Please ignore if any of these are too uncomfortable or invasive.
Fluent in Japanese: There is a difference between fluency and proficiency. I am very fluent in Japanese. If I want to say something, I open my mouth and the words come out. If someone is talking to me, I understand what they are saying -- unless I don't, in which case I ask them to explain and then I do. I'm not very proficient in Japanese in that the average 10 year old speaks better than me, understands more, etc, etc. I can read relatively well -- street signs, menus, comic books, novels aimed at junior high school students, and I can struggle through a newspaper if I have to. But (and I'm incredibly ashamed to admit this), I can't write a lick. I used to be able to, but I haven't actually done it in so long that I can barely write my own name. Crazy, isn't it?
Discrimination at work: I currently own my own consulting company and do contracts for foreign companies. I'm currently on a very long term contract with a UK company. When I first came to Japan, I intended only to come for 1 year to learn Japanese (ha ha! one year... so naive). I taught English at a high school. I fell in love with Japan and this area and decided to stay. I taught English for 5 years and it was fantastic (highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity).
So the only opportunity I've had for discrimination at work was at the school. Keep in mind that I was on a year to year contract and I was an "Assistant Language Teacher", which means that I was on the bottom rung with no career advancement possible. Nothing to do with where I came from, just you need actual teaching credentials to advance ;-). Also in a public high school (where I was teaching), you need to get your teaching license which is ridiculously hard (basically, you need to know everything that is taught in high school for every subject, and you need to have a university level understanding in your specialised subject). I could easily pass the English tests (even the grammar!) and the interviews, but there is no way I could pass the general test (remember, I can't even write my own name!). So there's a filter there and in the history of Shizuoka prefecture there have only been 2 foreigners who have passed the high school teaching license -- both Chinese (I checked). It's actually a dream of mine to pass the license even though I'm too old now to realistically teach in a high school by the time I could pass.
Having said all that, I worked with some magnificent people and I worked with some horrible people. Now, normally I'm not that judgemental about people, but the school I worked in is very near the bottom of the school system (schools are ranked) and so the worst teachers are sent there to be reformed. This means that you get some real stinkers, but that the principal and vice principal are usually quite good because they have to deal with these horrible teachers. Next step in your career past that school if you are on the way down is to get fired (and that's incredibly hard to do in the school system).
So like I said, I worked with some people who I have to say rank as some of the worst examples of humanity that I have ever met in my life. They were petty, vindictive, mean... Let me just give you an example. One person I worked with hated one of the students. I don't know why. He was a nice guy, but she just hated him for some reason. She tried to get him kicked off of the baseball team. For no reason. Just because she hated him. He complained to the principal and the principal asked everybody in the department (including me) what the deal was. We all said that she's just crazy and so the guy was allowed to stay on the baseball team (and the teacher was lectured -- you have no idea how long... maybe 8-10 hours!) So this poor guy was having a hard time at home and one day his mother threw him off the second floor balcony of their apartment. Luckily he didn't die, but he broke his arm. The school intervened and offered to set up a foster home for him, or if he wanted they would find an apartment for him and set him up with a job with a local company (quitting school). He chose the latter since school wasn't going well for him either. That teacher started crowing the next day how she was right about him and what scum he was since he gave up on school. Complete nutcase.
Anyway long story short... in 5 years of working even with people like that, I was never involved in any discrimination at work. On he contrary, people often complimented me on picking up "the Japanese way" and doing things appropriately. Which is not to say that I've never experienced discrimination in Japan -- I have, but never at work (YMMV, of course). The worst discrimination I've received in Japan were from expats who complained that I enjoyed Japan too much, spoke too much Japanese and hung out with too many Japanese people. "They'll never accept you, you know. You should just be yourself." On the contrary, those people never accepted me and I was being myself. My Japanese friends were perfectly happy for me to be whoever I wanted to be. I had one incident where the husband of a friend of mine refused to speak to me ever. I could never figure out why until my friend said, "I'm sorry. He doesn't like Europeans". Which floored me, but... I know lots of people in Canada and the UK who don't like "brown people", so it was an interesting experience to be on the other side.
