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Japan has a serious problem with lack of sound proofing in most of the buildings you'll come across, as well an insane amount of paper work involved in everythi

Japan has a serious problem with lack of sound proofing in most of the buildings you'll come across, as well an insane amount of paper work involved in everything you do. Finding a house, moving, trashing large items, getting a car license, dealing with the bank, and pretty much every aspect of life you can think of, involves a lot of paper work as well as your physical presence. If you're a foreigner who is moving to Japan, this problem is tripled, as well as some discrimination (not necessarily racism) you might find while looking for housing, due to fear of foreigners just leaving. These issues aren't very clear when you're there on a tourist visa due to how easy everything seems. Unless you have a company dealing with this stuff for you, you're going to have some headaches. There's also odd day to day things, such as being unable to withdraw money from ATMs after hours, which is mind-boggling to a foreigner like me. Otherwise, Japan is an amazing well oiled peaceful machine that just requires A LOT of paper work to get going.

teek 5y ago
I've been living in Japan for over 5 years. > Japan has a serious problem with lack of sound proofing in most of the buildings you'll come across In older or cheaper buildings this is true. However if you pay you can have better sound proofing. For example some Japanese mansions (residential low-rise condominiums) are built from reinforced concrete and isolate sound fairly well. You just have to be careful to read about the building and its construction. You also have to be willing to pay extra for better construction materials. > as well as some discrimination (not necessarily racism) you might find while looking for housing This is true for rentals. I also want to clarify Japanese also experience discrimination so it is not purely a non-Japanese thing. Generally landlords have freedom to put whatever restrictions they want on who they rent the unit to. But this is for good reason. A landlord cannot easily evict a tenant. So the landlord is taking a huge risk in trusting that the tenant will respect the contract and actually pay the rent. I will say in buildings owned by corporations or businesses, they sometimes don't have any discrimination by nationality. They do tend to have higher requirements for income and may discriminate based on your current company employment contract. Also they may require a specific guarantor company which tends to be more expensive. The guarantor company is sort of a risk insurance for the landlord paid by the tenant. However things are quite different if you buy the land outright. Here the only restriction is bank loans. If you do not have permanent residence, the number of banks willing to lend money are very few. If you have permanent residence then you have many more banks to choose from. Otherwise there is no restriction on who can buy land. > Unless you have a company dealing with this stuff for you, you're going to have some headaches. I think it is all about perspective and expectations. In Japan the Japanese are used to dealing with bureaucracy (though many Japanese also really dislike it). The information is readily available, you just have research yourself. Otherwise you have to accept that you are moving to a non-English speaking country and it is your responsibility to find a way to understand the local language or get someone to help you. I do agree that there are still many headaches to adjust to Japanese business and culture. But I also don't understand why everyone has an expectation that Japan must change to meet their expectations. Japan is a first world country with many issues, but it isn't a place where you can expect to be free of first-world problems. For example in the US nearly nobody bothers to complain about credit rating agencies. Maintaining your credit is seen as something you control. Which isn't necessarily true. Credit ratings greatly affect American lives. So everyone is in a way obligated to participate in a non-government created scheme yet nobody bats an eye. Just sign up for a credit card.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  LOTS of people hate the credit agencies and complain about them. I would say hatred of credit agencies is probably one of the few issues left you could get wide support of across the political spectrum.
toyg 5y ago
> Japan is an amazing well oiled peaceful machine that just requires A LOT of paper work to get going. One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society. When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  Japan's well oiled and peaceful machine comes from a thousand little things that everyone cooperates on. Only areas with large numbers of foreigners have trash cans in public (and still have litter issues). When you walk into a grocery store during a downpour, you do your best to dry off and leave your wet umbrella at the fire. If young people are whispering too loudly, someone will ask them to quiet down and they will listen. Mutual trust and respect that comes with a tightly knit and homogenous society.
  - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
    I don’t mean to bust your bubble, but I live in a town in Japan with basically no foreigners, but there’s plenty of litter and it’s gotten substantially worse since COVID started and the few foreigners that were here all left. Beaches are also getting dirtier and dirtier with people having parties and just throwing plastic bottles, alcohol cans, food packets, etc wherever they please. Quiet places far from town I used to visit 2 years ago turned into absolute dumps this past year.
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      This was not my experience in Nagoya, Bizen, Takayama, Miyoshi, Osaka, Kyoto, Miyoshi, Fuji or Tokyo two years ago.
      - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
        Those are tourist-heavy towns. They're actively cleaned up to keep tourists wanting to come. It's very different in locations where tourists aren't common, especially post-covid.
aikinai 5y ago
How long ago did you live in Japan? Very little of this is true anymore. Unless maybe you're deep in the country and only dealing with businesses and authorities that stopped evolving decades ago? I recently moved and only communicated with the real estate agent and the moving company by chat. Large trash reservation is online. Drivers license requires an application, but isn't that normal? Same with a lease; I think those are still paper in most countries. I don't know of any ATMs that close anymore; maybe super rural banks still do? It depends on the municipality, but the good ones have moved most of their paperwork online and allow you to digitally sign it with an actual signing certificate embedded on your My Number card and the NFC chip in your phone. If you're doing the paperwork on a computer, you scan the a QR code to complete only verification and signing with the phone. Certainly not everything's cutting edge, but a lot of things are quite streamlined these days. Immigration paperwork, for example, is a cakewalk compared to the US, probably requiring about 100 times fewer pages at least in my past experience. Edit: And as someone mentioned below, modern apartments are very soundproof, just not the old wooden ones.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Didn’t you still have to stamp the actual lease contract ? (+ guarantee paper, insurance etc.) We went through the whole dance a few months ago, and while most of the discussions were done by chat/mail, we still ended up snail mailing a ton of paper back and forth to close the deal. Also most bank ATM still have closing hours, it can be way later than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but it still closes at night e.g. Mufg’s Kouenji branch: https://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg_s/info/BA592126/ https://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg_s/info/BA592126/ Going further west and some will close at 18h or 20h without remorse. For soundproofing, it’s less a matter of modernity than of price. Foreigners often will only get access the super low and middle-high offers, so there is a higher chance to land on a pretty well soundproofed building. Your random Leopalace built this year will still have paper thin walls, and so do cheaper appartments in general,
  - benrbray 5y ago
    > Didn’t you still have to stamp the actual lease contract ? Not a big deal, it plays the same role as signatures do in the US. Only very recently did we stop having to sign credit card receipts here!
kaboomman 5y ago
As someone living in Japan, none of this has been true for for me. Except for the driving license part, I can't comment on that since I never tried to get one. Perhaps it was like this 10 years ago or may be the case in rural areas, but life in Tokyo is pretty hassle and paperwork free. I also had never had problems with soundproofing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how super soundproof everything was compared to the places I lived in in the U.S. But I've only ever lived in newer apartment buildings, not the old ones.
amake 5y ago
> There's also odd day to day things, such as being unable to withdraw money from ATMs after hours, which is mind-boggling to a foreigner like me. This hasn't been true for over a decade. 24/7 ATMs can be found at any convenience store, which are plentiful.
- glandium 5y ago
  24/7 ATMs can be found at any convenience store, but there usually are fees associated with using them. Fees that vary depending on time of day and/or day of week. The ATMs anywhere else that is not a convenience store are also still, for the vast majority, not 24/7.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Most banks offers a few free convenience store ATM count per month. Usually requirement is like not using paper passbook or set the account to be given salary.

