Ep. 3: Software Architect Nuo Yan on avoiding shortcuts in life and the appeals of living in Japan

Chinatown 2.0

English - August 06, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 44.4 MB
Documentary Society & Culture Personal Journals academia business personal america american bicultural china chinese crossborder crossculture Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Chinatown 2.0: (Mandarin) Cross-border PR Entrepreneur Jingzhu Yang

Next Episode: Chinatown 2 0: East Asian Historian Sixiang Wang

Nuo Yan is a Tokyo-based software architect. He was previously based in Seattle and San Francisco, and was founding engineer at multiple tech startups, one of which was acquired by Pinterest. Nuo discussed his philosophy of avoiding shortcuts in software design and implementation, the purpose of life as completing a journey instead of checking boxes, and why Japan is a great place to live for him.

Nuo shared with us:

* Joining a startup right out of undergrad
* Reluctance in taking shortcuts in code (or in life)
* Anxiety of China citizens explained by country's rapid rise, similar to 90s Japan
* Japan's extremely stable and equitable society
* Why Japan's life quality trumps that in the US for Asians
* Friendly Japan immigration policies
* Japan's startup scene doesn't measure up to that in the US/China
* Exploration of why Japan feels like Nuo's home city (nowhere else does)
* Decision to become a software engineer very early in life
* Why being treated as a foreigner in Japan is a good thing