22 ms·

Japan has changed in important and visible ways

271 points by zdw 4y ago

sacnoradhq 4y ago
Due to cultural taboo, it's possible for foreigners to cheaply acquire (if not for free) houses of deceased residents in Japan. They won't be necessarily in major cities and there's a cultural resistance to accepting foreigners as equals.
xupybd 4y ago
I liked the way that was written. It was very easy to digest.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
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 try. Everything I've read about Japan has stated that the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people, even to many mixed-race people of Japanese descent (e.g. from Brazil). Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration.
- kerpotgh 4y ago
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- crunchyfrog 4y ago
  > 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 try. I did a quick search and as far as I can tell there is no Japanese citizenship test. There is a test of Japanese language skills but even that is not described as a high bar. Maybe this has also changed? https://we-xpats.com/en/guide/as/jp/detail/9068/ https://we-xpats.com/en/guide/as/jp/detail/9068/
- lmm 4y ago
  > 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 try. Did they substantiate this claim at all? All available public information is that the vast majority of those who try succeed. People largely don't apply for citizenship, in part because Japan requires them to renounce other citizenships to do so, and in part because a permanent resident can do almost anything that a citizen can in practice.
  - jeffh 4y ago
    A very recent BBC article substantiates the hostility to immigration in Japan, and is an interesting read overall: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490
    - shusaku 4y ago
      This is literally the article being rebutted…
  - astrange 4y ago
    I've heard the driver's license test in Japan is quite hard and fails people on the first try just to teach them humility. Maybe they were thinking of that? (whether or not it's true…)
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    Can a country revoke one’s citizenship as easily as it can revoke one’s permanent residency?
    - lmm 4y ago
      Depends on the circumstances. If it would render you stateless, no (at least for signatories to the relevant convention). Otherwise, it's up to the country; Japan revokes permanent residence (but not citizenship) for those who have left the country permanently (after many years) or those who commit serious crimes, so that's a genuine difference (OTOH citizens can be subject to the death penalty, which I guess amounts to revocation of citizenship in a way). However if you acquired another citizenship, or failed to renounce your previous citizenships when naturalizing, then your citizenship can be revoked as a simple administrative procedure.
- YouMeWeThem 4y ago
  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.
  - inciampati 4y ago
    The only dual nationals I know with Japanese citizenship are operating under the argument that they were born with both citizenships and the non Japanese one is legally impossible to remove by coercion. So they claim that the Japanese state is doing the coercion and don't mention it to the authorities. This would be an interesting case in international in law, but I hope it's never a problem for them.
    - xwolfi 4y ago
      Many countries, like mine, France, also allow to reclaim a nationality you abandoned for social reasons (marriage being the one it aims at explicitely). So you can give up your French one, take the Japanese one, then go back to France without telling Japan and ask for the French one back, it's a few forms away.
      - Xixi 4y ago
        IANAL, but from my understanding of Japanese law, technically you renounce your Japanese citizenship when you acquire a foreign citizenship. So, even though Japanese authorities might not know it yet (or ever), you lose the Japanese citizenship at the very time you recover your French one. My understanding (again, not a lawyer) it that this could have legal implications if you do something of your Japanese citizenship after reclaiming a foreign citizenship. Although apart from running and winning an election, or maybe holding a job restricted to Japanese citizens, I'm not quite sure exactly how you could get in trouble. The loophole dual citizens (since birth) use is actually just that: since they never acquired a foreign citizenship (they are born with it), they never lost the Japanese one... so all Japan can do is order them to make unspecified efforts to renounce their foreign citizenship. Looking it up on the internet and concluding it's complicated seems to count as "efforts".
- silverpepsi 4y ago
  My understanding is that the Colombian citizenship test is quite hard too. I don't think one can meaningfully use the difficulty of a citizenship test as a data point in an argument with zero contextualization. How hard exactly is it compared to the test your average country has in place? Maybe no such survey exists but
- YouMeWeThem 4y ago
  FYI, The length-of-stay requirements for permanent residence are actually longer than for citizenship. Guidelines for Permission for Permanent Residence [1] > In principle, the person has stayed in Japan for more than 10 years consecutively. What are the conditions for naturalization? [2] > The person must have been domiciled in Japan for five years or more consecutively [1] https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930003492.pdf https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930003492.pdf [2] https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji78.html#a09 https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji78.html#a09
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    If you score enough points on the HSP visa (you don't even have to get that visa, just look at the point scoring), you can apply for PR in 3 years (70 points) or 1 year (80 points). Anyone on this forum probably can easily score at least 70 points just be getting a decent tech job in Japan.
- idiocrat 4y ago
  > the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people Sorry, I need to disagree with you. The process is fairly straightforward and formal. You need to fit very few and fair formal criteria, but if you do, then there is nothing special about the process. For a sincere applicant, there should be severe reasons why citizenship is not granted. There are statistics by nationality. I think Chinese, Korean and South Eastern nationalities are topping the statistics. Here is a good starting point for better understanding of the process. https://www.turning-japanese.info/ https://www.turning-japanese.info/
  - idiocrat 4y ago
    https://www.turning-japanese.info/2021/06/naturalization-story-part-1-first.html https://www.turning-japanese.info/2021/06/naturalization-sto... Excerpt: [...] the seven requirements [...] . 1) Have continuously lived in Japan for 5 years or more? 2) Be 20 years of age or above, and be a legal adult in my home country? 3) Be of upright conduct? [///] 4) Have a way of supporting myself and my family? 5) Be willing to give up my other nationality/ies upon acquisition of Japanese nationality? 6) Have never plotted to destroy the current government of Japan? 7) Have a Japanese skill level enough to go about daily life, and be a functioning member of Japanese society? Note: Requirement 7 is not explicitly written in the Nationality Law of Japan, which has only 6 requirements. Nevertheless, as a prospective citizen, it is still a good idea to know the language, as it indirectly affects requirement 4 by affecting what kind of jobs you can take.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Darn, they’ve seen through my plans, and now nr 6 won’t allow me to gain citizenship!
      - toyg 4y ago
        It's the classic "are you a terrorist or a member of the Nazi party" question on US entrance forms... the point is obviously not to catch those people, but being able to easily convict them of something (lying to authorities) if they emerge.
- famahar 4y ago
  I know some people with citizenship. All it requires is fluent Japanese. They came from a d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶d̶ developing country so getting citizenship was an almost no brainer for them. There's no real complicated test, it' just that the whole process is done in Japanese so you'll have to fill out paperwork and do interviews in Japanese. >Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration. For a lot of people this isn't really a big issue. Having a small group of close friends matters way more for people. If anything, it can feel like a relief to not have to be held to such a high standard where you start to lose your identity.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Well, it kinda sucked when they wouldn’t let the permanent residents into the country during the first year of COVID, so you were essentially unable to visit family (or worse, unable to return to your life, home and work after such a visit).
    - zztop44 4y ago
      At least they let their citizens in, unlike Australia!
      - astrange 4y ago
        There's a popular Japanese streamer who had a whole mental breakdown character arc since she was studying abroad in Australia and couldn't go home for a year or two because they wouldn't let her back in if she did. And being in Melbourne she couldn't leave the house for some of that either.
        timr 4y ago
        I assume you mean that Australia wouldn't let her back in. Japan never closed the borders to citizens. They did make it annoying to come back, however. Several different friends had to do long quarantines in not-great facilities.
- willbudd 4y ago
  As far as I know, naturalization only involves a basic language test at around the level of N3; which should be very easy if you picked up any Japanese at all during the years spent living in the country. The reason so few people acquire Japanese citizenship is not because of the difficulty doing so, but because it offers little in terms of tangible benefits beyond those already acquired by virtue of having permanent residency status. 1) Citizenship is needed in order to vote. Important for the health of any democracy; but in a country where it seems to be LDP all day every day anyway, immigrants can hardly be faulted much for not placing much value on this aspect. 2) For Americans, Japanese citizenship allows them to revoke their American citizenship, in order to avoid double taxation. (Not an issue for other nationalities, where the ludicrous concept of double taxation doesn't apply.) That's about it as far as I can think of. Add to that the fact that Japan doesn't recognize dual citizenship, it's no surprise most immigrants are satisfied to just stick with permanent residency. Note that the bar for permanent residency has been lowered in recent years, making it more easily attainable than an equivalent status in most other industrial nations.
  - deepGem 4y ago
    So Indians are on the top of the emigration food chain and I wonder why Japan is not one of our top destinations. There are like 50K Indians in Japan, mostly Tokyo. This is a surprisingly low number. Sure there is the language barrier but that barrier holds true for Germany also which has a lot more Indians. My hunch is education - Japan does not have too many universities to attract young talent, as compared to Germany, Australia or the UK. I'm not sure if this is by design or if there are some other factors at play. If Japan built a lot more universities and made it easier and relatively affordable for foreign students to sign up with English classes etc, perhaps there will be a lot more immigrants from countries such as India, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.
