* Overall it's a very affordable place and people are friendly by default.
* It is a free world Country if you care about freedom
* People take privacy seriously as parts of their daily matters, minimal data share. (unsure about the lucrative advertising business, please enligh)
* Comfortable level of tech, you can say it's low tech, but they got all the details right, and experience is great. (No aggresive behavior analysis, rare ily seen QR code for menu/ordering)
And some realities to offset the love: (Ordered low to high on impact, by personal feelings)
* Unfair compensations, a large majority of companies pays their employees in a Nenko System, basically your salary increments by the x years of service inside the company
* HIGH welfare tax, Nenkin will take away around 10% of your PRETAX income.
* Language, I love this Country and I would like to learn their culture and their language
* Etiquette, the Japanese way of daily routinal interactions are very much formulated, you can take vantage of that when you are fresh off boat and trying to do basic things like shopping and lodging. But say if your goal is to integrate into their society, it's going to be a long painful journey for the talented. I got a few friends spent better half of their lives in Japan who just gave up on becoming Japanese. One of which quitted so well that he occasionally violates social norms.
Bottom line: you will need a strong incentive to stay in Japan and start/move your family here, and your first experiences won't be good. So why would foreigners stay if it's next to impossible to become local. If you are doing well enough in the Country you are already within, then you definitely would miss it and go back.
At that point it won't really be Japan anymore, and where will you go?
That sounds like an exceptionally fair compensation system to be honest.
As a citizen of a country where a lot of foreigners move in, it's not great. And we have nowhere the level of quality of life of Japan to fall from.
It’s also going to be another disincentive to migration. A specialist with 20 years in a field isn’t going to move there with their whole family and take a new job for graduate money.
You could become naturalized there, but you will never be Japanese, and you will never be treated as an equal.
I don't know what the Japanese system is like, but the point is that there are multiple variables to take into account. Length of contribution, type (tax rate and pre or post, or flat) + amount of contribution, when you qualify to receive it, recipient stipulations (can you work or not, does the rate change, does the age change, etc).
Based on some back of envelop comparisons from my little research of the Japanese system (what wikipedia provides, since I can't read Japanese); it would seem that the US system is a little fairer (or, at least, generally equivalent) for W2 employees: a lower rate and contribution requirement [6.2% vs 10%], with a shorter term requirement [35 vs 40 years] but a slightly lower payout at a later age [4.5kusd@70 vs 5.5kusd@65] with a lower overall tax burden [nominal 17% vs flat 25%]. But both are a fair bit better than the Irish system. Please feel free to correct me if those are off, however.
Even those are just assumptions based on you making no private retirement contributions and you working a white collar job and then going full state pensioner at the full retirement age. If any variables change, it can drastically effect the payout/taxrate. So it's almost impossible to fully compare.
No, a country is just a landmass, and when "Japanese become the minority" that would be a problem solved (the problem being entitled people from outside the country wanting in).
Local population can be relegated to a minority and what makes Japan alluring today will still exist just fine. There's nothing about a particular people, with a particular culture, and a particular approach, having built a country of a particular outlook.
Besides, we can improve the norms we don't like. And of course, we totally deserve to live there, after all we've watched all these anime and ate so much sushi...
No one should value their own culture and history, every culture should be open to being destroyed.
Except Islam for some reason. They get to keep their culture, otherwise you are an islamophobe.
Promoting bullying and exclusion —- part and parcel to indigenous Japanese society — is a bad idea that should be relegated.
Do you as, for example an LGBTQ culture person not have the right to exclude a Nazi? By your definitions they don’t because exclusion = bad
- Japan becomes an almost empty and stateless or only having a nominal state, landmass with very little population and no functioning economy (no transport network, no electricity grid etc). Unlikely - it's climate is too good.
- It gets militarily taken over as soon it's too weak to defend itself. Likely but undesirable because you don't get to pick who takes you over and that will be by definition someone hostile.
- Immigration and replacement. This is the most beneficial of the realistic options. Because you get to pick the people who replaces you.
Can people in other societies have a say about what they want in the matter in their own society, or your also prefer the norms of you and your society imposed upon everybody?
("I like multiculturalism, as long as every country has the same cultural mindset as mine").
>From that I’m sure you can guess my own nationality.
Is it one where foreigners massacred and replaced the native population, took their land, relegated them to specific areas, and even took their children and closed them in camps? I guess those natives were xenophobic too.
Would you feel "bullied" if an Amazon native population wants to keep their ways, and doesn't welcome you or anybody else coming over and wanting to join them?
Are people you don't know demanding to stay at your house "bullied" and "excluded" when you don't just let them in?
What if they're "good people"? Should they just get a room then? What if you have a couple of extra rooms you don't use?
