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Comment by raziel414 | Hacker News Reader

I'm an American living in Tokyo, and it easily has the best quality of life out any city I've lived in.

- The public transit is literally the best I've ever seen, both in America or Europe. The main train line in Tokyo (the Yamanote line) stops at my local station ever 2-3 minutes during peak hours, and around every 5-7 minutes during the off hours.

- The streets are clean, safe, and well maintained. Unlike cities I've seen in America and Europe, garbage doesn't pile up in the streets.

- Service workers, partially in the government, have been friendly and helpful. Even when I didn't speak the language well, I've never had trouble at the government office getting something done.

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It’s interesting to me that my wife, who is Japanese, believes that in truth Japanese people are very unhelpful and unkind - she says that the politeness and helpfulness is a show that people do for foreigners as guests, but rarely show to one another. I think she’s exaggerating a bit, but there’s some truth to the different standards for different people.

My experience was that people follow the politeness “script” very well but don’t actually go out of their way to think of or help others. Part of it is there’s no cultural middle ground: either you’re ignoring someone or you’re going to work 90 hours a week to pay for their dialysis, nothing in between (okay, an exaggeration). It’s different. In the end, people are people so you can squeeze the toothpaste on one end, but it has to bulge out on the other to compensate.

Tokyo is one of the worst places I’ve visited. The people there are so fake. They don’t help you because they want to. They feel obligated to help.

But wow if you get out of Tokyo, people are so nice and friendly. Kyoto is my absolute favourite place. People are so kind and helpful and friendly, and they want to help you and recommend places to visit or eat at etc.

This sounds like you were just trying to confirm a preconceived bias against Tokyo, or maybe are extrapolating from circumstances that are very different. There’s no way Tokyo is the least friendly place in the world and Kyoto the most. I’ve lived in both and the people aren’t nearly that different.

Actually I visited Tokyo thinking it was going to be amazing. I was so excited to go to Tokyo. It really wasn’t all that everyone made it out to be. I was very disappointed.

Kyoto is just an example as it’s my favourite place I’ve visited. But pretty much everyone outside of Tokyo is a billion times better than those in Tokyo.

Edit: also I said one of the worst places I’ve visited. I didn’t say most unfriendly.

I lived in Fukuoka (and other areas in Kyushu) for a while, have visited Tokyo a number of times, and have also visited Kyoto. They’re all certainly different cities in various ways, but my experience has been that just like anywhere else in the world there are friendly, kind people in all three. I have a dear, kind, generous friend who lives in Tokyo (and is Japanese). Tokyo is definitely a big city with a lot of busy people, but it’s also my favorite city in the world by far.

the art of display dislike by indistinguishable way of Kyoto people is very famous in Japan. even people from other Japan city is difficult to understand they whether is angry...

Yeah I am thinking about the possibility too...

Tokyo is a large sprawling collection of 'centers'.. you're going to have to be more specific.

The local post office in a Setagaya suburb and the ticket office for the ferry in Asakusa are going to be worlds apart.

Perhaps if they’d claimed that “Tokyo is the least friendly place in the world and Kyoto the most” I’d understand your reply, but what they actually wrote was quite different:

> Tokyo is one of the worst places I’ve visited

and

> Kyoto is my absolute favourite place

Are people’s personal experiences now to be conflated with claims of an objective nature? I’m not sure why you would do that but it’s no better than a straw man.

> They don’t help you because they want to. They feel obligated to help.

Wow, what kind of logic is that? Someone is doing X and you are deciding their reasons for them?

Maybe someone is tired and still going out of their way to help you, but you choose to view it as insincerity.

Sounds like you are projecting your insecurities on to others, or got treated as less of celebrity than you were looking forward to (a common thing among Westerners visiting Japan). Judging people for helping you, really?

So let's ignore that Japan teaches Etiquette and Manners in school and that's part of the reason they are friendly and polite.

Let's look at any country in Asia. If you're lost, and you see a couple of people just chit-chatting with each other, in no hurry. You approach them and ask them for directions. The vast majority of the time they are more than willing to help, and in my experience, I haven't had someone not try to help. Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Indonedia, Taiwan... Now do the same in Tokyo, the majority of the time they don't want to help, were rude, walk away, get flustered even if you try to speak Japanese instead of English.

Yet you go to any other part of Japan and this is not the case.

