thing. I spent some in Europe about 15 years ago and likewise it was clean as well. I used to get stared at for crossing streets when you’re not supposed to (no cars but without the light). There were very few bums or beggars either. From what I hear, things have changed in some places. Not sure the cause. Sometimes strikes maybe cultural things as well.
- GDC7 5y ago"Everything is just so great, but somehow people are miserable"
- iamcurious 5y agoSocial arbitrage. Have american rugged individualism, enjoy japanese social system.
- GDC7 5y agoGood luck finding anything "social" in Japan.
- Razengan 5y agoThat’s a quite pithy description of America of late.
- mupuff1234 5y agoI was only in Tokyo for a few days, but the fact that the last train was at midnight bummed me out quite a bit.
- baby 5y agoI don’t know many places in the world that runs the train late at night.
- marcellus23 5y agoNYC runs 24/7 and it’s great. I can’t imagine the subway stopping at midnight.
- ryan_lane 5y agoNYC also closes train lines for weeks at a time for maintenance, whereas Tokyo never does so. NYC switches train schedules after midnight to every 30m or 1h until 5 or 6. The schedules in Tokyo are at worst every 10m, but most are every 3-5m, or 5-7m until the last train. There's tradeoffs both ways. I really like being able to get a train after midnight in NYC, but I somewhat prefer the frequency and consistency of the train lines in Tokyo.
- baby 5y agoThat’s cool! I wish other cities did that too.
- presentation 5y agoIt’s a commitment to party until the trains start :)
- m4rtink 5y agoThey use the rest of the night for maintenance, to keep the insane throughput and super precise train arrival times.
- presentation 5y agoIt’s interesting to me that my wife, who is Japanese, believes that in truth Japanese people are very unhelpful and unkind - she says that the politeness and helpfulness is a show that people do for foreigners as guests, but rarely show to one another. I think she’s exaggerating a bit, but there’s some truth to the different standards for different people.
- itsjustmath 5y agoI’ve heard this too. Tokyo is my favorite place in the world that I’ve visited, but that’s as a gaijin — and I’m sure it’d be a different more repressive experience as a native.
- earthboundkid 5y agoMy experience was that people follow the politeness “script” very well but don’t actually go out of their way to think of or help others. Part of it is there’s no cultural middle ground: either you’re ignoring someone or you’re going to work 90 hours a week to pay for their dialysis, nothing in between (okay, an exaggeration). It’s different. In the end, people are people so you can squeeze the toothpaste on one end, but it has to bulge out on the other to compensate.
- philliphaydon 5y agoTokyo is one of the worst places I’ve visited. The people there are so fake. They don’t help you because they want to. They feel obligated to help. But wow if you get out of Tokyo, people are so nice and friendly. Kyoto is my absolute favourite place. People are so kind and helpful and friendly, and they want to help you and recommend places to visit or eat at etc.
- aikinai 5y agoThis sounds like you were just trying to confirm a preconceived bias against Tokyo, or maybe are extrapolating from circumstances that are very different. There’s no way Tokyo is the least friendly place in the world and Kyoto the most. I’ve lived in both and the people aren’t nearly that different.
- skizm 5y agoHow’s the work culture? I’ve heard pretty bad stuff.
- discordance 5y agoWorking for a Japanese company can be rough, but if you work for a foreign company or have a foreign manager it’s mostly fine.
- lovecg 5y agoIt seems that a society where trains run on time with amazing precision has to also be a society where you get berated if you’re a few minutes late for work.
- discordance 5y agoIt can be worse than that. I remember the poor Rakuten folks being under a 3 strike system if they arrived after 9:30AM at Crimson House. It definitely created an unnecessary morning rush at Futako Tamagawa.
- bamboozled 5y agoI agree , lived in a few cities, travelled to many, shits on all of them.
- nemo44x 5y agoThe homes are so small though. 66 square meters on average. Much smaller than NYC even if you just take Manhattan. I used to be able to do that but with a family and hobbies and a desire for space, it’s just dehumanizing for me today. But yes, my time in Tokyo informs me the place is amazing. Just not for me anymore.
- johnwalkr 5y agoIsn’t the price per square metre much lower in Tokyo though? I live in Tokyo and my place is much larger and nicer than what I could afford in my previous place, Vancouver. And one nice thing about Tokyo is one can live in very small but clean and private apartments if needed. I’d take that over roommates and illegal basement suites.
- nemo44x 5y agoI’ve heard so in terms of affordability. And good point about roommates, etc. And these are averages so keep that in mind.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- harha 5y agoQuite interesting to see, I recently moved to Singapore which seems to be the place everyone looks up to in the region right now because they say it’s so advanced and apart from the cleanliness (which is different though, it’s mostly to not get fined, but things like the mixed recycle bins in condos certainly don’t show an intrinsic aspiration to maintain a clean environment) I don’t see the advantages you’ve described in Tokio. I wish there were more opportunities in Tokio, apart from what you’ve described there seems to be a good tax scheme for expats and it also has so much to offer culturally. I was in touch with several recruiters though and all their clients weren’t moving forward due to the pandemic.
- markdown 5y ago> mixed recycle bins Recycling is a scam so there's no point. It all goes to the landfill.
- throwawaysea 5y agoIs that true in Japan? I recall people sort recycling into many more categories, whereas in the US it is one big recycling bin.
- harha 5y agoSingapore takes the big bin approach like in the US. Europe has arguably too many bins in some places to be practical (Switzerland, though they charge so much on mandatory regular garbage bags that people still sort out, but it feels like a waste of time)
- harha 5y agoSince it’s all mixed (which would be nice if done right because it simplifies the process) but so badly that it’s difficult to separate it seems more like a way to avoid clogged rubbish chutes.
- ascar 5y agoYou can't really compare Japan to all of Europe. There are major differences in Europe on all of your points. As a German that lived 6 months between Osaka and Kyoto I mostly agree on the last one, but cleanliness and public transport is only slightly behind so that it doesn't really matter. E.g. Japanese streets are astonishingly clean, but I have never been disturbed by litter in Munich. Garbage doesn't pile up here. Also the public transport works really well, mostly in 5 minutes intervals in peak hours and 10 otherwise. The "Stammstrecke" in the center is also served in 1-3 minute intervals.
- glandium 5y agoThe streets being clean is actually fairly "recent". You wouldn't believe what Tokyo looked like before the 1964 Olympics.