Happier Abroad Forum Community

Hello, Been lurking here for a while. I decided to do a website search for Japan and really didn't find much relevant info.

Anyway I've been living in Japan since 2007 and I'll talk about living and dating in the country.

Let's talk about the pros:

Living pros:
Great infrastructure, you can pretty much go anywhere you'd really want to in the cities (unless you want to live in rural areas) with their amazing metro system.

Very clean everywhere and safe. You can go out at night (if you are a man) and not be messed with.

Fairly easy to find work. If you have software dev skills, you can easily find work. if you don't you can teach English here. If you get sent here from a company, the expat packages are great (people get 2x their normal salary plus rent allowances) Of course getting those types of jobs are pretty difficult.

People are generally polite, and will leave you alone if you don't want to be bothered. You can make friends somewhat if you go and talk to people at international parties, or meetup events.

Business. . .If you have a decent stash of money - $50k minimum, you can start up a business and get an investor's visa.

Food is pretty good, you really won't go wrong unless you go out of your way to eat stupid shit like Horse penis or something (had a friend offer that to me and I was like ...yeah no.)

Food is pretty cheap and affordable. especially chicken and pork.

Women always look nice, a lot of them look sexy.


Cons:
Salaries: While it is fairly easy to find work the salaries are total dogshit. In ALL industries. You'd be better off working in the U.S. and try to save up a few hundred thousand dollars, then maybe start a small business in Japan (if you really want to come to Japan) than to do it the other way around. The Salaries for Software Engineers are especially a joke. Some devs get suckered into coming here but then realize that the pay is trash and they leave pretty quickly. Japan has a problem with getting and keeping IT talent.

Business Opportunity: While yes, you CAN start a business here if you have enough money. The amount of money you'd need does not match the ROI. Basically, you'd be better off putting the money you'd need to start up a business here and put it in U.S. stocks while living in Thailand off of the dividends. There are a LOT of unforseen government regulations that put a stop to businesses. I tried and failed with two businesses here, not because I didn't make any sales, but because the regulations made the money I made so small, that it wasn't worth it.

I worked for a fairly large company and made some coin(after years of networking), but making your own business in Japan is just not worth it. It would be better to just figure out how to market your skills online and make money that way. Problem is, you cannot live in Japan and get a visa just from online business or online work UNLESS you either A)own the company and base it in Japan and have at least ONE Japanese national on your payroll B)The overseas company works with other companies in Japan that act as the company issuing your paycheck. . .meaning they take a cut of your paycheck of course.

I tried my hand a starting my own businesses in Japan when I was in my mid 20's, one failed immediately due to stupid manufacturing regulations (I needed to pay $15k just to change a certain mold for the manufacturing factory I was going to use for a product I was going to sell. . .yeah no, f**k that) The second business I made did somewhat well, but was hamstrung by a government mandated Yakuza monopoly(which is rampant in Japan. It's just hidden pretty well) this resulted in money not flowing to my company, making it unsustainable to constantly make enough profit to sustain itself and I had to fold. In hindsight, I should have started my businesses in the states FIRST.


Women:
This is the big one. If you are White, you'll most likely have no problem, you can use all the dating apps without much issue and have some success.

If you are not, you'd better look like 6-pack uber chad, or else nothing is going to happen period. I'm black, have decent professional pictures, good profiles in Japanese, and I get nothing. While my white friends who look frumpy as hell, have grainy terrible pictures can pretty much slay on the apps. This is in Cities like Tokyo and Osaka, I've heard that it's different if you live in less popular places, but unless you can work remotely and live in the countryside like places. . .it's gonna be difficult.