You're telling me that because Tokyo is the 1 place in Asia I've visited where people tend to be rude, agitated, flustered, walk away, etc. That I'm the problem because I'm a westerner visiting Japan. Even tho talking to my Japanese co-workers who say "oh this is just Tokyo, we are just too busy here". Nope I'm a westerner and I'm the problem.

I've literally had Tokyo people go 10-15 minutes out of their way to help me find where I was going and so have several of my friends. Sounds like you just has a bad experience. It's not the norm.

But this is my point about them feeling obligated to help you. In Tokyo they are so strict about working. You cannot leave 5 seconds before lunch time and you can’t arrive 5 seconds after lunch time. If you ask the wrong person for assistance they may help you but they aren’t genuine about it. This is not the experience outside of Tokyo.

> https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-worker-punished-for...

Whether it’s genuine or not is a personal non-objective opinion. It all comes down to whether they actually helped you or not. I can think of tens of countries around the world where they would completely ignore you in a similar situation; this is way rarer in Japan.

Possibly most of the people in Tokyo aren’t even originally Tokyoites. They’re random people from other cities living there for a couple years for the big city experience and decent work. There’s nothing intrinsically unique about their culture and personality, compared to, say, people born and raised on a small island and who’ve never left.

Your experience is definitely very uncommon. I’ve been to Tokyo countless times and they’re not any different than the small town I currently live in in Japan. If anything, you probably talked to some people who are way too used to tourists asking them for “directions” then trying to turn it into a chance to hook up—way too many people try this and some people have learned to just avoid tourist-looking types, especially women.

I’ve had consistently the polar opposite experience. Tokyo people treat me fairly normal, but in Kyoto, people will absolutely insist upon broken English and ignoring what I’m saying despite speaking to them in Japanese. They’ll also look to others near me when I’m talking, waiting for them to translate my Japanese to…their Japanese?

I don’t have this experience elsewhere. I think Kyoto folks are just burnt out on tourists and many shut down when they see a foreign face. Not all people in Kyoto have this problem, but I’ve encountered this consistently each time I’ve been there but nowhere else in the country.

For what it's worth, in Japan itself, Kyoto people have a reputation for being snobbish, standoffish and unhelpful, and if anything that has gotten worse recently with the sheer amount of tourists inundating the city (until COVID, anyway).

But yes, foreigners are a dime a dozen in Tokyo so nobody really cares. If you go out to inaka (countryside), you get a lot more attention.

I’ve lived in two places that were described as “everyone is nice and friendly to you”, Montreal and Texas. In Canada it is actually true I think. Most people were genuinely nice. But they showed that with actions not words (viz. a car almost always stops if they even think you might cross). In Texas for sure everyone smiles and is all •howdy” but boy have I rarely met someone who truly meant it. I’d much rather live in Canada (if they start paying better lol), but I’d rather choose to live in NYC than Texas. At the least in NYC people show what they mean and are actually friendlier in actions than Texans.

Similar dynamic in that Canadians will tell you that their famed politeness is in fact passive aggressive.

Same is true for Minnesota

I’ve had the opposite experience, despite my biases expecting otherwise. People in rural areas and the south have been genuinely warm, welcoming, and helpful. People in urban areas like NYC or west coast cities have been rude, apathetic, or at best falsely polite in the sense that there’s nothing really behind that politeness. YMMV I suppose.

I think it's also an American rural vs urban south thing.

In general, everyone in urban southern areas is "busier" and more brusque than their rural neighbors. However, southern politeness still demands a token hospitality even to strangers, so you get a weird twilight of warmly-greeted, but coldly-helped.

More rural, and people have (or take) more time. Someone will have no complaint talking about local trivia with you for an hour or more.

Outside of Dallas and Houston I've only ever had genuinely nice people in Texas on the whole, and I lived there for 25+ years. I don't think Dallas/Houston are good representations of Texas as a culture

I believe in Japan it is all a matter of "ranking". You have a bunch of them: bosses, elders, customers, etc... are all respected but the opposite might not be true.

It's complicated. For people you have an obligation to, like relatives, superiors or customers at work, you have to go out of your way to be polite and helpful. But if you don't have that obligation, you don't need to do anything.

Foreigners occupy a weird spot in this hierarchy as "guests" to all Japan in a sense, so people often feel an obligation to help them, much more so than they would to a random Japanese person in the same situation.

