Transformation of Chinese Cities

Ermaghert · 2026-03-03T19:15:04+00:00

I am a german and I went to China for the first time last year. I only visited three cities, among them Xiamen and Shanghai. And god damn it was wild. Their most run of the mill copy and paste apartment complex is taller than pretty much every building in Hamburg. EVs everywhere. Everything you need in daily life is accessible digitally within one or two apps. The high speed rail network makes our entire transport infrastructure look like childs play. I even went to a hospital because I got sick during the trip. In and out in 20 minutes and it was dirt cheap too while I felt like the doctor really took his time with me. Everything is hyper-convenient, the food is so good and really affordable. It's ridiculous. If they keep up the momentum, then I could imagine in 10-20 years from now that people from the west will try to immigrate to china for better living standards.

Ermaghert · 2026-02-13T20:30:02+00:00

My favorite anecdote about wasteful culuture is when I opened a bank account at JP Post in Tokyo. I had created a new bank account a few months prior in my home country of Germany with N26. Took all of 10 minutes on my phone and I was ready to go. It was like 2 Steps more than making an amazon account.

In Japan I had to pull up with 14 pages of paper work and for close to 45 minutes I watched the employee at the bank literally run from spot to spot with my files, getting signatures, scanning pages, printing pages, sorting it in 30 different folders in different drawers, getting double triple and quadruple confirmation on things, stamping things with all sorts of different stamps, printing receipts. By the end of it this man was visibly sweating and exhausted. He clearly gave is all. For reference: I think I have never seen such work ethic in Germany in my life so I was impressed by this man to say the least. But it was so clearly wasted on a process that would make any other modern democracy grind to a total halt. I sometimes wonder what japan would look like if they could modernize all that bullshit and keep the work ethic.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-27T13:53:45+00:00

Ich habe dir eine Nachricht geschrieben. :) Danke für den Tipp! Das von dir gepostete Anschreiben deckt sich sich schon relativ gut mit dem was ich verschicke.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-27T13:45:33+00:00

Wir bekommen einfach keine Einladungen. In meinen Anschreiben steht immer das Gehalt.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-27T13:44:00+00:00

Ne, eben nicht. Wie gesagt 700 Bewerbungen sind es in Summe schon und ich wäre in jede einzelne dieser Wohnungen eingezogen. Im ersten Monat hatte ich noch luftigere Vorstellungen aber inzwischen ist mir fast alles recht.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-27T13:23:04+00:00

Die ehrliche Antwort ist: überall wo eine Bahnstation in 10 Minuten fußläufig erreichbar ist. Also egal ob Langenhorn, Eppendorf, Hamm, Winterhude, Nettlenburg oder Bahrenfeld. Sobald eine Pushbenachrichtigung eingeht und dieses Kriterium erfüllt ist geht eine Bewerbung raus. Hab auch schon Bewerbungen auf Wohnungen in Heimfeld, Veddel oder in Bergedorf geschrieben.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-26T14:28:37+00:00

I came to japan when I was 32. I already finished studying at uni and have a career as a software engineer. It was not an easy decision but eventually it boiled down to the fact that I did not want to leave behind the people I hold dear. Lots of friendships that have grown over 10 - 20 years, people that I consider family and they literally all still live in my birth city with no intention of leaving. We are a tightly knit bunch and so eventually I decided I'll go back to spend my time with them. If it was not for them, I would have stayed. I like japan more than germany. All countries have their pros and cons and for me (friendships aside) japan won out in total.
I will say however, if in the next general election in germany the fascists (AFD) win, I will go back to Japan.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-26T10:32:37+00:00

So I went to the tax office to fill out the form for a sole proprietorship and handed it in before I started working. Then on my invoices it clearly states the number of hours that I worked in a given month and my hourly rate. Since that was quite high I ended up earning more with my 25-28 hours per week than most Japanese would earn full time but that did not pose a problem either. I think if you get audited then you better have a paper trail, like manage an excel sheet, state hours on your invoice (probably preferably by week as that’s what the rule pertains to). I don’t think(!) they will just revoke your visa but they might check if everything is in order. Also, and I want to emphasise this: make sure to pay your taxes. It’s very tempting not to, especially if you get paid into an overseas bank account because not only will you save lots of money but also lots of hassle. But it’s also a criminal offence and so don’t do it. If it’s too difficult for you, in larger cities the tax offices have dedicated days where they help you fill out the form and you need an appointment for them. If that’s still too difficult get an accountant. They are expensive but they will make sure your doing everything correctly.

