[csa]

So I have been a Japan watcher/liver for the past 30 years. I might resemble some of the negative nellies you refer to, but not in precisely the same way. That said, you are about 180 degrees from what I and most of my trusted Japanese friends believe. I would like to better understand why we see things differently. Please help me understand.

So to define my beliefs in your terms:

- Japan is not currently wrecked economically, but they are rolling the dice with a ridiculously high debt to GDP ratio. Some of this can be reasonably explained away due to the specifics of Japanese saving in Japan, but not all of it.

- I don't think most Japanese people are in denial at all. They are largely cautiously pessimistic except for two groups (see below).

- I don't think that emulating the west is the best path forward. Many of my Japanese friends agree with me on this front. In fact, I think the manner in which Japan deregulated in the 80s and 90s under western-influenced guidance was a very bad move -- it gutted the core of the Japanese socio-economic structure without providing a reasonable replacement.

- I agree that Japan does many things better than the west. It also does many things worse (paging patio11).

- The only Japanese people I know who don't feel terribly concerned about the state of Japan are upper class people and folks who work for foreign companies or governments. The quality of their day-to-day lives is largely independent of the state of the Japanese economy.

So I wonder a few things about you. How long have you lived in Japan? How well do you speak Japanese? How many close Japanese friends do you have that don't speak English beyond short simple conversations? What do you do for a living?

My guess is that you work with the group I mentioned in my last bullet point, or you are just new to Japan.

If not, I am very very interested in learning from you.

Specifically:

1. How is Japan handling the debt to GDP ratio issue? This is genuinely an issue that is somewhere between scary and terrifying.

2. How are the folks in their 20s and 30s getting stable jobs at the same relatively high rate that they did in the 80s and (to a lesser extent) the early 90s? Note that anyone who went to an international school or a western university is not the target of my inquiry (those numbers are very small in aggregate).

3. How are Japanese banks handling the low/non-performing loans on their books? The last time I checked, they were just engaging in some polite fiction and hoping that a miracle will happen and/or they will be bailed out by the government via free funds or a devalued currency.

I genuinely hope you can show me the bright light of Japan's present and future. I left there because I saw that light dimmming rapidly. I will happily move back if I see any real potential. Please show me that potential in a compelling and convincing way -- I love Japan and desperately want the country to succeed, but I just don't see it now.

[nihonde]

I'll indulge your request but I doubt it matters. My experience is mine and yours is different. The point I make above is that the relentless doomsaying about Japan is totally outside my experience and has no reality in my daily life. Am I just lucky? Yes and no.

First, I'm not an authority on Japan. I've lived here for three years about but have a history of spending long stretches of time here that goes back over a decade. My current situation is more that of a typical Japanese person than a typical gaijin--i.e., no one in my world speaks any English and I see another gaijin about once every few weeks at most. I live in Nagoya, which is obviously a big city, but also a very Japanese city, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'm not in some satoyama paradise.

I have a lot of money by local standards. I run my own businesses which are state-side from here. My friends here range from taxi drivers to factory workers to CEOs. I would like to think I have a very interesting and diverse cross-section of people in my life. I'm well aware of the intense pressures of life here for people who are just scraping by. I know a lot if people who work in jobs that are soul destroying. They deal with bullies and stupid bosses and so on. I doubt anywhere is free of that kind of nonsense, though. I definitely don't think it's unique to Japan.

I've also never seen a ghetto in Japan, and there's one in every major American city. Japan has a working middle class that should be the envy of America--affordable and good housing, cars, food, healthcare, etc. Lots of unskilled jobs, arubaito, etc. Somehow, this is characterized as abject failure. You say that only upper class people live well in Japan, and I say that by any reasonable standard, everyone in Japan lives pretty goddamn well.

Everyone, everywhere worries about their future. That's not the point. The point is that Japan is not going anywhere. It will adapt, as it has done for thousands of years, but it is uniquely good at preserving some core values and those are what keeps me in this place. Values like being civil to one another, not being a crazy, selfish asshole, trying really hard to do a good job--you know, little things like that.

Coming from America (New York City), I find my life here far more gratifying, and less anxious. I don't care in the slightest if people need to justify their hangups by writing me off as a dupe or weeb or whatever self-inflicted misery they harbor.