> It's complicated. For people you have an obligation to, like relatives, superiors or customers at work, you have to go out of your way to be polite and helpful. But if you don't have that obligation, you don't need to do anything.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

I've spent time in Japan, and have been living in Asia, and as far as East Asia is concerned, I think a lot of people mistake "polite" for "friendly".

Of course, there are friendly people in East Asia. You can find friendly people everywhere. But if generalizing the characteristics of populations, Japanese are probably among the most polite if not the most polite you'll find anywhere. Friendly? Not so much.

In fact, in my travels in Japan, I've always been amazed at how limited the "friend" social networks of most of the expats I've encountered are. Japan is a very, very tough nut for "gaijin" to crack socially.

I think people often times have too high expectations when moving to another country and assume that making friends / settling down is a straight path. In fact, especially at an adult age it is very, very hard to make new friends, regardless of where you live. Most people at that age already have their social circles set, build / expand their own family and are just not willing to invest emotionally into new relationships. And this is even harder when coming from a different country with different social norms. I live in Berlin, Germany and see this problem non stop, but not always from foreigners, also from fellow Germans who come from other cities like Hamburg, Leipzig or Köln. People end up moving back to their social circles because they have difficulties to adapt to the new environment.

Since Japan attracts many people for various reasons, I think this general problem gets blown out of proportion and sold as a uniquely Japanese issue, which it is not. There are just meant people moving to Japan and therefore sharing their experiences, which often times are as described above. Japan definitely has a lot of issues, but I don't think this one in particular is exclusive to Japan

>In fact, in my travels in Japan, I've always been amazed at how limited the "friend" social networks of most of the expats I've encountered are. Japan is a very, very tough nut for "gaijin" to crack socially.

I'm not an expat (nor do I talk to many in Japan), but I have traveled to Tokyo for work about once a year for nearly a decade, prior to covid. I've made friends with plenty of my co-workers there, and a much higher percentage of ones that have moved on to other companies, etc., stay in touch with me than people that I have spent significantly more time with locally that changed jobs. A couple have already asked me when I'll be back now that the travel restrictions are starting to ease up.

I've also had nights where I've met random people while out drinking and made "friends" where we spent the night bar hopping and having a generally good time. I wouldn't call them friends, but they were certainly friendly - I don't think you drunkenly grab some gaijin and drag them off to the next bar out of politeness.

I'm not exactly an extrovert that makes friends wherever I go, either. I'm definitely not doing the heavy lifting in these scenarios.

My experience is that there is culturally a significant bent towards politeness, for sure, but it's also been that there's certainly plenty of friendliness as well, and more than I see day to day in America.

I remember when me and my partner gave our seat to an old japanese lady in tokyo we could literally see some tears in her eyes. I was kind of surprised at the reaction.

I’ve heard this too. Tokyo is my favorite place in the world that I’ve visited, but that’s as a gaijin — and I’m sure it’d be a different more repressive experience as a native.

A lot of this boils down to Japanese people being efficient and conscientious. I was walking around Ginza one day and noticed that sometimes you had to go multiple blocks to find a cross walk. People did it, and nobody jay walked. In DC or NYC it would have been a circus. Flying back to NYC from Tokyo is always jarring, like traveling back in time.

> conscientious […] by not jaywalking

The term “jaywalking” is a pretty American term (that there is a term at all) invented by the car lobby way back when to stigmatize pedestrians. Of course it makes sense to cross the street (that’s what it’s called—there’s no dedicated word for it) if it is safe to do so.

And of course it would be madness on any always-busy street or on a road with four lanes or more.

You will definitely find places in Europe--perhaps most of all Germany--where people absolutely do not cross against lights etc. (in general). In my experience, Americans--at least in big cities (and maybe especially on the East Coast)--are far more likely to cross streets where and when they can get off with it than in many other places.

Enforcement might be the reason for that. I never saw anyone get a a jaywalking ticket in the states, but it was an almost weekly occurrence when I lived in Lausanne. Swiss police don’t mess around.

Jay walking also happens a lot in China unless some barrier or traffic warden is involved. This is the case in much of the developing world as well.

Jaywalking tickets are very much a thing in Southern California, but you'll pretty much only get one if you're doing it in a blatantly unsafe manor.

I haven't seen it enforced in Germany and despite what OP said, you can see people crossing on red light in Germany too but people tend to have a greater awareness of car traffic here. You know the car driver don't expect you to cross when he's got green and the pedestrian knows that they may die because the driver doesn't expect him to cross.

