Is Japan/Tokyo about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E?

i hear so many great things about living in Japan, especially in the big main cities from those that have lived there. but these are people that lived there for a long time and now moved back home because they said that Japan was not the same after the massive earthquake, abenomics will never work and there is no youth to make japan great again.

I guess that coming to Japan to live in 2013 without being a native speaker must be nearly impossible? W0hen was the heyday? Something like the mid to late 80s?


Sorry to be negative but every place in history seems to of "had it's glory days", Rome, British Empire etc. Has Japan's gone too forever? Will everyone want to live in China and be a video gamer their and maybe the expression "Big in China" will some day hold true?

 

Well u can say that for the UK and US too.. China? Maybe.. But i doubt it unless they can control pollution.. Id say the next big thingis south east asia.. Thai, malaysia, singapore indonesia etc.. Around the pacific rim.. I see triple number of westerners moved there since the last 5 yrs or so.. Jim rogers too lol

 

I'm around that 15 year mark (accumulative 14 out of 16 or something) and I think I got in towards the end of the hay day. You could still come here w/o knowing Japanese, and work your way up to a career job assuming you put in the effort. You can still do that, but you will probably not have much of a job outside of teaching if you don't speak at least proficient Japanese... it might even need to get up to awesome. The job market is not so good, and all your competition speaks Japanese.

Abenomics... yeah, well, it may not, but nothing up until it has worked either, so that's kind of a non-starter. I don't think it's accurate saying "things aren't the same" after the Earthquake. Indeed, they are the exact fucking same. That's the problem. What I think should be changed and what other people think are quite far apart, but I'm still upset nonetheless.

I don't know if Japan's hay day is gone forever, but it is definitely gone for the time being.

 

I'm currently living in Tokyo. There is a general feeling amongst the youth in Japan that they have a bleak future, due to the demographic time bomb and the relative weakness of Abenomics. Yes, it is POSSIBLE that Abenomics will turn the country's economy around... but, after 3 'lost decades,' the continued 'revolving door leadership,' and a host of other socio-political problems, Japan is having a hard time recovering.

GaijinPunch is pretty much spot on with what he has to say. The only thing I would add, however, is that there is a recent spark of hopefulness with Tokyo being selected for the 2020 Oylmpic Games. While this will increase economic consumption of Japanese, it still is far from being considered as any sort of 'fix' for the current economic situation.

Time will tell!

 

Pray to Almighty God, Tepco can actually do the right thing for once, else things surely will never be the same for the world, not just japan.

I'm no nuclear expert, but if Tepco can't handle the toxic nuclear contamination currently affecting sea water around fukushima, it will soon spread everywhere..

I heard many expats there in Tokyo, less and less eating local food, they imported, a company that wekly imports from from outside Japan.. perhaps they're being paranoid.. but for very good reasons imho.. can't blame them for protecting their own family.. I personally stop eating sushi since Q2 2011 and suggests family and relatives not to eat japan made products too..

 

I still try to buy produce from the South only, but I'm not OCD about it. Some people are - for sure. I've talked to people covering the whole spectrum. Can't really say which way the public in general is leaning, but my guess is if you asked a farmer from Ibaraki, Tochigi, Miyagi, etc., they're going to say they are hurting.

The things that I think should be addressed are a little more abstract. The biggest one is that Japan still suffers from the All Eggs in One Basket syndrome. If something the size of Touhoku hits Tokyo (fuck, I'll even say an 8) then and it's game over for Japan, and very likely global depression for the rest of the world. Something like 25% of the country lives in Kantou. Many businesses have their headquarters here, major ports in Shinagawa and Yokohama, the two busiest airports in the cuntry are in Tokyo and Chiba, and finally, Parliament is here. From what I heard they talked of moving Parliament in the 90's to somewhere far more remote, but that fell through.

Repopulating the country side and building up smaller cities is not only better as a contingency for disaster, but the economy in general. Smaller cities (Nagoya, Kyoto, etc.) are probably doing fine, but the really remote ones (Shikoku, Kyushu) are getting butt fucked. There's really no incentive for companies to move to these cities other than very low cost of land. Unless the demographic issue is addressed in a very positive way, there are going to be a lot of ghost towns created over the next few decades. If Japan finally wakes up and smells it's own shit and brings in foreigners en masse, then the depopulation of the countryside will likely be more pronounced. Foreigners are going to be far more likely to live in the Metropolitan areas where they can group with their own.

 

it's all very interesting stuff, especially from the inside perspective looking from outside as it were. It will be interesting to see how things pan out for Japan over the next crucial few years AND WHEN the world is out of recession as a whole. Hopefully the states can assist Japan again like they did after WWII when they are more capable of doing so.

 

Japan has only ever changed in a large (positive) way twice: both times when forced by the US. I seriously doubt war is going to ravage Japan, so natural disaster is about the only other thing. That or absolute and total bankruptcy, but that means the savings have to be used up. Everyone has their opinion on it. I find Japanese politicians slightly more stubborn than their western counterparts, and I find that as the public ages it is becoming more conservative. The collective conscious seems to be going back in time. Too it's only the conscious, as I'd like to buy some shit from the 80's.

 

Back to the past!!!

You should write a book on the subject matter as insider knowledge is sometimes key with the different foreign perspectives.

 

Pretty much all of this - I arrived in 2000 and I looked like I missed what was probably the last -huge- hurrah - after that things were good, but the big gravy train days were coming to an end.

Definitely in terms of language it's a huge thing now - the glut of bilingual staff on the market means that English only speakers are fighting like hell over a small pool of jobs. You can't just rock up these days - you need to be able to speak well enough to at least get through interviews (lol, and I am not sure I can go through the whole Japanese Interview process again)

 

Japanese interviews are really nasty. It's like you're on trial for a crime or something

 

I had one with a firm where the line of questioning was around my attitude towards study. They probed how much i'd done in the last year or so and i'd managed to get a few qualifications but they basically drummed up an argument that I didn't study enough, that that would mean I would be working 6 days a week to make up some other skills etc...

All this against the background that the job was supposed to be a client manager for APAC clients & Japanese ... when I got to the interview it was suddenly for a C# coder role at 1/4th the pay lol. Nearest. Available. Exit.

The big companies were fine though - just lots of interviews with repeating questions and themes. But certainly interviewing in a language that isn't your native language is frigging hard

 

I've interviewed in Japanese with a bunch of very domestic game and tech firms at the very top with the C level guys and board of directors. The first time was challenging as I wasn't accustomed to it but it became all very similar just like interviewing in my native language. Just like anything else, you build upon your first experience and get better at it. One firm actually provided translators (which I didn't use) in the top of the top interviews. Another time, I had an interview at a high end bar private room while the people were drinking....welcome to Japan corporate leadership.

 

well, this is a surprised to pretty much nobody ... i guess people thought it maybe larger but still....

is this true? I mean - there are more jobs out there it seems but the salaries have been generally slashed across the board and the idea that inflation would raise peoples salary doesn't seem to have happened.
The competition for the big paying jobs was pretty damned fierce but lots of people i know taking huge baths on salary (albeit predominantly people with near zero language skills)

 

I can tell you now that salary has not changed with inflation at all. I'm actually considering asking for a rise next month along with better transportation allowance.

 

yup - obviously somewhat rhetorical given i'm here in Japan and salaries have budged nearly zero in years and the Abenobbics thing has done nothing to change that beyond a few companies resuming bonuses.

Base pay has been flat for an age.