[rogue]

I'm a 34yo Eastern European male living in the Bay Area, California. What I have here is a job as a software engineer that pays a bit over 300k and no social life. I can transfer to a remote office. Two locations that I am most interested in are Tokyo and Paris. In both cases the offices are in the city center and the pay is a bit over 200k USD.

As for Paris the advantages are easy language that is useful in their former colonies and lots of vacation (30 days plus some extra weird days off).

The advantage of Tokyo is that it is a much nicer city (walkable, great food), relatively close to interesting destinations is Asia. I started learning the language and it's horribly difficult. I also read on the forum that dating is not very easy. I'm leaning towards Tokyo, but I can see myself going to France, learning the language and trying to profit from it in Northern Africa.

Do you think I should prefer Tokyo or Paris?

[semibaron]

Young rogue,
No similarities these cities have. To decide, both visit you must.

[rogue]

(11-18-2018 02:19 AM)semibaron Wrote:  

Young rogue,
No similarities these cities have. To decide, both visit you must.[/size]

I visited both, but had a girlfriend at the time and we traveled together.

[TIOT12]

Try a thought exercise. Write down a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to you of your two options. Be as thorough as you can be. Then, go into a quiet room and sit in a nice chair where you won't be distracted and go back over what you wrote. Then, simply close your eyes and think on all of this for 45 minutes to an hour. After about 30 minutes, you should fall into a meditative state of deep thought and begin to start seeing what is the right choice for you.

[jordypip23]

(11-19-2018 01:12 AM)TIOT12 Wrote:  

Try a thought exercise. Write down a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to you of your two options. Be as thorough as you can be. Then, go into a quiet room and sit in a nice chair where you won't be distracted and go back over what you wrote. Then, simply close your eyes and think on all of this for 45 minutes to an hour. After about 30 minutes, you should fall into a meditative state of deep thought and begin to start seeing what is the right choice for you.

You must've gotten an MBA, lol.

[Montrose]

I’ve lived in Paris and spent time in Tokyo.

Contrary to what you seem to think, I’d say that Paris is more walkable than Tokyo. The useful part of Paris (one digit arrondissements) is quite small and can be walked easily (unless your office is in La Defense, which sucks). Tokyo is more multipolar, and there are no urban motorways in Paris. Shinjuku to Ginza is a longer walk than Champs Elysées to Bastille.

Food is a matter of taste but you have huge choice in both places. Unless you can only eat Asian food I don’t see why you’d prefer Tokyo (even then, Paris has a whole Japanese quarter with good izakayas). In Paris you’ll be able to read the menu, which will not be the case in Tokyo.

For language, Paris wins easily. French is Group 1 of FSI rankings (easiest languages to learn for English speaker), Japanese is group 4, the most difficult.

As far as women are concerned, I think that local girls are tough in both cities, but girls come from all over the world to see Paris or study fashion. You have a lot of choice. There are 100.000 foreign students in Tokyo, most of them from China and Vietnam, so you need to like Asians. There are 300.000 foreign students in Paris from all over the world, and addtionally all Europeans can work in France, while Japan has strict immigration laws.

Tokyo has earthquakes, Paris has terrorism and crime.

I don’t understand why you’d want to go to North Africa by the way. Algeria is a shithole. Tunisia has terrorism problems. Maybe Morocco, but only Marrakech is really worth it.

Bottom line both are great cities and only you can decide.

[Jefferson]

I love both cities, but I think Tokyo just edges it. Here is why:

1. Tokyo is a different universe, a different galaxy, so interesting and different. Paris is beautiful in parts but ultimately much of the same as most Western cities. Tokyo is just more interesting.

2. The same applies to the surrounding area. Asia is a different universe, whereas the other parts of Europe are mostly rather similar. Where would you rather go on holiday, Shanghai, Bangkok or Palawan or Berlin, London and Bilbao?

3. Tokyo is much cleaner and safer. You don't have a North African immigration problem in Tokyo, much of Paris is now shockingly derilict, the key tourism parts excepted.

