/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I figured this would be a good board to post this on, as most of you know a lot about Japan and have probably visited it or studied the language.

I have to take a class for either Japanese or Mandarin. I am very interested in both languages, but I am not sure which would be better to learn. Although Mandarin has more speakers, there also seem to be more people who know both Mandarin and English because of the Chinese diaspora and the great number of learners. Japan also seems to be a far better country to live in.

I am very interested in traditional cultures and religions, and unfortunately it seems like China destroyed most of it during the Cultural Revolution.

My main dilemma is that pretty much everyone tells me that Mandarin is the best thing to study, but it seems like everything else points to Japanese being more advantageous. So to those of you who have lived in either country, or those who have studied either language, what are your thoughts? My main concern is which language is easier to make a career out of, as learning and using languages is my main hobby (I have learnt one language to fluency on my own, and am conversational in a few others.)