Anyone want to move to Japan?

robert99

On the boat
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Japan seeks to double foreign workers to combat ageing, falling population
Two aides to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the nation is planning to bring in more overseas workers to bolster the shrinking labour force.

Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker in Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as a special adviser to the prime minister, said in an interview in Singapore on Friday that policies under consideration may result in a doubling of foreign workers in Japan.

Immigration has often been proposed as a solution to Japan’s demographic woes in an ageing society with a low birthrate. Abe has vowed to stop the population from falling below 100 million from the current 127 million, though the idea of bringing in more foreigners has yet to take root amid concerns about the potential effect on a relatively closed society.
 
I don’t want to live there, but I’ve been wanting to visit Japan as a tourist for most of my life. It’s on my bucket list.
 
And then it's the hikikomori - people who have basically dropped out of society and retreated to their rooms/flats:

 
I've been to Japan and travelled around once on business for a week. It was perhaps the most, ordered civilized country I've been to. Even in Tokyo city centre, it is amazing to see car drivers, after the lights turn green, wait for a couple of seconds, look carefully around to see if anyone is crossing at the last minute, and after another couple of seconds, steadily ease off. You try to do that in the rest of Asia or South America and you'd have about 5 people honking at you after 1 second.

There is probably more graffiti and litter in one town in South America than the whole of Japan.

They have great social responsibility. When there is a disaster random citizens appear and contribute to fixing it. It's also often noticed an international sporting events that the Japanese fans go around cleaning up the litter after the match. I saw this for myself once in fact when I went to a Japan match at the world cup.

I caught a lot of trains and I never once saw someone got on the train until everyone got off. They don't do that thing that people do in other countries of edging forward so you have to squish through the people waiting to get off to get on. I suddenly realized in one moment why Japanese go everywhere abroad in tour groups instead of travelling independently. To a Japanese person, the rest of the world must seem like total chaos.

Tokyo is so big it makes somewhere like London look small. It's main train station is like a city in itself, it must have the economy of a medium sized town. When you go in there and go half an hour from there on a fast train, and get out, you still feel like you are in the city centre, there are still skyscrapers around you.

Tokyo is an exciting place, but other parts of the country are dull. If you think Japanese cars are boring, you should see the ones in Japan. The ones they sell abroad are actually sexed up for a foreign market! Everyone in Japan drives these boring squat boxes of cars.

Its food is excellent. (I went there while I was a meat eater though.) Most of its dishes could easily be veganized because the meat is often mixed in with noodles, rice etc rather than served as big chunks. Of course, that doesn't mean that such options are available.

Its train are punctual, and some of them are fast and high quality (but pricey). It is an expensive country, of course, but perhaps a little less than I thought. It was actually on par with Europe and the US. Of course, it depends on the exchange rate when you visit.

Japan is known to be a bit racist, maybe simply because it hasn't has as many foreigners yet. It's reported to be difficult as an immigrant to make friends there. I can believe that. I have done a lot of international business and they are far less open to Westerners even compared to another Asian country. Their English is often not as good either.

Also while Western culture has a lot of sexualization of children, Japan is a whole other level. Some of it is pretty wierd. There is a thing I can recall reading about where old men can pay to hang out with schoolgirls and they have legal child pornography as long as there is no nudity even though the images are clearly intended to be sexual.

Japan might be somewhat sexist. In sumo wrestling, women are not allowed to participate or even go into or touch the ring at any point. They would not be allowed on to present a prize for instance. It's hard to imagine a tradition like this living on in the US or Europe to this day.

Japan may be an reasonable choice for immigrants as a safe country with reasonable salaries. But they are not going to just blend in and make closer friends that easily.