4. Whilst food in Paris can be excellent, even Japanese food in Paris is very good, the culinary world of Tokyo is now in a class of its own and better than anything in the world.

5. Asia is where the future is, Europe is settling into inevitable decline.

[PaulWong]

Tokyo for sure! It's another world out there.

[BaatumMania]

I been to both. Tried my hardest but it's hard to fall in love with Japan if you're not a Weaboo. Something about East Asia but they always manage to mess up Western Food and the pollution there seems to hurt my lungs. There's also a lot of subtle racism like not allowing foreigners into nightclubs and locals always assuming you arrived 1 week ago (meanwhile I never ever assumed that about Asian people in my homeland).

Japanese cuisine also suck so bad but the Weaboos will lynch you if you said it in person. It's not culinary genius to crack a raw egg (hello salmonella) on some bland white rice with a tasteless seaweed flake. European cuisine is far more sophisticated and all around better (and China has some interesting stuff too).

[Heart Break Kid]

(11-20-2018 08:43 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:  

I been to both. Tried my hardest but it's hard to fall in love with Japan if you're not a Weaboo. Something about East Asia but they always manage to mess up Western Food and the pollution there seems to hurt my lungs. There's also a lot of subtle racism like not allowing foreigners into nightclubs and locals always assuming you arrived 1 week ago (meanwhile I never ever assumed that about Asian people in my homeland).

Japanese cuisine also suck so bad but the Weaboos will lynch you if you said it in person. It's not culinary genius to crack a raw egg (hello salmonella) on some bland white rice with a tasteless seaweed flake. European cuisine is far more sophisticated and all around better (and China has some interesting stuff too).

Europe doesn't have a cuisine, and countries like Italy are the exception when it comes to tasty cuisines - most European countries have bland or one dimensional cuisines...you ever have Dutch food?

I think Japanese food is a bit more varied than cracking an egg - it is more difficult to make Japanese food than most European cuisines, including the romance cuisines so I think you're being a tad harsh saying Japanese cuisine is not sophisticated.

[atlant]

Yeah, if Japan is known for anything then it's obviously bad food and air pollution. I'd suggest to just ignore his posts. I've never seen someone post about so many places and yet seem so hilariously clueless about all of them. It's almost impressive. I'm guessing another Rossi type situation here.

[Cyclone]

Go to sleep in Paris
Wake up in Tokyo
.

[Jefferson]

(11-20-2018 08:43 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:  

Japanese cuisine also suck so bad but the Weaboos will lynch you if you said it in person. It's not culinary genius to crack a raw egg (hello salmonella) on some bland white rice with a tasteless seaweed flake. European cuisine is far more sophisticated and all around better (and China has some interesting stuff too).

Even the French Michelin guide now has Japan ahead in terms of 3 star restaurants.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccart...c165d6704c

It's just not the case that European cuisine is more sophisticated than Japanese, I'd say the opposite.

Having said that there are some Japanese foods I don't like, okonomiyaki and I also don't like green tea. But if you went to Japan and did not have good food that is very surprising.

[Denzel]

Japanese is not that difficult if you want to concentrate your efforts only on speaking. You can learn enough Japanese (for dating) in two months if you take it seriously and work an hour a day-once again only the speaking part. Learning kanji is a bitch though. The good news...you do not need it. I am sure you will start learning Kanji as you live in Japan.

Get the book Genki. Listen to CDs of the book or find the free CDs on the internet. Listen and repeat what you hear while you are having breakfast or lunch, or driving. Repeating is important so do not skip that step. This will make you ready for the dates. As you have dates, you will improve your Japanese.

By the way, dating is easy in Japan but getting an SNL during travelling a few days is not easy. If you live in Japan, you should be fine as an Eastern European if you have some game.

For the (lack of) vacation days, Japan has a lot of public holidays. Google "public holidays in Japan" to see whether it makes it up, especially the Golden Week in May.

