Depends on a company, as everywhere else. Some companies are willing to pay 10M+ annually which is more than enough to live peacefully in not so cheap area.
640 karma · joined August 25, 2016
Trivial thing happened to my headphones. The wire broke very close to the jack plug because of the frequent bending. There was a young guy there, I told him what happened using my broken Japanese, he patiently listened, took the headphones, made some basic check on them, took my phone number and told me to come in 30 minutes. In 20 minutes I got call that it's done. When it came to payment he asked me how much, I think, I should pay. I've been oblivious so he proposed 500 JPY, which is close to nothing, considering that I've had no tools and spare parts.
London, UK - the same situation happened. I've been told to throw it away.
Example: https://youtu.be/-jm-xrO2c_0 (first 30 seconds shows one of the still images and there's much more)
Error handling is generic by itself. This is at the heart of any existing application. It is fundamental part of the design process and later on contributes greatly to troubleshooting. Making this solid should be, IMHO, one of the most important and thought through part of any language. In Go it seems to be left at the developer's convenience. And even though you may say there is a huge debate on the subject, it always leads to nothing. Or almost nothing, like in this case. It's just disappointing.
Sometimes I have a feeling that such omissions should be punishable. High fines or something. Time’s changed, law should change as well.
I let myself to generalize a bit and say that most of the people on the spectrum feels well in more or less rigid, closed set of social rules. The more logical the better. In reality, a lot of awkwardness comes from the fact that daily human to human behavioral protocol is very open. Anything may happen and it feels overwhelming just to think about all the possibilities a conversation may leads to.
Japanese society is normalized to the point that the citizens may feel upset just by the fact that they are in certain situation and there is no how-to around. People are following social rules everywhere. Japanese society is strictly formalized and everyone is expected to behave properly in given situation. You go to restaurant and you don't have to wonder how much should you tip to the waiter. You don't tip. Simple as that - that's the rule. They've made a lot practical improvements to make the daily struggle as easy as possible. They are always avoiding conflict. When someone step on someone's shoe in metro they say "sorry" (both of them!) and go on. There is no ambiguity in your daily life.
More of it. Being socially awkward is perfectly acceptable or at least tolerated. I am talking about bigger cities, of course. You can walk the streets of Shibuya in a diving suit and no one would say a word. You can refrain from talking to people, too.
They are, almost naively, honest and even Tokyo - 38M people, 13M in the city - is so safe, that you can leave your bag to reserve a table in the crowded fast food and go to the counter to make an order. No one will take it. No one will abuse you and you don't have a reason to feel vulnerable.
If there's a rule, so it is. People are obeying the law and keeping to the rules. This is extremely safe environment for people on the spectrum.
One thing that is usually omitted in any analysis is the weather. Seems non important. But if we consider that ASD is commonly accompanied by depression and/or anxiety I'm willing to weight a weather as a factor. The thing is that winter is almost non existent in Tokyo and to the south. But, what is more important, there is sunny all year long. All year long you have something in the air that will brighten up your day. Just imagine that - plum trees are blooming in February. November and full sun so you can wear t-shirt and hoodie? Go ahead, at least in Tokyo. Much easier to keep in good shape then, say, in London when most days are gloomy.
Of course no country's perfect. What I've said above is the norm, but there are always some exceptions. Big cities are loud and bright. Sensory issues may be problematic. Some rules are less logical that it seems. Japanese language is not direct and sometimes people are expected to notice when should they react.
I do agree that Japan is not country for everyone but as long as ASD goes I'd rather say it is better suited for people on the spectrum that we may suspect. Especially for foreigners as we are naturally allowed to make mistakes.