It's different in Poland for example. If you don't just go on a pedestrian crossing (no lights), no car will stop. Because of that it's more likely for people to cross on a red light because they know car drivers are trained to watch out for them. A really bad development. People die because of this.

A very helpful campaign in Germany were signs which told you to be a good example for children. It grew into the consciousness of the population and you very rarely see people cross on red when there are kids around. Also having green on demand buttons which give you FAST results helps too. They are very popular in Germany now.

I lived in Geneva and worked in Lausanne (not the same periods) for a few years, and never saw anyone get fined for jaywalking in either city, not even myself. :) I guess it depends where you walk…

It was on my daily bike commute into the city and was one road near the bridge (near the Vigie stop?) where it was just particularly tempting to jay walk.

It’s hilarious in Germany. I’ve been at very short crossings (like 5 meters) without a car in sight and everyone just stands there waiting for the sign to change. I just cross - can’t take the New Yorker out of me.

> I just cross - can’t take the New Yorker out of me.

Yup, Americans leave this impression all over the world. Loud, obnoxious tourists who don't think local laws and norms apply to them.

As someone who has spent the better part of the last decade traveling I can unequivocally say I have almost never come across non Americans who feel this way. It is ALWAYS the Americans who are the the ones loudly talking trash about how terrible Americans are.

As Scott Alexander points out, these Americans counter intuitively are not being self critical when they say this, they are talking trash about the "other" Americans they don't like.

> As Scott Alexander points out

Would you mind sharing the link to the post?

Sure

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

It's long but worth reading. But under break VII contains the relevant part:

START QUOTE

My hunch – both the Red Tribe and the Blue Tribe, for whatever reason, identify “America” with the Red Tribe. Ask people for typically “American” things, and you end up with a very Red list of characteristics – guns, religion, barbecues, American football, NASCAR, cowboys, SUVs, unrestrained capitalism.

That means the Red Tribe feels intensely patriotic about “their” country, and the Blue Tribe feels like they’re living in fortified enclaves deep in hostile territory.

Here is a popular piece published on a major media site called :America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation". Another: "America: A Bunch Of Spoiled, Whiny Brats". "Americans are ignorant, scientifically illiterate religious fanatics whose “patriotism” is actually just narcissism." "You Will Be Shocked At How Ignorant Americans Are, and we should Blame The Childish, Ignorant American People."

Needless to say, every single one of these articles was written by an American and read almost entirely by Americans. Those Americans very likely enjoyed the articles very much and did not feel the least bit insulted.

And look at the sources. HuffPo, Salon, Slate. Might those have anything in common?

On both sides, “American” can be either a normal demonym, or a code word for a member of the Red Tribe.

END QUOTE

In my experience left leaning (or really blue tribe, read the article for the difference) American travelers do the same thing to try to prove to foreigners that they "aren't the bad type of Americans" (ie, the right/red tribe) that they perceive that foreigners dislike (whereas most foreigners I encounter take for granted that all kinds of people come from all places and don't judge that much by nationality), the irony being that the foreigners don't usually ever say all that much negative about the US and it's the American's who are trying to distance themselves who end up being the ones who vocally dislike America (but really just the people they think are ignorant)

> Ask people for typically “American” things, and you end up with a very Red list of characteristics – guns, religion, barbecues, American football, NASCAR, cowboys, SUVs, unrestrained capitalism.

During the 2016 Trump campaign there was much talk about coal workers and such. Yet there are more yoga instructors than coal industry employees—not just miners but everyone employed by the coal industry.

> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in February 2017, the industry employed 50,300 people. Note: that isn’t miners. That’s the whole industry. (An earlier estimate by the Census Bureau from 2014 had the number closer to 76,000 — still quite small). There are more yoga instructors in the United States than coal miners — and that gap will continue to increase.

> Now let’s do some comparisons. As Ingraham notes, the entire coal industry “employed about as many as Whole Foods (72,650), and fewer workers than Arby’s (close to 80,000), Dollar General (105,000) or J.C. Penney (114,000). The country’s largest private employer, Walmart (2.2 million employees) provides roughly 28 times as many jobs as coal.” In other words, despite its historical importance, coal is negligible economically.

* https://legal-planet.org/2018/08/23/yoga-instructors-bend-co...

Didn't year much about the Yoga Lobby.

I live in Latin America, and we criticize our own culture for treating foreigners better than our neighbors.

