Yes, the food is much better…and I’m not even a big fan of Japanese food.
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Tokyo is the only other city besides NYC I never felt bored in. It’s limitless and its amazing how clean and on time everything is there. There’s a few world cities you feel like you can never reach the limit of no matter how long you are there. NYC/LA/Tokyo. I’m guessing mexico city may be like that but ive never been there.
NYC/Tokyo/Saigon 1-3 favorite world cities.
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My career is in the education sector. I am a teacher. Based on my experience as a teacher, if you think Taiwan is all that bad, think again. I moved to Japan 9 years ago
and it was the most regrettable thing I ever did. I was ripped off there to a point of
living with with close to starvation net salary. The cost of living in Japan is so
high that you have to be wealthy to live there. I got no pension, but even here in Taiwan I have no pension either, but the salary I earn in Taiwan is still good enough
for me to save more money, and the benefits I have are good, better than Japan. So if I should ever live and work in Japan again, they better pay a higher living salary, or else forget it.
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… okay.
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Wow, come to think of it… I’ve heard some mixed stories from people who have lived in Japan or Korea for an extended time (especially Korea). Taiwan and Philippines are the only few places that I’ve heard mostly positive stores, but then again, I don’t claim to know everything.
Is S. Korea really that tough for foreigners to settle in for that long?
I worked in S. Korea for 6 years (and have been in Taiwan for almost 5). This is what I’ll say… the society is more insular and harder to get accepted. That doesn’t mean Taiwan is great when it comes to accepting foreigners (no East Asian nation is), but they are much better than both Japan and Korea, perhaps due to the fact it’s a relatively new country with less nationalistic fervor and attachment to tradition/history. I had multiple confrontations with racists in Korea… and I don’t mean subtle stuff like someone giving me a funny look on the train. I mean someone throwing coins at my Korean girlfriend telling her this is her money to whoring herself out to a foreigner. Or someone getting in my face unprovoked telling me I’m sub-human and will pollute the pure Korean gene pool. The worst racism usually happened when I was out with my girlfriend at the time. The men really hated to see white guys in happy relationships with the native women, probably because they were jealous and had no game themselves… so it must be because we’re white, eh? sigh In comparison, the racism in Taiwan is more subtle… you know, funny/dirty looks or people mumbling something under their breath. And it’s much less often. The worst encounter I had here was some stranger randomly yelling “fuck you” in English at me, and he might just have been crazy rather than racist.
That said, I preferred Korea due to just feeling it was more exciting to live and work in, job opportunities and pay was better, I preferred the food, etc. But that’s all besides the racism, which was pretty bad. And if you think THAT was bad, you should’ve heard the stories my black friend told me…
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Then I wouldn’t fair much better haha, because I’m aboriginal from Canada 
My ex girlfriend went to Korea (she was a big Korea fan, dramas, songs etc), and came back feeling not quite the same about things.
I still want to visit there since I have a visa-free stay for up to six months, but my heart isn’t there and not even in Japan like I used to be in my early years. Philippines has too much poverty.
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Also in Japan they hate you, they really really hate you. You are a Gaijin and nothing you do will change that. Taiwanese are really nice to (mostly white) foreigners compared to Japan.
I am sorry, but this is not universally the case.
Guy
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I’ve live in Taiwan and Japan. The younger Japanese generation is very open to foreigners and new ideas. Night and day compared to their parents’ generation.
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Well, if I grew up during a time when the Americans basically bombed my city back to the stone age, I’d hate them too…
I’ve never met a Japanese person who even so much disliked white people.
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I’ll agree with this. I’ve lived in Japan for 7 years. Paid rent and paid local municipal taxes. It’s a generalization but it is basically true. It is very hard for a foreigner to rent and sometimes buy property unless you pay the whole amount in cash. Even if you put 50% down the bank is reluctant to lend the rest. I left in 2012 and there were still places that had signs that said no foreigners allowed. The society is nowhere near as friendly as the society in Taiwan. Also with that salary bump comes a higher cost of living.
In Taiwan it could be hard to get mortgage but I heard it’s possible if you make a scene or have a cosigner.
But the downpayment is still kind of absurd. You need at least 10% down, in many cases 30% down. I know in the US you could buy a house with very little down, sometimes even no down payment if your credit is good enough, but then in the US if you got foreclosed then you basically lose the house and any money you paid into it (in Taiwan if you got foreclosed the bank will return amount you paid in, after they sold the house and settled the debt, so you still end up with a decent amount of money if you made payment for a long time. In the US legally they have to, but in practice all that money is lost due to collection cost, legal fees, etc., even if you have a few payments remaining)
Japan is culturally insular. They’re generally not going to let you into their society in any truly meaningful way, but they’re a polite and hospitable people who will basically tolerate your presence in a way that is strange to understand as a foreigner. Xenophobic is not an inappropriate word, but it’s not an appropriate word either. Japan is complex.
The idea that Japanese hate foreigners, and especially Americans as a result of WW2, sounds like something somebody who has never spent any time in Japan would say.
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The 46 year old mayor of Fukuoka, Sōichirō Takashima, and the 39 year old governor of Hokkaido, Naomichi Suzuki, are typical of the young Japanese I socialize and work with in Japan these days. I don’t detect any xenophobia in them. It’s easy doing business with them. They support the things I’m doing because they know Japan has no future if it clings to the past.
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I mean I guess you can call it what ever you like. But I’ve only been in two places in the world where when I walk through a door and the first words out of someone’s mouth was “We don’t serve your kind here”: The USA and Japan.
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I’ve seen signs like this in Korea.
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Where does this happen in the U.S.? 
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Cherokee county Georgia.