teek 5y ago

I've been living in Japan for over 5 years. > Japan has a serious problem with lack of sound proofing in most of the buildings you'll come across In older or cheaper buildings this is true. However if you pay you can have better sound proofing. For example some Japanese mansions (residential low-rise condominiums) are built from reinforced concrete and isolate sound fairly well. You just have to be careful to read about the building and its construction. You also have to be willing to pay extra for better construction materials. > as well as some discrimination (not necessarily racism) you might find while looking for housing This is true for rentals. I also want to clarify Japanese also experience discrimination so it is not purely a non-Japanese thing. Generally landlords have freedom to put whatever restrictions they want on who they rent the unit to. But this is for good reason. A landlord cannot easily evict a tenant. So the landlord is taking a huge risk in trusting that the tenant will respect the contract and actually pay the rent. I will say in buildings owned by corporations or businesses, they sometimes don't have any discrimination by nationality. They do tend to have higher requirements for income and may discriminate based on your current company employment contract. Also they may require a specific guarantor company which tends to be more expensive. The guarantor company is sort of a risk insurance for the landlord paid by the tenant. However things are quite different if you buy the land outright. Here the only restriction is bank loans. If you do not have permanent residence, the number of banks willing to lend money are very few. If you have permanent residence then you have many more banks to choose from. Otherwise there is no restriction on who can buy land. > Unless you have a company dealing with this stuff for you, you're going to have some headaches. I think it is all about perspective and expectations. In Japan the Japanese are used to dealing with bureaucracy (though many Japanese also really dislike it). The information is readily available, you just have research yourself. Otherwise you have to accept that you are moving to a non-English speaking country and it is your responsibility to find a way to understand the local language or get someone to help you. I do agree that there are still many headaches to adjust to Japanese business and culture. But I also don't understand why everyone has an expectation that Japan must change to meet their expectations. Japan is a first world country with many issues, but it isn't a place where you can expect to be free of first-world problems. For example in the US nearly nobody bothers to complain about credit rating agencies. Maintaining your credit is seen as something you control. Which isn't necessarily true. Credit ratings greatly affect American lives. So everyone is in a way obligated to participate in a non-government created scheme yet nobody bats an eye. Just sign up for a credit card.

