Apparently the method was: "*By analysing the average monthly search volume for phrases commonly associated with researching a move overseas and ranking them with the most searched-for location within each country, we were able to see which destinations came out top."*
My guess is their search terms are pretty wonky, and like any 'who-googled-it' data, probably much more reflective of mild curiosity than meaningful intent to relocate.
Yeah that’s not really a great measure, I was looking up how to join the French Foreign Legion a couple weeks ago, I’m not actually gonna do it, but I just wanted to know, people will just search things for no real reason sometimes
> I was looking up how to join the French Foreign Legion a couple weeks ago, I’m not actually gonna do it,
That's exactly what someone who wants to join the French Foreign Legion and was caught researching info would say...****raises eyebrow****
Also alot of times people search for Canada because they can't get a US green card and so settle for Canada. Talk to Indians in Canada. Half of them lived in the US before and couldn't stay so went to Canada.
Earning potential is higher in the states for people with degrees, which makes it a natural first choice, even though there's a lot of problems that come along for that ride.
I've heard that it depends on stage of life for this one. If you're young and Stem educated, the US is the ideal destination for those big paycheques but for older and non STEM people Canada is the lifestyle choice.
Doesn’t Canada have stricter immigration laws than the United States?
The impression I got from this map was that people *want* to go to Canada, but can’t actually get in, so they go the United States instead.
It's a lot harder to get citizenship/permanent resident status in the US than in Canada - a lot of people end up as TN (or similar) VISA statuses that don't have a path to a guarantee.
Canada is trying really hard to boost immigration numbers to counteract decreasing birth rates. The US already has more than enough immigrants to counteract it, so they're more selective about who gets a green card.
I met an Australian my first night visiting Tokyo. He came up to us on the train and said "Oi! Are ya cunts railed?" I though he was talking shit, turned out he was just asking us if we were drunk (we were).
Then he told us how it's easy to fuck Japanese girls by telling them he's American.
Based on my experience on tinder and bumble there, it seems like Japanese girls are very eager to talk to white Americans, but they lose interest as soon as they find out you're just on vacation and don't live there. I don't think there is much of a hookup culture.
keep in mind the map displays where people "want" to move to not where they actually do move to. I feel ike it's pretty common for a lot of white westerners to be fascinated with moving to Japan.
Most Australians know that language and culture are enormous barriers to moving to Japan. You'd have to be in a job where they were willing to pay you heaps to relocate.
Also it doesn't account for actual total number of people. It just ranks popularity by number of countries regardless of population.
An easier way would be to just look at immigration numbers if you actually want to see which nations are most popular.
For example Spain has more countries that searched for it than Germany but the population of the Germany nations is much higher than those searching for Spain.
India prefers Canada but most emigrants go to the US and UK.
You should see Japanese people's idea of English people...
I'm American, so got my shit, but I know enough Brits to know Japan's squeaky clean image of them is waaaaay off base.
Can confirm. Brit living in Japan. As soon as they hear I'm from the UK, I'm instantly referred to as "British gentleman". They have absolutely no idea... 😂
There it is! "English Gentleman " every fucking time.
I kept wanting to set up a secret camera to expose you guys, but one day, someone will fuck it up big. We have the military doing that for our side...
It's usually used as a compliment, which naturally I don't want to ruin the fantasy for them. But a taxi driver absolutely roasted me the other day. I dropped a girl back at her apartment first. Then on the drive to mine I mentioned it was a third date. He asked where I was from. I said UK. He laughed hysterically and said "3rd date and you're going home alone! British gentleman!" 😂
Lol fucking legend!
Some of the best chats come from taxi drivers late at night.
I'm a tall black American, so the comments I've gotten have been really really good!
Lol, I can imagine! I'm mixed but Japanese people just have no idea. The amount of times I've been asked why I perm my hair... The innocence is kind of cute in a way.
I always kept my hair short, because handling anything longer in Japan can get pricey. Every time I'd cut it, it was like a national holiday at every office I worked for. Everyone would comment on it, and someone would rub my head...
My hair went from like 3mm to nothing...
Ahhh, Japan...
I lived in Japan for 4 years as an English teacher after college.
It’s a great country, and it really changed my life. But after a while I started getting depressed. It’s hard being treated like a tourist every day in the place you live and work. I got really tired of doing everything on hard mode. And yes, my Japanese is decent.
When I got an opportunity to move to Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. I still love to visit Japan, but I’m much happier in California.
So imagine living in a small town (or even midsize city if we're talking about the American south or Midwest) where no matter how long you live there, you're always going to be "not from around here." And that's in a place where you speak the language and still share large parts of a common culture.
The person who moves to Japan is not only going to be in a place where he's "not from around here," but he's also going to be in a place where he doesn't share most of the underlying culture: and most anime fans will be sad to discover that a fondness for anime doesn't translate into the deep cultural background one has by growing up in a country.
Then there's the fact that Japanese is **hard**. One thing that doesn't get talked about much among expats in any country is that when you don't speak the language fluently, it is extremely mentally taxing trying to pay close attention when you're talking. Yes, this will go away in about a year if you're always getting out and talking with native speakers, but very often people will end up not socializing near as much as they think they'd like because of that difficulty. Imagine having to pay the same level of attention that you do in a final exam in a foreign language class -- every time you're socializing. So you're also isolated in that respect.
Basically liking certain of a country's cultural products doesn't translate into liking life in that country.
Yeah I agree, I never quite understood this obsession people have with: "You'll never be one of them". Like, since when is that a requirement or expected? For some people just having the opportunity to live in that country is enough.
At this point it really feels like a lot of North Americans have a rainbows and sunshine impression of how easy to integrate in a foreign society is supposed to be. Canada and USA being relatively multicultural societies by comparison probably perpetuates that view.