    - willbudd 4y ago
      Student visas and work visas (the stepping stones on the path toward permanent residency) are admittedly relatively tricky. Lots of pointless bureaucracy, and requests for "guarantors". Which basically amounts to finding some random Japanese acquaintance or employer to put their signature (hanko) on a piece of paper. Still, I expect the numbers from Asian countries to steadily increase—unless we go into some pandemic lockdown again.
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  > Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration. It depends on what living on a visa acually means in practice. Under what circumstances can you lose your visa? If it can happen overnight if you lose your job (like the H-1B in USA) that is bad. On the other hand, if renewal is pretty much guaranteed until retirement age unless you did a crime, that's perfectly fine.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Losing your job on a HSP visa means you need to find a new job in 3 months. For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires, whenever that is (which could be less than 3 months, or much more). The regular work visa is also not tied to an employer (HSP is though). It's not nearly as bad as the US. And yes, from what I've heard, renewal is pretty much guaranteed unless you badly fuck up somehow.
    - valenterry 4y ago
      > For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires That's wrong. The same rules apply. After 3 months immigration can (but is not required to) force you to leave the country. Both for HSP and e.g. specialist visa types.
      - lmm 4y ago
        For a regular work visa the requirement to engage in activities appropriate to your status of residence can be covered by job seeking etc., whereas for HSP (i) there is no way to satisfy it except working for the specified employer.
- vt85 4y ago
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- Izikiel43 4y ago
  > we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here Welcome to the life of a lot of people on visa in the USA, country made by immigrants which makes it stupidly hard to become a permanent resident!
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Don't be so dramatic, it's not that bad. If you're Indian, for instance, it's really easy: you just need to wait on a waiting list for 180 years. How is that not welcoming and easy? /s
- petodo 4y ago
  > Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years. Is it really strange though? It's same in Czechia, first you must hold temporary residency for at least 5 years before gaining permanent residency, then after 5 years of permanent residency you can apply for Czech citizenship, so it takes minimum 10 years to apply for Czech citizenship, by then most foreigners who moved here are already gone.
- nwienert 4y ago
  > extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people > [not] a good sign for long-term integration The implication being we should be forcing integration on them?
bleuuuu 4y ago
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asiachick 4y ago
I like all the rebuttals but the top still strikes me as mostly unsubstantiated claims > That (gerontocracy) in turn has caused Japanese companies to fall behind foreign rivals as they miss technological revolution after revolution — microprocessors, smartphones, semiconductor foundries, battery-powered cars, etc. smartphones: Japan led the world until iPhone then everyone was catching up. Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft. Japan didn't lose here because of anything unique to Japan. Battery-powered cars: Same as above. Tesla won (for a while) and everyone else Ford, Chevy, BMW, Mercedes, etc all lost. Japan arguably led for years with the Prius. But again, looking at the all car companies there's nothing special about Japan here Microprocessors: Is this even market? There's 3, Intel, AMD, Arm (I know ARM is a standard) but I don't get what makes Japan's "failure" here special. semiconductor foundries: Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? Is it just because they're in Asia and Taiwan, Malaysia, and China have been the winners? There's also this idea that there's a lack of startups. I have no idea about the numbers but living in Tokyo before the pandemic there was no shortage of startup meetup and incubators. Yahoo Japan has an open cafe with lots of people "starting up" https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/ https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/ Amazon and Google both have places (I know, not Japanese companies but they are targeting Japanese entrepreneurs) https://www.campus.co/tokyo/ https://www.campus.co/tokyo/ https://aws-startup-lofts.com/apj/loft/tokyo https://aws-startup-lofts.com/apj/loft/tokyo And the Mercari meetup https://www.meetup.com/ja-JP/MercariDev/ https://www.meetup.com/ja-JP/MercariDev/ Of course it's my anecdotes vs someone else's, I have no numbers but I went to tons of startup meetings, trade show like events, etc.... I watched several large bitcoin startups um, startup. I saw what must have been 11 different payment system appear (PayPay, D-Pay, ...), as just 2 categories.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > Microprocessors: Is this even market? There's 3, Intel, AMD, Arm (I know ARM is a standard) but I don't get what makes Japan's "failure" here special. Japan used to be on the leading edge of microprocessor design. They aren't anymore. > semiconductor foundries: Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? Because they used to be a contender. > smartphones: Japan led the world until iPhone then everyone was catching up. Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft. Japan didn't lose here because of anything unique to Japan. Japanese cellphones were literally what defined a Galapagos technology (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome), they were designed in country and only ever intended for the domestic market.
TedShiller 4y ago
Every housing topic on HN ends with the guy saying “… but Japan!”. Funny thing is that guy never lives in Japan.
- joshe 4y ago
  The author lived in Japan
sinoue 4y ago
Impressive to see Japan's floor space per person rise so dramatically.
Fordec 4y ago
A fertility rate of 1.3 is still a demographic crisis. Just because the neighbors degraded to the same level also isn't supposed to be a point of pride. Japan at 1.3 and China at 1.2 are both far below replacement rate of 2.1 and both are heavily detrimental to a nations economic and demographic outlook and on par with only the European with the worst outlooks like Spain, Italy and Ukraine.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  I wonder how long it will take our societies to stop asking questions like how can we make people have more babies, and start asking questions like is it smart to plan our entire economy around continuous exponential population growth.
  - jmole 4y ago
    replacement rate is steady-state, not exponential growth. when you have a country with 80 million homes, and 50 years later you only need 30 million of them, you're basically inviting decay to set in.
    - samtp 4y ago
      Why can you not repurpose the land used for those 20 million houses back into green space or better uses for the remaining 30 million? Not to mention that there is much less competition for resources when the population is 60% of what it used to be. You're acting like this is a major problem, but it seems like a great opportunity.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        The depopulation is not even. You can’t really abandon a few people in a neighborhood without services ethically or legally, and the last holdouts may not move for anything. Similar issues occurred in Detroit and other Rust Belt areas, and those had extreme population declines but could not abandon services and infrastructure.
babelfish 4y ago
Where is patio11?
eric4smith 4y ago
Visited Japan and loved it. BUT. The rest of the world treats Japan as something "special". All the media/manga/anime/pr0n/temples/culture and people. What I've learned traveling to various countries in the region? There's nothing really special about Japan, it's people, or it's media. The country and its denizens have been blown out of proportion with a kind of reputation that's out of this world... for the past 50 years. Yeah I look forward to going back and meeting more people next time -- but it's just a super-ordinary place. Remember "Big in Japan"? Nothing special. Go home.
- karaokeyoga 4y ago
  I've lived here for over ten years and generally agree with you. I love it here, but I also feel that some westerners treat Japan with a "specialness" or "exoticness" that it doesn't quite deserve.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - totetsu 4y ago
    Yes. I've been here almost that long. Mostly in the rural areas. It's just a nice normal place.. I think there are a few problems with perceptions of Japan. not being part of the anglo-sphere, most of the everyday stuff doesn't make it in front of western eyes. What does is filtered through journalists, like the BBC guy, who have to fit their stories into certain safe tropes. Another big place of interflow of culture is with manga/anime subcultures, which are produced and consumed by a very specific part of Japanese society in the first place, then exoticised a great deal by the types of internet communities where it is popular.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Japan is a normal place. Americans are arriving are surprised because it's America that isn't a normal place.
    - tarsinge 4y ago
rippercushions 4y ago
> Shopping centers, bars, clubs, and glittering zakkyo buildings (the ones with all the signs) continue to multiply. How could you live in Tokyo for a decade and miss all that? Emphasis on Tokyo, which was basically the only place in Japan that's still growing, until it too started shrinking during COVID. Go to any second-tier city, or even much of suburban Tokyo, and you'll see urban collapse in action: emptied-out "shutter-gai" shopping arcades, closed restaurants and hotels. Then drive out into the countryside, and you'll see completely depopulated hamlets and virtually all businesses not catering directly to agriculture have already collapsed.
- fomine3 4y ago
  fix: all businesses not catering directly to agriculture or AEON have already collapsed. AEON is the culture in suburbs
  - wwweston 4y ago
    Can you expand AEON (I assume it's an acronym)?
    - vajrabum 4y ago
      It's apparently a retail business in Japan. https://www.welcome-aeon.com https://www.welcome-aeon.com
    - yed 4y ago
      It's a shopping mall conglomerate. They specialize in massive multi-level shopping malls.
      - quartesixte 4y ago
        And they’re fucking everywhere and inescapable, even in big cities. And just like suburban malls, rather boring and filled with your usual milieu of chain stores (Uniqlo among them).
creakingstairs 4y ago
I remember having a discussion with a Japanese friend where he bemoaned Japan's failure to adapt to the new digital economy. I urged him to look on the brighter side. Despite the bubble crashing and (perceived) stagnation, Japan is still an economic powerhouse. I think Japan can only improve from here as younger generations takes over. Also, as I get older, I seem to appreciate traditions and things not totally being driven by efficiency. Those "menial" jobs may not be strictly necessary but I love interacting with actual people.
