Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

For reference, I’m from the Netherlands.

I didn’t have any plans to emigrate until my friend introduced me to a small company in Japan that was looking for an engineer.

I applied, but was rejected, so I thought that was that. Then a few months later I got another email. Their initial hire didn’t work out and now they wanted me to join.

I worked remote for about a month while we got the visa process sorted (apparently they needed my actual bachelor diploma in Japan to issue one, so sending that and getting it back was a fun exercise).

Then I moved to Japan. I hadn’t been further than like 1 country over from my home ever before.

To be honest, it wasn’t quite as different as I expected it to be. I didn’t speak the language at all, but western civilization is oddly similar even if the details are different.

After 9 months I was tired of life without my friends, so I said I’ll work remote, and moved back to the Netherlands.

That didn’t quite work out either. While being back was nice, apartments in the Netherlands are expensive (and I wasn’t making so much), so I ended up living with my parents. I’d also grown used to a lot of little conveniences Japan has, and it all added up.

It took me only 4 or 5 months to move back to Japan. I quickly made new friends, and I’ve spent a very happy 8 years here now.

At this point it’s hard to justify moving back because there are no similarly well compensated IC positions in the Netherlands.

> I didn’t speak the language at all, but western civilization is oddly similar even if the details are different.

Never heard Japan being referred to as part of western civilization before.

I think that's just the good old ambiguity of the English language, I read it as: western civilization being oddly similar to Japanese civilisation (I'm a British native, but I don't claim to be any kind of arbiter of the English language!)

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

This interpretation works. It’s certainly the spirit of what I was trying to convey ;)

Similar or arguably higher levels of development, very different culture though.

When I visited I remember going through some gardens and read some history of a emperor who prioritized integrating western civilization practices.

I think it was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration

This included finding knowledge in western civilizations and innovating on them, as well as wearing suits or hats I think. This is in relation to the industrialization era as well.

I was referring to a way of living, as opposed to civilizations in the west. According to the definition that seems wrong, but I can’t think of a better term.

Daily life in Japan is practically similar to life in Europe. The rituals for buying food, going to restaurants, greeting one another. I’m not sure why I expected it to be different, but it wasn’t.

That is only the external life/rituals (as in, mainly outside the house and office) and I guess, a fairly small part (importance-wise) of their daily life, though. A lot of the rest of it may be quite different from Western, going by books and articles I've read. Even some of their values are different (family, work, etc.) Not passing any judgement either way here.

Have you been here recently? House prices are going absolutely crazy. To the point where there needs to be come intervention or policy to limit the size of the bubble.

You're a chip designer? There may very well be movement in your area in the coming years in the EU - the EU want to build their silicon capabilities in the coming decade.

Yeah, house prices are fun in the Netherlands.

In my desired area they’re roughly similar to central Tokyo, so it’s not terrible in terms of price. But that’s in farming village nowhere as opposed to the center of the largest metropolis on earth. I can’t quite reconcile those two things.

Unfortunately I’m a developer. The Netherlands has quite enough high quality ones I think.

>looking for an "engineer"

Are you a software developer or the other (traditional engineering, like civil, mechanical, ...) kind of engineer?

>because there are no similarly well compensated IC positions in the Netherlands

>IC

Individual Contributor, I guess you mean

Do you mean that Japan pay is higher than NL pay for the same position?

Japan was known to have low salaries in tech. Has this changed nowadays?

You can very easily earn 100k USD in Tokyo if you're half decent.

At a selection of like 20 companies in total. 15 of which are likely inaccessible unless you are close to native Japanese.

I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but definitely possible.

What is the salary difference? Japan isn't so cheap either right?

Mostly it’s income tax, which is 43% until around 180k in Japan but 51% from 80k in the Netherlands.

Japan isn’t necessarily cheap (though childcare is), but there’s a wide range of options. The Netherlands has sort of settled on one default, but is now slowly making that default (family home) impossible to achieve for the average (and if things keep going like this, even above average) person.

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