Have a great time in Japan

[rogue]

(11-19-2018 08:59 AM)Montrose Wrote:  

As far as women are concerned, I think that local girls are tough in both cities, but girls come from all over the world to see Paris or study fashion. You have a lot of choice. There are 100.000 foreign students in Tokyo, most of them from China and Vietnam, so you need to like Asians. There are 300.000 foreign students in Paris from all over the world, and addtionally all Europeans can work in France, while Japan has strict immigration laws.

...

I don’t understand why you’d want to go to North Africa by the way. Algeria is a shithole. Tunisia has terrorism problems. Maybe Morocco, but only Marrakech is really worth it.

I do like Chinese women.

I had a great time in Morocco and would like to go there again. I met some friendly women there, everybody was nice to me, and I think it's easy to make friends there. I thought the rest of Maghreb is like that too.

(11-20-2018 12:04 PM)Jefferson Wrote:  

Having said that there are some Japanese foods I don't like, okonomiyaki and I also don't like green tea. But if you went to Japan and did not have good food that is very surprising.

I actually liked okonomiyaki

(11-22-2018 10:21 PM)Denzel Wrote:  

Japanese is not that difficult if you want to concentrate your efforts only on speaking. You can learn enough Japanese (for dating) in two months if you take it seriously and work an hour a day-once again only the speaking part. Learning kanji is a bitch though. The good news...you do not need it. I am sure you will start learning Kanji as you live in Japan.

Get the book Genki. Listen to CDs of the book or find the free CDs on the internet. Listen and repeat what you hear while you are having breakfast or lunch, or driving. Repeating is important so do not skip that step. This will make you ready for the dates. As you have dates, you will improve your Japanese.

By the way, dating is easy in Japan but getting an SNL during travelling a few days is not easy. If you live in Japan, you should be fine as an Eastern European if you have some game.

For the (lack of) vacation days, Japan has a lot of public holidays. Google "public holidays in Japan" to see whether it makes it up, especially the Golden Week in May.

Have a great time in Japan

I did two levels of Pimsleur, started studying kanji with Heisig method, and followed some dialogues in Assimil course. Genki reminds me of a standard school courses, so I wasn't excited about it.

For me the difficulty of Japanese comes down to two aspects: non European vocabulary and weird sentence structure. If I learn a new French or Russian word, chances are I already know a similar word in a different European language, and if not, then it's still somehow easier to remember than a totally strange Japanese word. The other thing is that my mind has hard time parsing Japanese sentences. I feel you can know every single word in a sentence and still not know what it means.

Interesting remark on dating vs SNL while travelling.

I know about the public holidays in Japan. It improves the situation, but still.

[Denzel]

These two threads might help.

Japanese language thread:

thread-52386...t=japanese

One of the "gaming in Japan" threads:

thread-33130...ight=Japan

Good luck with your decision.

[Rawdog]

Tokyo.

Skiing in Hokkaido, surfing in Okinawa, hiking the Japanese Alps, and the unparalleled uniqueness of the culture itself makes Japan an easy choice. Paris is really fun to visit, but the rep Parisians get is warranted in my opinion, and would make the city a shitty place to live.

Assuming you have never lived in Asia you should go for it. It's worth spending a couple years of your life there because you'll have experiences that you could have never otherwise had in the West.

[AlexWW]

(11-18-2018 01:02 AM)rogue Wrote:  

I'm a 34yo Eastern European male living in the Bay Area, California. What I have here is a job as a software engineer that pays a bit over 300k and no social life. I can transfer to a remote office. Two locations that I am most interested in are Tokyo and Paris. In both cases the offices are in the city center and the pay is a bit over 200k USD.

As for Paris the advantages are easy language that is useful in their former colonies and lots of vacation (30 days plus some extra weird days off).

The advantage of Tokyo is that it is a much nicer city (walkable, great food), relatively close to interesting destinations is Asia. I started learning the language and it's horribly difficult. I also read on the forum that dating is not very easy. I'm leaning towards Tokyo, but I can see myself going to France, learning the language and trying to profit from it in Northern Africa.