golemiprague 4y ago
What's so great about immigration and growing population? Japan is a small country without any resources, why would they want to share what they have with immigrants? What good did immigration do to western Europe? All I hear about are problems and all the good things happened even before immigration, otherwise immigrants wouldn't have come there in the first place.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
  [flagged]
- astrange 4y ago
  Japan is the 3rd largest economy and recently in the top 10 by population, it's not a small country. I'm sorry you have to accept war refugees.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  >Japan is a small country Small by what metric? By land area, it's comparable to Germany (with 5% more land) and it's the 11th most populous country in the world.
  - golemiprague 4y ago
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warning26 4y ago
> But in reality, depreciating real estate is one of Japan’s biggest strengths. Because Japanese people don’t use their houses as their nest eggs, as they do in much of the West, there is not nearly as much NIMBYism in Japan — people don’t fight tooth and nail to prevent any local development that they worry might reduce their property values, because their property values are going to zero anyway. It makes me wonder if other countries could adopt a tax policy like Japan, to encourage property values to depreciate. Would it finally kill NIMBYism once and for all, if people stopped treating houses as an investment and started to treat them as actual places to live?
- Barrin92 4y ago
  The real issue isn't the tax policy. The tolerance for depreciation of housing prices is grounded in the fact that housing is not bootleg social security. Both the Japanese state and companies take care of their people, so housing is not seen as an anti-poverty insurance. If you want that kind of model you'll have to create the conditions for it first which means getting rid of the homesteading mentality.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  The property values may go to zero, but the land values only appreciate. As land values increase and dominate the equation the house value might as well be zero anyway as it approaches irrelevancy. (As an aside I've heard mixed things on this, with some saying that this notion of houses depreciating severely is no longer the case...) I'd really really love someone with real, real deep knowledge of the Japanese housing market (eg. a banker, real estate agent or mortgage broker) to weigh in and go through everything in detail because it feels like all we usually get are breezy generalizations with such low detail that I only have more questions after reading.
breput 4y ago
An interesting view of Japan, outside of the big cities, is blog written by Richard Hendy (an English ex-pat) back in the early 2010s called Spike Japan[0]. He focuses on areas such as Hokkaido where there are glimpses of past prosperity but due to an aging population and the younger people moving to the cities, the communities that remain are crumbling, but in a very Japanese way. Hendy has a great sense of humor and the photography and storytelling is top notch. This is a rabbit hole you won't mind falling down if you're at all interested in different cultures and comparing decaying rural areas to those in your own country. [0] https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ and a few sample blog posts to give you a taste: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/lake-toya-the-billion-dollar-tower-of-bubble/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/lake-toya-... https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/requiem-for-a-railway/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/requiem-for-a-railway/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-japan-2/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-japan-2/
- gkanai 4y ago
  Spike Japan is great. He needed an editor though. It's a great reminder of the collapse of rural Japan- that's still ongoing today. Those parts of rural Japan should never have had the development that they did have during the 80s/90s bubble years.
  - breput 4y ago
    Ironically his last blog post was a commissioned article[0] from The Guardian and he complained[1] about editorialization. But yes, he liked his words, but I also wish he would revisit some of these places now. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/15/yubari-japan-city-learns-die-lost-population-detroit https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/15/yubari-japan-... [1] https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-into-truth/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering...
- astrange 4y ago
  I had Japanese resident friends at the time who were very mad about this blog because he kept claiming totally-not-abandoned places were abandoned. He just showed up on holidays when everyone was somewhere else!
marsven_422 4y ago
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throwawaaay129 4y ago
Ironically both articles come from a very typically western patronizing perspective A lot of expats come to asia and get frustrated with many small cultural details. It's especially prominent when the person doesn't speak the local language (as this BBC corespondent... shocking). The general reaction is "why can't you just be more like the us/europe/etc." It's really miopic. There is always a larger broader cultural context for why things are the way they are. Things that have developed organically over generations and aren't exactly planned Just a couple of examples: "Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan, and it’s a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages.“ Yes, this is very common in Asia. They also will work extremely long hours. However the productivity (as also pointed out in the article) is much lower. People are a lot less stressed at work. This ties into other aspect of work culture.. where East Asian cultures have a lot less of a fixation on professionalism and it's more of "friends hanging out" at work. You go out to drink with the boss, and you sit playing on your phone at work sometimes. Okay, you might not like that yourself and you'd like to just do an intense 8 hours and clock out - but that's how things operate and a lot of people enjoy it. If your KFC has twice as many workers as it technically needs - do you work less and get paid less? Yes. That's the tradeoff "I think an equally or even more important problem is corporate gerontocracy .." This ties into some very fundamental cultural priorities about caring and respecting elders. Yeah you get a bunch of morons promoted b/c they're older and "more experienced" - but the flip side of the coin is that people generally really take care of the elderly. I took my grandmother to visit China once and she was blown away at how respectful and kind everyone was to her. Could you somehow have people care and respect elders and yet have CEOs that was 22yrs old? Maybe - but the two things are a bit at odds. Living in Taiwan now, I can see the effect of westernization and it's a mixed bag (You have waves of US-educated Taiwanese reshaping the cultural landscape). It's very interesting to contrast with how things develop in China - which has gone for a more Japanese-style modernization and has been more selective about importing western ideas. I don't necessarily think the changes the writers want are bad (and I haven't really lived in Japan, so I wouldn't dare to have an opinion), but the way they're presented shows a very shallow understanding of what's really going on. At the end of the day you can't tweak one cultural irritant without affecting the whole cultural edifice.
- rippercushions 4y ago
danielscrubs 4y ago
> Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan, and it’s a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages. Median wealth in Japan is 119,999 USD whilst in USA it is 93,271 USD. I see way more misery in American cities than I ever seen here. I also had an ex (with a masters degree mind you) who was a cleaning lady for a short while, and they worked her to the bone, 12 hour shifts, and she literally had to run from company to company to be able to make it. Sure the company earned more money but that didn't mean that she earned more! CEOs have smaller salaries in Japan than in US and shareholders make less to compensate for having more workers, is this really a bad thing? Do we really need more Jeff Bezos in Japan to be called productive?
- ngc248 4y ago
  >>> I see way more misery in American cities than I ever seen here. The grass is always greener on the other side. Even Japan has misery, but due to their cultural norms you are not supposed to show that publicly, you are just supposed to eat it and grin. Compared to all that the "anything goes" culture of the US is always preferable. (Ofc the US has its own problems)
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Things you don't see publicly in Japan are lots of homelessness, crime, and general bad behavior. It's pretty hard to hide homelessness and (violent) crime.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      There's plenty of homelessness about in Japan, you don't even need to go to somewhere like Nishinari where it's virtually ubiquitous.
      - danielscrubs 4y ago
        "In 2020, the Japanese government’s homeless count was 3,992, making up just .003% of Japan’s population. On the other hand, the United States has a homeless population of about .2% [...] The Advocacy Research Centre for Homelessness, an organization consisting of students and reporters, says that Japan may have a homeless population 2.7 times greater than the government’s statistics..[...] Around 92% of the Japanese homeless are men older than 50. " https://www.borgenmagazine.com/japans-homeless-population/ https://www.borgenmagazine.com/japans-homeless-population/
monting 4y ago
I recently spent 3 months in Tokyo and I have say, that the quality of life, service, food, consumer products, safety, air/noise pollution, are the best I've seen anywhere. It's especially pleasing given that the prices are very low in comparison to other world-class cities. I did, however, witness prices rising during the time I was there. It's hard to see how Tokyo might have been stagnating given the quality of life I witnessed. It saddens me to say this but, I'd visit Taiwan to see what economic stagnation looks like - it feels like time-traveling back to the 90's.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  In the 90s, Taiwan was much poorer than Japan, but its per capita GDP is now at parity with Japan and likely passed it last quarter. Occasionally, I’ll visit an area I knew from 15 years ago and it will feel like a completely different city. In particular, it’s shocking how much better the infrastructure and transportation has gotten. The cities have a lot more green areas interspersed into them also.
  - monting 4y ago
    It brings me no joy to say this. Taiwan's numbers looks good on paper (until you dig further), but the reality on the pavement, or lackthereof, is dire. The noise, air, visual pollution are as bad as it was from 30 years ago, maybe worse. Traffic is bad, and salary to cost of living is extreme. Japan's numbers look bad. But its quality of life is one of the best in the world. Has there been progress in infrastructure/housing in Taiwan? Sure, in small areas, such as new housing developments, where all the capital sits, extracting rent or sitting empty, contributing nothing. We need to do better, raise our standards. Otherwise we're going to get left behind even further.
