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Comment by uavhacker | Hacker News Reader

Thank you all for your responses. I read all of them and spent time thinking about what you said.

To answer some of your questions: I live in Germany. Although I know that my income is quite high in comparison to many others (even better developers) and I’m very grateful to the people on my clients side who make this possible, I’m looking for a way to improve my family’s life in other aspects. Me and especially my wife don’t feel “to be at home” here where we live. She’s not very accepted culturally. Tbh, I would prefer New Zealand, Canada or even the US because of the welcoming culture and nature but I don’t know how to get a working permit (visa) as a regular software engineer.

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Why Japan in particular? Do you have any familiarity with Japanese culture and more importantly the language itself?

it's gonna make it that much more difficult for you to integrate into society if you have no experience with the language. I'm not saying it's insurmountable (I learned Chinese through full immersion by living in Taiwan for years) but it's also a fairly challenging language to learn given it has two phonetic alphabets and a pictographic element as well in the form of Kanji. Definitely a harder language for a Westerner to learn given there's no overlap with Romance languages.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your and/or your wife's ethnicity?

Japan (and East Asia in general) are not exactly the most...accepting places to outsiders.

That's not to say you'll be treated rudely or with hostility. People are in general, quite nice and polite. But you'll always be "that outsider/foreigner".

In one respect, this is advantageous as it could shield you from some of the worst aspects of the corporate culture by way of the "oh, it's because he's the foreigner" excuse. But by the same token, you'll also always be "the foreigner".

I’d explore other places in Europe first with your income. Not sure what exactly is that is pushing you guys away but you’re not the first I hear to leave Germany for those reasons.

i studied at an ivy league school after graduation in europe. i also interned in the bay area. i have now spent over 10 years in CA and can tell you that i still am not accepted and still get discriminated despite being white and with excellent speaking and writing skills and with degrees. people are nice but it is safe to assume people are fake until the contrary is proven. i think people in general underestimate how difficult it is to assimilate and even then you will remain the outsider.

Canada should be very simple to get a work permit

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