Do you think I should prefer Tokyo or Paris?

If you do not have even just an average level of seduction, or are not specially handsome, you could seriously struggle in Paris.
Test it remotly before by subscribing to Tinder, Badoo, okCupid, Happn, Bumble etc.

You could also work as a digital nomad and stay 1/2 months in a city, then go to another one etc.

South American and Asian cities are known to be nice to improve your seduction level.

[randomakakak]

Consider that moving to a remote office will mean you are starting from square zero in your social life as most people befriend coworkers. What's your plan on meeting people to make your experience different from what you are currently doing in SF?

Paris has more of a group mentality in my opinion. It's very easy to keep to yourself in Tokyo.

I think you'll find Paris to be more stimulating. But both can work as there are plenty of tourists.

[rogue]

(12-23-2018 04:45 PM)AlexWW Wrote:  

If you do not have even just an average level of seduction, or are not specially handsome, you could seriously struggle in Paris.
Test it remotly before by subscribing to Tinder, Badoo, okCupid, Happn, Bumble etc.

You could also work as a digital nomad and stay 1/2 months in a city, then go to another one etc.

South American and Asian cities are known to be nice to improve your seduction level.

I tried Tinder in different places. I get some matches in Paris and nothing in Tokyo. I attribute it to Tokyo being weird. They probably have some Japanese counterpart that I don't know about.

Yeah, my Iooks are below average and my game is not great. I'll definitely struggle in Paris, but think I'll learn a very useful language and 6 weeks of vacation is tempting. What do you think of the idea of learning French and then cashing out on the investment in North Africa? I was in Morocco once and the girls are super hot and seem available. I got a handjob from a hijab wearing chick, who initially protested and told me that Moroccan girls are very chaste. On another occasion I day gamed a girl in Marrakesh and kissed her in public, which seemed to me like something big in a Muslim country. At the time my French was at early beginner level (A1 in CEFR).

Being a digital nomad is a plan for the future when I save some more money. I don't think I can get 200k as a remote software engineer.

(12-23-2018 06:16 PM)randomakakak Wrote:  

Consider that moving to a remote office will mean you are starting from square zero in your social life as most people befriend coworkers. What's your plan on meeting people to make your experience different from what you are currently doing in SF?

Paris has more of a group mentality in my opinion. It's very easy to keep to yourself in Tokyo.

I think you'll find Paris to be more stimulating. But both can work as there are plenty of tourists.

I live in South Bay, not SF. SF would be better, but I would hate the commute.

I had some social life back in Europe, so I think the current fiasco is due to the location. At my current job people don't befriend coworkers. Once I'm away, I'm planning to attend events from CouchSurfing and meetup.com. I think Tokyo will have a vibrant expat community, which I hope will help.

I used Coffee Meets Bagel for online dating and it worked alright over here. I've only got one date from Tinder in US.

I'm still in the process of deciding and the transfer will probably take a few months. It's actually more difficult than I thought and I might have to take whatever job is available. The pay cut and increased taxes are not fun either.

[AlexWW]

Quote:

I tried Tinder in different places. I get some matches in Paris and nothing in Tokyo. I attribute it to Tokyo being weird. They probably have some Japanese counterpart that I don't know about.

Yeah, my Iooks are below average and my game is not great. I'll definitely struggle in Paris, but think I'll learn a very useful language and 6 weeks of vacation is tempting. What do you think of the idea of learning French and then cashing out on the investment in North Africa? I was in Morocco once and the girls are super hot and seem available. I got a handjob from a hijab wearing chick, who initially protested and told me that Moroccan girls are very chaste. On another occasion I day gamed a girl in Marrakesh and kissed her in public, which seemed to me like something big in a Muslim country. At the time my French was at early beginner level (A1 in CEFR).

Being a digital nomad is a plan for the future when I save some more money. I don't think I can get 200k as a remote software engineer.

About Paris :

Do not just try Tinder, try at the same time Okcupid, Happn, Badoo etc, for at least 2 weeks.

