- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.
US citizen who just finished immigrating to Japan 2 days ago. It took 8 months of planning and prep work, at least $50,000, and brought my wife and I to the edges of our sanity for the vast majority of those 8 months.
But we are finally free. Fuck ICE, fuck MAGA, and fuck Trump.
Now you’ve moved to Japan, with its rising far right politics
Still better than living in a country with an active fascist government.
I mean, at least Japan’s fascist government would likely be a functioning one.
For ethnically Japanese people*
Japan’s just lagging behind, they recently elected a reaganite/thatcherite to implement austerity policies. Fascism will soon follow, and they’re no stranger to it.
Don’t forget she’s also a member of an insane cult that force it’s lower tier members to give up their life savings and adopt their children away to higher tier members !
Give Japan time.
This is a fair point, and one that I’m concerned about. But our only 2 choices were America and Japan, so we’re taking our chances with Japan for now.
Eh, that’s mostly sensationalization by Western media.
According to my Japanese friends, the new government is quite moderate and their stances on a lot of issues are a lot more nuanced than the headlines imply.
She just supports “traditional gender roles”, is against same sex marriage, etc. y’know the usual bigot red flags
tbf those are just standard asian people beliefs. yes many of them are bigots. but also yes that the far right has always been relatively popular in japan and last decade or so has become more and more powerful with abe et al
She has refused to acknowledge Japan’s war crimes during WW2 and wrote the preface for a book promoting Hitler’s election strategy.
Anti LGBTQ sentiment is undoubtedly not uncommon around the world. I live in the West and it was not even 15 years ago that insinuating homosexuality was a way men insulted each other and there are many that still do. If anything it’s gradually getting worse here, with more and more countries electing far right governments. We are a long way from acceptance.
But Takaichi is more than your everyday mild bigot.
Congrats. Was reading about the apartment application process for foreigners (giving them gift money for considering your application is a thing?) - that’s daunting. Did you go for a large city or somewhere a bit off the main track?
Thank you. We’re on the outer edges of a major city, close to my wife’s family. Yeah, unfortunately this country has never been terribly welcoming to foreigners. I certainly wouldn’t want to live here long term if I wasn’t married to a citizen. I did it for 5 years in my 20s and got burned out.
Wow! Incredible, well done
Thank you <3
50k? Trips and ____?
Airplane tickets - $8k, Sending 2 boxes of things air freight (we lost 2 boxes doing sea freight to the US a few years back, so not trying that again) - $2.5k, Vet visits + vaccinations for dog to be allowed in Japan - $1.5k, Repairs on house to list it for sale - $11k, Short term apartment rental while house is on market - $12.5k, Giving away all our stuff because there’s not enough time to list everything for sale online and spend 1-2 hours per listing dealing with people trying to haggle… and then re-buying the essentials in Japan - $20k+ (honestly idek, could be much more. Haven’t sat down and added up how much value we gave away)
This doesn’t include the $50k we dropped our house sale price to make it sell faster, or the $100k+ per year less I’ll be making at work here.
So yeah, clearly our priority here was not maximizing our net worth. We’re significantly downsizing our lifestyle financially, and prioritizing our family’s safety and peace of mind instead. It was not an easy decision to make.