namelessoracle 5y ago
LOTS of people hate the credit agencies and complain about them. I would say hatred of credit agencies is probably one of the few issues left you could get wide support of across the political spectrum.

toyg 5y ago

> Japan is an amazing well oiled peaceful machine that just requires A LOT of paper work to get going. One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society. When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.

iratewizard 5y ago
Japan's well oiled and peaceful machine comes from a thousand little things that everyone cooperates on. Only areas with large numbers of foreigners have trash cans in public (and still have litter issues). When you walk into a grocery store during a downpour, you do your best to dry off and leave your wet umbrella at the fire. If young people are whispering too loudly, someone will ask them to quiet down and they will listen. Mutual trust and respect that comes with a tightly knit and homogenous society.
- forgotmyoldname 5y ago
  I don’t mean to bust your bubble, but I live in a town in Japan with basically no foreigners, but there’s plenty of litter and it’s gotten substantially worse since COVID started and the few foreigners that were here all left. Beaches are also getting dirtier and dirtier with people having parties and just throwing plastic bottles, alcohol cans, food packets, etc wherever they please. Quiet places far from town I used to visit 2 years ago turned into absolute dumps this past year.
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    This was not my experience in Nagoya, Bizen, Takayama, Miyoshi, Osaka, Kyoto, Miyoshi, Fuji or Tokyo two years ago.
    - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
      Those are tourist-heavy towns. They're actively cleaned up to keep tourists wanting to come. It's very different in locations where tourists aren't common, especially post-covid.

aikinai 5y ago

How long ago did you live in Japan? Very little of this is true anymore. Unless maybe you're deep in the country and only dealing with businesses and authorities that stopped evolving decades ago? I recently moved and only communicated with the real estate agent and the moving company by chat. Large trash reservation is online. Drivers license requires an application, but isn't that normal? Same with a lease; I think those are still paper in most countries. I don't know of any ATMs that close anymore; maybe super rural banks still do? It depends on the municipality, but the good ones have moved most of their paperwork online and allow you to digitally sign it with an actual signing certificate embedded on your My Number card and the NFC chip in your phone. If you're doing the paperwork on a computer, you scan the a QR code to complete only verification and signing with the phone. Certainly not everything's cutting edge, but a lot of things are quite streamlined these days. Immigration paperwork, for example, is a cakewalk compared to the US, probably requiring about 100 times fewer pages at least in my past experience. Edit: And as someone mentioned below, modern apartments are very soundproof, just not the old wooden ones.

makeitdouble 5y ago
Didn’t you still have to stamp the actual lease contract ? (+ guarantee paper, insurance etc.) We went through the whole dance a few months ago, and while most of the discussions were done by chat/mail, we still ended up snail mailing a ton of paper back and forth to close the deal. Also most bank ATM still have closing hours, it can be way later than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but it still closes at night e.g. Mufg’s Kouenji branch: https://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg_s/info/BA592126/ https://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg_s/info/BA592126/ Going further west and some will close at 18h or 20h without remorse. For soundproofing, it’s less a matter of modernity than of price. Foreigners often will only get access the super low and middle-high offers, so there is a higher chance to land on a pretty well soundproofed building. Your random Leopalace built this year will still have paper thin walls, and so do cheaper appartments in general,
- benrbray 5y ago
  > Didn’t you still have to stamp the actual lease contract ? Not a big deal, it plays the same role as signatures do in the US. Only very recently did we stop having to sign credit card receipts here!

kaboomman 5y ago

As someone living in Japan, none of this has been true for for me. Except for the driving license part, I can't comment on that since I never tried to get one. Perhaps it was like this 10 years ago or may be the case in rural areas, but life in Tokyo is pretty hassle and paperwork free. I also had never had problems with soundproofing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how super soundproof everything was compared to the places I lived in in the U.S. But I've only ever lived in newer apartment buildings, not the old ones.

amake 5y ago

> There's also odd day to day things, such as being unable to withdraw money from ATMs after hours, which is mind-boggling to a foreigner like me. This hasn't been true for over a decade. 24/7 ATMs can be found at any convenience store, which are plentiful.

glandium 5y ago
24/7 ATMs can be found at any convenience store, but there usually are fees associated with using them. Fees that vary depending on time of day and/or day of week. The ATMs anywhere else that is not a convenience store are also still, for the vast majority, not 24/7.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Most banks offers a few free convenience store ATM count per month. Usually requirement is like not using paper passbook or set the account to be given salary.