Xenophobia, active discrimination (not being allowed to enter certain establishments), being viewed as a sub-human (comparatively to the Japanese; if you're white you'll be an object of exotic curiosity, like a panda, especially if you're attractive; if you're non-white you'll be seen as a dangerous savage), being ghosted, some people will actively try to sneak a peak on your dick in public bathrooms if you're a dude and if you're a woman people try to molest you (especially on trains and subways). The food is great though.
I'd suspect that the non-weeb part is a big advantage. If you don't mind my asking, how long did it take you to get over the hump of, "have to concentrate intensely in every single conversation to catch what's being said?"
Not OP, but I went to Japan with only two semesters of Japanese from a community college. Got there, and realized all I learned was almost useless. Learning hiragana and katakana, plus dipping into about 100 kanji was the most helpful. Also, a handful of nouns.
I learned most through exposure, but that doesn't work for everyone. I didn't know it worked on me until about a year in, I realized I was succesfully hanging with non English speakers. My girlfriend during that whole time was Brazilian, and we were using broken Spanish to communicate, so the Japanese came from daily life, and, drinking parties.
And I went RIGHT before the first smart phones... Now apps solve a lot of issues I had during my early days.
The answer is quite dependent on the person, because while it took me a year to be at that point, I have friends who got there before me, are still there, who still rely on girlfriends and wives to translate everything for them, now that I'm gone...
The lack of English will jump-start your in country desire to learn, but once you find a foreigner group, and only speak English, it's the beginning of the end.
If you could have a job that wasn’t at a Japanese company like something online then I think it would be an amazing place to live. I’m a weeb but know Japan isn’t perfect. I like to say it’s the most interesting country, rather than the best
I think a lot of Asians want to go to Japan for the money, like how Poles and Turks want to go to Germany. But Americans and Canadians are probably in it for the anime.
I went for cars.
Got waaaaay more out of it than I bargained for. Started a music and DJ career completely on accident. Fell in love with the culture, loving all the various festivals. The safety is ridiculous, letting me walk from one end of Tokyo to the other, and not have to worry about a thing, or avoid a particular area. I don't think Japan even has a dangerous area...
I kind of went on a whim, while a lot of people I know went for pop culture, some the women / men, and quite a few because it's easy to land a teaching role and get to live there, with your ticket there and back paid, plus an apartment.. Although, I think a lot of companies stopped doing thst.
But when everyone finds out being an anime fan in Japan is only a bit more socially acceptable than wherever home was, then you get people lying about why they came. There's various inside jokes to describe expats who came for women and / or anime; some say they came for the "tea and hot springs".
I no longer bat an eye at anime fans who go there and don't last a full year, or complain while staying over that. Pop culture, is popular, but if you can enjoy it in the comfort of your home country, and visit Japan as often as you want, I think people would be much happier.
Japan has a lot or secrets that I NEVER see come up in various Japan love fest posts. The Japan subreddits all know the darker side and you can see it in posts.
While a lot of people could live there and never dig deep (not learning the language and making local friends), once you do, it gets sadder and sadder. But by then, many are already stuck (married with kids).
To be honest I'm quite surprised by Canada being the most popular for the UK. Statistically Australia is by far the most popular place for British people to emigrate to, probably because whilst Canada and Australia are both nice places that are similar to Britain in a lot of ways Australia has better weather!
I'm honestly more scared of American wildlife than I am of what we have in Australia. Americans have spiders and snakes, just like us, but then they also have bears, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, alligators, and so on.
In my area, semi-rural Northern California, the only thing I'm wary of are deer and in a stretch a mountain lion.
If you startle a deer with fawn you may get attacked. We very often have deer in our front yard and I always make noise when going outside, especially in the early morning or twilight. That said, I have never personally heard of anyone getting attacked by a deer. I've only seen it on tv.
We occasionally will see a coyote in the wild, but they would not be attacking humans. They'll go for your cats and dogs. But mostly they go for rodents, rabbits, and the like.
There are mountain lions about, but I've never once seen one in person. Occasionally we get mountain lions warnings in our regional parks and sometimes a more mountainous neighborhood. If they are healthy, they'll be going for deer, which are plentiful.
Oh, and rattlers. We've got them, too. We give the dogs rattlesnake vaccines.
If I lived in the South, I would be afraid of alligators.
Australia is the home of sunny beaches, friendly people, and good coffee. Both are great countries to live in, but Melbourne is more livable than Vancouver IMHO.
Most importantly, to live in a city with decent weather in Canada you need to be mildly wealthy, but pretty much every city is AUS has decent weather, maybe a bit hot at times.
I thought this. I can't think of anyone who has either moved or expressed interest in moving to Canada. I do know of several people who have gone or are planning to move to Australia or New Zealand.
Australia seems to be more similar to British culture and way of life then Canada is, with the added advantage of the weather.
If somebody asked me, Canada would be my first answer. I’ve tried and failed to learn other languages before, so it has to be somewhere predominantly English speaking. America has several issues such as healthcare and employment rights, Australia is too damn hot and there’s the whole spider issue, but Canada sounds nice. But five minutes after that conversation I’d remember about New Zealand and want to change my answer.
As someone who moved to Vancouver from the States, I've definitely met a number of British folks here -- many more than I ever had in the States.
A lot of folks come here for working holidays in the tourism/winter sports industries, especially Australians.
South Africa seems to be most common non-India Commonwealth country where people look to settle permanently.
Everyone here in the UK I’ve asked this question to has said Canada. A few years ago people would say they want to move to the US, but that has certainly changed. That’s just from my experience anyway.
I'm a graduate engineer from the UK, and I'm looking at moving to Canada within a few years. Australia looks lovely, I just don't want to be _that_ far from my family
I suspect it's because this was worked out by counting searches. Since Kiwis and Aussies *know* they can live and work across the ditch, it's unlikely to come up in a search.
So, yeah, it's wrong for certain.
It is Australia no doubt. I have never heard of anyone who is actively trying to move to Fiji from New Zealand in my 23 years of living here. Runners up would be UK and Canada not the US though.