    - notch656c 4y ago
      I would think fear of being blown up by mainland China at any moment is bad for capital investment... meanwhile you have a highly skilled and educated workforce vying to man the capital in the country. I would think that would make labor artificially weak. IMO Taiwan needs world recognition and solid assurances their capital investments won't end up in the opium pipe of some CCP party man. Until then you'd have to be kind of insane to bet the farm providing jobs to Taiwan. Taiwan offers a really easy "gold card" for Americans that I considered getting but I realized what they needed wasn't my labor but lots of foreigners from powerful allies living in the crosshairs to make sure allies will get really really pissed if they get blown up.
Johnny555 4y ago
Wingfield-Hayes is also right to decry the low-productivity menial jobs that Japan has in abundance. Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan I’ve always felt this was a strength of Japan since it ensures employment of even unskilled workers. I remember one time walking near my hotel along a sidewalk in a construction zone, in the USA there'd be a “caution” sign (probably facing the wrong way), but in japan there were live workers at each side of the zone , and they called out a warning to pedestrians to be careful and when a construction truck needed to cross the sidewalk, the workers would physically block the sidewalk to keep pedestrians clear. I’ve noticed around here that more road construction projects have replaced human flaggers with automated traffic lights… almost certainly better for efficiency and productivity, but probably not better for the people that would have done that job otherwise. And maybe this leads to lower salaries in Japan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean low quality of life, I know someone in Japan that’s working as a suit salesman (retail sales, not administrative back office) and he can afford to support a family (stay at home wife plus 3 year old child) and a 2 bedroom apartment. I think that’d be much harder for an American worker selling suits at The Men’s Wearhouse
- astrange 4y ago
  The excess of safety workers is partly a system to give older people something to do, but is also a cultural hangover from the 60s when Japan had an enormous rate of pedestrian deaths from cars, much worse than the US ever had. (Not sure how that happened, just that it did.)
- throwuxiytayq 4y ago
  > almost certainly better for efficiency and productivity, but probably not better for the people that would have done that job otherwise. I can’t help but think that giving people jobs that are entirely pointless is to the detriment of everyone (and not even just those involved). You might as well pay those people to stand on the sidewalk and endlessly recite poetry, and then at least they’re getting good at something.
  - now__what 4y ago
    Impractical as it may be, the imaginary world where people are paid a living wage to stand on the sidewalk reciting poetry sounds lovely. Imagine being able to sit on a public bench with your neighbors any given day and listen to someone's creative writing! And if this also implies that more people are paid for other artistic endeavors... sign me up :)
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
almost anything related to japan will go to the top of HN. is this a weeb board...
inasio 4y ago
I've dealt with two large Japanese tech corporations that people here have probably heard about. One thing that I found extremely unusual (on both companies) is that many (most?) people in high level roles got rotated every two years or so to completely different parts of the company. Building good relationships and then having to restart from scratch was complicated.
ProfessorLayton 4y ago
I've always wondered what would have happened to Japan if the US forced them to allow EU-style free movement between the two (or more?) countries while they were drafting their new constitution. Please note I'm not suggesting the US should have done that, just noting it wouldn't have been that wildly different than the US and Puerto Rico just a few decades earlier. I'm not a history buff and I'm sure it's way more nuanced than that, just surprised US imperialism didn't swing for the fences like it had done before. Considering the atrocities Japanese-Americans faced during those times I can see why neither party would've been keen on opening up like that, I know.
- quartesixte 4y ago
  Probably just pure logistics. No one thought of it because getting to Japan in any kind of reasonable time frame was physically impossible. Even today, a flight from the US west coast to Japan is ~11 hours one way and involves losing a day due to the international dateline. So you lose about 3 days just flying back and forth. And costs nearly a thousand dollars for economy class. For most people, it’s not really an easy trip in the same way a hop to Lisbon from London might be. Now imagine that with prop planes.
hogepiyo 4y ago
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 sit right with me.
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  In France it is virtually impossible to function of you do not speak good French. In a company you will miss all the important things that are usually conveyed in casual French (this includes subtleties that change the meaning of a sentence). Yes, people will speak English with you, usually fluently (and with plenty of errors), but this is not the language of choice for the off the record conversations. Outside of work you will get by in supermarkets, but for more complicated shops your will have problems. For the administration it is clear: without being fluent in French there is no way to do anything. Even if you are a native speaker you understand just half of it and hope for the best. People in the street speak English [citation needed] but they will get tired after some time and then the English becomes unbearable. Source: native French married to a foreigner who struggles to understand everything (not to mention the subtleties) after 15 years of active use of the language.
- jerryzh 4y ago
  I don't get all the replies to this comment. hogepiyo was saying someone who lived for a decade and cannot speak native language does not have enough credit for us to believe his/her comment on the entire country's changes. The fact that people do can live this way does not change this point.
- rullelito 4y ago
  > 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. You haven't been to Sweden then.
  - 4y ago
namaria 4y ago
So much cherry picking ("women workforce participation in Japan is bigger then in the US... surely it can't be that backwards of a country") and ad hominem ("this guy who says Japan is stagnated admits he doesn't even speak Japanese that well"). A lot of time spent on perceptions and very little on hard facts...
wnscooke 4y ago
In my own experience, being a foreigner who (seemingly) doesn't speak a local language actually does open doors to unique insights - the people who do speak English are quite ready to tell all the ins and outs, pros and cons, ups and downs, subtleties, gripes, concerns, cultural tidbits exactly because they think I won't go around talking about what they said.
- suction 4y ago
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- throwaway290 4y ago
  Yes. Being at location for a long time but as an outsider can allow a critical view. Adopting the language and the culture can make you blind to stuff or unwilling to frankly talk about it out of politeness. Assuming in case of BBC correspondent Rupert it's not the same as with a typical foreign English teacher in Asia who doesn't care much about outside world and mostly hangs out in the same circle of foreigner friends (I'm slightly familiar with the culture).
- mantas 4y ago
  And then you end up as a subculture relying on the host culture, but at the same time staying away with it. Coming from ex-Soviet country, that gives sad vibes of our infamous russian-speaking soviet-era settlers who never bothered to integrate. Nor their kids and grandchildren. In the end it creates a lot of friction and that friction brings very fringe political views. E.g. subscribing to Moscow viewpoints while living cushy life in rotten West. I've seen very similar patterns in english-speaking bubbles in Japan :/
- Tade0 4y ago
  As someone who often finds himself on the other end of such conversations that's not my worry at all. My worry is that those who normally don't speak foreign languages will get to you first and instill in you a vision of my country that has little to do with reality and a lot with delusions of grandeur.
perryizgr8 4y ago
> Basing wealth on productive assets instead of unproductive land Land that is used for housing or industry is the opposite of "unproductive". In fact, next to intellectual property, I would argue that land is the most valuable asset. I feel if it true that land and house values in Japan always depreciate, we must investigate why. It might tell us the root cause behind the country's decline.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
> In recent years, the Abe administration has adopted major changes that will probably sustain the influx of immigrants. Imagine seeing Japan, a still functioning high civilization, and thinking it needs to import all the west‘s problems. Imagine visiting Paris, and thinking it has improved instead of deteriorated compared to its 1900s version.
suction 4y ago
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flippinburgers 4y ago
It seems disrespectful to not learn the language to a passing degree.
- brigandish 4y ago
  I might say that if you tried learning it then you'd realise that it's very difficult, but the real reason is that in most cases it's just not worth it. Virtually useless to know outside of the country, and if you're inside you either know it well enough or you have a job that doesn't require it (like all the English teachers and programmers) and enough support to get by without it. I say this as a resident who is grinding his way through the language daily because I want to, but I am aware it's really a bit of waste of time like any other hobby.
0dayz 4y ago
The biggest grip I had with the BBC article is the fact that he bemoans that the ldp party still holds a firm grip on the country. While it us tryr as he says that yes that the LDP party is still a dominating force to be reckon with, the truth is that the opposition had the best election result yet (CDP) and even a progressive party was voted in into the diet. Does it change the status quo? Probably not. But it's a sign that things can change.
nnurmanov 4y ago
Where can I read more on house price depreciating in Japan? It caught my attention, I'd like to learn more
insane_dreamer 4y ago
> during Wingfield-Hayes’ decade in the country, Japan’s immigration policy changed substantially, and he ought to have noticed While gov policies are changing, socially Japan is not very open to foreigners. I have friends who were born there, speak the language perfectly, and they're still _gaijin_, or _hafu_ if they're half-Japanese, and will be til the day they die even if they live in Japan their whole lives. This will take a lot longer to change than government policies.

