Norway. At least according to Germany I’m a Norwegian citizen. And I have a lot of relatives there. It’s a stunningly beautiful country. And I think their politics aren’t as braindead as the rest of the world’s.
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Austria. I’d love to live in Vienna. It’s so gorgeous and such a great city.
There’s a country in Europe called Ireland.
I don’t know much about the politics and policies there, but what I do know is that if I drop the street view guy there, most places are green and pretty. That puts it pretty high up on my list.
Wait until you hear them speak. It’s music. Can’t nearly comprehend it, like you were dropped into St John’s , blind drunk, but they certainly love the language with each syllable.
I’ve been there. It’s really nice.
Irish people generally feel a lot of empathy for Palestinians, as fellow victims of English colonialism.
If I had it to do over again (born/raised in the US, living in Japan), I might pick Norway or Finland over Japan, but overall I’m fairly happy where I am.
Just curious, why do you prefer those countries over Japan? Anything lacking there?
Eh… Unless you are actually Japanese, you’re probably going to be hanging out with other ex-pats, or just very lonely.
Japan is an extremely conservative and insular country. They don’t really mind people visiting for the most part, but they don’t really think highly of people actually immigrating there.
There are ethnic Koreans who have lived in communities in Japan for hundreds of years who are still considered outsiders and are treated like second class citizens.
Eh… Unless you are actually Japanese, you’re probably going to be hanging out with other ex-pats, or just very lonely.
I disagree here. Learn the language and hang out where Japanese hang out.
Japan is an extremely conservative and insular country. They don’t really mind people visiting for the most part, but they don’t really think highly of people actually immigrating there.
The “they” here is doing a lot of work. Certainly, a number of people are anti-immigration as they see an erosion of their tradition and some, the I suspect it an ever-shrinking minority, Others are mostly fine with immigration if it’s “the right kind/race of immigrants”. I have a loving family here in my in-laws with whom I am often involved (grandpa loves writing letters). As for immigration itself, in the ~10 years I’ve been here, they’ve added new visas with quicker paths to permanent resident status. One can apply for citizenship after 5 years (though it requires renouncing all others which is why I don’t do it – I do wish they’d change that).
There are ethnic Koreans who have lived in communities in Japan for hundreds of years who are still considered outsiders and are treated like second class citizens.
I don’t know exactly what you’re referencing here. There are zainichi Koreans who are in a weird spot. There is more racism to people from the neighboring countries than perhaps others, but that’s also not universal. A lot of Koreans that are here because their homes/families were in the north don’t take Japanese citizenship and, often, don’t really feel Japanese either; they feel their identity is north korean, but don’t move their either for obvious reasons. As such, they don’t take Japanese citizenship and are basically waiting to “go home”. I used to hang out with one and my wife knew a couple and they are in an interesting spot. They often also go schools run by nork-friendly institutions and some (many? all?) do at least visit pyongyang once, but they’re well aware of how much they are taught and shown is carefully curated and not typical. Anyway, the not taking citizenship and not going home does rub some (especially the far right) the wrong way and they’d rather they GTFO. Edit: a lot of the families were brought over, often involuntarily, during Japan’s colonization of Korea and WWII.
Racism is definitely something that I think is shrinking over time, but definitely still too high and a problem to be addressed.
disagree here. Learn the language and hang out where Japanese hang out.
I have friends who have learned the language and studied at the university of Tokyo and still have a rough time. Loneliness and isolation is a very common complaint of foreigners staying in Japan for prolonged stays.
You may have a different experience, as you married into the culture, and thus have a family there to help break the ice.
Certainly, a number of people are anti-immigration as they see an erosion of their tradition and some, the I suspect it an ever-shrinking minority, Others are mostly fine with immigration if it’s “the right kind/race of immigrants”.
How is this not conservative and insular?
I have a loving family here in my in-laws with whom I am often involved (grandpa loves writing letters). As for immigration itself, in the ~10 years I’ve been here, they’ve added new visas with quicker paths to permanent resident status. One can apply for citizenship after 5 years (though it requires renouncing all others which is why I don’t do it – I do wish they’d change that).