Is this a place where I would be happy to be for the rest of my life, to start a family and retire: Yes. Absolutely no question. This is my home. I'm a bit old to be having kids (I'm 50), but I got married here. My wife is Japanese and we met while I was teaching here. My wife's family is amazing and I've had absolutely no problems at all. My mother in law refers to me as her son and often introduces me that way. Sometimes people do a double take, but nobody has ever said anything (they are Japanese after all!).
When I go travelling with my wife, foreigners are supposed to give their passport or foreigner registration card to the hotel so that they can make a photocopy of it. But given that my wife and I speak Japanese together and I'm perfectly at home here, I think most people assume I'm a naturalised citizen. I have an accent when I speak (which people kindly say is not that bad), so it's obvious I'm not from here originally.
Somewhat strangely, I'm not even a permanent resident yet. After I got married, my wife wanted to see what it's like to live in a foreign country, so we went off to the UK for 2 years. That reset my counter. I'm not actually sure when I can apply, but I think I can probably do it soon. Due to British ancestry I can work in the UK, but if I get Japanese citizenship, I'll have to give that up. My wife's mother is getting older (in her 80's) and while it's hard to think about, after she passes away we might go back to the UK for a while. However, when we are done travelling, I will definitely apply for citizenship. In fact, I'm always worried that something will happen, or the rules will change or something like that and it's very tempting to do it now. But yes, this is home for me and hopefully this is where I'll retire.
Hope that rambling account was interesting for you. I've lived in 4 countries in my life: Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. All have advantages and disadvantages. All have challenges. I fit in here better than I fit in anywhere else. Not everybody is like that. Some people (many, many people to be perfectly frank) do not like living here at all. You have to become Japanese if you want to be treated as a Japanese person. If you are not willing to do that, then it can be very difficult to live here long term. However, if you only want to live here for a year or two, then it's no problem at all (and in fact, can be considerably easier).
Setting up a company in Japan is fairly expensive. The rules have changed in the last few years and there are some cheaper alternatives, but there are a lot of tax implications, so it's important to weigh the options. I went for 株式会社 (or a corporation), which is the most expensive option. My main reason is because I originally intended to do contracts in Japan and a corporation was much more normal when I started the company. Also, I had a buddy that was going to work with me and I might have needed to sponsor a visa for him. But life got in the way and that didn't end up happening... So I've ended up with a more flexible, but slightly more expensive situation. In the end I think I spent about 40万円 (about $4K) setting up and I think the accountant costs me about 15万円 ($1500) per year (which is an incredible bargain -- he easily pays for himself).
I'm in a good situation in that my wife is both CEO and chairman of the board for my company. In truth, I'm not even an officer of the company. My wife has no other job and handles all the business for the company. I can concentrate completely on programming. This was a serendipitous situation which I didn't actually plan.
In Japan, for a family business, family members can only work full time and have to be paid market rate for their work. My wife didn't want to continue her previous job (care worker in a retirement home), so we wanted her to work for the company. The problem was what job... I was going to train her to be a web designer and then take some small contracts making web pages in the area, etc. However, it turns out that the job of CEO has no defined duties and no defined pay range. So we made her that and it's been a godsend. She deals with all the filling in of forms and talking with the city hall, etc, etc, etc. Probably it would be good for me to be doing that stuff from the perspective of learning Japanese, but I think it would be stressful.
So, my second advice if you want to do that and you don't have a similar situation, and you aren't confident of your Japanese is to hire a business manager. In truth, if (for example) you don't have a visa for Japan and want to sponsor your own visa as a business person, you need to hire a Japanese resident as a business manager anyway.
But anyway, the actual process of setting up the company wasn't too bad. You need to talk to a lawyer that specialises in setting up businesses (I forget the name, sorry). They tell you exactly what you need to do. There is a fair amount of paperwork and you have to buy some expensive hanko (stamps that you use instead of signatures), but not so bad. After that a tax accountant can tell you all of the things you need to do. Like I said, though, talk to the tax accountant first because which options you go for when setting up the company can have pretty far reaching effects with money (especially what you can and can not deduct, or how much you have to pay for retirement and health insurance funds).