271 points by zdw 4y ago

Due to cultural taboo, it's possible for foreigners to cheaply acquire (if not for free) houses of deceased residents in Japan. They won't be necessarily in major cities and there's a cultural resistance to accepting foreigners as equals.

xupybd 4y ago

I liked the way that was written. It was very easy to digest.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

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 try. Everything I've read about Japan has stated that the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people, even to many mixed-race people of Japanese descent (e.g. from Brazil). Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration.

kerpotgh 4y ago
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crunchyfrog 4y ago
> 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 try. I did a quick search and as far as I can tell there is no Japanese citizenship test. There is a test of Japanese language skills but even that is not described as a high bar. Maybe this has also changed? https://we-xpats.com/en/guide/as/jp/detail/9068/ https://we-xpats.com/en/guide/as/jp/detail/9068/
lmm 4y ago
> 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 try. Did they substantiate this claim at all? All available public information is that the vast majority of those who try succeed. People largely don't apply for citizenship, in part because Japan requires them to renounce other citizenships to do so, and in part because a permanent resident can do almost anything that a citizen can in practice.
- jeffh 4y ago
  A very recent BBC article substantiates the hostility to immigration in Japan, and is an interesting read overall: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490
  - shusaku 4y ago
    This is literally the article being rebutted…
- astrange 4y ago
  I've heard the driver's license test in Japan is quite hard and fails people on the first try just to teach them humility. Maybe they were thinking of that? (whether or not it's true…)
- zekrioca 4y ago
  Can a country revoke one’s citizenship as easily as it can revoke one’s permanent residency?
  - lmm 4y ago
    Depends on the circumstances. If it would render you stateless, no (at least for signatories to the relevant convention). Otherwise, it's up to the country; Japan revokes permanent residence (but not citizenship) for those who have left the country permanently (after many years) or those who commit serious crimes, so that's a genuine difference (OTOH citizens can be subject to the death penalty, which I guess amounts to revocation of citizenship in a way). However if you acquired another citizenship, or failed to renounce your previous citizenships when naturalizing, then your citizenship can be revoked as a simple administrative procedure.
YouMeWeThem 4y ago
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.
- inciampati 4y ago
  The only dual nationals I know with Japanese citizenship are operating under the argument that they were born with both citizenships and the non Japanese one is legally impossible to remove by coercion. So they claim that the Japanese state is doing the coercion and don't mention it to the authorities. This would be an interesting case in international in law, but I hope it's never a problem for them.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    Many countries, like mine, France, also allow to reclaim a nationality you abandoned for social reasons (marriage being the one it aims at explicitely). So you can give up your French one, take the Japanese one, then go back to France without telling Japan and ask for the French one back, it's a few forms away.
    - Xixi 4y ago
      IANAL, but from my understanding of Japanese law, technically you renounce your Japanese citizenship when you acquire a foreign citizenship. So, even though Japanese authorities might not know it yet (or ever), you lose the Japanese citizenship at the very time you recover your French one. My understanding (again, not a lawyer) it that this could have legal implications if you do something of your Japanese citizenship after reclaiming a foreign citizenship. Although apart from running and winning an election, or maybe holding a job restricted to Japanese citizens, I'm not quite sure exactly how you could get in trouble. The loophole dual citizens (since birth) use is actually just that: since they never acquired a foreign citizenship (they are born with it), they never lost the Japanese one... so all Japan can do is order them to make unspecified efforts to renounce their foreign citizenship. Looking it up on the internet and concluding it's complicated seems to count as "efforts".
silverpepsi 4y ago
My understanding is that the Colombian citizenship test is quite hard too. I don't think one can meaningfully use the difficulty of a citizenship test as a data point in an argument with zero contextualization. How hard exactly is it compared to the test your average country has in place? Maybe no such survey exists but
YouMeWeThem 4y ago
FYI, The length-of-stay requirements for permanent residence are actually longer than for citizenship. Guidelines for Permission for Permanent Residence [1] > In principle, the person has stayed in Japan for more than 10 years consecutively. What are the conditions for naturalization? [2] > The person must have been domiciled in Japan for five years or more consecutively [1] https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930003492.pdf https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930003492.pdf [2] https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji78.html#a09 https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji78.html#a09
- midoridensha 4y ago
  If you score enough points on the HSP visa (you don't even have to get that visa, just look at the point scoring), you can apply for PR in 3 years (70 points) or 1 year (80 points). Anyone on this forum probably can easily score at least 70 points just be getting a decent tech job in Japan.
idiocrat 4y ago
> the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people Sorry, I need to disagree with you. The process is fairly straightforward and formal. You need to fit very few and fair formal criteria, but if you do, then there is nothing special about the process. For a sincere applicant, there should be severe reasons why citizenship is not granted. There are statistics by nationality. I think Chinese, Korean and South Eastern nationalities are topping the statistics. Here is a good starting point for better understanding of the process. https://www.turning-japanese.info/ https://www.turning-japanese.info/
- idiocrat 4y ago
  https://www.turning-japanese.info/2021/06/naturalization-story-part-1-first.html https://www.turning-japanese.info/2021/06/naturalization-sto... Excerpt: [...] the seven requirements [...] . 1) Have continuously lived in Japan for 5 years or more? 2) Be 20 years of age or above, and be a legal adult in my home country? 3) Be of upright conduct? [///] 4) Have a way of supporting myself and my family? 5) Be willing to give up my other nationality/ies upon acquisition of Japanese nationality? 6) Have never plotted to destroy the current government of Japan? 7) Have a Japanese skill level enough to go about daily life, and be a functioning member of Japanese society? Note: Requirement 7 is not explicitly written in the Nationality Law of Japan, which has only 6 requirements. Nevertheless, as a prospective citizen, it is still a good idea to know the language, as it indirectly affects requirement 4 by affecting what kind of jobs you can take.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Darn, they’ve seen through my plans, and now nr 6 won’t allow me to gain citizenship!
    - toyg 4y ago
      It's the classic "are you a terrorist or a member of the Nazi party" question on US entrance forms... the point is obviously not to catch those people, but being able to easily convict them of something (lying to authorities) if they emerge.
famahar 4y ago
I know some people with citizenship. All it requires is fluent Japanese. They came from a d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶d̶ developing country so getting citizenship was an almost no brainer for them. There's no real complicated test, it' just that the whole process is done in Japanese so you'll have to fill out paperwork and do interviews in Japanese. >Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration. For a lot of people this isn't really a big issue. Having a small group of close friends matters way more for people. If anything, it can feel like a relief to not have to be held to such a high standard where you start to lose your identity.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Well, it kinda sucked when they wouldn’t let the permanent residents into the country during the first year of COVID, so you were essentially unable to visit family (or worse, unable to return to your life, home and work after such a visit).
  - zztop44 4y ago
    At least they let their citizens in, unlike Australia!
    - astrange 4y ago
      There's a popular Japanese streamer who had a whole mental breakdown character arc since she was studying abroad in Australia and couldn't go home for a year or two because they wouldn't let her back in if she did. And being in Melbourne she couldn't leave the house for some of that either.
      - timr 4y ago
        I assume you mean that Australia wouldn't let her back in. Japan never closed the borders to citizens. They did make it annoying to come back, however. Several different friends had to do long quarantines in not-great facilities.
willbudd 4y ago
As far as I know, naturalization only involves a basic language test at around the level of N3; which should be very easy if you picked up any Japanese at all during the years spent living in the country. The reason so few people acquire Japanese citizenship is not because of the difficulty doing so, but because it offers little in terms of tangible benefits beyond those already acquired by virtue of having permanent residency status. 1) Citizenship is needed in order to vote. Important for the health of any democracy; but in a country where it seems to be LDP all day every day anyway, immigrants can hardly be faulted much for not placing much value on this aspect. 2) For Americans, Japanese citizenship allows them to revoke their American citizenship, in order to avoid double taxation. (Not an issue for other nationalities, where the ludicrous concept of double taxation doesn't apply.) That's about it as far as I can think of. Add to that the fact that Japan doesn't recognize dual citizenship, it's no surprise most immigrants are satisfied to just stick with permanent residency. Note that the bar for permanent residency has been lowered in recent years, making it more easily attainable than an equivalent status in most other industrial nations.
- deepGem 4y ago
  So Indians are on the top of the emigration food chain and I wonder why Japan is not one of our top destinations. There are like 50K Indians in Japan, mostly Tokyo. This is a surprisingly low number. Sure there is the language barrier but that barrier holds true for Germany also which has a lot more Indians. My hunch is education - Japan does not have too many universities to attract young talent, as compared to Germany, Australia or the UK. I'm not sure if this is by design or if there are some other factors at play. If Japan built a lot more universities and made it easier and relatively affordable for foreign students to sign up with English classes etc, perhaps there will be a lot more immigrants from countries such as India, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.
  - willbudd 4y ago
    Student visas and work visas (the stepping stones on the path toward permanent residency) are admittedly relatively tricky. Lots of pointless bureaucracy, and requests for "guarantors". Which basically amounts to finding some random Japanese acquaintance or employer to put their signature (hanko) on a piece of paper. Still, I expect the numbers from Asian countries to steadily increase—unless we go into some pandemic lockdown again.
diebeforei485 4y ago
> Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration. It depends on what living on a visa acually means in practice. Under what circumstances can you lose your visa? If it can happen overnight if you lose your job (like the H-1B in USA) that is bad. On the other hand, if renewal is pretty much guaranteed until retirement age unless you did a crime, that's perfectly fine.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Losing your job on a HSP visa means you need to find a new job in 3 months. For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires, whenever that is (which could be less than 3 months, or much more). The regular work visa is also not tied to an employer (HSP is though). It's not nearly as bad as the US. And yes, from what I've heard, renewal is pretty much guaranteed unless you badly fuck up somehow.
  - valenterry 4y ago
    > For a regular work visa, there's no such requirement; you have until the visa expires That's wrong. The same rules apply. After 3 months immigration can (but is not required to) force you to leave the country. Both for HSP and e.g. specialist visa types.
    - lmm 4y ago
      For a regular work visa the requirement to engage in activities appropriate to your status of residence can be covered by job seeking etc., whereas for HSP (i) there is no way to satisfy it except working for the specified employer.
vt85 4y ago
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Izikiel43 4y ago
> we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here Welcome to the life of a lot of people on visa in the USA, country made by immigrants which makes it stupidly hard to become a permanent resident!
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Don't be so dramatic, it's not that bad. If you're Indian, for instance, it's really easy: you just need to wait on a waiting list for 180 years. How is that not welcoming and easy? /s
petodo 4y ago
> Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years. Is it really strange though? It's same in Czechia, first you must hold temporary residency for at least 5 years before gaining permanent residency, then after 5 years of permanent residency you can apply for Czech citizenship, so it takes minimum 10 years to apply for Czech citizenship, by then most foreigners who moved here are already gone.
nwienert 4y ago
> extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people > [not] a good sign for long-term integration The implication being we should be forcing integration on them?