Now, you CAN get laid. You could do Nampa, but you'd better look like chad and still be prepared to approach thousands of women, spend time trolling around international parties twice a week, then clubs, along with all of that. Basically trying to get laid in Japan (when not white or gigachad) is a full time job. If you're business minded you most likely won't have the time to do this.
Sure, if you look like a greek god and can dress the part as well you'll have success no matter what race. . .but you can do that anywhere else, Japan is not special in that regard. I knew a short Indian guy who had some success with women, but he had to spend all nighters on the weekends cold approaching, using game with perfect Japanese skills, dealing with all kinds of bullshit just to get laid once or twice a month. He burned out after about 6 months of doing this, wifed up the first girl he say after getting tired of this then peaced out back to England with the wife. he was about 27.

If you want to spend your free time chasing women here .. you can, and you can get laid. Question is, how much time do you really want to spend doing this? How much money do you want to spend doing this? You can go to thailand and have girls who look just as good or better give you better treatment. The last girlI had interested in me, this very beautiful 9 who I chatted up, HAD A PIMP with her! He was trying to pimp her out to other people at the bar I was in!

P4P: I personally don't like P4P but there are some options around if you do enough research. Unfortunately most P4P places will not accept foreigners AT ALL, period. mostly because there's a view that foreigners are dirty and bring AIDS to the country, and if Japanese male customer see a foreign male customer leave the same place, word will go around etc etc. . .(basically super racist) Now you can try your luck(use good Japanese) but a lot of the time you'll have a problem.

Housing/Renting
It is better to just buy/have a house built for you than to rent. Landlords are NOTORIOUSLY racist and just straight up will not rent to you, now if you know Japanese well, then some landlords will accept you, but there are still many that won't accept you no matter what. You can get in touch with companies that specialize in finding places for foreigners but most of the time, the places will be overpriced and small. Even two/three bedroom places. It's better to just buy your own place.

Japanese people in general:
Whie they are polite, everything is done with something called "Tatemae" which basically is just a fake face. So all that politeness you see is fake. Japanese people have a wall around them most of the time and they give you the "There is no lake laogai" attitude. While you can make friends, most of the time if you mess up ONCE, like say or do something they don't like, without you knowing it, they will just straight up ghost you.and if you have male Japanese friends, DO NOT mention your dealings with women, DO NOT let them SEE you with any woman unless it is your wife and you have kids with her. Hell, I had a couple Japanese male friends who I introduced to some nice looking Japanese ladies that I knew, then I got out of their way, and talked to another lady I had been seeing... They DITCHED thost girls and started trying to hit on the girl I was talking to！ They will get jealous AF and try to sabotage you wherever and whenever. Not trustworthy at all, there is no "bro code" even amongst themselves and ESPECIALLY if you are a foreigner. Hell, if you go to clubs and start chatting up a girl, you'd better move her either out of the club, or some place that only fits you and her, or else you'll get Japanese dudes trying to hit on her AND throw shade at you!(they think you don't speak the language and can't understand)

I could go on and maybe I'll add more later on but this is the bare basics of life in Japan.

Would I recommend visiting? Maybe. Once you've seen one shrine/temple in Japan, you've seen them all, once you've seen one city in Japan, you've seen them all. (I've heard that Fukuoka is better than every other city in Japan so maybe check the place out) but I would save your money and try elsewhere, I know once this corona stuff is over I'll be looking to check out other places myself. I have a few friends here so it's hard to leave but I think it will be necessary.

I'm tagging @Yohan so he'll see this thread. In case you don't know, Yohan moved to Japan decades ago from Austria, married a Japanese woman and had some children with her, worked in Japan for many years and is now retired.

Hi @WJC

Thanks a lot for the interesting report on Japan. It's refreshing to read something that is not just the usual lithny of positive stereotypes about Japan, how cool the food, the culture, the architecture, and so on.

I have visited Japan 6 times, the first time in 2003, the last in 2019. I can speak enough basic Japanese to get by, so going around places, choosing the best eating options and having some casual social interactions in the microbars at night, is not a problem. In 1999 I moved to London to do a Masters and met a Japanese girl, who was my girlfriend until 2003.