Americans are regarded as irrespectful, but treated well because they hope they leave a dollar tip.

When a foreigner comes to do bussiness, not just an American, we expect corruption and exploitation to come with it. We are hardly ever proven wrong.

Surely you are joking that it's only the foreigners who are corrupt in Latin America. I've paid enough mandatory standardized bribes to local police to know that's BS.

Americans don’t follow laws and norms in their own country either, lol.

That’s what I love about New York, don’t follow static rules that don’t make sense, otherwise you won’t be able to deal with such a complex system.

Or maybe it isn't all that hilarious. Maybe it's just you not understanding a convention, a thread in the social fabric, a way (one way) to keep society ordered and sane. You were observed crossing that street. Conclusions about your person - and perhaps even about the society you represented - were drawn. Positive or negative, but they were drawn.

I hope those conclusions were along the lines of there’s no reason to obey a signal when it’s objectively obvious that it is safe to cross. That adults can use judgement on what is ok to do within a context.

I drew my own conclusions too and had better understanding of how “it was orders I was following” happens.

> Americans--at least in big cities (and maybe especially on the East Coast)--are far more likely to cross streets where and when they can get off with it than in many other places.

Come to Mexico and that notion will be dispelled pretty quickly.

Here you can find pedestrians crossing anywhere they please, bikes going against you, street vendor carts, and cars still crossing after a red light... all at the same time.

I was in NYC just a couple of months ago and in comparison everything was quite orderly.

When I went to Korea after years in Japan, I was shocked to see how much jaywalking they do. Somehow that part of “Confucian values” didn’t land the same on that side of the “East Sea”.

Korea makes up for it by having their drivers ignore signs and signals all the time. (There are some pretty good stuff I can say about Korea... "traffic safety" is not one of them.)

You need to spend some time in Asia or Africa to get more perspective about jay-walking habits. Americans are positively Swiss compared to the vast majority of people on this planet.

I have never seen anyone complain about "jaywalking" when it's safe to do so, because you're not impeding traffic.

Here in NYC people will cross as the light turns green and end up with an entire intersection at a standstill.

It's amazing because even my poorly trained Greyhound has picked up a concept of "we stop for something" at intersections. He's not quite sure what, but he'll wait for some signal from me.

Yet somehow people are unable to figure that out.

Pedestrians in NYC act like royalty. I've never seen pedestrians so fearless as in NYC. They will step out in front of a moving truck if they have the right of way. And sometimes even when they don't, if they sense the driver's hesitation.

And you know what? I like it. Cars are given special treatment everywhere else in this country. I was in D.C. and VA last week and had to wait 5 minutes (!) to cross many intersections. So in NYC I sympathize for the commercial traffic and the people commuting from places without train coverage, but for everyone else, I don't really care if pedestrians hold them up. They could have been pedestrians too.

Regardless of the history of that term, the underlying concept is not unique to the US and was not invented by the auto lobby.

See sibling comment:

> Back then a 'jay' was basically some sort of boor or doofus. If you translated it to more modern english it would literally be idiotwalking or similar.

If other cultures don’t have some kind of stigmatic word for “crossing the street without pedestrian right-of-way” then of course it is American-specific. Just like how saying “person who has several sexual partners” and “s***” are supposed to communicate two very different things.

Back then a 'jay' was basically some sort of boor or doofus. If you translated it to more modern english it would literally be idiotwalking or similar.

For a good history of this see Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic

I remember reading a "Things that were different about America" by a Japanese visitor, and they said that everyone in the US seemed to wait for the lights to cross at crosswalks, while in Japan people just crossed whenever. It probably depends on where in Japan and where in the US you are.

DC is one of the worst; it sometimes feels like the pedestrians and cars are in competition with each other, and each just violate the rules because there's zero expectation that the other will follow the rules.

See also NYC (or at least Manhattan which I'm most familiar with). Both vehicles and pedestrians take an inch wherever they can get it.

The West Coast at least used to be more rule-abiding. Many years ago now, I remember a co-worker complaining he had gotten a ticket for jaywalking in San Francisco I think. Of course, these days you probably need to murder someone to get the police involved in SF but I digress.

And when I worked in a smaller city fairly near Boston, when going out to lunch, I was pretty much the only person who was inclined to just cross the street while my coworkers waited for the light.

So it does vary.

I'm convinced pedestrian safety and rush hour traffic would both improve at minimal cost if people just learned to respect simple Walk/Don't Walk signals, but yes, no one wants to give an inch.

