Agreed! Here are some of the quality of life improvements I've observed between NYC and Tokyo:
- Minimal honking for the amount of cars on the road
- Clean, timely trains, subways, and buses
- Clean streets and sidewalks (unless you go to the busy areas of Shibuya/Shinjuku, it can get nasty there)
- No tipping but you still receive excellent customer service
- Modern apartments with things like auto-filling baths, digital temperature control for hot water, delivery boxes at apartments for package delivery when you're not home, contactless IC cards to unlock your door/mailbox, door video monitors, Toto washlets
This isn't to say NYC doesn't have some of these, it's just less common and you'll be paying more. I do wish Tokyo had more NY pizza and bagels though.
I assume you mean gaijin and not actually kaijin, which is a fantastical sea monster ;)
In seriousness, there is a decent amount of racism but it’s really not that much worse than other places in Asia - that’s part of what I meant by adapting to Japanese culture. It also gets much better if you speak Japanese.
Quality of life as a measure is a societal measure and not an individual measure.
Quality of life could equally be great if you moved to any nation where the economy of your country of origin is relatively stronger to your current one... that, and you choose to ignore the quality of life of your surrounding community.
The quality of life in Tokyo can be quite extraordinary, depending on your point of view.
As a westerner imitating the salaryman lifestyle? Absolutely terrible, primarily for work-related reasons.
As a westerner doing basically anything else that doesn't involve employment at a massive Japanese conglomerate? Excellent.
If you can deal with the lack of English and gain some modicum of comfort with Japanese culture, it's a fantastic place to live.