Japan Scores Three in One Top 10 Survey!

[Mike Oxlong]

Monocle Ranks Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka Among 10 Most Livable Cities

[wagyl]

Monocle

Yay! Tyler Brûlé!

[Mike Oxlong]

Monocle

Yay! Tyler Brûlé!

Dunno who that is, but I take it he's no Tyler Durden.

Ah, I see he has a wikipedia entry: http://www.donotlink.com/mmk

[wagyl]

Surely you jest!

[Mike Oxlong]

Surely you jest!

Nope. Name recognition from browsing FG...yes. Actually being able to give any biographical info beyond, "I think he's some sort of journalist."...nada.

[Taro Toporific]

Monocle

Yay! Tyler Brûlé!

The Nikkei comes out as Tyler Brûlé's bottom and butt-buddy!

Monocle Sells Minority Stake to Nikkei Inc.
---Company says deal values Monocle at more than $100 million.---
foliomag.com | 09/02/2014
Global business and culture media brand Monocle announced this week that it has sold a minority stake to Nikkei Inc., the Tokyo-based financial news company.
Nikkei's stake was not specified, but according to Monocle, the deal values the brand at more than $100 million.
Monocle chairman and editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé's holding company Twinkontent now owns about 80 percent of the company.
On the surface, London-based Monocle gets access to Nikkei's editorial operation and Nikkei can tap into Monocle's distribution for its English-language weekly, the Nikkei Asian Review. Likewise, Nikkei's magazine group will help market Monocle in Japan.
More...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Nice try with the company name there, Taro. You almost got me.

[Samurai_Jerk]

You'll never guess which city "Monocle" ranked as world's most livable.

[Coligny]

Lisbon is on the list !?
They are back to eating cats and babies there FFS, I don't even think they still have electricity or running water...

[kurogane]

Surely you jest!

Nope. Name recognition from browsing FG...yes. .

His father played for the Blue Bombers and probably a few other teams. Big bruiser of a fullback, if I remember, a la Larry Csonka or John Riggins. Poetically, his son prefers to play the ball from backfield as well.　Seems a perfectly vapid twat, and more of a fruit bowl than necessary.

Anyways, BOT: Kyoto, absolutely hands down no doubt. Live like a king on 200,000 yen per month without breaking a sweat or a bruised wallet. Tokyo is more of a preference call, in MYHOMO. Sounds to me like a few expats either haven't gone home lately or forget to remove their nostalgic rose coloured lenses when they were there. The English speaking world is a festering, overpriced shiitehole; it's not the Pundis and the suicide bombers in training, either. It's the angry white plebs that chose Honest Hard Work over Not Being Stupid. Unless you make 300,000 a year, which would be about the minimum Nancy Drew is writing about anyways.

[Yokohammer]

Apparently the definition of "Quality of Life" has changed considerably over the past few years.

[kurogane]

Given how ridiculous some of the older definitions and parameters were, one would hope so but the subjectivity of things like that make these surveys worth water cooler fodder and not much else in myhomo. Also, don't forget, much of the Anglosphere has simply become less liveable for most (esp. Brule's target market, perhaps?) because they are so much less affordable, unless you make that benchmark $300,000 per year. I always giggle a bit when I hear Newbies crowing about the liveability of Cool Japan based on their 10 day whistle stop tour, but they do have a point on some measures: cheap, safe, good to good enough infrastructure, and stuff to do. Kyoto is certainly an eminently liveable city by any standard, as Fukuoka is said to be, and as far as WAY TOO BIG cities go Tokyo must measure up better than many.

You'll never guess which city "Monocle" ranked as world's most livable.

From a quick read, a rather sophisticated measure that makes the survey relevant for normal people and not just The Economist NYLON set.

So, what sort of measures would people consider important to make such surveys relevant?

[Yokohammer]

Given how ridiculous some of the older definitions and parameters were, one would hope so but the subjectivity of things like that make these surveys worth water cooler fodder and not much else in myhomo

I agree. What I considered a great life in my 20's and the way I prefer to live now are worlds apart. These "most liveable" rankings should at least come with an age rating, like toys or movies. Even then it's subjective to a degree that could be considered "wildly varying."

"Less likely to die in a random extremist attack or bombing from a neighbouring nation" is a criterion I can understand. Anything more subtle than that just gets lost in translation.

[kurogane]

Beauty on that last one. I had never actually thought of that, but The World's Best City, Vancouver!!! must actually be somewhere on the bombers' radar ...........Kyoto, not so much. Nice points about the need for grading and demographic specifics and that. I remember reading that the average income of an Economist reader is $450,000, which certainly helps to explain why I find most of their liveability surveys to be water cooler fodder and lottery win daydreams for most people.

I have noticed a slight upsurge in the number of Baby Boomers here talking about retiring to Japan, so it will be interesting to see if somebody comes up with targeted surveys that manage to wake most of them up from their ridiculous pipe dreams without scaring away the target market, and even providing useful material to those who are clear headed enough to actually consider it as a viable option. When asked I always say: No. Stop dreaming, but I am sure there are some adventurous enough to make it work.

[Yokohammer]

I have noticed a slight upsurge in the number of Baby Boomers here talking about retiring to Japan ...

The concept of retiring to Japan falls into the same category as rainbow-farting unicorns for me. I'm here, have been for 40+ years, so it is a real possibility. But that's "retiring in Japan" as opposed to "retiring to Japan." The chance that, knowing Japan as I do, I would deliberately come here to retire if I was comfortably ensconced elsewhere is approximately zero. The chance that I'd choose to retire to Tokyo, specifically, is even lower.

But to be fair, if you can handle the culture and language, Japan's rural areas do offer some decent retirement potential. Those prerequisites are non-negotiable though.

[wagyl]

And what visa status do these people think they will get, pray tell? It is not as though there is a shortage of grey haired residents which Japan wants to fill. They also have a hard enough time finding care workers to look after the ones they have got already.

[yanpa]

Grey silver-haired retirees from gaikoku with solid financial arrangements seem to be economically attractive for some countries. But yeah, TIJ and all that... Looking ahead though, there could be a market for elderly demented weeaboos. You could buy up an abandoned theme park on the cheap, populate it with anime robots'n'shit and let them roam freely.

[kurogane]

I have noticed a slight upsurge in the number of Baby Boomers here talking about retiring to Japan ...

The concept of retiring to Japan falls into the same category as rainbow-farting unicorns for me. I'm here, have been for 40+ years, so it is a real possibility. But that's "retiring in Japan" as opposed to "retiring to Japan."
But to be fair, if you can handle the culture and language, Japan's rural areas do offer some decent retirement potential. Those prerequisites are non-negotiable though.

And what visa status do these people think they will get, pray tell? It is not as though there is a shortage of grey haired residents which Japan wants to fill. They also have a hard enough time finding care workers to look after the ones they have got already.

Like Yoko said, it's all Unicorn farts and fantasies of Sooshee thrice daily. I have been guilty of stoking it a bit by mentioning that I would be perfectly happy doing it and mentioning the $85,000 CAD nice enough houses for sale almost anywhere but central Tokyo, but that only fires up the World Without Borders/Language is Optional types. As for the visa they would get It appears to be the They Have to Let Me Live Wherever the F I Want Visa, famous on expat BBS discussions, also known as the witless newbie in for a rude awakening visa. Allowing that it's just bored people blowing off steam the level of provincial presumption and entitlement does not bode well for a sympathetic view of white baby boomers.