Yeah, although at busy intersections, it can be really hard for vehicles to make right hand turns even if everyone does things by the book. And this isn't some special pleading for vehicles in Manhattan; I will only drive there under duress.

The biggest rule that would make right hand turns safer and quicker for everyone involved is if people respected "Flashing red hand means don't start crossing. If you're not already in the crosswalk, don't start now."

That would give people way more time to clear out the right turn lane each cycle and reduce incidences of people trying to force their way through pedestrians.

But people don't even respect the basic "don't walk" so it's asking a lot...

When was the book published?

I've seen older footages of Tokyo (1960s) where the streets were pretty chaotic and dirty. Also Miyazaki described how the rivers used to be very polluted, which inspired the bath scene in Spirited Away. Not sure at what point it changed.

Also remember Americans telling me Seoul being dirty in the 80s, but is generally cleaner than western cities these days.

About 20 years ago I think?

As a local, I can assure you many Japanese do jaywalk in Tokyo. Perhaps it's slightly less frequent and considerate compared to other countries.

One of my coworkers in Taiwan, who studied in NYC, proudly walks against pedestrian red lights. She claimed this is the better way because this is the New York way.

I cannot fathom her logic.

Note that in a lot of major cities, crosswalks are explicitly _not_ the only places where you can walk across the street. In Seattle for example, any intersection has a "crosswalk" in it, some are marked, some aren't, but they are all the same in the eyes of the law.

There are many studies that crosswalk actually increase the number of accidents because people feel safer and pay less attention when crossing them, so cities have been removing them in a lot of spots.

You can't really compare Japan to all of Europe. There are major differences in Europe on all of your points. As a German that lived 6 months between Osaka and Kyoto I mostly agree on the last one, but cleanliness and public transport is only slightly behind so that it doesn't really matter. E.g. Japanese streets are astonishingly clean, but I have never been disturbed by litter in Munich. Garbage doesn't pile up here. Also the public transport works really well, mostly in 5 minutes intervals in peak hours and 10 otherwise. The "Stammstrecke" in the center is also served in 1-3 minute intervals.

The homes are so small though. 66 square meters on average. Much smaller than NYC even if you just take Manhattan. I used to be able to do that but with a family and hobbies and a desire for space, it’s just dehumanizing for me today.

But yes, my time in Tokyo informs me the place is amazing. Just not for me anymore.

Isn’t the price per square metre much lower in Tokyo though? I live in Tokyo and my place is much larger and nicer than what I could afford in my previous place, Vancouver.

And one nice thing about Tokyo is one can live in very small but clean and private apartments if needed. I’d take that over roommates and illegal basement suites.

I’ve heard so in terms of affordability. And good point about roommates, etc. And these are averages so keep that in mind.

Indeed Tokyo and other parts of Japan are clean and well run. It’s a cultural thing. I spent some in Europe about 15 years ago and likewise it was clean as well. I used to get stared at for crossing streets when you’re not supposed to (no cars but without the light). There were very few bums or beggars either.

From what I hear, things have changed in some places. Not sure the cause. Sometimes strikes maybe cultural things as well.

"Everything is just so great, but somehow people are miserable"

Social arbitrage. Have american rugged individualism, enjoy japanese social system.

Good luck finding anything "social" in Japan.

That’s a quite pithy description of America of late.

Except for the "everything is just so great" part.

I wonder how long until there's a YC-backed startup to help Americans emigrate.

I was only in Tokyo for a few days, but the fact that the last train was at midnight bummed me out quite a bit.

It’s a commitment to party until the trains start :)

They use the rest of the night for maintenance, to keep the insane throughput and super precise train arrival times.

I don’t know many places in the world that runs the train late at night.

NYC runs 24/7 and it’s great. I can’t imagine the subway stopping at midnight.

That’s cool! I wish other cities did that too.

NYC also closes train lines for weeks at a time for maintenance, whereas Tokyo never does so.

NYC switches train schedules after midnight to every 30m or 1h until 5 or 6. The schedules in Tokyo are at worst every 10m, but most are every 3-5m, or 5-7m until the last train.

There's tradeoffs both ways. I really like being able to get a train after midnight in NYC, but I somewhat prefer the frequency and consistency of the train lines in Tokyo.

I've moved myself to Germany and enjoy it here but I also love the idea of Japan, perhaps sometime in the future.

