magnusdeus123

You totally should.

It's been a dream of mine to go spend time in Japan since I was quite young. The dream has morphed; I have a serious relationship now, a good career and a place to call home that I don't want to leave permanently. But the dream lives on and we're planning to go there for six months in a couple of years to learn the language intensively.

Don't let your dreams stay dreams.

Moved to Montreal because found it completely the opposite when I visited. It's just generally the thing here that people tend to be more up for socializing it seems.

The cliquey and flaky nature of city, along with housing costs, are key reasons I left for Montreal five years ago and have never looked back.

I imagine that: the crush of living costs; the theory someone else mentioned of shops and restaurants closing early due to no affordable housing in the city and people living farther away; the massive influx of ill-adapted rich immigrants uninterested in building social ties, etc. could all be factors.

I used to frequent the social dance community in Vancouver and I'll never forget what someone told me about her having spent her entire time doing her PhD in Van essentially friendless because people really are the - as someone else mentioned - "friendly, but not your friend" type.

Man, so glad to be out of there. I'm surprised more people haven't left that sinking ship already. At this point, it feels like Vancouver needs a good recession and a couple of lost decades, similar to what happened to Montreal in the 90s, for it to eventually get back on track. I chose to make my life such that I could stop watching it ruin itself but it's still sad to watch our third biggest city and all those fellow Canadians suffer this.

As another Canadian immigrant who became a citizen I'm 100% with you. This country is not a revolving door investment scheme for libertarians to seek easier entry into Silicon Valley.

Yeah, I have a hard time buying any of this. Moved to Canada ten years ago and from everything I've heard even from friends who have stayed back is life is overall worse in India, not better. Sure, the market is growing and your work opportunities and salaries might have improved, but quality of life is even more in the toilet in all of the Tier I & II cities where you'd most likely be working that it's incomparable unless you want to live like a hermit in a walled compound.

Hello, fellow Montrealer. Totally a great place if you lean a bit more towards quality-of-life & affordability & national culture vs. more money & global,ethnic culture (Toronto)

Immigrant Montrealer reporting in. I've never felt any animosity or close-mindedness because of my ethnicity but being polite and understanding that you're in a 'country' that speaks French really goes a long way. I do so it's never been an issue for me, but I can see it rubbing the locals (including myself) the wrong way if people are deliberately being impolite about it.

Montrealer as well. I get the feeling like Montreal would be the best city between Berlin & Toronto. It's kind of grungy and full of culture like Berlin, but still authentically Canadian in terms of being open-minded.

Moved here from Vancouver and it's totally where I'm rooted now.

I haven't lived in Toronto but I imagine it's a lot greyer of a city with a deep hustle, work>life mentality. Not to mention the unaffordable living.

Definitely checks my list on the Life Goal aspect. Got into a serious relationship in Canada and part of moving forward in it for me involves a commitment to moving with me to Japan in a few years. Luckily, she's more and more invested in it and I've been pivoting my career to leave me the most options to end up there to work and learn Japanese. Been loosely studying the language for a few years now, ready to go faster when the plan becomes more concrete.

Plenty of Germans I've met here in Montreal echo the same concern; that the German way-of-life is depression inducing. Everything works decently well but it saps the strength from you to have the kind of vivacity and challenges that, while don't make life any safer or easier, make life worth living.

Atleast, that's my interpretation of what I've been told. It's a little what English Canada felt to me now that I've moved to French Canada. It's safe and fine but nothing's really happening. Your relationships aren't going anywhere; your career is basically about paying an oversized mortgage.

I agree with all your points. Don't be discouraged if you get called out by mostly unilingual Americans. As a trilingual Francophone from Canada, I understand from lived experience how language is more than just an economic consideration. In fact, I'd say that the idea of thinking of every aspect of culture purely from economic terms is a very Anglophone way of looking at life.

French & German as the core EU languages would be a great step forwards towards truly making EU independent of American & British influences.

Can you believe it, I opened this up and Ctrl+F'ed 'sophon' to see if I'd be the first one. Glad to see someone else beat me to it.

Also,

Completely true and good: There is no price to be placed on something that core to cultural heritage i.e. language, that can be decided upon by someone who doesn't or hasn't historically participated in it.

> The Quebecois will disagree with me on this, but I don't think you even need to speak French if you're working in tech - you might just have a smaller friend circle of Anglos.

Native anglophone; non-native fluent speaker of French.

