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Comment by Firmwarrior | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for this. I'm probably going to have to move back to Japan soon, since the wife is from there and can't handle living in the USA

Rather than take an 80% pay cut to partake in the salaryman lifestyle, I'm going to have to start some sort of business. This podcast should have some relevant info, haha

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Join a Western company's Japanese branch, both pay and working conditions will be much better.

Based on the experience of people I know, the 'easiest' way is to get hired by a company in the US (or wherever you are) that has a significant Japanese branch, work there for a while, and then ask to get transferred. But be aware that even 'better' working conditions can be much worse than you are used to.

That's a big long shot. The easiest way is to simply get a job at a Western or internationally-focused company here; that's what I did. If you're an experienced software engineer, there's lots of companies looking for English-speaking engineers.

Ah, I've been hunting around, and can't seem to dig up any jobs paying over 20M JPY/year..

20M/year is a huge salary in Japan. If you're looking for American salaries, you will only find those in America. The cost-of-living outside America is generally lower and life is lower-risk (no medical bankruptcy), so you don't need as much money, plus people outside America don't demand and expect to own giant McMansions.

Well, you can make 50M or more per year in the USA, so there's no point in working if you're only taking home 20M. You're financially better off working in the US, saving some money, and then being an unemployed hikikomori in Japan for a few years (which is pretty much my plan at this point, haha)

Sure, you're financially better off in the US, if you don't mind your kids going through active-shooter drills at school, getting shot at sometimes by their classmates, yourself being shot at when you're driving to work by someone with road rage, religious and political nuttery all around, and society in general breaking down. You're also totally forgetting the extremely high cost of living in the US, the possibility of medical bankruptcy no matter how much money you make, I could go on and on.

Honestly though, if you actually like living in the US, you should stay there (this goes for anyone). If you're not unhappy there, there's no good reason to leave for a country that's so completely different and unfamiliar, where you're not likely to be happy at all. The reverse seems to be true for your wife, so I recommend divorce so she can go back to a place where she's happy. The two of you seem to be incompatible. I've seen other marriages break up over the partners being unable to agree on where to live or to retire; to me it seems to be one of the most fundamental compatibility factors there is in a relationship, though it's frequently ignored or overlooked.

Also, jobs paying over $350k are not common in America as you seem to think.

This might be helpful for you (previously found on HN): https://japan-dev.com

Could you elaborate a little on why she can’t handle living in the US?

ah, she just doesn't like the way things work here, and she's scared to learn to drive

The service in the SF Bay Area is really amazingly dismal. It's embarrassing every day to be an American living here. People at restaurants, stores, etc are all angry and stressed out.

I'm hoping I can convince her to move somewhere else in the USA with me, since it'll be a lot easier to find some remote work in my same time zone

Somewhere else will still require driving for every little thing, because that's how America is. If you want to live a car-free lifestyle, America is simply impossible outside of Manhattan, NYC, but it's commonplace in any larger Japanese city.

And Americans are all angry and stressed out everywhere else in America too. It became a really miserable place to live in my experience during the pandemic, so I was really glad to get out and move to Japan where everything is civilized and people know how to act in public.

Well, we've had pretty decent luck with Utah, Florida, Texas, and other parts of the US lately when traveling. The service isn't on par with Japan, but they're nice at least.

I'm hoping I can convince her to learn to drive.. Although if we move near my friends and family, I could just have one of my minions drive her around every day

Hopefully I can work out a way to earn $8k a month or so doing something online. Then I could maintain residences in Tokyo and the non-HCOL part of the USA, and pop back and forth occasionally.

>Although if we move near my friends and family, I could just have one of my minions drive her around every day

Is she some kind of slave or something? Being in a place where you can't get around by yourself is not much fun, and doesn't feel very free. I can totally see why she wants to come back to Japan; you don't have to live that way here, and can easily get around almost anywhere (except the countryside) without a car. It's a totally different way of life, but it's something that most Americans I've found simply cannot comprehend at all. They simply cannot imagine life without a car (or a gun).

>Hopefully I can work out a way to earn $8k a month or so doing something online.

Good luck with that; most WfH jobs won't allow working internationally because of the taxation issues, though I suppose you could lie and just use your US address, though the company might notice that you always work through the middle of the night and have an issue, but I really don't know. I know digital nomads do exist; it's not much of a thing in Japan because there's no working visa that allows this, but a spousal visa probably would.

Yeah, it sucks man. I tried explaining this to her, but she's still scared to drive and spending most of her time alone

At this point I'm basically a nampa weirdo, hitting on all the Japanese housewives I come across to get their LINE info and try to arrange playdates for the wife

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