If you need to sponsor your own visa, then you also need to talk to immigration. There is a website somewhere on the government pages. When I was thinking of sponsoring my buddy, they bent over backwards to help me on the phone. If you aren't in Japan now, you can talk to the embassy where you are and they will put you in touch with someone. It may cost some money to have them consult with you, but I don't know how much (in some cases they waive the fee and I don't know what the rules are). You need a minimum of 500万円 (about $50K) in capital to sponsor your own visa, but it depends on salaries, etc, etc. Basically the company needs to prove that it can provide for you. Also, you might need to keep in mind that there is a surtax on capital in a company (0.1% IIRC), so you will actually need slightly more than they say, because the payment of tax is not counted in the capitalisation of the company (and I don't even think it's an expense :-P).
Ah, the other headache is getting bank account, believe it or not. Banks do not like setting up accounts for new businesses. We went to a couple of banks and they turned us down. Eventually a local bank that my wife had an account with previously accepted us. But don't think you'll get any credit. We asked to get a corporate credit card and they actually laughed in our faces (in Japan!) Years later we still don't have one.
We've come up with a series of hacks to save money with the banks. One of the internet banks has a really good rate on currency exchange (incoming only) for personal accounts. So we set up a personal account just for the company and all the money is funnelled through there. I think it costs us about 1 yen per GBP on the exchange rate, which is practically free. We then do all of our banking in cash -- take all the money out from the ATM, walk over to the other bank, deposit the money. Stupid, but you do what you have to do. Banks are crazy here.
That's about all I can think of right now. I guess the only other thing if you decide to set up a company is to allocate enough time. It took us about a month to get everything done and I think that was fairly quick. YMMV.
I've heard from a Japanese-American girl that moved back to Japan around age 9 that living growing up there as a woman was terrible, especially having been exposed to the relatively egalitarian American society.
To answer your question, I'd have no problem raising children of any gender here. I also really like the school system, which I found a lot better than what I grew up with in Canada. Again, very different -- you need to know where you are going by the time you are applying to high school, but then the kids are raised to understand that.
I don't really know what to tell you. Usually people from one culture have aspects of it that they think are really good. Other people from other cultures may actually have a completely different point of view of it. In some ways women in the US (and Canada) are in a situation where it's actually difficult to take on the same role that their mothers or grandmothers did. I've had American colleagues lecture Japanese students about how they absolutely should not waste their lives with the goal of being a stay at home care taker. When I asked those same colleagues if they would say the same thing to a boy who wanted to be a stay at home care giver, they said "Of course not" -- apparently not aware of the double standard.
This is the kind of culture clash that I see, especially between American people and Japanese people. Both sides see their point of view as being absolutely correct. For Japanese women, feminism is generally considered to be a dirty word. It's not that they don't want fair treatment, but they find the way that it is pushed as being completely alien to their culture -- to the point of being morally wrong.
Long story short, a Japanese girl does not have the same values as an American girl. Neither does a Japanese boy have the same values as an American boy. And while both sides will defend their moral choices, they are dramatically different. If you raise your children in Japan to be Japanese they will generally be happy -- I rarely see unhappy children where I live (male or female). The same goes in America. Mix and match? That's where you can get into a lot of trouble.
I hope that answers your question. It's a super difficult one to answer because there are a lot of unspoken assumptions. In many ways Japanese culture is literally morally wrong when taken in the context of American view points. The opposite is also true, as hard as it is for both sides to recognise. I'm in the middle where I can see and understand both, but it's hard to respond to questions (from either side) without evoking hatred. The one thing that American culture and Japanese culture has in common is that they are both intensely moral cultures. There is a right and a wrong and very little middle ground. The problem is that what's right and what's wrong is often very different.
A lot of people can get around without speaking Japanese, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll get a much more meaningful and deeper experience out of living here if you can converse with everyone. Randomly stopping and bullshitting with a bored old guy for an hour can be quite fun!