With much hindsight, I think the best experience a foreigner can have with a Japanese girl is to date one who has been living abroad for a while, possibly while they are themselves living abroad. Japanese are rightly proud of their cultural roots but, being a generally smart and resilient lot, they are also fast at adapting to new life conditions. A few years in multicultural hubs like London (as it was my case), Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney, will shape them up pretty good. They will stop being easily offended by a few harmless words, they will drop the obsession about extreme punctuality, they will learn to tolerate - in fact respect - other races, skin colours and ways of life.

Yes, some of their native cultural traits will still be visible - they will remain shy, conservative and polite - but at the same time, without some of the friction that may rub against our Western culture in less than pleasant ways. And of course, as it was the case with my Japanese ex-gf, having lived in London for even longer than me, her English was perfect, so communication was a dream.

Circa 2003, with the Masters degree already in my pocket and the world as my oyster, I too fell in love with the idea of moving back to Japan with my ex-gf. My Japanese was still pretty basic but, as I realised, those were the years when the big Eikaiwa (English training centers) like Nova, Aeon and GEOS were practically giving away work visas to any English-speaking kid fresh-out-of-college who could manage to breathe in front of a mirror.

As I noticed during my second visit, many of them were paid the "foreigner's minimum wage" and working evening and early night shifts. Yet, the excitement of living in an exotic, sophisticated city, enjoying hanging out with fellow teachers and dating locals like there's no tomorrow, was an exciting prospect for a while. My industry was IT and software development, though, and I knew that, given an choice, I would have rather landed a job in that industry, with a view to making more money than the average English teacher.

Well, while in Japan I spoke to a few developers and IT practitioners, some introduced by common friends, some randomly met in microbars. Virtually none of them sounded happy about their jobs: the salary wasn't much higher than the foreigner's minimum wage Nova was paying and, especially if the job was at a large company, they were asked to spend every day in the office until 10 and do half-days on Saturdays. The technologies mentioned also looked a bit too much on the old school side: COBOL, FORTRAN, PL/I, basically ancient mainframe languages that companies in the West were already ditching in droves, in favour of C++ Java, or C#.

That's when it struck me that the prospect of living in Japan would have probably looked good for 6 months, maybe a year, no more. I would have walked out of it with maybe some Japanese fluency, but not much cash saved and, perhaps most importantly, not much relevant professional experience I could sell back in the West.

Fast forward many, many...many years... I am living in the Philippines, a place that generally looks and feels the polar opposite of Japan. Yet, the cost of living is a lot lower, people are generally more tolerant and friendlier towards foregneirs, the larger cities (Manila, Cebu, Davao) and some historical foreign stations (like Clark and Subic) have semi-interesting expat bubbles. Quite a few districts offer first-world living and lifestyle options, if one wants to feel like in NYC or Singapore.

I have kind of resigned myself to the idea that Japan is the perfect place to savour in small doses. While the temptation of living there for longer periods of time touches me from time to time, I know I am far better off in the Philippines. Tourist bans permitting, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sapporo, are only a few hours away from the Philippines, on $100/150 return flights with low-cost airlines.

Dating-wise, @WJC, Japanese girl's prejudice for black people is well known and well-rooted. I do feel you, when you say that if many Japanese are traditionally, if subtly at times, racist towards non-Japanese, they can be brutally more so, towards blacks. I used to think that some of the pop culture associated to black culture, like "kakkoi" sports (boxing, basketball) or R&B and rap music, reaching global scale would help Japanese becoming more "colour-blind" towards foreigners. So far what I gather is that this has not been the case.

What do you think, @WJC, is there hope?

Shemp wrote: ↑

October 30th, 2021, 1:04 pm

I'm tagging @Yohan so he'll see this thread. In case you don't know, Yohan moved to Japan decades ago from Austria, married a Japanese woman and had some children with her, worked in Japan for many years and is now retired.

I will reply a bit later.

Yes, correct, I am living in Japan since 1977, Japanese wife, now retired and we moved out of Tokyo to Okayama Province (between Osaka and Hiroshima) - we have 2 daughters both continue to live in Japan there are also 2 grand daughters. I have also a Filipina fosterdaughter, but living in Cebu.