bleuuuu 4y ago

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asiachick 4y ago

I like all the rebuttals but the top still strikes me as mostly unsubstantiated claims > That (gerontocracy) in turn has caused Japanese companies to fall behind foreign rivals as they miss technological revolution after revolution — microprocessors, smartphones, semiconductor foundries, battery-powered cars, etc. smartphones: Japan led the world until iPhone then everyone was catching up. Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft. Japan didn't lose here because of anything unique to Japan. Battery-powered cars: Same as above. Tesla won (for a while) and everyone else Ford, Chevy, BMW, Mercedes, etc all lost. Japan arguably led for years with the Prius. But again, looking at the all car companies there's nothing special about Japan here Microprocessors: Is this even market? There's 3, Intel, AMD, Arm (I know ARM is a standard) but I don't get what makes Japan's "failure" here special. semiconductor foundries: Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? Is it just because they're in Asia and Taiwan, Malaysia, and China have been the winners? There's also this idea that there's a lack of startups. I have no idea about the numbers but living in Tokyo before the pandemic there was no shortage of startup meetup and incubators. Yahoo Japan has an open cafe with lots of people "starting up" https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/ https://lodge.yahoo.co.jp/ Amazon and Google both have places (I know, not Japanese companies but they are targeting Japanese entrepreneurs) https://www.campus.co/tokyo/ https://www.campus.co/tokyo/ https://aws-startup-lofts.com/apj/loft/tokyo https://aws-startup-lofts.com/apj/loft/tokyo And the Mercari meetup https://www.meetup.com/ja-JP/MercariDev/ https://www.meetup.com/ja-JP/MercariDev/ Of course it's my anecdotes vs someone else's, I have no numbers but I went to tons of startup meetings, trade show like events, etc.... I watched several large bitcoin startups um, startup. I saw what must have been 11 different payment system appear (PayPay, D-Pay, ...), as just 2 categories.

com2kid 4y ago
> Microprocessors: Is this even market? There's 3, Intel, AMD, Arm (I know ARM is a standard) but I don't get what makes Japan's "failure" here special. Japan used to be on the leading edge of microprocessor design. They aren't anymore. > semiconductor foundries: Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? Because they used to be a contender. > smartphones: Japan led the world until iPhone then everyone was catching up. Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft. Japan didn't lose here because of anything unique to Japan. Japanese cellphones were literally what defined a Galapagos technology (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome), they were designed in country and only ever intended for the domestic market.

TedShiller 4y ago

Every housing topic on HN ends with the guy saying “… but Japan!”. Funny thing is that guy never lives in Japan.

joshe 4y ago
The author lived in Japan

sinoue 4y ago

Impressive to see Japan's floor space per person rise so dramatically.

Fordec 4y ago

A fertility rate of 1.3 is still a demographic crisis. Just because the neighbors degraded to the same level also isn't supposed to be a point of pride. Japan at 1.3 and China at 1.2 are both far below replacement rate of 2.1 and both are heavily detrimental to a nations economic and demographic outlook and on par with only the European with the worst outlooks like Spain, Italy and Ukraine.

tstrimple 4y ago
I wonder how long it will take our societies to stop asking questions like how can we make people have more babies, and start asking questions like is it smart to plan our entire economy around continuous exponential population growth.
- jmole 4y ago
  replacement rate is steady-state, not exponential growth. when you have a country with 80 million homes, and 50 years later you only need 30 million of them, you're basically inviting decay to set in.
  - samtp 4y ago
    Why can you not repurpose the land used for those 20 million houses back into green space or better uses for the remaining 30 million? Not to mention that there is much less competition for resources when the population is 60% of what it used to be. You're acting like this is a major problem, but it seems like a great opportunity.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      The depopulation is not even. You can’t really abandon a few people in a neighborhood without services ethically or legally, and the last holdouts may not move for anything. Similar issues occurred in Detroit and other Rust Belt areas, and those had extreme population declines but could not abandon services and infrastructure.

babelfish 4y ago

Where is patio11?

eric4smith 4y ago

Visited Japan and loved it. BUT. The rest of the world treats Japan as something "special". All the media/manga/anime/pr0n/temples/culture and people. What I've learned traveling to various countries in the region? There's nothing really special about Japan, it's people, or it's media. The country and its denizens have been blown out of proportion with a kind of reputation that's out of this world... for the past 50 years. Yeah I look forward to going back and meeting more people next time -- but it's just a super-ordinary place. Remember "Big in Japan"? Nothing special. Go home.

karaokeyoga 4y ago
I've lived here for over ten years and generally agree with you. I love it here, but I also feel that some westerners treat Japan with a "specialness" or "exoticness" that it doesn't quite deserve.
- deleted 4y ago
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- totetsu 4y ago
  Yes. I've been here almost that long. Mostly in the rural areas. It's just a nice normal place.. I think there are a few problems with perceptions of Japan. not being part of the anglo-sphere, most of the everyday stuff doesn't make it in front of western eyes. What does is filtered through journalists, like the BBC guy, who have to fit their stories into certain safe tropes. Another big place of interflow of culture is with manga/anime subcultures, which are produced and consumed by a very specific part of Japanese society in the first place, then exoticised a great deal by the types of internet communities where it is popular.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Japan is a normal place. Americans are arriving are surprised because it's America that isn't a normal place.
  - tarsinge 4y ago

rippercushions 4y ago

> Shopping centers, bars, clubs, and glittering zakkyo buildings (the ones with all the signs) continue to multiply. How could you live in Tokyo for a decade and miss all that? Emphasis on Tokyo, which was basically the only place in Japan that's still growing, until it too started shrinking during COVID. Go to any second-tier city, or even much of suburban Tokyo, and you'll see urban collapse in action: emptied-out "shutter-gai" shopping arcades, closed restaurants and hotels. Then drive out into the countryside, and you'll see completely depopulated hamlets and virtually all businesses not catering directly to agriculture have already collapsed.

fomine3 4y ago
fix: all businesses not catering directly to agriculture or AEON have already collapsed. AEON is the culture in suburbs
- wwweston 4y ago
  Can you expand AEON (I assume it's an acronym)?
  - vajrabum 4y ago
    It's apparently a retail business in Japan. https://www.welcome-aeon.com https://www.welcome-aeon.com
  - yed 4y ago
    It's a shopping mall conglomerate. They specialize in massive multi-level shopping malls.
    - quartesixte 4y ago
      And they’re fucking everywhere and inescapable, even in big cities. And just like suburban malls, rather boring and filled with your usual milieu of chain stores (Uniqlo among them).

