4 ms·

I get why Japan is near the bottom for some people but, as someone that's lived there for a while > 10yrs, I found the paragraph describing the problems kind of

by gernb 4y ago

I get why Japan is near the bottom for some people but, as someone that's lived there for a while > 10yrs, I found the paragraph describing the problems kind of ridiculous > Expats find it hard to pay without cash (20% vs. 8% globally) So what? It's safe to carry cash in Japan and you can get cash at every 7/11 of which there is almost always one within 4 minutes walking distance > and are unhappy with the availability of government services online (35% vs. 21% globally). I have pretty much never needed government services in my life. That would be slightly inconvenient for the once every 2 or 3 years I'd have to interact with the government seems like an extremely trivial point and nothing to do with actual quality of life > The country also lands in the bottom 10 for both the Ease of Settling In (45th) True for many > — 30% find it hard to get used to the local culture (vs. 19% globally) Yea, you need to speak Japanese. You can get by but it's not like moving to Scandinavia or Western Europe where many countries you can trivially get by without speaking the local language. You can add Singapore and maybe Malaysia to that list but Taiwan being near the top? I'd expect the same there. Either you learn Mandarin or life is going to be lonely and you'll be left out of most stuff. > Moreover, 25% feel they are not fairly paid for their work (vs. 20% globally). This is very true. Engineers for example probably have a cap of $80k year unless you work for a western company.

kstenerud 4y ago
The biggest problem with Japan is that as a gaijin (gomen, gaiKOKUjin) you'll never really be accepted there, any more than a Turk would be accepted in Germany. That and the economic bomb that everyone keeps kicking down the road...
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chasil 4y ago
After Carlos Ghosn, the criminal justice system is a deal-breaker.
skinpop 4y ago
The lack of digital government services has been a real pain for me. I've often ended up in situations where I had to drive around to a bunch of different places to get official documents printed out and stamped for me. In general there's also a lot of situations where you have to fill out a bunch of forms with information they already should have. In Sweden those sort of things can be handled online. And I don't even remember the last time I had to fill out a form with my information there because it just happens automatically with the personal number system. I definitely hate this part about Japan. Then there's other crap like how services often won't accept bank account names registered with roman characters. But banks here won't allow you to open an account unless the account name matches your immigration card exactly, so if your name is written in roman characters then you are stuck with that, which basically creates a catch 22 type of situation. Finally, digital services here, especially the public ones are typically abysmal. In a nutshell, dealing with Japanese authorities and their apps and forms and stamps and whatnot feels like you are interfacing with a manual, paper based system from the 60's but with the added unpleasantness of user hostile apps and webservices that seem to have been built using a 90's tech stack even though they just came out in the last few years.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Cash is just annoying. I don't want to carry it regardless of safety.
harpratap 4y ago
> This is very true. Engineers for example probably have a cap of $80k year unless you work for a western company. Not sure what conversion rate you used (8M or 10M JPY?) but in my 5 years of living here this cap has been increasing steadily. As a senior you would have been laughed at if you asked for $80k 5 years ago but today it's the median for top local companies.
yellow_lead 4y ago
Taiwan is the same as Japan in needing to carry cash, but it's not listed as a negative, weird? I imagine it's the same for many other countries on the list, like Indonesia and Mexico, so not sure why Japan is called out.
tatami 4y ago
The cash situation changed rapidly since 2019, you can get very far without any if you desire.

by gernb 4y ago

kstenerud 4y ago

The biggest problem with Japan is that as a gaijin (gomen, gaiKOKUjin) you'll never really be accepted there, any more than a Turk would be accepted in Germany. That and the economic bomb that everyone keeps kicking down the road...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chasil 4y ago

After Carlos Ghosn, the criminal justice system is a deal-breaker.

skinpop 4y ago

The lack of digital government services has been a real pain for me. I've often ended up in situations where I had to drive around to a bunch of different places to get official documents printed out and stamped for me. In general there's also a lot of situations where you have to fill out a bunch of forms with information they already should have. In Sweden those sort of things can be handled online. And I don't even remember the last time I had to fill out a form with my information there because it just happens automatically with the personal number system. I definitely hate this part about Japan. Then there's other crap like how services often won't accept bank account names registered with roman characters. But banks here won't allow you to open an account unless the account name matches your immigration card exactly, so if your name is written in roman characters then you are stuck with that, which basically creates a catch 22 type of situation. Finally, digital services here, especially the public ones are typically abysmal. In a nutshell, dealing with Japanese authorities and their apps and forms and stamps and whatnot feels like you are interfacing with a manual, paper based system from the 60's but with the added unpleasantness of user hostile apps and webservices that seem to have been built using a 90's tech stack even though they just came out in the last few years.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

Cash is just annoying. I don't want to carry it regardless of safety.

harpratap 4y ago

> This is very true. Engineers for example probably have a cap of $80k year unless you work for a western company. Not sure what conversion rate you used (8M or 10M JPY?) but in my 5 years of living here this cap has been increasing steadily. As a senior you would have been laughed at if you asked for $80k 5 years ago but today it's the median for top local companies.

yellow_lead 4y ago

Taiwan is the same as Japan in needing to carry cash, but it's not listed as a negative, weird? I imagine it's the same for many other countries on the list, like Indonesia and Mexico, so not sure why Japan is called out.

tatami 4y ago

The cash situation changed rapidly since 2019, you can get very far without any if you desire.