BTW I am not alone, there was also another HA member (Everdred) active about Japan and wrote many comments about his time -living northeast of Tokyo not so far from Narita Airport.

viewtopic.php?t=29569

WJC wrote: ↑

October 29th, 2021, 8:29 pm

Japanese people in general:
Whie they are polite, everything is done with something called "Tatemae" which basically is just a fake face. So all that politeness you see is fake. Japanese people have a wall around them most of the time and they give you the "There is no lake laogai" attitude. While you can make friends, most of the time if you mess up ONCE, like say or do something they don't like, without you knowing it, they will just straight up ghost you.and if you have male Japanese friends, DO NOT mention your dealings with women, DO NOT let them SEE you with any woman unless it is your wife and you have kids with her. Hell, I had a couple Japanese makes friends that introduced them to some nice looking Japanese ladies that I knew, then I got out of their way, and talked to another lady I had been seeing... They DITCHED thost girls and started trying to hit on the girl I was talking to！ They will get jealous AF and try to sabotage you wherever and whenever. Not trustworthy at all, there is no "bro code" even amongst themselves and ESPECIALLY if you are a foreigner. Hell, if you go to clubs and start chatting up a girl, you'd better move her either out of the club, or some place that only fits you and her, or else you'll get Japanese dudes trying to hit on her AND throw shade at you!(they think you don't speak the language and can't understand)

I had a good chuckle over this! It's true. Japanese are all about keeping secrets and doing stuff behind your back or behind each others' backs. All too many times I tried to bro up with a Japanese guy who wasn't fit to be a bro.

Furthermore, the initial approach is the only time when the foreigner has an advantage with local girls. Simply by being different, he can get his foot in the door that local Japanese man cannot. But that advantage lasts for about 5 minutes. After that and from that point on, all the advantage goes to the local guy who the girl feels more comfortable with.

So when a Japanese man tags along with the foreigner during an approach and then steals the girl afterwards it's a low blow. It's like, damn man, that was the one small advantage I had!

But I'll say this. After spending time in southeast Asia where IQs are lower, you appreciate the Japanese more. Japanese are very intelligent people. And isn't that more interesting? The plottings and schemings and intrigue of Westeros is preferable to the "might makes right" nonsense of Essos, don't you think? (to use a GoT analogy)

publicduende wrote: ↑

October 30th, 2021, 8:56 pm

Hi @WJC

Thanks a lot for the interesting report on Japan. It's refreshing to read something that is not just the usual lithny of positive stereotypes about Japan, how cool the food, the culture, the architecture, and so on.

I have visited Japan 6 times, the first time in 2003, the last in 2019. I can speak enough basic Japanese to get by, so going around places, choosing the best eating options and having some casual social interactions in the microbars at night, is not a problem. In 1999 I moved to London to do a Masters and met a Japanese girl, who was my girlfriend until 2003.

With much hindsight, I think the best experience a foreigner can have with a Japanese girl is to date one who has been living abroad for a while, possibly while they are themselves living abroad. Japanese are rightly proud of their cultural roots but, being a generally smart and resilient lot, they are also fast at adapting to new life conditions. A few years in multicultural hubs like London (as it was my case), Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney, will shape them up pretty good. They will stop being easily offended by a few harmless words, they will drop the obsession about extreme punctuality, they will learn to tolerate - in fact respect - other races, skin colours and ways of life.

Yes, some of their native cultural traits will still be visible - they will remain shy, conservative and polite - but at the same time, without some of the friction that may rub against our Western culture in less than pleasant ways. And of course, as it was the case with my Japanese ex-gf, having lived in London for even longer than me, her English was perfect, so communication was a dream.

Circa 2003, with the Masters degree already in my pocket and the world as my oyster, I too fell in love with the idea of moving back to Japan with my ex-gf. My Japanese was still pretty basic but, as I realised, those were the years when the big Eikaiwa (English training centers) like Nova, Aeon and GEOS were practically giving away work visas to any English-speaking kid fresh-out-of-college who could manage to breathe in front of a mirror.