creakingstairs 4y ago

I remember having a discussion with a Japanese friend where he bemoaned Japan's failure to adapt to the new digital economy. I urged him to look on the brighter side. Despite the bubble crashing and (perceived) stagnation, Japan is still an economic powerhouse. I think Japan can only improve from here as younger generations takes over. Also, as I get older, I seem to appreciate traditions and things not totally being driven by efficiency. Those "menial" jobs may not be strictly necessary but I love interacting with actual people.

golemiprague 4y ago

What's so great about immigration and growing population? Japan is a small country without any resources, why would they want to share what they have with immigrants? What good did immigration do to western Europe? All I hear about are problems and all the good things happened even before immigration, otherwise immigrants wouldn't have come there in the first place.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
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astrange 4y ago
Japan is the 3rd largest economy and recently in the top 10 by population, it's not a small country. I'm sorry you have to accept war refugees.
Hamuko 4y ago
>Japan is a small country Small by what metric? By land area, it's comparable to Germany (with 5% more land) and it's the 11th most populous country in the world.
- golemiprague 4y ago
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warning26 4y ago

> But in reality, depreciating real estate is one of Japan’s biggest strengths. Because Japanese people don’t use their houses as their nest eggs, as they do in much of the West, there is not nearly as much NIMBYism in Japan — people don’t fight tooth and nail to prevent any local development that they worry might reduce their property values, because their property values are going to zero anyway. It makes me wonder if other countries could adopt a tax policy like Japan, to encourage property values to depreciate. Would it finally kill NIMBYism once and for all, if people stopped treating houses as an investment and started to treat them as actual places to live?

Barrin92 4y ago
The real issue isn't the tax policy. The tolerance for depreciation of housing prices is grounded in the fact that housing is not bootleg social security. Both the Japanese state and companies take care of their people, so housing is not seen as an anti-poverty insurance. If you want that kind of model you'll have to create the conditions for it first which means getting rid of the homesteading mentality.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
The property values may go to zero, but the land values only appreciate. As land values increase and dominate the equation the house value might as well be zero anyway as it approaches irrelevancy. (As an aside I've heard mixed things on this, with some saying that this notion of houses depreciating severely is no longer the case...) I'd really really love someone with real, real deep knowledge of the Japanese housing market (eg. a banker, real estate agent or mortgage broker) to weigh in and go through everything in detail because it feels like all we usually get are breezy generalizations with such low detail that I only have more questions after reading.

breput 4y ago

An interesting view of Japan, outside of the big cities, is blog written by Richard Hendy (an English ex-pat) back in the early 2010s called Spike Japan[0]. He focuses on areas such as Hokkaido where there are glimpses of past prosperity but due to an aging population and the younger people moving to the cities, the communities that remain are crumbling, but in a very Japanese way. Hendy has a great sense of humor and the photography and storytelling is top notch. This is a rabbit hole you won't mind falling down if you're at all interested in different cultures and comparing decaying rural areas to those in your own country. [0] https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ and a few sample blog posts to give you a taste: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/lake-toya-the-billion-dollar-tower-of-bubble/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/lake-toya-... https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/requiem-for-a-railway/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/requiem-for-a-railway/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-japan-2/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-japan-2/

gkanai 4y ago
Spike Japan is great. He needed an editor though. It's a great reminder of the collapse of rural Japan- that's still ongoing today. Those parts of rural Japan should never have had the development that they did have during the 80s/90s bubble years.
- breput 4y ago
  Ironically his last blog post was a commissioned article[0] from The Guardian and he complained[1] about editorialization. But yes, he liked his words, but I also wish he would revisit some of these places now. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/15/yubari-japan-city-learns-die-lost-population-detroit https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/15/yubari-japan-... [1] https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-into-truth/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering...
astrange 4y ago
I had Japanese resident friends at the time who were very mad about this blog because he kept claiming totally-not-abandoned places were abandoned. He just showed up on holidays when everyone was somewhere else!

marsven_422 4y ago

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throwawaaay129 4y ago

Ironically both articles come from a very typically western patronizing perspective A lot of expats come to asia and get frustrated with many small cultural details. It's especially prominent when the person doesn't speak the local language (as this BBC corespondent... shocking). The general reaction is "why can't you just be more like the us/europe/etc." It's really miopic. There is always a larger broader cultural context for why things are the way they are. Things that have developed organically over generations and aren't exactly planned Just a couple of examples: "Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan, and it’s a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages.“ Yes, this is very common in Asia. They also will work extremely long hours. However the productivity (as also pointed out in the article) is much lower. People are a lot less stressed at work. This ties into other aspect of work culture.. where East Asian cultures have a lot less of a fixation on professionalism and it's more of "friends hanging out" at work. You go out to drink with the boss, and you sit playing on your phone at work sometimes. Okay, you might not like that yourself and you'd like to just do an intense 8 hours and clock out - but that's how things operate and a lot of people enjoy it. If your KFC has twice as many workers as it technically needs - do you work less and get paid less? Yes. That's the tradeoff "I think an equally or even more important problem is corporate gerontocracy .." This ties into some very fundamental cultural priorities about caring and respecting elders. Yeah you get a bunch of morons promoted b/c they're older and "more experienced" - but the flip side of the coin is that people generally really take care of the elderly. I took my grandmother to visit China once and she was blown away at how respectful and kind everyone was to her. Could you somehow have people care and respect elders and yet have CEOs that was 22yrs old? Maybe - but the two things are a bit at odds. Living in Taiwan now, I can see the effect of westernization and it's a mixed bag (You have waves of US-educated Taiwanese reshaping the cultural landscape). It's very interesting to contrast with how things develop in China - which has gone for a more Japanese-style modernization and has been more selective about importing western ideas. I don't necessarily think the changes the writers want are bad (and I haven't really lived in Japan, so I wouldn't dare to have an opinion), but the way they're presented shows a very shallow understanding of what's really going on. At the end of the day you can't tweak one cultural irritant without affecting the whole cultural edifice.

rippercushions 4y ago

danielscrubs 4y ago

> Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan, and it’s a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages. Median wealth in Japan is 119,999 USD whilst in USA it is 93,271 USD. I see way more misery in American cities than I ever seen here. I also had an ex (with a masters degree mind you) who was a cleaning lady for a short while, and they worked her to the bone, 12 hour shifts, and she literally had to run from company to company to be able to make it. Sure the company earned more money but that didn't mean that she earned more! CEOs have smaller salaries in Japan than in US and shareholders make less to compensate for having more workers, is this really a bad thing? Do we really need more Jeff Bezos in Japan to be called productive?

ngc248 4y ago
>>> I see way more misery in American cities than I ever seen here. The grass is always greener on the other side. Even Japan has misery, but due to their cultural norms you are not supposed to show that publicly, you are just supposed to eat it and grin. Compared to all that the "anything goes" culture of the US is always preferable. (Ofc the US has its own problems)
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Things you don't see publicly in Japan are lots of homelessness, crime, and general bad behavior. It's pretty hard to hide homelessness and (violent) crime.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    There's plenty of homelessness about in Japan, you don't even need to go to somewhere like Nishinari where it's virtually ubiquitous.
    - danielscrubs 4y ago
      "In 2020, the Japanese government’s homeless count was 3,992, making up just .003% of Japan’s population. On the other hand, the United States has a homeless population of about .2% [...] The Advocacy Research Centre for Homelessness, an organization consisting of students and reporters, says that Japan may have a homeless population 2.7 times greater than the government’s statistics..[...] Around 92% of the Japanese homeless are men older than 50. " https://www.borgenmagazine.com/japans-homeless-population/ https://www.borgenmagazine.com/japans-homeless-population/

monting 4y ago

I recently spent 3 months in Tokyo and I have say, that the quality of life, service, food, consumer products, safety, air/noise pollution, are the best I've seen anywhere. It's especially pleasing given that the prices are very low in comparison to other world-class cities. I did, however, witness prices rising during the time I was there. It's hard to see how Tokyo might have been stagnating given the quality of life I witnessed. It saddens me to say this but, I'd visit Taiwan to see what economic stagnation looks like - it feels like time-traveling back to the 90's.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
In the 90s, Taiwan was much poorer than Japan, but its per capita GDP is now at parity with Japan and likely passed it last quarter. Occasionally, I’ll visit an area I knew from 15 years ago and it will feel like a completely different city. In particular, it’s shocking how much better the infrastructure and transportation has gotten. The cities have a lot more green areas interspersed into them also.
- monting 4y ago
  It brings me no joy to say this. Taiwan's numbers looks good on paper (until you dig further), but the reality on the pavement, or lackthereof, is dire. The noise, air, visual pollution are as bad as it was from 30 years ago, maybe worse. Traffic is bad, and salary to cost of living is extreme. Japan's numbers look bad. But its quality of life is one of the best in the world. Has there been progress in infrastructure/housing in Taiwan? Sure, in small areas, such as new housing developments, where all the capital sits, extracting rent or sitting empty, contributing nothing. We need to do better, raise our standards. Otherwise we're going to get left behind even further.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    I would think fear of being blown up by mainland China at any moment is bad for capital investment... meanwhile you have a highly skilled and educated workforce vying to man the capital in the country. I would think that would make labor artificially weak. IMO Taiwan needs world recognition and solid assurances their capital investments won't end up in the opium pipe of some CCP party man. Until then you'd have to be kind of insane to bet the farm providing jobs to Taiwan. Taiwan offers a really easy "gold card" for Americans that I considered getting but I realized what they needed wasn't my labor but lots of foreigners from powerful allies living in the crosshairs to make sure allies will get really really pissed if they get blown up.