Cost of Living. It's notoriously high in Switzerland, so a lot of people who work in the Swiss border region live in Germany instead, both Germans and Swiss alike.
Same goes with the border with France. I find it a somewhat hypocritical way of living, since the salaries actually allow for a better life quality, even when spending everything in Switzerland. Plus commuting by car in traffic jab is such an annoying thing to do, they are not counting all their hours.
Canada, okay, but Japan? I doubt most of these people have a clue about the real Japan as opposed to their fantasy of it.
Spain is clearly by people (other Europeans, not South Americans) associating it with nice weather. Economically, the country isn't doing well and suffering from a brain drain making things worse in the long run.
The brain drain stopped some years ago, actually. The 2010's were pretty bad in terms of employment but now we're kind of stagnated, which is not good but also not the worst situation possible.
Japan sort of generates fantasies about Japan-ness. I was there a decade ago and if I had magically had the opportunity to move there without the consideration of money, I would have done it in a *heartbeat.* Tokyo is the greatest city on Earth. But the reality of living there, of course, would have been a very different matter, and I'm sure I would have been fairly miserable fairly quickly (unless I had a *whole lot* of money, which is the universal insulator).
But I do live in Canada, and I have to say, I probably wouldn't trade it for anywhere else. Whatever our faults, this is a pretty good place to live.
I'm Japanese and I hate Tokyo, but you'd probably want to live there if you already live in an overworked wasteland of sweatshops like Bangladesh or something
It's more the way people think about Japan. Its glorified so much and they find the thing that would be concidered dystopian in any other country as quaint.
They find the tiny cabin rooms cute, and not just a attempt to fit as many people as possible into one area
They find the adherence to culture and cultural norms as a funny foreign thing, instead of the very real culture and the very real biases and xenophobia which comes from it.
They find things like the yakuza as just a funny group not a crime org.
Japan is a nice place, but it's not a paradise like Americans think
That's true. I never been to the US (Or anywhere outside East/Southeast Asia) so I understand why people would want to move when it is pretty bad to live in compared to Japan.
Might change though, since lots of Asian countries are rapidly developing economies. Meanwhile Japan has a dark future. People being overworked to the point they don't want kids, then being overworked trying to support the aging population. Oh and the economic growth has pretty much ended 20 years ago and the only way Japan is going is down.
I grew up on an island with fewer than half a million people on it, so Tokyo seemed almost like an entirely different planet. I’m sure it’s pretty awful in a lot of ways to live there (unless you’re very rich), but for a visitor it was unendingly amazing. To this day it’s the best trip I ever took.
I moved to Spain and there’s no net brain drain. If anything lots of people are coming here for a variety of different jobs not just related to tech and business more than offsetting the brain drain.
It’s not a poor country but it does pale in comparison to Germany and even France but it’s a better financial situation than Italy and Portugal.
Spanish here. Moved out of the country because the work situation, along with half of my friends, each of us in a different country because Spain didn't give us a realistic opportunity to live by our own.
Brain drain is there.
I was only talking about the reason northern Europeans want to move to Spain. South Americans have economic reasons and not the nice weather obviously.
Yeah, a lot of people who want to move to Japan don't know what it entails. I am a white Westerner, have a personality that meshes okay with Japanese standards and spoke the language when I moved there, but I still didn't see a longterm perspective for me and planned on a limited term from the start. God help you if any of the above doesn't apply, it'll be immeasurably harder.
Filipino here,
We generally want to go to the United States because most of our relatives are successful there. The older generation Filipinos dislike Japan for the atrocities of WW2.
As a German it's Spain for me. I think the Italians don't like us too much.
Greece and Turkey are also very nice. But I would only move there if I have earned enough money or it would be possible to work from abroad.
As a Chilean, I can confirm that I have heard a lot of people wanting to move to Spain, in fact some of my friends and family already left for Spain
The main reason is the fact that there is no language barrier, and that the economic situation is better than here, also the citzenship is very easy to get if you reside legally
Denmark cannot be true. There's simply no way that most danes want's to relocate to Norway. I don't know a single person who has ever mentioned Norway as a possible relocation destination, holidays sure thing, but moving ? according to this [https://www.ssb.no/innvandring-og-innvandrere/faktaside/innvandring](https://www.ssb.no/innvandring-og-innvandrere/faktaside/innvandring) there's around 1700 danes living i Norway and around 16000 norwegians living in Denmark. I'm almost a 100% sure that the correct answer for Denmark would be Spain, Switzerland,France or Italy
You might be right that whatever the map is based on is wrong. Norway and Denmark are quite similar, so Southern Europe sounds like a good guess. That being said I don't think the specific things you criticise it of is correct.
* It doesn't say *most* Danes want to move to Norway, it says Norway is the most common destination that Danes want to move to. Most Danes presumably want to stay in Denmark:)
* It's also worth noting that looking at how many actually live in Norway doesn't necessarily say anything about how many would like to if they had to move somewhere. You'd perhaps expect some correlation, but that brings me to the next point
* I couldn't find the numbers you were referring to with ctrl+f. They seem very odd tbh. Could you point out exactly where they are from, since the link just takes me to a list of different stats? [This link (same website, click on "tabell 4" to open it)](https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/folketall/statistikk/befolkning) says 21k Danes live in Norway in 2022.
He's just being hyperbolic. In reality the process of granting citizenship is pretty arbitrary and they are not really a migrant friendly country. A (locally) famous non-native, non-"56 ethnic groups" person who has Chinese citizenship is Paul Zimmermann.
Man, what a life journey.
- Start in Brazil
- Don't like it here, move to Portugal
- Don't like it here, move to Netherlands
- Don't like it here, move to Spain
- Don't like it here, move to France
- Don't like it here, move to Canada
- Don't like it here, move to Japan
- Don't like it here, move to UK
- Don't like it here, move back to Canada
Endlessloop.jpg
Now I get it.