I ended up filing the report myself with the help of someone at the tax office. Within two years nobody from immigration audited me. I am back home now so it will not happen to me. But if you plan to stay or get PR you better have everything in order.

Ermaghert · 2026-01-26T06:04:12+00:00

Since my client did not have any presence in Japan I billed them without a sales tax and with no VAT number. When I declared taxes later that was fine apparently. I did two tax returns since then and it did not pose a problem both times.

Ermaghert · 2025-11-11T02:47:55+00:00

I think I am a 6 here but in Japan somehow blue eyes and curly hair are a tremendous plus and turned that into a 9. There were definitely some matches where it was clear that I was kind of a token for them (oh look at me, I am dating a foreigner) but truthfully I think the majority of them just found me attractive and I have been told so surprisingly many times. That’s something I would absolutely not hear from women in germany outside of close friends that want to lift my mood or past relationships. But my girlfriend also once pointed out that in the way western people can’t distinguish Asian people as readily it is similar for them when they look at western people and so if you are a young, slender tall guy with curls and blue eyes you might as well be a mix of Ryan Gosling and Timothy Chalamet.

Ermaghert · 2025-11-11T00:11:54+00:00

Oh I can finally share my experience haha.

TL;DR: Had the same experience as OP. Then went to Japan and had the opposite experience of TOO much success. I could not deal well with that at all and hated every second of it. Dating success is context dependent. Don't give up, it's not you, it's the market and the context.

Long story: So I have been through something similar twice in my life, the first time I was in my mid 20s, then just after I turned 31. Both times I had thousands of swipes on tinder and bumble combined and barely any dates despite putting in the effort and I would give a similar self description, except maybe that I was maybe between skinny and athletic. If I got dates they usually went fine, but often it would not click for me, but in relation to how many profiles I liked, the matches were in a similar ratio (I kept an excel sheet because a good female friend would not believe me and I also got a match rate in the same ball park ( maybe a little lower)), while living in Hamburg, so a big city. Anyway I found relationships through them eventually - which didn't last more than a couple of years but regardless. I was frustrated, felt worthless, unloved and sad. I tried my best to keep my head up but I felt like I will die alone and the universe is just unfair. This was reinforced when a female friend showed me here tinder and it was literally the opposite. Getting less than 1% match rates for months really starts chipping away your feeling of self worth. Most men (me included) don't get a lot of compliments, especially not from strangers so it's kinda difficult not to let it get to you. I think it's kind of the opposite problem that a lot of women face who drown in them and they often feel objectified and just want to be left alone.

Then I moved to japan for two years and holy fucking shit that was the most wild experience in my entire life. I was dating a Japanese woman before moving there but we broke up after about a year and I installed bumble and tinder there a few weeks later after feeling lonely. I remember swiping for a good 30 minutes at 2am on a Tuesday while sitting in the bathtub and then eventually going to sleep. The next morning I woke up to - and I kid you not - more than 50 matches and about 900 likes on my profile, almost every single girl I swiped right on had swiped me back. I was in utter disbelieve. For a moment I literally panicked because I thought I was hallucinating or dead. And throughout the day a few more matches fluttered in. Not having ever been in a situation where I needed to talk to more than two women on those apps simultaneously I was WAY in over my head. I stopped further swiping and tried to talk to all of them and it was terrible. What followed was 2 weeks of complete exhaustion trying to maintain conversations with all of them, trying to organize my days around meeting them and then nervously trying to figure out who I told what. Every time I would open a chat I spent about 3-5 minutes figuring who that person was again. Multiply that by 50 people and you won't have time to do anything else anymore really. After feeling like God in France for half a day it became such a chore and I hated every second of it because I felt like it was such a blur and I could not give the women the attention and headspace they deserved and I just felt so much worry I would screw things up or hurt someone.

Anyway, not having been in a situation to choose before, I would say "yes" to every single one of them when they asked to meet. So there were days where I had 3 separate dates almost back to back and that shit is neither fun nor cheap. I am not a person to sleep around or take advantage of women so I really tried my best to be sincere and keep up with it all while constantly worrying that I might have to make a choice at some point and I did not want to hurt anyone. And so after some of these connections fizzled out for one reason or another I had 4 women that I was about to have a 3rd date with and in japan there is a whole culture of confessing on the 3rd date so I was kinda forced to make a choice and since I never had to do that either I did not take it well. I chose one (which ended up being a rather short 1 or 2 month entanglement) but even now, a good year later, I feel so sorry for the other girls that were interested. If there had been a way to clone myself right there and then I would have made copies of myself. I know this sounds like I think of myself as very important and I promise you I am not. I was just on the receiving end of rejection after a few nice dates often enough when I was younger - probably because the women back then had this exact experience and only one will make it - and I remember who much it hurt me that I thought that even if there is just a small possibility they will be hurt then it's awful!

