Japan, all your base are belong to me

[matt j]

or... one of them. or rather, "Japan, I am now within you!". or something. Goodbye Virginia, hello Nagasaki prefecture!

Virginia, how I shall miss your racist gatherings and shitty traffic. By which I mean, not at all.

It's true, I've traded the threat of the local KKK for the threat of nearby nuclear annihilation. Traded readily accessible Ethiopian cuisine for authentic ramen and green tea. Traded the World Cup glory of the USMNT for the JFA. Traded mid-latitude temperatures for... okay, well the same.

But now onto the important business! Chess! Boardgame threads! Hatewatching EPL! Timewasters! Boycotting Russia & Qatar! Bojack Horseman appreciation posts!

(Furtho are you still here-ish? How's the Nagasaki J-league team?)

[Hot Pepsi]

What precipitated this move?

[ad hoc]

Wow! Good luck Matt.

[matt j]

What precipitated this move?

Wife accepted a job over here. (We'd attempted this sort of thing a few years ago, but the timing wasn't right, so she didn't interview.) The timing was right this time. Also we're old and our daughter is still pretty young, so it was either now or never.

(Also: racist rotting pumpkin attempting to destroy everything of value 60 miles north of where we lived.)

[matt j]

Wow! Good luck Matt.

Thanks! Also, I may be eventually un-repentantly pestering you about how I might get into teaching ESL (since I don't have a job anymore!). This will depend on how desperate I become. It's early days yet. (My current hope is some combination of coaching, substitute teaching, and/or teaching for the local branches of stateside universities. We'll see. It's odd being in a position where the skillset of a 10-year-plus career is mostly meaningless.)

[Gerontophile]

Very best of luck to you all, Matt.

[Furtho]

I notice you say you're in Nagasaki prefecture rather than Nagasaki city, Matt. The city itself is not a great beauty but in my opinion in terms of cultural history is world ranking, for three reasons -- the least interesting of which is the bomb.

There's also the fact that it was the only place in Japan that was open to foreigners (Portuguese Jesuits and Dutch traders) for 200 years, which means there are echoes of European culture in the churches (it's the only place in Japan where I've encountered bona fide nuns) and the island of Dejima.

Then when Japan did open up to the outside world in the 1860s Nagasaki was front and centre as the major port in Kyushu. So in places like Glover* Garden you can see houses of the early traders. In fact I once sketched out a book that told a story from the opening of Nagasaki as an international port through to the closing down 110 years later of Hashima island, a minuscule dot just off the coast which was heavily mined as part of the industrialisation of Japan and for a period was the most densely-populated place on earth.

I've briefly visited Unzen and Shimabara in the eastern part of the prefecture, which are both extremely attractive and interesting. My impression is that rural Nagasaki is lovely and indeed having seen bits and pieces on TV about them, the islands off the west coast look outstandingly beautiful and are also pretty much unique in Japan in terms of the number of local village churches.

So all in all I think Nagasaki is a fantastic place.

The football team is V Varen Nagasaki, whose name reflects the Portuguese and Dutch influences (the V stands for Vitoria) of the city's past. They are currently third in J2 with a quarter of the season remaining, perhaps outside bets for a top two finish and automatic promotion but they should make the playoffs. V Varen play their home games not in Nagasaki city but at the Transcosmos Stadium (effectively the main municipal multipurpose sports facility for the prefecture) in the more centrally-located Isahaya.

*Named after Thomas Glover, a Scotsman who moved from China to see what he could make of himself in Nagasaki and ended up co-founding both Mitsubishi and Kirin.

[anton pulisov]

Will the daughter go to a Japanese school?

[Sits]

Welcome back Matt, what an adventure.

What better time to write the book?

[Etienne]

Have a great time and I hope it works well.

I have no direct knowledge and I hope I'm wrong, but from what I've heard your daughter may not find that racism has been left behind in Virginia.

[ad hoc]

I get the impression that the racism is mostly of the level of "can I touch your hair" curiosity - annoying, but not threatening. Beyond that, I think that everyone foreign is very clearly an outsider to Japanese culture/society, regardless of skin colour.

But I alos could well be way off here.

[Furtho]

>> from what I've heard your daughter may not find that racism has been left behind in Virginia.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Same as most places, really. The closer Matt and his family are to Nagasaki city, the more the locals are likely to be used to foreigners.

>> I get the impression that the racism is mostly of the level of "can I touch your hair" curiosity

I’m not sure I can really imagine that, to be honest. Nagasaki might be out in the sticks, but it’s still 2017 there. The more significant issues that I can imagine relate to housing (so, if Matt’s wife’s employer can help with organising somewhere to live, that would be a big help because it would get around real estate agents and landlords who don’t want to deal with foreigners) and possibly hassle for Matt’s daughter from kids at school (and maybe teachers who are embarrassed about being shown up by a native speaker of English). But as above, that might be something that just doesn’t arise.