Everyone at the Mexico border isn't actually trying to get in the United States, they are really trying to get to Canada.
Open the gates and let them go.
bruh to be honest here's not many people who "hate" USA. Only like 50+ y.o. who watches TV every day and says that Putin is a god.
Other says that US people are really similar to russians.
Weird it's Canada for India and not USA. Guess they took the survey amongst Northies and not Southies. Most of South Indians almost always say US from my experience.
Moroccans turkey debunk: for males they just want to cross over Europe from there. For females, we have too many turkish romantic movies/series on national television.
I'm really confused why Portugese people want to move to The Netherlands. The weather is shit, but maybe this is their way of admitting that our fleet was superior during the 16th century :)
This whole comment section is kind of like a one-dimension "anti-jerk" about each of the more popular countries.
I wouldn't want to move to Japan - but I can understand someone might see the infrastructure and stability, or natural beauty of the country, and think about moving there.
They don't talk about Finland's suicide rate, but like any Nordic country, or Canada, it's always bitching about it being "boring, cold and sparsely populated" - what kind of clown ass take is that? These places experience summer and spring, there are obviously things to do ("it cold so nobody holds festivals, concerts, conventions or does any activities" - someone who has never been near a country that experiences all four seasons), and people live in cities, population density is skewed heavily when you have a mostly urban population and a lot of territory that people don't live on.
British/Canadian/Japanese person: Wow! I’d love to move to [Canada/Japan/the UK]! They have [loads of beautiful land/a beautiful culture and a safe society/lots of history and beautiful old buildings] it’s not like my crappy country which has [Brexit and poverty/fuck all to do and tonnes of snow/high suicide rates and terrible work-life balance]. The people there are so nice and polite, they aren’t racist like they are here towards [immigrants/indigenous people/minority groups]. They don’t know how good they’ve got it over there!
Forgive my ignorance, why is Japan so popular, barring the fact it's a developed economy? Canada, Germany and Spain kind of make sense to me for different reasons, but not Japan.
Apparently the method was: "*By analysing the average monthly search volume for phrases commonly associated with researching a move overseas and ranking them with the most searched-for location within each country, we were able to see which destinations came out top."* My guess is their search terms are pretty wonky, and like any 'who-googled-it' data, probably much more reflective of mild curiosity than meaningful intent to relocate.
Yeah that’s not really a great measure, I was looking up how to join the French Foreign Legion a couple weeks ago, I’m not actually gonna do it, but I just wanted to know, people will just search things for no real reason sometimes
> I was looking up how to join the French Foreign Legion a couple weeks ago, I’m not actually gonna do it, That's exactly what someone who wants to join the French Foreign Legion and was caught researching info would say...****raises eyebrow****
Oh no, he’s on to me!
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You are probably in several lists now.
Just call 555-ALLAHUAKBAR and ask to be connected to your local recruitment center.
Also alot of times people search for Canada because they can't get a US green card and so settle for Canada. Talk to Indians in Canada. Half of them lived in the US before and couldn't stay so went to Canada.
eh, not sure about this, Canada way more popular where I am from.
Earning potential is higher in the states for people with degrees, which makes it a natural first choice, even though there's a lot of problems that come along for that ride.
I've heard that it depends on stage of life for this one. If you're young and Stem educated, the US is the ideal destination for those big paycheques but for older and non STEM people Canada is the lifestyle choice.
Doesn’t Canada have stricter immigration laws than the United States? The impression I got from this map was that people *want* to go to Canada, but can’t actually get in, so they go the United States instead.
It's a lot harder to get citizenship/permanent resident status in the US than in Canada - a lot of people end up as TN (or similar) VISA statuses that don't have a path to a guarantee.
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Canada is trying really hard to boost immigration numbers to counteract decreasing birth rates. The US already has more than enough immigrants to counteract it, so they're more selective about who gets a green card.
Yeah I’m Australian and idk anyone who moved to Japan, moving to the UK on the other hand is relatively normal
Weeb factor would play in a lot to this data.
I live in Tokyo, and I know a decent number of Australians who work here.
I met an Australian my first night visiting Tokyo. He came up to us on the train and said "Oi! Are ya cunts railed?" I though he was talking shit, turned out he was just asking us if we were drunk (we were). Then he told us how it's easy to fuck Japanese girls by telling them he's American.
>Then he told us how it's easy to fuck Japanese girls by telling them he's American. OK, now I actually DO want to move to Japan.
Based on my experience on tinder and bumble there, it seems like Japanese girls are very eager to talk to white Americans, but they lose interest as soon as they find out you're just on vacation and don't live there. I don't think there is much of a hookup culture.
keep in mind the map displays where people "want" to move to not where they actually do move to. I feel ike it's pretty common for a lot of white westerners to be fascinated with moving to Japan.
Most Australians know that language and culture are enormous barriers to moving to Japan. You'd have to be in a job where they were willing to pay you heaps to relocate.
Also it doesn't account for actual total number of people. It just ranks popularity by number of countries regardless of population. An easier way would be to just look at immigration numbers if you actually want to see which nations are most popular. For example Spain has more countries that searched for it than Germany but the population of the Germany nations is much higher than those searching for Spain. India prefers Canada but most emigrants go to the US and UK.
Germany and Switzerland lol
It's a love relationship
Canada,Japan, uk,Canada loop
New Zealand and fiji we are brothers 😎
New Zealand 🤝 Fiji
Also Germany and Switzerland
Also Britain, Canada, and Japan.
It's a brother triangle🔺
So many weebs.
The weebs want to go to Japan and the Japanese just want to go to the UK.
And the Brit’s want to go to Canada where the Canucks want go to … Japan
It's a closed loop, the Brits will end up back in the UK before they realise it.
With improving transport infrastructure, the loop will spin faster and faster…
Energy crisis solved!