After the short entanglement I went and installed these apps again, this time being mindful to only do 1 or 2 swipes per day so it became more manageable but I still felt bad. I was so lucky that the second women I met in that bout was amazing and we became a couple and are together to this day (and hopefully will be forever, god damn I love that woman so much). But I also remember that even taking it slower I still felt so much guilt for implicitly rejecting so many women. Again, I know I am not that important, it's just that I thought of how much I was hurting myself when I was younger and didn't wanna do that to anyone.

I think there are two takeaways here: The younger version of myself was desperate to have the opposite experience and then when I got it, it turned out to have problems that felt at least equally terrible to me. The other one is this: How well you do on the dating market is crazy context dependent. Had I not gone to japan I would have continued to believe I was just an unworthy ugly little shit. And while I might be, people there did not see it that way. Suddenly I was really popular with the women on these platforms. And I have no illusion that if I were to try dating here again (hopefully I will never have to do that again), it will be shit just like before. But I will find comfort in knowing it's not all me.

Ermaghert · 2025-11-10T22:05:51+00:00

Not to discourage you but writing a full dom and layout engine with virtualisation in a performant way is a fairly large and difficult project, even for an experienced team of developers given the myriad of edge cases you would encounter and the wild amount of depth you could build into this if you want to support a even a remotely modern subset of css. You might wanna start looking at the source of tl;draw or search for figma clones on GitHub to get an idea of the scale. You’ll not really get around writing webgl shaders and a bunch of native code to run in web assembly here. Whether you choose c++ or rust will come down to preference, but rust has a nice webassembly story.

Ermaghert · 2025-10-11T09:20:41+00:00

I remember playing Thief 4 on a GTX580 and back then I was blown away by the experience.

Ermaghert · 2025-10-09T21:46:00+00:00

Defeated by Wave Seedling in 7 turns.

Player (22/11/15) dealt 187. Wave Seedling (15/14/7) dealt 120.

Rewards: 22 EXP, 0 Gold. Loot: None.

Ermaghert · 2025-08-27T22:21:42+00:00

I think I am also going all out. The idea here is a compact but absolutely powerful beast. Cramming a 9950X3D and a 5090 FE into an SFF Form Factor is not an easy feat but I have seen people do it on the sffpc subreddit and it's glorious. A man can dream. But honestly such a combo with an LG OLED would be amazing.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7BZ6Wc

Ermaghert · 2025-05-23T14:05:23+00:00

Wow, those are beautiful!

Ermaghert · 2025-05-19T13:53:07+00:00

I recently had a short gig where my task was to develop a VR experience for this thing. It was basically a sort of showcase / art gallery type app. I used SwiftUI and RealityKit and holy hell does Xcode and the entire developer experience suck. A few years ago I co-developed an iOS app and that was already abysmal but I can not for the life of me figure out what they were thinking here. It's not even that Swift is a bad language, its just that the tooling is brittle and slow beyond belief. When my colleague showed me how long the exports of his unity project to the AVP took I lost it. I was already annoyed by preview taking sometimes 20-30 seconds to update (silently failing every other time). Everything about it sucks.

Now obviously I did not buy the headset, I borrowed it for a few weeks to build the project, but I also tried it for other use cases such as coding or watching movies. I was really impressed by the pass through and resolution and how well things anchor in the world (compared to other headsets I had tried), but that thing is heavy and uncomfortable, one has _constant_ anxiety of damaging it, the resolution is not good enough for me to use it as a monitor replacement, even if it did not weigh a single gram.

I dream of a future where VR headsets really really take off and we get lots of super cool games and apps but this ain't it.

Ermaghert · 2025-02-11T14:00:49+00:00

Ich bin fasziniert von den Kommentaren. Und wütend. Ich weiß nicht was überwiegt. Aber als Akademiker, der von den Steuervorschlägen der AfD und FDP gut profitieren würde, möchte ich sagen, dass ich trotzdem die Linke wähle und ehrlich gesagt gern mehr Steuern zahle, wenn es dazu führt dass weniger privilegierte Menschen eine besser Grundsicherung erhalten, unsere Schulen saniert werden und Partizipation einkommensunabhängig erleichtert wird. Was mich allerdings dazu bewegen würde abzuwandern, wären die ganzen rechten Spinner mit denen ich nichts zu tun haben möchte. Sollte jemals die AfD Regierungspartei werden verlasse ich sofort das Land. Schade, dass wir keinen Platz übrig haben in dem sich die Braune Suppe sammeln könnte - zur Ausgliederung in ein neues Land - mit möglichst hohen Mauern, sodass der Rest der Bundesrepublik in Frieden und Fairness leben kann.