As I noticed during my second visit, many of them were paid the "foreigner's minimum wage" and working evening and early night shifts. Yet, the excitement of living in an exotic, sophisticated city, enjoying hanging out with fellow teachers and dating locals like there's no tomorrow, was an exciting prospect for a while. My industry was IT and software development, though, and I knew that, given an choice, I would have rather landed a job in that industry, with a view to making more money than the average English teacher.

Well, while in Japan I spoke to a few developers and IT practitioners, some introduced by common friends, some randomly met in microbars. Virtually none of them sounded happy about their jobs: the salary wasn't much higher than the foreigner's minimum wage Nova was paying and, especially if the job was at a large company, they were asked to spend every day in the office until 10 and do half-days on Saturdays. The technologies mentioned also looked a bit too much on the old school side: COBOL, FORTRAN, PL/I, basically ancient mainframe languages that companies in the West were already ditching in droves, in favour of C++ Java, or C#.

That's when it struck me that the prospect of living in Japan would have probably looked good for 6 months, maybe a year, no more. I would have walked out of it with maybe some Japanese fluency, but not much cash saved and, perhaps most importantly, not much relevant professional experience I could sell back in the West.

Fast forward many, many...many years... I am living in the Philippines, a place that generally looks and feels the polar opposite of Japan. Yet, the cost of living is a lot lower, people are generally more tolerant and friendlier towards foregneirs, the larger cities (Manila, Cebu, Davao) and some historical foreign stations (like Clark and Subic) have semi-interesting expat bubbles. Quite a few districts offer first-world living and lifestyle options, if one wants to feel like in NYC or Singapore.

I have kind of resigned myself to the idea that Japan is the perfect place to savour in small doses. While the temptation of living there for longer periods of time touches me from time to time, I know I am far better off in the Philippines. Tourist bans permitting, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sapporo, are only a few hours away from the Philippines, on $100/150 return flights with low-cost airlines.

Dating-wise, @WJC, Japanese girl's prejudice for black people is well known and well-rooted. I do feel you, when you say that if many Japanese are traditionally, if subtly at times, racist towards non-Japanese, they can be brutally more so, towards blacks. I used to think that some of the pop culture associated to black culture, like "kakkoi" sports (boxing, basketball) or R&B and rap music, reaching global scale would help Japanese becoming more "colour-blind" towards foreigners. So far what I gather is that this has not been the case.

What do you think, @WJC, is there hope?

Sorry I've been away, been busy lately and sometimes I Just forget to come by. If you want to get married and have a wife, sure, apan is decent for that, better than the states as Japanese women Rarely divorce, BUT you can still lose half your shit if you do divorce, AND your wife can just straight up take your kids and disappear and you can't get them back (This happens to Japanese dudes too) For IT stuff, while the salaries are trash, a lot of companies give decent hours (some don't) you'll have to find a recruiter to help you there. Honestly, the way would be to just freelance online. Now, you can't get a Visa doing this, but, you can do a few things.

1) Since you really can't get fired once getting a job, what most companies do is hire people as a contractor for a year, during this time, unless you do something illegal, you're not getting fired. So what you COULD do is take a job and if the bosses demand you to do overtime. . .just don't, and start looking for the next job in 9 months with a recruiter, keep doing this until you get a company that has decent work/life balance hours (which are becoming more and more prevalent)I'm saying to do this as while you can't get fired, you "can" just not get renewed (although this is kind of illegal for companies to do, but they do it anyway and fighting it usually isn't worth it as you don't get much out of it if you win a court case) nd even salary. You'll have the experience as well as probably even more projects you can show off to potential employers, you still won't be making 6 figures like in the states but you can still live pretty decently.