Of course people in other societies should have a say in what they want in the matter of their own society. I just prefer they come to the same conclusion mine has, since it’s the superior one in many respects. (Not all aspects, of course — there is no “perfect culture” or “perfect system”; all of them have downsides in some aspect)
>From that I’m sure you can guess my own nationality. Is it one where foreigners massacred and replaced the native population, took their land, relegated them to specific areas, and even took their children and closed them in camps? I guess those natives were xenophobic too.
The genocide of the peoples indigenous to North America is a black mark in the history of the United States, as is slavery. Neither has been adequately remedied, and I’m unsure it ever will be. The US has a lot of work to do on both of these fronts.
From my understanding, that is essentially what you are advocating, just with a different landmass. To me, it seems incredibly colonialist.
* People are friendly by default
This can be a common mistake made by tourists (or short time visitors). There is a difference between polite for money, cultural fake politeness, and actually more friendly and welcoming than average. Hotel staff can be very polite (as trained to be for money), but that doesn't mean random people on the street, clubs, housing agents, or business owners actually like every or any foreigners. And the extent of politeness or friendliness shown can depend on skin color, known country of origin, or language spoken.
* Very affordable place
This is quite laughable. It depends on your salary and where you are from, but clearly there are cheaper countries in the world than Japan. If you are rich or nearly so, many countries are "affordable".
* Non-free Country versus free world Country
Freedom is relative. For instance, in Japan, police can arrest, question/interrogate (some have claimed torture) you, and hold you for weeks without a lawyer (nor allow you to call one). Compared to other countries, this is quite draconian and backwards. Where for others, that there is any process where you aren't killed at whim or have no to little means to seek true justice, means greater "freedom".
* Comfortable level of tech
While this is quite true, Japan is not the only country that possesses significant technology. The level of street cleanliness, sewer system (like open sewers), garbage collection (dropped on street or in cans), design and width of city streets, safe train systems (protecting passengers from falling/jumping onto tracks), etc... These points all add up and how "comfortable", can be a matter of where you are from and what you were used to.
To some degree, this isn't a bad idea. For example, I abhor female genital mulitaliton (FGM) and I don't think it's particularly wrong to say that regardless of it being the "culture" of some people, it shouldn't be done.
If I weren't a moral nihilist, I certainly wouldn't be a moral relativist.
Why shouldn't I? You don't get to dictate how I "get" to feel. The very idea of racism and xenophobia is fundamentally offensive to me. As with the Amazon native population, I would not approve if they didn't let me in by virtue of some immutable attribute of mine such as my appearance.
So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more.
I'm not aware of any moral theory that has been justified in academia or elsewhere which prescribes that such discrimination is permissible. This also is evidenced by the fact that many Japanese people claim to abhor racism while simultaneously practicing it against sections of their own population and other populations.
I lived in Japan for a year until June 2023 and I agree with OP. It obviously depends on your salary -- Japanese people's is pretty low compared to expats -- but Tokyo is still pretty cheap compared to even Geneva or Paris. Restaurants are cheap (compared to anywhere in Europe), groceries is not that expensive and cinemas are nothing compared to where I live. What offset this are accommodation and fruits (yeah, they're very expensive).
Outside of big cities? Don't even get me started, you get all this plus cheap rent and could even have local-grown fruits and vegetables. I actually plan to retire to Japan if I ever live this long.
> Freedom is relative [...]
I agree with your on that point. Police is at worst corrupt and at best useless in this country. I'm actually of the firm belief that if they were better trained, crime in Japan would "rise" (as in "statistically there would be more crime") because more of it would be discovered or reported.
This practice has produced an entire lost generation called “Hikkikomori,” Japanese people who were excluded from Japanese society so completely that they don’t even leave their homes. Some of them are entirely dependent on their aging parents for their subsistence, including shelter and food.
That says nothing of gay people, whose presence is tolerated at best.
When it comes to foreigners, they are welcomed as tourists and guest workers, but there will always be places and aspects of society that they will never be welcome in.
This is exclusion for no other reason than xenophobia. Even a person who learns the language, practices the customs, pays taxes and follows the laws will not be accepted in Japan.
What you’re hitting at in your response is “The paradox of tolerance.” To arrive at the paradox of tolerance, a society has to have a sufficient level of tolerance. Japan simply doesn’t.
When I say this is “bad,” I mean this is in two ways. First, it violates my principles of tolerance for good faith actors — a set of values shared broadly in the west, to varying degrees and with a lot of asterisks. Secondly, it’s bad for Japan. In a situation where your demographics are decades into terminal decline, the ability to integrate foreigners is the only option to continue to being a going concern. The breakdown of their society without foreign integration will be catastrophic.
Is this colonialism? It’s certainly a cultural change.
The mixing of people and ideas through trade and migration has resulted in the fastest decline in mortality and poverty in human history. Cultures open to new ideas have benefitted the most.
I guess one has to see enough really hard working highly educated intelligent young people in a place that also houses slacking geezers who managed to learn nothing over decades. They are basically sitting there waiting for others to earn their living. If it is a national thing you wont have the endless flow of new hires who cant wait to get the f out of there.