French girls like beards, long hair, and if you have an athletic body it's a bonus like everywhere, but not essential here.

Also, note that from October to February, the weather in Paris can be quite rainy. You are from a sunny place, it could impact you a little bit, even if the beauty of some monuments, houses, bars, parks helps to support that.

About North Africa :

North African girls ask you to convert to Islam after a while.
They want to marry to have childrens and their family will not acccept her to have childs before marry, a saw bunch of guys breaking the relationship for that.

Also, I'm curious, I was thinking of going to Marroco, where did you get this handjob ? A girl from a bar you brought into your bnb ? in Marrakech ?

About Digital Nomadism :

Programmers is the job you can actually get the most money from being nomad.

At the start, you do not have enormous amount, but month after month it raise and raise and raise.

But the money is not the best part, the best part is being able to work from anywhere in the world, relocate when you want, and so, avoid being stuck in Paris, Tokyo, Moscow etc if do not like it

So, in your case, I would start slowly a remote freelance programmer activity now, from the US, in parall of my job, and after 6months/one year, or even less, once I'm established and know the market, starting to be Digital Nomad.

There is plenty of websites for remote work. You can also negotiate with your current company to work for them remotely. Given the struggle there is to recruit programmers, I think they will take the time to think about it if you present them this way of work via a clean detailled mail.

[rogue]

More about me and the original question

I'm from Eastern Europe, so I know similar weather very well. You might be wondering why a European asks about Paris. The reason is that before coming to US, I was a poor and hard working student. It affected my confidence and life style.

Interesting point about the religion AlexWW. I renounced religion at the age of 15 and I don't expect to change my views in future.

I'm sure my current company will not allow me to work remotely. I am a senior engineer and a big part of my job, which justifies the fat paycheck, is that I am available to juniors to help them do their job. It's theoretically possible remotely, but walking to your colleague sitting 3 meters away has much less friction than scheduling a video call with a guy in another timezone. The other problem is that you don't want to be the only person who is remote - you'll not participate in meetings and soon you won't know what's going on.

I'll definitely explore remote work in a few years from now, but I'm not yet at this point. I don't want to do this in parallel to my current job for two reasons. First, I'm in US on a visa and I am not allowed to do this. Second, my current job is high-pressure, high-stress and it would be more than I can handle at the moment.

Memories from Morocco.

I was in Morocco four years ago. Whenever I travel alone I prefer to go to non-touristy places, so I flew to Casablanca, then took a train to Marrakesh, and there I rented a car to cross the Atlas mountains and see Sahara. Morocco is very diverse. Casablanca is almost like a European city, whereas in other parts of the country you feel like you moved back to 19th century.

At first I used Tinder to find girls in Casablanca. I went on a few dates with a 19 year old girl who worked in a call center. She spoke Arabic, French, English, and was learning German. We chatted, strolled around the city (in Medina and La Corniche) and went out once to Cabestan (one of the most chic restaurant/clubs in La Corniche). I invited her for a coffee to my place, but she refused. I was way more beta back than, so I was very exited just about kissing and hugging a girl in a Muslim country.

The handjob story was different. I tried day gaming in La Corniche (Casablanca). I was walking around McDonald's when I saw two girls sitting at a table and drinking coffee and the looked straight into my eyes. One was wearing a hijab, the other was not. In my broken French I asked if I could join them. I don't remember what we talked abut and how we managed to communicate, because they didn't speak any English. After a while, I asked them if they would like to come to my place for a coffee and they agreed. We took a taxi together and got back to my AirBnB. Fortunately, the guard/concierge was away, so they could get in (concierges are huge cock-blockers in Morocco). I had a large and nice apartment just for myself and I'm sure they noticed. We had coffee on the patio under a tent. It was outside, but private. I started hitting on the girl in hijab, because I thought it would be more fun. She was telling me that she doesn't do such stuff. I don't remember how the things went exactly, because it's been a few years ago. I took off her hijab (you need to be careful, it's fastened with sharp pins, and you can hurt her) and we started kissing. All of this while the other girl was sitting next to us. While I was touching and kissing the hijab girl, she was talking to her friend in Arabic. Things then escalated. I unzipped my pants, put her hand on my cock and she started stroking me. At that moment the other girl stood up and went to the other room. After the act, we sat inside for some time and looked at various picture on our phones. After a while the girls decided to leave. We exchanged the phone numbers and I gave them money for the taxi back to the McDonald's in La Corniche. The girl who gave me the handjob messaged me a few times when I was back in Europe.

