You’ll have a much easier time moving to another state. You say you liked Washington. It’s liberal, it’s got the climate you like, and you and your family can easily move there together without any need for a visa or another language.

Yes we are in the German region so he learns Hochdeutsch and the local Swiss dialect in addition English and Japanese.

We stayed in the third country. Kids are born and raised in third country and it’s 12-14 hrs equidistant in opposite directions from our respective home countries and has a different national language so it’s very “fair” 🤣😂

If you really like the safety and public transit, and cleanliness aspects of life in Japan and also enjoy the relative privacy (often referred to by extroverts as loneliness or isolation) then Switzerland could be a very good fit personality and lifestyle wise. There’s also a big Pharma presence that could match your education profile.

But it will be very very difficult to get position as someone with a bachelors degree and no German and no EU or Swiss passport. There are also no big cities so if you are still in love with the Japanese megalopolises it might be a bit early in your life to come to Switzerland.

I’m from the US and I very much like my home, so this isn’t a “diss the US” comment, and I agree with most of your points but tuition is indeed absurd compared to the majority of EU countries.

I live in Switzerland now and tuition here for ETHZ - top 10 worldwide ranked university is about $1500-$1800 per year. I did. my undergrad in the US through the UC system which is indeed super reasonable for in state residents but even in the early 2000s it was around $11k/year not counting all the overpriced textbooks. It’s not even close.

Assuming he is smart enough and works hard enough to qualify through the gymnasium system here, my kid will have the right to attend ETHZ or any of the other federal/local Unis at that same price point. And it doesn’t depend on the subjective charity evaluation of a third party entity.

I love the US and where I grew up and one day I might find myself back there, it had a lot of great features but this point is not one of them.

I mean the same is true of the US and Japan! I don’t know what he’ll do or what he’ll want to do - we just believe that the best thing we can do is give him these skills and options.

Even if he never leaves being fluent in a couple extra languages and having some familiarity with their cultures wont hurt.

I guess it depends on what we mean by “identify”. I meant like “strongly associate with” in the sense that the grow up in CH but ultimately feel that they are Japanese or American or that they are not Swiss. This reminds me of all the posts about TCKs (third culture kids) in r/TCK for example; I don’t think this is terribly healthy, it’s rather a feeling of not really belonging anywhere. I want him to feel fully integrated into the place he was born and raised.

On the other hand I totally agree with the idea of ensuring that he has access to our countries and speaks our languages. Like I said we spend 4-5 weeks every year in Japan and California so he knows those places and has relationships with his family there. We’ve made sure he can speak read and write English and Japanese natively in addition to German / Swiss German. We’ve made sure he has passports for all three places too so he can choose to go wherever he wants when he grows up.

Of course by doing this I think we maybe also leave him with a bunch more to cogitate on as he grows up, but I hope he sees it as a net positive as an adult.

I’ve seen some posts here from both kids and parents about: a) the child being born and raised in country X but never learning the local language due to parental choices, and b) parents choosing to not teach their kids their own mother tongue or deliberately not pass on citizenship - those are the kinds of things I find really disappointing and shocking.

I’m American, my wife is Japanese and we live in Switzerland. Neither of us are locals but our son definitely is. He’s been speaking/learning English, Japanese, Hochdeutsch and the local Swiss German dialect since birth.

It was a little tough having both our families 12-14 hrs away but we survived.

We make long visits to both California and Japan every year so he has a good idea about these places but he is Swiss and I don’t think he needs to identify with our countries; he needs to feel at home in his.