Reddit -> Beehaw until I decided I didn’t like older versions of Lemmy (though it seems most things I didn’t like are better now) -> kbin.social (died) -> kbin.run (died) -> fedia.

Japan-based backend software dev and small-scale farmer.

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  • 61 Comments
Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2024

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  • They were sitting at the end of the seats at a station and supposedly they were expected to get up and move to another seat whenever someone else wanted to sit?

    10 years in Japan now and I have zero clue what this might be referring to. Unless they were marked as priority seats, anyone can sit there. They might have been loud or disturbing without realizing it or something?

    Nobody would be speaking on public transport and it would be deemed impolite.

    It’s not impolite to talk, it’s impolite to be loud. It’s fantastic, IMO, especially on the early, packed trains going into work in Tokyo and the like; the extra stress of noise is not needed and, many days, it served as a naptime.

    Their streets in Japan are clean while there barely are any public garbage bins available.

    This very much depends upon the area. They’re also clean because people are cleaning up the shit in front of their houses basically every morning. I used to live between some bars and a hotel and those streets were not clean.



  • My two cents with a decade in Japan under my belt:

    • work-life balance needs to be fixed (there are recent laws helping this, but not enough enforcement)
    • sexism in work (salary gap and gap in leadership is one of the highest in the world)
    • do more based on merit than seniority in a number of areas
    • more jobs and good universities need to be moved outside of the big city centers; daycare availability is a HUGE problem for people I know with kids or looking to have them (whereas in the countryside where I live, they have free daycare slots available but far fewer jobs and opportunities). This would involve some investment in infra to make things happen as well
    • better investment in education and some revamping of the education system; kids are almost never held back here and once they get into uni it’s often seen as a free ride to graduation at many schools; this is not the best system for producing the best innovators and Japan needs innovation
    • better progress toward digitization; we’re woefully behind the times even as many are dragged, kicking and screaming, into more things being online. I still have to send faxes and postal mail to accomplish many things relating to government and taxes. This has a number of costs such as taking time off work to accomplish things in person. Banks are also only open 9-3 M-F with some occasionally having weekend hours. Same with all but an area’s “main” post office and other things that just eat into that work-life balance problem by requiring use of time off.
    • better education in and participation in government and civics; very few people vote in Japan and I’d like to see that change as I think more engagement would help the people better determine what is best for their future.

    Edit to add that the above excludes anything related to immigration as I don’t really know the right answer/balance there; the above are things that could help immediately without as much handwaving about “destroying our cultural values!” that some complain about by suggesting such daring things as married Japanese couples having separate surnames (illegal in Japan; if both are Japanese, they must unify to one name).

    Edit 2: just saw this elsewhere talking about some changes coming: https://leglobal.law/countries/japan/looking-ahead-2025-japan/