I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?

It's not hard to get a visa if you get a job or for study. The thing is, it's hard to get those while being outside the country.

Study is pretty easy (assuming the borders open) - anyone can do that tomorrow by joining a Japanese language school. Of course, you have to… actually study and do classes, so it’s not a free pass.

Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office.

There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.

A few cities have startup visas now, which give you a year or two to meet the capital requirements.

I transferred to Tokyo though my employer, so they handled the visa.

The work visa is very easy to get if you have an engineering degree, as long as a company will hire/sponsor you.

For skilled people it’s one of the easiest places to get a visa. Unlike US, Canada and Europe which are the other places I’m familiar with, there’s no requirement for companies to try to hire locally first.

There’s also a points system to fast track getting a visa. This can also get you a permanent visa in one year.

During Covid all of this is virtually stopped, but starting to open back up starting tomorrow, Nov 8.

Quite interesting to see, I recently moved to Singapore which seems to be the place everyone looks up to in the region right now because they say it’s so advanced and apart from the cleanliness (which is different though, it’s mostly to not get fined, but things like the mixed recycle bins in condos certainly don’t show an intrinsic aspiration to maintain a clean environment) I don’t see the advantages you’ve described in Tokio.

I wish there were more opportunities in Tokio, apart from what you’ve described there seems to be a good tax scheme for expats and it also has so much to offer culturally. I was in touch with several recruiters though and all their clients weren’t moving forward due to the pandemic.

> mixed recycle bins

Recycling is a scam so there's no point. It all goes to the landfill.

Since it’s all mixed (which would be nice if done right because it simplifies the process) but so badly that it’s difficult to separate it seems more like a way to avoid clogged rubbish chutes.

Is that true in Japan? I recall people sort recycling into many more categories, whereas in the US it is one big recycling bin.

Singapore takes the big bin approach like in the US. Europe has arguably too many bins in some places to be practical (Switzerland, though they charge so much on mandatory regular garbage bags that people still sort out, but it feels like a waste of time)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ

I wouldn't consider that as the best public transit ever.

I agree , lived in a few cities, travelled to many, shits on all of them.

How’s the work culture? I’ve heard pretty bad stuff.

Working for a Japanese company can be rough, but if you work for a foreign company or have a foreign manager it’s mostly fine.

It seems that a society where trains run on time with amazing precision has to also be a society where you get berated if you’re a few minutes late for work.

It can be worse than that. I remember the poor Rakuten folks being under a 3 strike system if they arrived after 9:30AM at Crimson House.

It definitely created an unnecessary morning rush at Futako Tamagawa.

The streets being clean is actually fairly "recent". You wouldn't believe what Tokyo looked like before the 1964 Olympics.

Public transit is already completely over capacity and its getting worse every year. Its not sustainable.

That just means it's getting efficiently utilized. I've honestly only ever had packed trains during specific hours, or during the last train out of the city. That probably can't be solved unless people get moved closer to where they work.

Just picture the "sustainable" by unpacking that crowded train into a 4 wheel vehicle for each person and the carbon emissions, energy consumption, and space consumption that is being avoided. It's like we're the latest Intel processors and Tokyo is running on TSMC 5nm M1 Max. Sure we have the space to brute force our economy into competitive performance... but how long will that last?

Agreed - I’m doing my part by not riding the train from 7-9am, an it’s never bad :) and also it’s very viable to live not very far from where you work here (you can get a compact 1 BR apartment 15 minutes from any city center for <$800/mo if you’re savvy), so it’s much less of a big deal IMO.

As opposed to American cities, famously known for sustainable and efficient transportation and not expansive suburban sprawl, pedestrian-hostile development, and adding more lanes to already-inefficient highways to induce additional traffic

As opposed to this?

https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/qljo6s/massi...

Having done both, I’ll take the cramped public transport rather than the fucking commute in the bay. This car culture is sucking people’s soul. I’m so glad that we’ve all moved to a remote world.

being crushed in a train is not as comfortable as being in your own car. ever tried?

Ate you a city planner in Japan?

The Japanese population is declining, so not sure how it's not sustainable and Covid took many workers off from commuting.

Bad comment since Tokyo and its suburbs is growing year and year in population as other areas lose people.

Thats why its very ignorant to think that the national trend is the same as the local trend.

And covid had very little impact on commuting in Japan. Remote work is not a thing yet for most employers.

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