Japan will never want more foreigners in the country. Even if the population shrinks substantially. And it's a right thing to do - a lot of cogs in japanese society rotate well only when all links use same predicaments. It will never work with foreginers en masse.
They rather lock the country again like Tokugawa did long time ago. As I am getting older, I support the decision to protect society from destructive traits that come with western societies more and more.
Reminds me of some (Dutch) people who made a chart of % taxation (including every kind) vs income by using real world data... It came out like white noise. Apparently if you make as many rules as possible to make it all as fair as possible you end up with the lamest possible system - even worse than a lottery.
Now, you could totally question the link between these two. And you’d be right to! There’s no absolute link between “restrictive personal expression” and “low crime and high safety.” Japan, for one, has pretty punitive laws, including the death penalty. That probably plays a role. It’s all super complex, which is what makes it interesting… and why sharing ideas is critical to improving conditions for individuals, especially marginalized ones.
And yet! Singapore is consistently ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world. This contradicts the common western association of personal liberty correlating with happiness.
Cultural relativism is more useful in understanding why some people from different cultures behave the way they do, and examining if wither rejection of that behavior is based on a logical, beneficial value, or whether it’s based on the natural impulse to reject something foreign. Mistaken beliefs prevent cultural progress. Beliefs should be open to challenge.
I know you are going to say that’s not the case in the modern world, but you need to at least understand there are very concrete reasons why xenophobia evolved, and why it’s a natural reaction. Some might not be relevant in the modern world, but I’d argue there’s a lot of complexity that we might not understand.
For example, there are some extremely intolerant immigrants to Europe right now, 100% of whom in London polled as wanting homosexuality criminalised.
Should everyone be 100% accepting of this because they are foreigners? Is xenophobia justified in this case in your opinion?
Let's see birthrate forecast graph by govt https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2zKUeHVoAA3ufi?format=jpg&name=...
Oh, but buckle up my friend, because Japan isn’t an outlier. It’s ahead of the curve for a majority of the world’s societies.
The OP might not be, but their children / grand children would be. This is nothing new.
If I compare the US (assuming it's your country) and Japan, in anything from crime and safety, to cleanliness, community cohesion, politiness, cuisine, nature, and art, I found it deeply inferior, when contrasting results.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/japan-mixed-roots-hafu-d...
What does this mean?
The US is indeed more dynamic, but as has often been pointed out, that's partly due to coming into existence with a continent's worth of very lightly defended resources only a few hundred years ago. If you win a huge lottery jackpot you will probably enjoy a very comfortable life afterwards, but it doesn't mean you became brilliant at economics.
No, but logic and society and experiences gets to dictate (even if in a slightly fuzzy what) what makes sense to feel.
Otherwise, feelings are like a*holes. Everybody has one.
>So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more.
They don't want people merely having "made an effort to learn their culture" to immigrate in their country in any great numbers. They prefer people having grown into their culture - that is, their own people.
It's through this organic process (as opposed to some bro watching anime and watching documentaries about sushi and samurai swords who feels they've "made an effort to learn the culture") that they preserve their culture, their social cohesion, their customs, their safety, and other such aspects.
It is, of course, a white invention, as we feel morally superior enough to do all the bossing around. Let's call it the "white man's burden" to show those people how it should be done.
Foreign/multinational organizations coming to dictate to the "natives" even how to deficate, for "their own good"? Sounds like it.
Colonialism is not just about "bad intentions". There were colonialists with "good intentions" too. They also thought they were doing "god's work", building railroads, teaching the brute natives how to live, and so on. The "white man's burden" they called it.
In the case of Japan, Americans threatened and even bombed them (in the 19th century) to teach them how they should live: to force them open their borders to western trade. The same entitlement apparently never stopped.
You've used this strawman previously in this thread; perhaps it would be better if you elucidated what elements of culture you're actually referring to.
>They don't want people merely having "made an effort to learn their culture" to immigrate in their country in any great numbers.
Who is "they"? I feel like you're ascribing very specific opinions to people who I suspect would be perfectly happy with law-abiding immigrants who don't hold parties at 3 a.m.
>They prefer people having grown into their culture - that is, their own people.
Is this even true? And to what degree? For example, there are cases of non-ethnically Japanese people who were born and raised in Japan, but still face challenges with discrimination, whereas immigrants of Japanese ancestry from America only seem to face issues with language. There's even a politician who immigrated to Japan and was elected by Japanese people: https://www.japan-zone.com/modern/tsurunen_marutei.shtml - in what way was someone who grew up in Japan preferred?
You may argue that these are minor examples and exceptions, but even one example is enough to show that these feelings are not based on logic or probability, but on mere gut feeling when one encounters someone different.
Cultural assimilation can happen to varying degrees and varying time frames with mixed results; the degree to which it is successful is also dependent on how accomodating or welcoming that particular culture is.