Again… This doesn’t really seem to be helping your assertion.
don’t know exactly what you’re referencing here. There are zainichi Koreans who are in a weird spot.
Zainichi Koreans make up the vast majority of Koreans living in Japan, with a current population of a little over a million people. And by “weird spot” you mean decades of intense discrimination, including denying them access to basic healthcare.
lot of Koreans that are here because their homes/families were in the north don’t take Japanese citizenship and, often, don’t really feel Japanese either; they feel their identity is north korean, but don’t move their either for obvious reasons. As such, they don’t take Japanese citizenship and are basically waiting to “go home”.
North Koreans make up a small minority of Koreans living in Japan. All Korean nationals were stripped of there citizenship in the 50’s, and only regained the option of applying for citizenship in the 90’s. With the predication that they would be assimilated into Japanese nationality of course.
Framing Japanese culture as conservative and insular was the polite way of saying they’re still a fascist country, run by the children of war criminals. The only difference big difference is they got their guns taken away. But, they’re still denying well documented war crimes, and funding temples built to honor people who weaponized rape on a massive scale.
You may have a different experience, as you married into the culture, and thus have a family there to help break the ice.
It certainly wasn’t breaking the ice; I first came to Japan after getting laid off living in a US state where I had no family, etc. I liked it enough to go back to live and didn’t meet my wife until about 6 years in. I made it a point to go to local bars and live shows and galleries where I’d meet people into what I was into, which is generally how it works in most of the world. The expat bubble is tempting, and yeah I do wanna speak English sometimes, but it’s just self-defeating to only live in that bubble.
How is this not conservative and insular?
Some people are conservative and insular, yes. A lot of them are not. I was giving one reason why some of them were.
. And by “weird spot” you mean decades of intense discrimination, including denying them access to basic healthcare.
By weird spot I specifically meant that many do not feel Japanese and don’t want to take Japanese citizenship but can’t necessarily go back. It is a weird spot insofaras it’s not a normal type of situation. This of course provokes discrimination from butthurt fuckheads who think “what, is Japan not good enough for you?” and the like. It’s weird because they are trapped in a situation where they are being asked to give up their identities (which is obviously wrong) but they also can’t go home to what they would consider or want to be their home. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification of the whole thing.
including denying them access to basic healthcare.
This I’m not aware of outside of the occasional “we don’t accept foreigners” which unfortunately does happen (sometimes due to worries about communication sometimes because racism), but it’s rarer in medical settings because denying treatment can come with actual punishment on that medical institution. Do you have more detail or a source (English or Japanese are fine).
Framing Japanese culture as conservative and insular was the polite way of saying they’re still a fascist country,
From the Wikipedia definition of fascism, it ticks some of the boxes but certainly not all of them. It certainly has more elements of it than I would like, but every time someone other than the LDP gets in charge (a couple of times since the '50s), they promptly faceplant and turn people off of themselves again. As a non-citizen, there’s basically nothing I can do on this realm. My wife also does not like this and votes for progressives and I think a lot of her generation would agree, but voter turnout here is a whole other problem.
run by the children of war criminals.
I think it’s more grandchildren these days, but yeah. The good news is that not everyone believes the same things as their parents or grandparents (I certainly don’t), but America’s involvement in the political system in the immediate post-war era and their working with those people and yakuza didn’t help things.
funding temples built to honor people who weaponized rape on a massive scale.
This I will take minor issue with. Yasukuni, which I’m guessing you’re referring to, was built to honor war dead more generally and all the way back in late 1860s for those who fought in the Boshin (Japanese civil war/revolution) War.
It does contain war criminals, which is fucking stupid, but also is no longer owned or run by the government (also something the Americans forced with separating religion and state). It’s now run by a bunch of far-right fucksticks. Some (generally very right-wing) government officials do interact with it “in a private capacity” which is often meant to signal something to their base. Some other do visit without the publicity as they would any other shrine.
I have family buried in Arlington National Cemetery in the US which also contains people who are guilty of warcrimes, convicted or otherwise. Should I never go there even though, to the best of my knowledge, none of my family ever engaged in such? That’s where I feel conflicted about Yasukuni. Fuck the org that runs it, fuck the politicians that use it to signal their far-right base, but I don’t begrudge people going to where their ancestors are enshrined. I would certainly love that all war criminals be purged from all such places globally, but I don’t know how one accomplishes that.
