4 ms·

You are off by an order of magnitude, 1 million yen is ~9k USD. That's a ridiculously low salary here, fine for a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito")

You are off by an order of magnitude, 1 million yen is ~9k USD. That's a ridiculously low salary here, fine for a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini, but not much else. Maybe you got confused because China, Japan and Korea group numbers by powers of 10 000 ("man")? Now a 1000-man (10 million yen, around 90k USD or 75k EUR) salary would be amazing, the average Japanese salary is 3 million yen.

hardwaresofton 5y ago
Thanks for pointing this out -- > That's a ridiculously low salary here, fine for a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini, but not much else. True -- min wage is 1000 yen, not hard to work out the lowest theoretical yearly salary would be with a 5 day work week. The usual exception of waiters that are below the min wage isn't here since the service sector generally doesn't do tipping. > Maybe you got confused because China, Japan and Korea group numbers by powers of 10 000 ("man")? Yup this is exactly it. Can't get used to dealing with that extra order of magnitude.
- pezezin 5y ago
  You're welcome. The worst part is trying to read out loud a number. It's fine when you see a number like 1億6432万4871 and you know exactly where the splits are, but most of the time they will just use commas as thousand separators and write numbers as 164,324,871, and then it becomes really difficult to parse numbers, even for them.
  - hardwaresofton 5y ago
    > The worst part is trying to read out loud a number. It's fine when you see a number like 1億6432万4871 and you know exactly where the splits are, but most of the time they will just use commas as thousand separators and write numbers as 164,324,871, and then it becomes really difficult to parse numbers, even for them. Yep, or trying to figure this out in front of someone you're making a deal with -- normally I'm all alone writing an estimate/invoice when I'm figuring out. Sales in japan is one part of the japanese business experience that I do not do, and avoid every time I can. Most of the time I just do everything in dollars -- Americans have a reputation for thinking of everything in American terms, so why disappoint? On a serious note though, a lot of local counterparties are fine doing things in dollars here as well.
    - pezezin 5y ago
      Funny experience: being an European guy in a city with an American base means that all the Japanese assume I'm American too. They are quite surprised when they find I'm not. Heck, the guys at the city office were shocked when I went there to register my hanko :D Anyway, you are lucky, as the dollar/yen exchange ratio is close to 100, so you can drop or add two zeroes and get a good approximation. For us the euro/yen ratio is around 130, such an approximation would introduce too much error.
dunefox 5y ago
> a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini Is the japanese word for a part-time job really the german word 'Arbeit'? Amusing.
- pezezin 5y ago
  Indeed: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E...
- megameter 5y ago
  It's in keeping with the German influences on the school system, I think, since that's where the "baito" is most likely to come up.

hardwaresofton 5y ago

Thanks for pointing this out -- > That's a ridiculously low salary here, fine for a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini, but not much else. True -- min wage is 1000 yen, not hard to work out the lowest theoretical yearly salary would be with a 5 day work week. The usual exception of waiters that are below the min wage isn't here since the service sector generally doesn't do tipping. > Maybe you got confused because China, Japan and Korea group numbers by powers of 10 000 ("man")? Yup this is exactly it. Can't get used to dealing with that extra order of magnitude.

pezezin 5y ago
You're welcome. The worst part is trying to read out loud a number. It's fine when you see a number like 1億6432万4871 and you know exactly where the splits are, but most of the time they will just use commas as thousand separators and write numbers as 164,324,871, and then it becomes really difficult to parse numbers, even for them.
- hardwaresofton 5y ago
  > The worst part is trying to read out loud a number. It's fine when you see a number like 1億6432万4871 and you know exactly where the splits are, but most of the time they will just use commas as thousand separators and write numbers as 164,324,871, and then it becomes really difficult to parse numbers, even for them. Yep, or trying to figure this out in front of someone you're making a deal with -- normally I'm all alone writing an estimate/invoice when I'm figuring out. Sales in japan is one part of the japanese business experience that I do not do, and avoid every time I can. Most of the time I just do everything in dollars -- Americans have a reputation for thinking of everything in American terms, so why disappoint? On a serious note though, a lot of local counterparties are fine doing things in dollars here as well.
  - pezezin 5y ago
    Funny experience: being an European guy in a city with an American base means that all the Japanese assume I'm American too. They are quite surprised when they find I'm not. Heck, the guys at the city office were shocked when I went there to register my hanko :D Anyway, you are lucky, as the dollar/yen exchange ratio is close to 100, so you can drop or add two zeroes and get a good approximation. For us the euro/yen ratio is around 130, such an approximation would introduce too much error.

dunefox 5y ago

> a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini Is the japanese word for a part-time job really the german word 'Arbeit'? Amusing.

pezezin 5y ago
Indeed: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E...
megameter 5y ago
It's in keeping with the German influences on the school system, I think, since that's where the "baito" is most likely to come up.