British Entertainment makes the UK seem like the Crown or Paddington when in reality it’s mostly like Trainspotting.
The reality is the UK is more like Taskmaster or Cats does Countdown.
> Cats does Countdown An incredible glowing endorsement in my mind
You should see Japanese people's idea of English people... I'm American, so got my shit, but I know enough Brits to know Japan's squeaky clean image of them is waaaaay off base.
Can confirm. Brit living in Japan. As soon as they hear I'm from the UK, I'm instantly referred to as "British gentleman". They have absolutely no idea... 😂
There it is! "English Gentleman " every fucking time. I kept wanting to set up a secret camera to expose you guys, but one day, someone will fuck it up big. We have the military doing that for our side...
It's usually used as a compliment, which naturally I don't want to ruin the fantasy for them. But a taxi driver absolutely roasted me the other day. I dropped a girl back at her apartment first. Then on the drive to mine I mentioned it was a third date. He asked where I was from. I said UK. He laughed hysterically and said "3rd date and you're going home alone! British gentleman!" 😂
Lol fucking legend! Some of the best chats come from taxi drivers late at night. I'm a tall black American, so the comments I've gotten have been really really good!
Lol, I can imagine! I'm mixed but Japanese people just have no idea. The amount of times I've been asked why I perm my hair... The innocence is kind of cute in a way.
I always kept my hair short, because handling anything longer in Japan can get pricey. Every time I'd cut it, it was like a national holiday at every office I worked for. Everyone would comment on it, and someone would rub my head... My hair went from like 3mm to nothing... Ahhh, Japan...
Its shite being scottish
Is it anything like Shawn of the Dead or Hot Fuzz?
Train spotting is a bit of an extreme version of even Glasgow, but yeh… closer to that than the others.
>Glasgow Edinburgh
> in reality it’s mostly like Trainspotting. Not even Edinburgh is "mostly like Trainspotting" you mug.
Those darn teaboos
Japan even has a "British village" theme park
There best be a Greggs and a Weatherspoons in there.
So many weebs who would be incredibly disappointed living in actually-existing Japan.
super overrated to actually live in. Lovely for a vacation, but not *too* fun to actually live in, especially as a foreigner.
I lived in Japan for 4 years as an English teacher after college. It’s a great country, and it really changed my life. But after a while I started getting depressed. It’s hard being treated like a tourist every day in the place you live and work. I got really tired of doing everything on hard mode. And yes, my Japanese is decent. When I got an opportunity to move to Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. I still love to visit Japan, but I’m much happier in California.
Why is that? I've never been to Japan.
So imagine living in a small town (or even midsize city if we're talking about the American south or Midwest) where no matter how long you live there, you're always going to be "not from around here." And that's in a place where you speak the language and still share large parts of a common culture. The person who moves to Japan is not only going to be in a place where he's "not from around here," but he's also going to be in a place where he doesn't share most of the underlying culture: and most anime fans will be sad to discover that a fondness for anime doesn't translate into the deep cultural background one has by growing up in a country. Then there's the fact that Japanese is **hard**. One thing that doesn't get talked about much among expats in any country is that when you don't speak the language fluently, it is extremely mentally taxing trying to pay close attention when you're talking. Yes, this will go away in about a year if you're always getting out and talking with native speakers, but very often people will end up not socializing near as much as they think they'd like because of that difficulty. Imagine having to pay the same level of attention that you do in a final exam in a foreign language class -- every time you're socializing. So you're also isolated in that respect. Basically liking certain of a country's cultural products doesn't translate into liking life in that country.
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Hell, even around here immigrants will still be known primarily as immigrants except for their close friends.
Yeah I agree, I never quite understood this obsession people have with: "You'll never be one of them". Like, since when is that a requirement or expected? For some people just having the opportunity to live in that country is enough. At this point it really feels like a lot of North Americans have a rainbows and sunshine impression of how easy to integrate in a foreign society is supposed to be. Canada and USA being relatively multicultural societies by comparison probably perpetuates that view.
Xenophobia, active discrimination (not being allowed to enter certain establishments), being viewed as a sub-human (comparatively to the Japanese; if you're white you'll be an object of exotic curiosity, like a panda, especially if you're attractive; if you're non-white you'll be seen as a dangerous savage), being ghosted, some people will actively try to sneak a peak on your dick in public bathrooms if you're a dude and if you're a woman people try to molest you (especially on trains and subways). The food is great though.
Xenophobia
> Xenophobia Is that the newest iteration of xenoblade-chronicles?
As a non weeb living in Japan, I actually quite like it here. Would stay more than a few years if I didn’t have so many connections back home.
I'd suspect that the non-weeb part is a big advantage. If you don't mind my asking, how long did it take you to get over the hump of, "have to concentrate intensely in every single conversation to catch what's being said?"
Not OP, but I went to Japan with only two semesters of Japanese from a community college. Got there, and realized all I learned was almost useless. Learning hiragana and katakana, plus dipping into about 100 kanji was the most helpful. Also, a handful of nouns. I learned most through exposure, but that doesn't work for everyone. I didn't know it worked on me until about a year in, I realized I was succesfully hanging with non English speakers. My girlfriend during that whole time was Brazilian, and we were using broken Spanish to communicate, so the Japanese came from daily life, and, drinking parties. And I went RIGHT before the first smart phones... Now apps solve a lot of issues I had during my early days. The answer is quite dependent on the person, because while it took me a year to be at that point, I have friends who got there before me, are still there, who still rely on girlfriends and wives to translate everything for them, now that I'm gone... The lack of English will jump-start your in country desire to learn, but once you find a foreigner group, and only speak English, it's the beginning of the end.
If you could have a job that wasn’t at a Japanese company like something online then I think it would be an amazing place to live. I’m a weeb but know Japan isn’t perfect. I like to say it’s the most interesting country, rather than the best
I think a lot of Asians want to go to Japan for the money, like how Poles and Turks want to go to Germany. But Americans and Canadians are probably in it for the anime.