You can totally make it work in Montreal with your small circle of anglo friends. But almost anyone I've known over the years who tried to make it work like that is either quite bitter, or has left once raising a family comes into the question.

For good reason, just as in Germany or Poland, unless you learn French, you will be excluded from public culture, especially as you get older, and that largely means a lot of the great things of Montreal get watered down.

> I think this forum in general is too easily weighted towards considering money vs everything else in life though.

That's to expect when the average participant lives a single young male life in SV or a major urban city with a large tech presence and hasn't reached an age where buying homes, child care, commuting, retirement, etc. become actual issues.

This isn't the first time I've seen your comments and thought to myself: "This guy sounds like an awesome dude."

Great write up, once again. Cheers.

> Now even many democratic governments are adopting stringent curbs on online speech. For instance, in Europe, a “right to be forgotten” rule has forced Google and other search engines to remove results that are judged to invade people’s privacy, and more rules governing hate speech and propaganda are in the works.

> “This argument makes me very sad: The world is becoming more like China, so therefore we might as well be in China,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, an internet freedom advocate at New America, a think tank.

Wow, what a leap of reasoning. Equating Europe's 'Right to be Forgotten' laws; a bulwark of privacy, to China's panopticon. You lost me.

Moved to Montreal from Vancouver and this is exactly what I noticed. There's something the seeps into the people that live in regions with a proper 4-seasons that doesn't happen elsewhere.

Modern war doesn't work that way. In fact, today, 'war' doesn't actually work at all.

What China wants is for it's hegemony to be recognized.

Why invade Japan and risk it being highly unpopular at home; being sanctioned by every major developed economy; militarization of it's neighbourhood, etc. etc. (on top of actually being unable to actually conquer Japan)

Within 20 years, it could be well within the position of dictating Japan's foreign, or even some domestic, polices to such a degree to have it essentially as a vassal state. Japan perhaps willingly chooses to make certain concessions in return for favourable treatment for China - say if the two countries considered closer trade relations at one point.

There's also diplomatic & soft power. An aging Japan turning to immigration which de facto will largely result in an influx of Chinese (already the largest foreign minority in Japan). These chinese immigrants over time have more power within Japanese policy.

If China manages to launch it's own cultural industries to the degree of S. Korea's or Japan's, that would make room for more Chinese influence.

But in the end it works both ways. Young Chinese imitate certain aspects of Japanese culture as well. It doesn't really need to end in war or even aggression for both countries to slowly learn to have a meaningful relationship with each other.

Man, I don't know you and just from reading your two replies in this thread I feel like you'd be an awesome dude.

I use Outlook.com as my main email provider. And I'm managing to convince people to move off've Gmail onto it because of it's streamlined interface. What do you find wrong in it?

> the fact that FB isn't french makes it possible for french to get proper legislation

After watching that recent video by TechAltar where he speaks about the EU not having a lot of tech companies, I was feeling a bit low. But your point actually makes sense, and makes me think that perhaps it's for the best since the EU will actually have the political means to reign in big tech. companies - basically the big oil of this age.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my short post at length. I actually came back this Sunday afternoon to just read your post again because I was having a tough day of Japan-centric wanderlust.

I've been preparing, mentally and otherwise, for an eventual move to Japan for over 10 years (with some breaks in-between as I was navigating the troughs of disillusionment).

- Visited Japan last year to make sure it wasn't a false dream. Had some disappointments but the larger goal hasn't been trashed.

- University degree in IT. Open to doing a Master's sometime soon.

- Emmigrated once already. So I know that I can adapt to a non-native culture.

- I will be a citizen of a country which does allow me to pursue the JET program. However, I really don't imagine enjoying life as an English teacher. I've looked into employment at the startups in Fukuoka as a more probable alternative. Perhaps even starting with a sabbatical year of Japanese language studies.

- Japanese; learning slowly but on a daily basis. Could prove competency upto JLPT4 within a couple of months of dedicated study.

- I can't speak for national identities having a hand in citizens having a strong moral compass but in my personal life - I subscribe to the philosophy that everything cultural and political is relative to the culture or society espousing those values.

Again, it's great to hear from ordinary people living good lives in Japan as foreigners. I don't expect that usually from HackerNews and my usual haunt i.e. r/Japan is a cesspool of misery and hate.

Man, this was a real breath-of-fresh-air. As someone who has had a pet dream of moving to Japan, and has this very thing as their primary fear, I feel relieved every time I hear something like this from someone of foreign origin, living in Japan.