If you feel I missed something (in your first post, I wasn’t entirely sure to which specific group of Koreans you were referring, which may have led to some confusion and I certainly don’t claim to know everything in detail on the topic), you’re welcome to link to something so I can get more context or background.
Japan’s economic policy always has been weird, but lately things just keep appearing to get worse with like 30 years worth of shrinkflation happening all at once and wages not raising with inflation at all. The yen has slid against the dollar to pretty terrible rates. While it sucks for me personally wanting to do things like visit family overseas, it also plays a role in imports. Especially post 3-11 when they started turning off nuclear, a lot of fuel for everything, including keeping the lights on, must be imported. The low JPY basically just benefits the export markets.
More progressive, basically. The person who came second for PM wants to continued forced unified surnames (at least when both people getting married are Japanese) and has a bunch of positions on things like LGBTQI that drag progress backward. It also reads like she would revoke broadcasting licenses for news channels whose politics she doesn’t like. We already legally have to pay a yearly fee (kinda like a UK license fee, I think) for owning anything capable of receiving a TV signal. This was initially done (at least in part) to fund NHK (Japan’s BBC or PBS or whatever) outside of the government. They still have self-censored and at times aired wildly bullshit, racist things (particularly around corona). The position is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanae_Takaichi and, if another PM election which is not unlikely soon, I suspect she might win.
Thanks for sharing. I can definitely see how life can be better in a richer and more progressive place. I guess a major factor for choosing where to live should be whether people there are hopeful for the future.
Ireland. Personal interest, plus a better standard of living.
Netherlands is another favorite for similar reasons, plus the reputation for walk-ability.
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My wife and I were speculating about moving to B.C. Canada today…
I hope you have a lot of money. Housing is brutally expensive on Canada’s West Coast.
We’d be happy to have you though.
If we were somewhat interested, what are housing costs looking like up there? Down here in Vancouver, WA a 4 bed 2 bath can easily be $500,000
In the other Vancouver:
Holy shit you weren’t kidding. Of course Vancouver isn’t the only option. We’ll have to do some research to see where affordable housing is (and see what the average salary is for my profession)
Psst. Go look up beautiful places like ucluelet and shawnigan and Renfrew and angle hard for a 100% remote job. My dear friend got hers and moved to a place with great internet and vastly reduced hassle. I so envy her ;-)
Yeah, housing in Canada is stupid right now. Vancouver is one of the worst, but affordability is an issue.
Yeesh. Can confirm. c$4/sqft/mo in the V3L.
c$1.6m for a moldy (no res permit) fully detached that’s been there since WW1. Gonna need gutting and remediating for about c$.3m but it looks good in photos.
But verrry little snow to mess up the frail subway.
Ireland, I speak the language, plus they seem comparatively reasonable.
Almost anywhere in Europe would be nice, but Ireland sticks out to me.
They’re part of the EU, and they primarily speak English, so the language barrier wouldn’t be as bad. (though I’d be happy to study Irish/Gaeilge)
As for politics and/or the economy there, I don’t know much, but I am pretty sure they haven’t elected a fascist who’s quoted Hitler.
Not quoting Hitlerz but the “prime minister” did say about rent for a one bedroom apartment being over €2k that “people need to remember that one man’s rent is another man salary”.
The president is nice though, although he’s just a decorative position, he seems like a very sensible Hobbit.
I’ve always wanted to visit Japan, but I dunno if I’d wanna live there.
Maybe one of the Scandinavian countries.
France. The whole population is bold and sassy.
Switzerland.
I like to witness what direct democracy looks like.
Although, I’m not sure if they like an Asian immigrant.
Oh and learning four languages is a big challenge, lets hope in this hypothetical I get a language translator brain implant. 😅
I managed to learn english when I arrived in the US around age 8-10, now in early 20s, I aint gonna be able to learn 4 languages, I barely passed spanish class.
Italy , its such a beautiful country.
Why choose one country? I’m selling everything and buying a boat.