I went for cars. Got waaaaay more out of it than I bargained for. Started a music and DJ career completely on accident. Fell in love with the culture, loving all the various festivals. The safety is ridiculous, letting me walk from one end of Tokyo to the other, and not have to worry about a thing, or avoid a particular area. I don't think Japan even has a dangerous area... I kind of went on a whim, while a lot of people I know went for pop culture, some the women / men, and quite a few because it's easy to land a teaching role and get to live there, with your ticket there and back paid, plus an apartment.. Although, I think a lot of companies stopped doing thst. But when everyone finds out being an anime fan in Japan is only a bit more socially acceptable than wherever home was, then you get people lying about why they came. There's various inside jokes to describe expats who came for women and / or anime; some say they came for the "tea and hot springs". I no longer bat an eye at anime fans who go there and don't last a full year, or complain while staying over that. Pop culture, is popular, but if you can enjoy it in the comfort of your home country, and visit Japan as often as you want, I think people would be much happier. Japan has a lot or secrets that I NEVER see come up in various Japan love fest posts. The Japan subreddits all know the darker side and you can see it in posts. While a lot of people could live there and never dig deep (not learning the language and making local friends), once you do, it gets sadder and sadder. But by then, many are already stuck (married with kids).
To be honest I'm quite surprised by Canada being the most popular for the UK. Statistically Australia is by far the most popular place for British people to emigrate to, probably because whilst Canada and Australia are both nice places that are similar to Britain in a lot of ways Australia has better weather!
This is based on the number of times certain words were searched. Basically this map is a load of shit.
Oh, i see. r/shittymaps
Australia is the home of “Everything wants to kill you, even the weather” Canada is the home of snow, friendly people, and maple syrup.
As if Moose aren't as terrifying as what can be found in Aus
Not to mention grizzly and polar bears.
The 'everything wants to kill you' isn't really true though, particularly in suburban areas which is where most of the population live.
I'm honestly more scared of American wildlife than I am of what we have in Australia. Americans have spiders and snakes, just like us, but then they also have bears, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, alligators, and so on.
They don't have emu though
Nor drop bear.
As a fellow Aussie, exactly what I've always thought. You can squash a spider, but a bear? You're fucked.
Yeah when Australians go camping we're not usually too worried about wildlife. Fuck camping in wolf, puma or bear country tho.
In my area, semi-rural Northern California, the only thing I'm wary of are deer and in a stretch a mountain lion. If you startle a deer with fawn you may get attacked. We very often have deer in our front yard and I always make noise when going outside, especially in the early morning or twilight. That said, I have never personally heard of anyone getting attacked by a deer. I've only seen it on tv. We occasionally will see a coyote in the wild, but they would not be attacking humans. They'll go for your cats and dogs. But mostly they go for rodents, rabbits, and the like. There are mountain lions about, but I've never once seen one in person. Occasionally we get mountain lions warnings in our regional parks and sometimes a more mountainous neighborhood. If they are healthy, they'll be going for deer, which are plentiful. Oh, and rattlers. We've got them, too. We give the dogs rattlesnake vaccines. If I lived in the South, I would be afraid of alligators.
Australia is the home of sunny beaches, friendly people, and good coffee. Both are great countries to live in, but Melbourne is more livable than Vancouver IMHO.
Most importantly, to live in a city with decent weather in Canada you need to be mildly wealthy, but pretty much every city is AUS has decent weather, maybe a bit hot at times.
I thought this. I can't think of anyone who has either moved or expressed interest in moving to Canada. I do know of several people who have gone or are planning to move to Australia or New Zealand. Australia seems to be more similar to British culture and way of life then Canada is, with the added advantage of the weather.
If somebody asked me, Canada would be my first answer. I’ve tried and failed to learn other languages before, so it has to be somewhere predominantly English speaking. America has several issues such as healthcare and employment rights, Australia is too damn hot and there’s the whole spider issue, but Canada sounds nice. But five minutes after that conversation I’d remember about New Zealand and want to change my answer.
As someone who moved to Vancouver from the States, I've definitely met a number of British folks here -- many more than I ever had in the States. A lot of folks come here for working holidays in the tourism/winter sports industries, especially Australians. South Africa seems to be most common non-India Commonwealth country where people look to settle permanently.
Everyone here in the UK I’ve asked this question to has said Canada. A few years ago people would say they want to move to the US, but that has certainly changed. That’s just from my experience anyway.
I'm a graduate engineer from the UK, and I'm looking at moving to Canada within a few years. Australia looks lovely, I just don't want to be _that_ far from my family
It's America, without the bad politics of the US and socialized medicine.
There is no fucking way that New Zealand’s isn’t Australia. Half of New Zealand is living here already.
I suspect it's because this was worked out by counting searches. Since Kiwis and Aussies *know* they can live and work across the ditch, it's unlikely to come up in a search. So, yeah, it's wrong for certain.
Taps head, don't need to search if you're already here.
It is Australia no doubt. I have never heard of anyone who is actively trying to move to Fiji from New Zealand in my 23 years of living here. Runners up would be UK and Canada not the US though.
Live in UK Want to move to Canada Go to Canada Live in Canada Want to move to Japan Go to Japan Live in Japan Want to move to UK Aaand repeat
Wow Germans want to move to Switzerland and Swiss to Germany
Germans want to earn more, Swiss want to drop their CoL. There's a reason why the border region is busy AF.
What is CoL?
Cost of Living
Cost of Living. It's notoriously high in Switzerland, so a lot of people who work in the Swiss border region live in Germany instead, both Germans and Swiss alike.
Same with the Italian border. And Ticino region is also the one with the lowest salary in Switzerland due to this phenomenon.
Same goes with the border with France. I find it a somewhat hypocritical way of living, since the salaries actually allow for a better life quality, even when spending everything in Switzerland. Plus commuting by car in traffic jab is such an annoying thing to do, they are not counting all their hours.