The third girl was in Marrakesh. I just checked in the hotel and went for a walk to the market. I saw two girls. One of them dropped her ancient Nokia phone on the sidewalk and it disintegrated into many pieces. If you're old enough, you'll know you can assemble it back and it will work just fine. I helped the girls find all the pieces of the phone and we decided to go to the market together. We walked around for an hour or two and tried to communicate in a mixture of broken English and broken French. It didn't work very well. At some point I started holding hands with the less pretty of the two. When they decided to go home I kissed the girl I was holding hands with. That's probably not a big deal for the readers here, but for somebody who spent the entire life as a poor, hard working student, who doesn't get much female attention, it's mind blowing. You just go to another country, can't really communicate, but things go so smoothly! I attribute it partially to me getting a great job offer and feeling that I am a worthy man.

After Marrakesh, I went to Ouarzazate and other conservative parts of the country. Over there a women will always keep physical distance from you, will never look you into the eyes, and the rules of the Muslim society will make you stop thinking about gaming. On the positive side, you'll experience amazing friendliness from Moroccan men, you will go with them to men-only tea shops, and in those tea shops you'll hang out with them while their wives stay at home and cook.

Overall, I think Morocco is one of the most interesting places I ever visited and I want to go there again. I recommend that you don't stick to the beaten path and explore less visited places.

[Borges]

(12-25-2018 07:17 PM)rogue Wrote:  

Memories from Morocco.

Thank you for this post, I've always found North Africa interesting and after reading your report I'm set on going there.

[UnW]

This thread title reminds me of Lupe Fiasco's song "Paris, Tokyo" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp2uqGLNm5k

[Veloce]

I've been to both 3 x

Been said to death. It's a matter of taste. For me, Tokyo wins by a landslide.

I've had numerous overpriced, shitty meals in Paris. I cannot say the same about Tokyo. In fact, I've never had a bad meal in Japan, ever. Maybe somewhat average, but never bad. I've eaten all over the world and have a much more refined palate than most.

A major factor I didn't see addressed is politeness. The politeness of Japanese culture feels almost luxurious to me. I actually don't find the French to be nearly as snobby or rude as their stereotype portrays (I also speak enough French to get by in many situations), but it's certainly nowhere near the level of Japanese hospitality, be it from service workers or outright strangers.

I find Japanese women to be some of the most beautiful on the planet. Yes you'll run into plenty of fuglies on the streets with fucked up teeth, but there are moments when you step into a shopping mall in Shibuya and it's like the heavens opening up and a sea of porcelain skinned stunners as far as the eye can see.

Both cities have great parks in the Spring/Summer. Matter of taste. Both cities have great day trips for weekends. Both have pretty stunning nature. France you've got wine, Japan you've got Sake. I love both but would give the edge to France here. A couple hours by train and you're in some of the, if not THE, greatest wine country on Earth.

Going back to food, I'd say French food in Tokyo is better than Japanese food in Paris. In Tokyo you also get a pretty awesome representation of Chinese and Korean food.

Snow sports are unreal in Japan. Nozawaonsen is a special place. I haven't been skiing in the French alps yet but I have a hard time believing it compares.

The cleanliness factor. Many parts of Paris are a shithole, even in the central and touristy areas. Hard to enjoy that macaron in the trendy Marais when the streets smell like piss. Even Kabuchiko feels tame and clean compared to other major cities (ever been to skid row in L.A.?) and much of Tokyo feels like a movie set, it's so clean.