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It's hard to get a visa. The pay is bad and the hours are bad, but you can sometimes skip out early because you're the white guy. I don't think it's even possib
by rdouble 16y ago
It's hard to get a visa. The pay is bad and the hours are bad, but you can sometimes skip out early because you're the white guy. I don't think it's even possible to get a visa - I just worked under the table. You can't rent an apartment legally without a Japanese guy signing your lease. The scene is weird. If you're white you get lumped in with the gaijin weirdo underclass by default. You end up meeting a bunch of shady characters who you'd probably never have to deal with back in your home country. One interesting detail is that train fare for everyone with a job in Japan is paid for by their employer. But not you. At one point I was paying 3x as much for the train than I was paying in rent.
This is my experience working at a small firm. If you can work for somewhere like Morgan Stanley you'll have good hours, good pay, they'll find you an apartment, pay for your trains, and so forth. You'll still have to deal with the weirdo scene. However, the banking scene is filled with creeps everywhere, so it probably won't be much different people than back home.
My advice to any non-Japanese considering working in Japan is to skip it unless you're a "big in Japan" underground celebrity. It would be great to be a semi-famous DJ or artiste in Tokyo. Working a typical programming job... not so much.
That all said Japan is a really fun place to hang out. It's just not a really fun place to work.
Edit: this was 10 years ago.
- bluedanieru 16y agoWow. Can you be a bit more specific? My experience is mostly opposite to yours in most respects, actually, but I've heard similar horror stories so I'm curious to know how you are (were) trying to get by. I don't think you're entirely typical though. Send me a mail if you're uncomfortable discussing here (although it does seem you've already left?) (The apartment bit is not accurate, btw, and neither is the visa, compared to the States.) At any rate, just a quick point of order that the parent may not be an entirely typical case. I know a guy working at smart.fm (or whatever they call themselves now) and he's having a good time of it.
- rdouble 16y agoThis was 10 years ago. Maybe my comment seems too negative. It wasn't really a horror story. That's interesting if you don't need a guarantor to rent an apartment anymore, I'll have to ask my friends over there about that. When I lived there the housing options were either: have Japanese guarantor, rent from Yakuza owned building in Ugusudani, or pay $5000/m for luxo month-to-month rental. I guess the other non-guarantor option would have been to sub-lease from a Japanese person going abroad for a while.
- bluedanieru 16y agoMost places still require a guarantor, which basically means you pay the estate agency to act as a guarantor. In light of the fact that key money and other deposit requirements have generally gone down over that past few years (nothing to do with foreigners here this is motivated by Japanese), I think it's a wash. Getting a place is definitely more a pain in the ass than it ought to be, for Japanese but moreso for foreigners, but I don't think it's quite as bad as you've painted it. edit: okay things have changed since you've left. I've been here since 2003 and I can confirm that, at least
- patio11 16y agoI slag on being a salaryman, frequently, but we never have these sorts of problems. Visa issues? The CEO will write the Minister of Justice a letter. Problem solved. (I am not joking in the slightest degree.)
- rdouble 16y agoYour boss must have liked you more than mine liked me. On the other hand, getting paid via a giant envelope filled with cash was pretty cool.