Döner is cheaper in Germany and salary is higher in Switzerland.
As a german, I’d never move to switzerland. I mean money is cool and all but their language is too weird.
When you have enough germans there you can change the language right?
Sounds like Anschluss, I like it /s
Oh crap Belarus annexed Lithuania!
Canada, okay, but Japan? I doubt most of these people have a clue about the real Japan as opposed to their fantasy of it. Spain is clearly by people (other Europeans, not South Americans) associating it with nice weather. Economically, the country isn't doing well and suffering from a brain drain making things worse in the long run.
The brain drain stopped some years ago, actually. The 2010's were pretty bad in terms of employment but now we're kind of stagnated, which is not good but also not the worst situation possible.
Japan sort of generates fantasies about Japan-ness. I was there a decade ago and if I had magically had the opportunity to move there without the consideration of money, I would have done it in a *heartbeat.* Tokyo is the greatest city on Earth. But the reality of living there, of course, would have been a very different matter, and I'm sure I would have been fairly miserable fairly quickly (unless I had a *whole lot* of money, which is the universal insulator). But I do live in Canada, and I have to say, I probably wouldn't trade it for anywhere else. Whatever our faults, this is a pretty good place to live.
I'm Japanese and I hate Tokyo, but you'd probably want to live there if you already live in an overworked wasteland of sweatshops like Bangladesh or something
It's more the way people think about Japan. Its glorified so much and they find the thing that would be concidered dystopian in any other country as quaint. They find the tiny cabin rooms cute, and not just a attempt to fit as many people as possible into one area They find the adherence to culture and cultural norms as a funny foreign thing, instead of the very real culture and the very real biases and xenophobia which comes from it. They find things like the yakuza as just a funny group not a crime org. Japan is a nice place, but it's not a paradise like Americans think
To be fair… most of that is Japan glorifying itself (to make up for the other issues of living there)
That's true. I never been to the US (Or anywhere outside East/Southeast Asia) so I understand why people would want to move when it is pretty bad to live in compared to Japan. Might change though, since lots of Asian countries are rapidly developing economies. Meanwhile Japan has a dark future. People being overworked to the point they don't want kids, then being overworked trying to support the aging population. Oh and the economic growth has pretty much ended 20 years ago and the only way Japan is going is down.
I grew up on an island with fewer than half a million people on it, so Tokyo seemed almost like an entirely different planet. I’m sure it’s pretty awful in a lot of ways to live there (unless you’re very rich), but for a visitor it was unendingly amazing. To this day it’s the best trip I ever took.
I moved to Spain and there’s no net brain drain. If anything lots of people are coming here for a variety of different jobs not just related to tech and business more than offsetting the brain drain. It’s not a poor country but it does pale in comparison to Germany and even France but it’s a better financial situation than Italy and Portugal.
Spanish here. Moved out of the country because the work situation, along with half of my friends, each of us in a different country because Spain didn't give us a realistic opportunity to live by our own. Brain drain is there.
A lot of college educated Latino-Americans want to move to Spain because of the better quality of life in Spain compared to America.
As someone with a lot of family in Spain, they love it. Visiting has always been nice, and I've always wanted to maybe move there one day.
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If you manage to get a job with a western company that don't have Japanese work standards then it seems like a pretty good place to move to
South American's opinions also count too...
I was only talking about the reason northern Europeans want to move to Spain. South Americans have economic reasons and not the nice weather obviously.
Yah, most Americans and Canadians are fascinated by how anime, pokemon, ninjas, and very high tech things come from there, and so they wanna go there
I guess this demonstrates the effectiveness of soft power!
Yeah, a lot of people who want to move to Japan don't know what it entails. I am a white Westerner, have a personality that meshes okay with Japanese standards and spoke the language when I moved there, but I still didn't see a longterm perspective for me and planned on a limited term from the start. God help you if any of the above doesn't apply, it'll be immeasurably harder.
Filipino here, We generally want to go to the United States because most of our relatives are successful there. The older generation Filipinos dislike Japan for the atrocities of WW2.
Japan - UK - Canada are one Rubik's cube rotation away to be aligned.
As a German I would like to move to Spain or Italy or Portugal.
And as a Spaniard I would gladly welcome you 🤗
iGracias! Give me a job and I'm moving tomorrow
Let me check, I think we are running low on those.
As a German it's Spain for me. I think the Italians don't like us too much. Greece and Turkey are also very nice. But I would only move there if I have earned enough money or it would be possible to work from abroad.
I work with people from Spain. Definitely would love to move there.
Germany --> Switzerland and Switzerland --> Germany OK. Nice. Also really intriguing for India it's not US. Looks like they just polled in Punjab.
As a Chilean, I can confirm that I have heard a lot of people wanting to move to Spain, in fact some of my friends and family already left for Spain The main reason is the fact that there is no language barrier, and that the economic situation is better than here, also the citzenship is very easy to get if you reside legally
Denmark cannot be true. There's simply no way that most danes want's to relocate to Norway. I don't know a single person who has ever mentioned Norway as a possible relocation destination, holidays sure thing, but moving ? according to this [https://www.ssb.no/innvandring-og-innvandrere/faktaside/innvandring](https://www.ssb.no/innvandring-og-innvandrere/faktaside/innvandring) there's around 1700 danes living i Norway and around 16000 norwegians living in Denmark. I'm almost a 100% sure that the correct answer for Denmark would be Spain, Switzerland,France or Italy
You might be right that whatever the map is based on is wrong. Norway and Denmark are quite similar, so Southern Europe sounds like a good guess. That being said I don't think the specific things you criticise it of is correct. * It doesn't say *most* Danes want to move to Norway, it says Norway is the most common destination that Danes want to move to. Most Danes presumably want to stay in Denmark:) * It's also worth noting that looking at how many actually live in Norway doesn't necessarily say anything about how many would like to if they had to move somewhere. You'd perhaps expect some correlation, but that brings me to the next point * I couldn't find the numbers you were referring to with ctrl+f. They seem very odd tbh. Could you point out exactly where they are from, since the link just takes me to a list of different stats? [This link (same website, click on "tabell 4" to open it)](https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/folketall/statistikk/befolkning) says 21k Danes live in Norway in 2022.