[Hot Pepsi]

Thanks! Also, I may be eventually un-repentantly pestering you about how I might get into teaching ESL (since I don't have a job anymore!). This will depend on how desperate I become. It's early days yet. (My current hope is some combination of coaching, substitute teaching, and/or teaching for the local branches of stateside universities. We'll see. It's odd being in a position where the skillset of a 10-year-plus career is mostly meaningless.)

Well, it's good that you have no illusions of ever finding a glimpse of summer's heatwaves in your eyes.

[linus]

I get the impression that the racism is mostly of the level of "can I touch your hair" curiosity - annoying, but not threatening. Beyond that, I think that everyone foreign is very clearly an outsider to Japanese culture/society, regardless of skin colour.

But I alos could well be way off here.

According to an old half-French half-Japanese friend of mine, the worst venom is reserved for those of mixed Japanese descent, or even expat Japanese returning home, as opposed to white transplants.

Exciting move, great opportunity to learn or improve the language.

[anton pulisov]

They are called "hafu" (from the English word half). There was some minor controversy recently when Miss Japan was a half.

The young don't care though, they have an open mind. The problem is that there are hardly any young people in Japan.

[linus]

The bullying he got in school back then was pretty intense, maybe the kids there have mellowed out since...

There's about 30 million Japanese under the age of 25, pretty large number in absolute terms but a relatively small fraction of the country's total population of 125 million. The population peaked in 2010 at 127 million and is now slated to decline by 35% by the end of the century.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2016/

[Incandenza]

Wow! Best of luck, Matt. Happy that we could meet up that one time before you moved across the world.

[matt j]

Thanks all. And thanks for all the info Furtho. I've been eyeing trying to get to a V Varen game, but probably will need to wait until the new year to justify that to the family.

We are indeed west of Nagasaki City (it doesn't take a lot of guessing to figure out where), and my daughter will be attending an American school for now. (Until we get a better feel for what the local education situation is.) The current area is quite beautiful, sea on one side, mountains on the other. This is the Japanese countryside (people keep saying), although the city is a legit city with lots of restaurants and a vibrant downtown.

Generally, we've walked around quite a bit in the last weeks, and for relatively obvious reasons (see above) we are in an area with a lot of Americans. General reception has been pretty open and my daughter hasn't really had any issues at all. Some people obviously love her hair, but the hair-touching thing has definitely not been unique to Japan.

Currently in the process of getting a vehicle (picked out but not paid for) and eventually a rental house (current selection is small, but quite nice - so TBD).

The what do I do with myself question (picking up writing again has -not facetiously- been in my consideration) is still to be resolved. My wife will eventually want me to do be doing something, but it is definitely a bit of a sore spot in conversations. (The 'doing stupid jobs for shitty pay' is nothing something she is particularly looking at as an acceptable alternative for me.) I have a few threads out that might lead somewhere, but might go nowhere. It's just a waiting game. (Though, to be honest, I only officially left my job as of yesterday, so I'm not in panic mode yet.)

[anton pulisov]

From what I understand areas of Japan outside of the Tokyo and Osaka regions are very affordable in terms of living costs. Is that what you are seeing?

As for yourself, with the internet it is of course possible to work remotely on all sorts of stuff, depending on what you want to do.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Exciting move, Matt, very best of luck with it!

[matt j]

Thanks EEG.

My initial feeling is that the large presence of Americans pushes rent prices higher than what would be normal. 140k yen for a decent sized rental house (3 bedroom) is kind of par for the course, which is maybe slightly more expensive than where we were in virginia.

Other living expenses seem much lower to be honest, particulaly if you want to eat on the cheap. Bakeries can easily get you a large meal for well under 5 bucks, which is basically impossible in VA.

Merch is comparable to us prices. Used vehicles are plentiful and cheap. The only thing I've noticed as significantly higher is the toll roads, but even then no worse than some major us metros.

[matt j]

Random things:

Are you in Tokyo, furtho?

There are actually a surprisingly large number of things I could work on remotely (including everything about my old job - sore subject), but I hadn't really started exploring that option yet. Now that I have, yeah... I can see something like that working, so thanks for pointing that out to my jetlagged self.

(So you know, anybody hear anything for a sql, oracle database, gis person, drop me a line.)

[Sam]

Congratulations and good luck, matt (and family)!

[Furtho]

>> Are you in Tokyo, furtho?

I do not now live in Japan. Mrs F's family live in Saitama and we have visited many times (and travelled round the country a fair amount in doing so).

[matt j]

Ah, I couldn't remember what exactly your situation was. Thanks again for the info.

We have a car and house picked out, so all-in-all things coming along, aside from me cracking the screen on my new local phone.