Sadly the developer pay here is pretty dismal, even more so if you come with US expectations. I’ve mentioned this before when it comes up, but the IT sector has organically migrated to a 10am-7pm schedule, so if you factor in commuting and the inevitable overtime then the only time you get to yourself are weekends. Taking multiple days off is frowned upon, although as a foreigner you get a little leniency because you are probably spending two days flying when you visit family.
That all said, it is an extremely convenient country to live in. Great public transportation, great food, friendly people, low crime rates, social health insurance, etc. I really love the living aspect of Japan.
I have a wife and child, and while I could imagine myself living here indefinitely, career wise it’s a dead end - they have trouble fitting you into their social structure. If you are perfectly happy with being a cog in the wheel (or carry your team on your back), and mostly work to live, then it probably isn’t that bad of a choice. I’d definitely encourage anyone closer to 20 than 40 to give it a shot, living abroad is an amazing experience.
That said, I’ll finally be heading back to the US in a couple months once visas clear. The 40-60 age gap is right in front of me, and retirement is taking a stronger grasp on the mind. Much easier to consider options in a higher paying English speaking developer job.
Also, super +1 on the bored old guy thing :-) Best part of my day (although I'm rapidly becoming the bored old guy...)
If you have any level of experience I'm sure a company would interview you and take you in, especially if you speak the language.
America isn't on the list; public transit is terrible, food is expensive, and health insurance is ridiculous. It's a bad place to raise children and a bad place to retire unless you want to move to a backwards southern state.
For me, I'm thinking pretty seriously about exploring options in living abroad, and Japan and Western Europe easily top the list, but the cost of living in Japan seems like it's quite a bit lower as long as you don't expect an American lifestyle. The lack of crime in Japan should make it quite possible to live in low-cost places, whereas in America and to some extent Europe living in low-cost places exposes you to much more crime.
I had basically no truly "negative" experiences based on my race. I am fluent (understand 95% - 98% of what's going on, including complex convos about tech stacks and so on (I work in software engineering).
Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand, but as soon as I reply in Japanese they talk to me like they would a normal Japanese person. One could consider this a "negative" experience (why judge whether I can speak Japanese based on my skin colour??) but I don't think they have negative intentions, so I don't take it personally.
I think living here without speak good Japanese would be a pretty mediocre experience. There are tons of awesome tech meets all the time, but noone speaks English. Living here but not being able to live with the people here would be a pretty lacking experience, you would really miss what makes Japan Japan (the people and culture).
I would be happy to raise a family here (I don't think I will, but I wouldn't be against it either). At least until high school age. The Japanese university system does seem nearly as good as my country (Australia), though, so I would my kids to study overseas. I think Japan is a safe place and good environment to raise a family, and has an excellent healthcare system.
One thing I noticed is developer salaries (at least if you work in a regular Japanese company, like me) are very low - I earn 50% of what my friends back home do). Maybe if you work at a company with many ex-pats you can have a higher salary.
I'm a software engineer in an American tech company's Tokyo office with 1 yoe and have around ¥13M total comp.
I'm glad to hear you're happy but I hope you try to move to a company that will pay you what you're worth. For a software engineer and team leader, that's way more than ¥5M.
Glad you found a good position with a solid salary! Good engineers who speak English and Japanese are hard to come by, get your languages skills up a hit and you’ll be able to work anywhere you want.
Culture info (English): https://www.cyberagent.co.jp/en/way/culture/
This has changed in recent years. At least in the prefecture I live in (Aichi), and where I've traveled outside Tokyo, people just start talking to me in Japanese. 15 years ago, when I lived in Japan for 15 months, it would happen that they'd first try English or I'd feel they were hesitant to speak Japanese to me (but still did).
But since I moved to Japan again 5 years ago, nothing of the sort. They start in Japanese without batting an eye. I think that's because there are way more foreigners living here than there used to, and they tend to talk Japanese. And in non touristy places, there are probably more foreigners who speak Japanese than not.