2) If you decide that you wanna get married and live in Japan and you find a good wife that wont leave you/take your kids/etc, it is honestly better to buy a house. . . . er have a house built to your specifications. . .including insulation and double paned windows for the sake of weather protection. This is cheaper than renting, AND you don't have to deal with racist landlords that don't want you there, and you'll not really have to deal with racist neighbors in close proximity (as you would in an apartment situation) and you have property. if you wanted to you COULD rent out your house if you wanted to move into a bigger one. Although, most Japanese people don't really like to live in previously lived in houses, people still rent houses out.

3) Honestly, on the dating tip, it's hard to say for black people how it really is, most of this is my experiences, and from what I see others do as well. On one hand there are africans who do well but very far and few between, that's only usually because they were lucky enough to have a successful shop (usually hip hop clothing)which brings the money(which also requires..."cooperation" from certain mafia groups) although I'm pretty sure those owners don't just sell hip hop clothes (I'm implying that those shops are a front for illegal stuff since there's hardly anyone in those shops, yet you can see some in prime locations that would be extremely expensive to maintain) Basically the africans that do really well, with women, have money and "connections" I've only met about 3 dudes like that in 14 years, so the viability of a black dude being the exception to the rule is probably not going to happen. Now of course, as I mentioned to you, if you have a body that basically kills it on Tinder, then you'll do well (but then that's everywhere) I mean a body that takes a few years of weightlifting and good dieting to achieve, then dieting to maintain.

Now you can do a bit better if you "nanpa" basically street game. Unfortunately, that takes a LOT of time to get good at and even when you're "good" at it, it STILL takes time finding girls. I wouldn't say J-girls are racist against black dudes. . they just prefer white guys/Japanese guys a LOT more. Honestly, with th rise of the Apps (tinder and the like), the situation has gotten a lot worse. I was in a Taco Bell and saw this FAT white dude on a date with a nice looking lady, that is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for a black dude to achieve(Unless he's obviously loaded. . .but then he wouldn't be in Taco Bell). There are girls that like black dudes I guess, but with apps being like they are, they are still going to gravitate towards the top 10% so you gotta work your ass off to do that. IF you're white, you don't have to work nearly as hard(not saying that it's not hard for white dudes too, just 100x harder while black). Again, it's not hate against us as black men, but more that we just rank lower on the totem pole, and thus attraction etc is just harder for us. Not impossible, but imo there are other places that are better for black men and dating. Now if there's a black dude out here that can prove me wrong, I'll be all for it (I'd meet up with the dude and buy him a few rounds of drinks myself and figure out what niche I could get into, there's always something to learn imo) Another thing you COULD do is start up your own porn business. . .with you as the star, there's a guy like that on twitter, where he sells his own porn but...uh yeah(I'll refrain to comment on that, I don't watch porn, much less make it). So again, NOT impossible but it's a lot of HARD WORK to achieve compared to white guys get here. That's just life.

4) Second business tip I forgot to mention. Contracts and payment, get your FULL payment UPFRONT! you really have to be ready to walk if the people you work with don't do this, reason being a LOT of Japanese companies will sign a contract, but only pay you half, then later on change the terms and not pay you the other half you agreed to, or a lot less. be VERY careful when dealing with Japanese companies business wise. Also if someone is crazy enough to come to Japan as a CEO of a Japanese company, don't. Japanese companies are notoriously corrupt AND in bed with the government/mafia. Meaning if you make a decision higher ups don't like, YOU will be the on in trouble, the Japanese people in that company will try to frame you for breaking a law you didn't break, deny you a fair trial, hold you in prison for months, despite any proof you may have to the contrary, then smear your name in the press. (look into what happened to Carlos Ghosn, the dude made his OWN press conference with the paperwork proving his innocence, since the authorities wouldn't take the evidence,dude had to escape in a f***ing box), also if you find something wrong legal wise, stfu and hope no one finds out, and plan your exit As something similar happened to Olympus about 8 or so years back, The government and the other Japanese board members tried and failed to make that foreign CEO a scapegoat. A LOT of shady shit goes on in Japan similar to China, but VERY silent and hidden.
There's probably more I can say, but I've been typing for far too long. If I remember some stuff I'll come back later.