Johnny555 4y ago

Wingfield-Hayes is also right to decry the low-productivity menial jobs that Japan has in abundance. Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan I’ve always felt this was a strength of Japan since it ensures employment of even unskilled workers. I remember one time walking near my hotel along a sidewalk in a construction zone, in the USA there'd be a “caution” sign (probably facing the wrong way), but in japan there were live workers at each side of the zone , and they called out a warning to pedestrians to be careful and when a construction truck needed to cross the sidewalk, the workers would physically block the sidewalk to keep pedestrians clear. I’ve noticed around here that more road construction projects have replaced human flaggers with automated traffic lights… almost certainly better for efficiency and productivity, but probably not better for the people that would have done that job otherwise. And maybe this leads to lower salaries in Japan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean low quality of life, I know someone in Japan that’s working as a suit salesman (retail sales, not administrative back office) and he can afford to support a family (stay at home wife plus 3 year old child) and a 2 bedroom apartment. I think that’d be much harder for an American worker selling suits at The Men’s Wearhouse

astrange 4y ago
The excess of safety workers is partly a system to give older people something to do, but is also a cultural hangover from the 60s when Japan had an enormous rate of pedestrian deaths from cars, much worse than the US ever had. (Not sure how that happened, just that it did.)
throwuxiytayq 4y ago
> almost certainly better for efficiency and productivity, but probably not better for the people that would have done that job otherwise. I can’t help but think that giving people jobs that are entirely pointless is to the detriment of everyone (and not even just those involved). You might as well pay those people to stand on the sidewalk and endlessly recite poetry, and then at least they’re getting good at something.
- now__what 4y ago
  Impractical as it may be, the imaginary world where people are paid a living wage to stand on the sidewalk reciting poetry sounds lovely. Imagine being able to sit on a public bench with your neighbors any given day and listen to someone's creative writing! And if this also implies that more people are paid for other artistic endeavors... sign me up :)

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

almost anything related to japan will go to the top of HN. is this a weeb board...

inasio 4y ago

I've dealt with two large Japanese tech corporations that people here have probably heard about. One thing that I found extremely unusual (on both companies) is that many (most?) people in high level roles got rotated every two years or so to completely different parts of the company. Building good relationships and then having to restart from scratch was complicated.

ProfessorLayton 4y ago

I've always wondered what would have happened to Japan if the US forced them to allow EU-style free movement between the two (or more?) countries while they were drafting their new constitution. Please note I'm not suggesting the US should have done that, just noting it wouldn't have been that wildly different than the US and Puerto Rico just a few decades earlier. I'm not a history buff and I'm sure it's way more nuanced than that, just surprised US imperialism didn't swing for the fences like it had done before. Considering the atrocities Japanese-Americans faced during those times I can see why neither party would've been keen on opening up like that, I know.

quartesixte 4y ago
Probably just pure logistics. No one thought of it because getting to Japan in any kind of reasonable time frame was physically impossible. Even today, a flight from the US west coast to Japan is ~11 hours one way and involves losing a day due to the international dateline. So you lose about 3 days just flying back and forth. And costs nearly a thousand dollars for economy class. For most people, it’s not really an easy trip in the same way a hop to Lisbon from London might be. Now imagine that with prop planes.

hogepiyo 4y ago

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 sit right with me.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago
In France it is virtually impossible to function of you do not speak good French. In a company you will miss all the important things that are usually conveyed in casual French (this includes subtleties that change the meaning of a sentence). Yes, people will speak English with you, usually fluently (and with plenty of errors), but this is not the language of choice for the off the record conversations. Outside of work you will get by in supermarkets, but for more complicated shops your will have problems. For the administration it is clear: without being fluent in French there is no way to do anything. Even if you are a native speaker you understand just half of it and hope for the best. People in the street speak English [citation needed] but they will get tired after some time and then the English becomes unbearable. Source: native French married to a foreigner who struggles to understand everything (not to mention the subtleties) after 15 years of active use of the language.
jerryzh 4y ago
I don't get all the replies to this comment. hogepiyo was saying someone who lived for a decade and cannot speak native language does not have enough credit for us to believe his/her comment on the entire country's changes. The fact that people do can live this way does not change this point.
rullelito 4y ago
> 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. You haven't been to Sweden then.
- 4y ago

namaria 4y ago

So much cherry picking ("women workforce participation in Japan is bigger then in the US... surely it can't be that backwards of a country") and ad hominem ("this guy who says Japan is stagnated admits he doesn't even speak Japanese that well"). A lot of time spent on perceptions and very little on hard facts...

wnscooke 4y ago

In my own experience, being a foreigner who (seemingly) doesn't speak a local language actually does open doors to unique insights - the people who do speak English are quite ready to tell all the ins and outs, pros and cons, ups and downs, subtleties, gripes, concerns, cultural tidbits exactly because they think I won't go around talking about what they said.

suction 4y ago
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throwaway290 4y ago
Yes. Being at location for a long time but as an outsider can allow a critical view. Adopting the language and the culture can make you blind to stuff or unwilling to frankly talk about it out of politeness. Assuming in case of BBC correspondent Rupert it's not the same as with a typical foreign English teacher in Asia who doesn't care much about outside world and mostly hangs out in the same circle of foreigner friends (I'm slightly familiar with the culture).
mantas 4y ago
And then you end up as a subculture relying on the host culture, but at the same time staying away with it. Coming from ex-Soviet country, that gives sad vibes of our infamous russian-speaking soviet-era settlers who never bothered to integrate. Nor their kids and grandchildren. In the end it creates a lot of friction and that friction brings very fringe political views. E.g. subscribing to Moscow viewpoints while living cushy life in rotten West. I've seen very similar patterns in english-speaking bubbles in Japan :/
Tade0 4y ago
As someone who often finds himself on the other end of such conversations that's not my worry at all. My worry is that those who normally don't speak foreign languages will get to you first and instill in you a vision of my country that has little to do with reality and a lot with delusions of grandeur.

perryizgr8 4y ago

> Basing wealth on productive assets instead of unproductive land Land that is used for housing or industry is the opposite of "unproductive". In fact, next to intellectual property, I would argue that land is the most valuable asset. I feel if it true that land and house values in Japan always depreciate, we must investigate why. It might tell us the root cause behind the country's decline.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

> In recent years, the Abe administration has adopted major changes that will probably sustain the influx of immigrants. Imagine seeing Japan, a still functioning high civilization, and thinking it needs to import all the west‘s problems. Imagine visiting Paris, and thinking it has improved instead of deteriorated compared to its 1900s version.

suction 4y ago

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flippinburgers 4y ago

It seems disrespectful to not learn the language to a passing degree.

brigandish 4y ago
I might say that if you tried learning it then you'd realise that it's very difficult, but the real reason is that in most cases it's just not worth it. Virtually useless to know outside of the country, and if you're inside you either know it well enough or you have a job that doesn't require it (like all the English teachers and programmers) and enough support to get by without it. I say this as a resident who is grinding his way through the language daily because I want to, but I am aware it's really a bit of waste of time like any other hobby.

0dayz 4y ago

The biggest grip I had with the BBC article is the fact that he bemoans that the ldp party still holds a firm grip on the country. While it us tryr as he says that yes that the LDP party is still a dominating force to be reckon with, the truth is that the opposition had the best election result yet (CDP) and even a progressive party was voted in into the diet. Does it change the status quo? Probably not. But it's a sign that things can change.

nnurmanov 4y ago

Where can I read more on house price depreciating in Japan? It caught my attention, I'd like to learn more

insane_dreamer 4y ago

> during Wingfield-Hayes’ decade in the country, Japan’s immigration policy changed substantially, and he ought to have noticed While gov policies are changing, socially Japan is not very open to foreigners. I have friends who were born there, speak the language perfectly, and they're still _gaijin_, or _hafu_ if they're half-Japanese, and will be til the day they die even if they live in Japan their whole lives. This will take a lot longer to change than government policies.