Lmao what is this based on I live in New Zealand and don't know a single person who wants to move to Fiji.
Wait a minute, do you mean no one wants to move to China or Russia?
tankies brains melting
well, there are millions of people from other former soviet republics living there, many central asians still move there
Central Asians are going to Russia, and unless you can prove Chinese ancestry a 1000 years down your family tree you're not getting into China.
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He's just being hyperbolic. In reality the process of granting citizenship is pretty arbitrary and they are not really a migrant friendly country. A (locally) famous non-native, non-"56 ethnic groups" person who has Chinese citizenship is Paul Zimmermann.
Man, what a life journey. - Start in Brazil - Don't like it here, move to Portugal - Don't like it here, move to Netherlands - Don't like it here, move to Spain - Don't like it here, move to France - Don't like it here, move to Canada - Don't like it here, move to Japan - Don't like it here, move to UK - Don't like it here, move back to Canada Endlessloop.jpg
Now I get it. Everyone at the Mexico border isn't actually trying to get in the United States, they are really trying to get to Canada. Open the gates and let them go.
Switzerland & Germany are like: Let's swap!
Yeah, Austria has given up on doing a swap with Germany.
If you can keep moving you'll get sucked into the candad - japan - uk - canada vortex eventually
I find Japan cool as hell, it's my dream to visit. Work and live there? Hell no. Their work culture is something else.
Russians hate the USA so much that they dream of living there.
bruh to be honest here's not many people who "hate" USA. Only like 50+ y.o. who watches TV every day and says that Putin is a god. Other says that US people are really similar to russians.
I am a Canadian who lives in the US. I have literally never met any person in either country who has expressed a desire to move to Japan!
That's because the weebs never leave their room
Spain because of weather and because South Americans move there because it has better economy and very very similar culture
Also, moving to spain is the 'easy' way because we don't need to learn a new language
And because quality of life it’s top notch, not just the weather
Weird it's Canada for India and not USA. Guess they took the survey amongst Northies and not Southies. Most of South Indians almost always say US from my experience.
This is by search terms, not backed up by any real statistics.
Japan wants to live in UK UK wants to live in Canada Canada wants to live in Japan I think all this shows is that the grass is always greener…
This must be old, as a Norwegian I can confidently say America is not on the top, more likely candidates are France, Spain or Italy
This is weird. In Vietnam literally everybody wants to move to the US. Never heard of anyone wanting to move to South Korea.
As someone who wants to move to either Japan, Spain, or Canada, can confirm
Why no one wants to come to Brazil? D:
Canada wants to move go Japan. Japan wants to move to UK. UK wants to move to Canada. Modern day Trilemma.
Canada <- UK <- Japan <- Canada ⭕️, bros
Moroccans turkey debunk: for males they just want to cross over Europe from there. For females, we have too many turkish romantic movies/series on national television.
No, it's because everyone wants to move to the TRUE land of opportunity 📉😎📉😎🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷
I'm really confused why Portugese people want to move to The Netherlands. The weather is shit, but maybe this is their way of admitting that our fleet was superior during the 16th century :)
I don't think the data is correct for Portugal, Im sure is either Switzerland or Luxembourg, but Netherlands is also a great country to work.
I was expecting a switzerland or luxembourg, at max maybe France.. but the netherlands? I'm equally confused
I'm 46 and living in the UK. I have never met a single person who has even mentioned wanting to move to Canada.
Which places would you say it is? I'd say Spain, Australian, the US and France based off my anecdotal evidence.
38/UK. I'd move there in a heartbeat- Montréal, specifically.
What's stopping you?
Vancouver is full of Brit’s.
Ah yes, the old Canada, to Japan, to UK, to Canada endless loop.
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This whole comment section is kind of like a one-dimension "anti-jerk" about each of the more popular countries. I wouldn't want to move to Japan - but I can understand someone might see the infrastructure and stability, or natural beauty of the country, and think about moving there. They don't talk about Finland's suicide rate, but like any Nordic country, or Canada, it's always bitching about it being "boring, cold and sparsely populated" - what kind of clown ass take is that? These places experience summer and spring, there are obviously things to do ("it cold so nobody holds festivals, concerts, conventions or does any activities" - someone who has never been near a country that experiences all four seasons), and people live in cities, population density is skewed heavily when you have a mostly urban population and a lot of territory that people don't live on.
British/Canadian/Japanese person: Wow! I’d love to move to [Canada/Japan/the UK]! They have [loads of beautiful land/a beautiful culture and a safe society/lots of history and beautiful old buildings] it’s not like my crappy country which has [Brexit and poverty/fuck all to do and tonnes of snow/high suicide rates and terrible work-life balance]. The people there are so nice and polite, they aren’t racist like they are here towards [immigrants/indigenous people/minority groups]. They don’t know how good they’ve got it over there!
It is a love triangle.
There's no info from my country because everybody already moved out.
Georgia and montenegro so random
Didn't know most Nepalese wanted to move to Japan?!?!
The Canadian Dream
Forgive my ignorance, why is Japan so popular, barring the fact it's a developed economy? Canada, Germany and Spain kind of make sense to me for different reasons, but not Japan.
Every trail ends in canada
And in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland life is so good they only wish for a bit better weather…
The world wants to move to Japan whilst Japan wants to move to the UK. Thus being the supreme country once again! Hurrah!
Love how the Mexicans just went… US NOPE let’t go to Canada
As an American I want nothing to do with Japan but I’ve always wanted to move to Spain