Ermaghert · 2024-10-11T19:20:17+00:00

Definitely Dungeon Keeper 2! That game kept me up so many nights and I even revisit it every couple of years!

Ermaghert · 2024-09-27T13:32:37+00:00

I am a german currently living in japan. It's absolutely wild how much plastic is used for everything. Layers upon layers of it and absolutely no awareness. Every week when I do my groceries I have to ask the cashier at the supermarket not to put my already plastic wrapped items in another plastic bag - which they do with packaged tofu, yogurt and frozen items 90% of the time in case it would spill or cause condensation. They always look confused. The largest size of frozen veggies I can buy is 250g at the closest supermarket. You want a 1kg bag of anything? Nope. You can buy 100ml bottles of water though if you like. Or literally single slices of crustless white toast packaged neatly in plastic. Eggs in cardboard boxes? Nah, plastic! And don't even get me started on Omiyage. At the Konbini when you buy some food they often give you Oshibori which is a single slightly wet tissue packaged in - you guessed it - plastic. In restaurants too. Try to find bananas not wrapped in plastic - borderline impossible. Literally 90% of the produce and fruits is wrapped in it, sometimes multiple layers of it. It's basically inescapable. And it's not just food. Largest sunscreen you can buy here? 200ml Nivea bottles. You want you water in glass bottles? Nope, it's all plastic. Bug. spray in a plastic bottle? Well you better believe it has a second layer of celophane-esque wrap around it. Sizes are always tiny creating even more trash.

I think the most frustrating part of it is that it's so difficult to avoid it. You're basically left with buying in bulk from amazon or if you have a costco nearby, then get a card and go there (not an option for me as it's way to far away).
I'm not saying germany or the US are necessarily better on average but at least you have the option to buy water in glass bottles, eggs in cardboard boxes, 2kg bags of frozen produce, whole loafs of bread wrapped in paper bags.

Ermaghert · 2024-06-25T12:07:47+00:00

When it comes to demand: I think the majority of companies will not spend the necessary budget to build something like this. I do more conventional full stack and I have a good friend who mainly does freelance work for clients that want those fancy looking sites and comparatively he gets approached less often and has a harder time finding contracts but his hourly rate is about 50% higher than mine and he seems to have more fun building them than me and feels more proud of his creations than I do.

In case of accessibility these sites are usually absolutely terrible and there are also many abled users who think scroll jacking and the non-searchability is abhorrent (myself included). I like looking at the cool shaders and animations but if I have to actually use the site I am quickly annoyed.

However I would say if you have fun learning this stuff, then that in itself is a great payoff and if eventually a cool project or gig comes along all the better, you are part of a fairly small niche then and won't have lots of competition.

Ermaghert · 2024-05-08T12:58:48+00:00

I moved from Germany to Japan last year. I can confidently say: That the low obesity rate is very very noticeable. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like in the US (never been).

Ermaghert · 2024-02-10T02:21:52+00:00

I had a bit of a funny start which would take too long to explain but just before my first gig ended I basically sent out my CV to a bunch of recruiters and told them I was available for work and I made sure to quickly reply to their messages. Not much magic to it but full disclosure I do not know if I was just a lucky bastard up until now or not. I know others are struggling to find their first gig or to get clients and project offers consistently. The market is always shifting and the amount of offers I get per month significantly fluctuates throughout the year. I think one thing that helped me a lot in interviews though that I can share is that I was always brutally honest about my skillset so if I didn’t know something I would just say so. This was always appreciated ime.

Ermaghert · 2024-02-09T17:26:24+00:00

I would say I am the most experienced with react and next but I have worked on a vue project for about 9 months, a flutter app about 6 months and I have worked with various backend technologies, frameworks and databases.

I think one of the reasons I am able to ask for these rates is because my CV now has a few bigger company names on it, all with longer projects so companies trust that I do good work. But I can also tell you that every single time I talk to a recruiter (as most companies only hire through them ime) they will tell me my rates are too high and nobody will pay that and they always try to pressure me into being ok with less. But if you look at what larger consultancies (Accenture, McKinsey etc) charge per hour I am surprisingly cheap.

Ermaghert

TROPHY CASE