I'm not going to answer your enumerated questions because I don't purport to write social or economic policy statements. There is a lot of wealth in Japan tied up in personal assets of old people. If Japan can weather the storm of providing a soft landing for the current generation, the future is bright. I will tell you that I'm moving my business here, and I'm involved in other startups here. I'm more bullish on Japan than the US long term. You are free to call me a fool and disagree.

[csa]

Thank you for your response. It has made clearer to me the view of Japan from a newer generation of Americans (small, but definitely non-zero).

Some comments:

- Japan, as you see it now and to a large extent as I saw it when I most recently lived there, has a lot of quality of life (QoL) benefits that are common. Things like safety, nice people, high attention to detail, relative lack of poverty, etc. are so common in Japan that it is easy to take them for granted if you've been there for a while. (snark incoming) Note that you come from NYC, so improving these types of QoL aspects are a very low bar. ;-) All joking aside, I think you could find similar qualities that you like about Japan is some second-tier-sized US metropolitan area (much like Nagoya is a second-tier-sized metropolitan area in Japan).

- As a slightly seasoned Japan hand, I can tell you that you seem to lack the perspective of relatively recent Japanese history. From the 50s until the 80s, there were constant and substantial QoL improvements across the board in Japanese lives (in aggregate) -- better housing, better transportation, better food, better economy, etc. Parents always wanted better for their kids, and society delivered in spades. These days, kids are rarely better off than their parents, and holding the line is largely considered a success. As such, those with knowledge of Japan's recent past (perhaps before you were born) don't really see things as that great in the grand scheme of things. The present may not completely suck, but the future outlook isn't particularly rosy either. (Note that a similar comment can be made about the US from the 50s to the 00s with a slightly less negative outlook for today's youth, and I would agree, but the details of the rise and fall strike me as being vastly different -- a topic for another post). I encourage you to talk to older Japanese people about the 60s to 80s and compare that to how Americans (esp. non-New Yorkers... NYC is just different) talk about the same time period.

- On a personal level, I can say that the robustness of the Japanese economy is just a shadow of it's former self. This is most easily seen in the moribund state of the drinking districts (once bustling areas now seem like ghost towns), but it can also be seen in the heavily reduced footprint of light industry and logistics if you poke around the right places. Anyone who was alive in the 80s (and even early 90s) in Japan is kind of hoping for some of that economic swagger to return.

- Japan will certainly adapt, as you say. That's not really the worry. In fact, most Japanese people don't really have a good feel for Japan's rise and (the beginning of the) fall of Japan in the world political and economic scene. That said, those that do understand have been on a wild ride the past few decades, and I think the descent will continue quite a ways. This is and will be distressing to the Japanese elite (e.g., the folks who are internationally minded in terms of business and politics). Maybe this is the facet that you see differently than the negative/doomsayer folks.

- I'm glad to hear that you are in startups. This is one of the potential outlets that Japanese youth have for their talent (since Japan Inc is largely snubbing them). That said, the lack of social status of start up jobs is a potential problem. Maybe Japanese society has moved forward in this area recently and I haven't noticed (a couple of the tell-tale signs will be the quality of marriage prospects for Japanese founders/employees and the ability of Japanese start up founders/employees to rent nice places on reasonable terms when they are making decent money).

- FWIW, I think Japan will become an even better to host a US-based tech business moving forward. I personally believe that earning dollars and spending yen is very solid right now and will be ++++++++EV in the future.

- (side note nitpick, but there's a point) Note that I didn't say that "only upper class people live well in Japan". I don't believe that one bit. I said something like the upper class people and people who work for international companies and governments (note that you are one of these) are the only folks I know who don't worry about the Japanese economy, and that is largely because their/your day-to-day livelihoods are not tightly tied to the vagaries of the Japanese economy.

- It seems like you have a lot of appreciation of some of the dentouteki values of Japan -- I do, too. Sadly, compared to even 20 years ago, the institutions that support these values have deteriorated substantially. Thankfully, there are some diehards who still hold these values dear. I hope that they are able to pass the best of these on to future generations.

So this was a reply that was part for you and part for other readers. If you would like to continue the interaction, please let me know. Throw some sort of site or e-mail in your profile and I will contact you.

Thanks again for your reply -- it has helped me look at Japan from a different perspective.

[nihonde]

Thank you, too, for a civilized back-and-forth. In the end, we all carry the perspective of whatever personal gauntlet we've run. To say that one man's trash is another man's treasure is not much a condemnation of garbage lovers as a celebration of our ability to keep things alive, I think.