# Should I move to JP for work?



## daigensui

Greetings all,

I've been lurking around in this forum for quite some time and decided to go ahead with this post.

I am a male in my mid twenties (single), currently working in the banking/finance sector (within the area of risk / regulatory related area). I've just graduated from university recently and I am considering the option of moving to JP for work. 
I've always been interested in the JP culture and also was a "otaku" during my school days. As I've been taking JP classes recently as well as JLPTs in the coming 2015, I was approached by several headhunters regarding the prospects of working w/ foreign banks with offices in JP. 

But sadly, i wasn't selected because my JP language skills wasn't fluent enough. They are looking for candidates at the N2 / N1 level, and also at a conversational level. I am giving myself at least 1 to 2 years to brush up my JP skills, and also to clock the "mileage" on my CV. 

Again, I do not have any intentions of sourcing for jobs in Japan, but rather getting my company / or moving to jobs that would get me posted to JP. So my concerns are as below: 

1) I supposed most of the offices of foreign banks (Citi, credit suisse, RBS,Deutsche, etc) are located in Tokyo, what kind of living costs should I be expecting? Would a salary of JPY600K before tax be sufficient? Assuming that I would be paying for my own accommodation. ( To give a better gauge, I come from a country where a new Toyota Vios or Altis would cost us in excess of USD80K++ or a 900sq ft apartment far from the CBD which costs us about USD350K in total).

2) Discrimination. Though, I am thoroughly interested in JP, I've heard about gaijin being discriminated. Yeah, I know discrimination is everywhere in the world, but I just wanna know how bad it is in JP, especially in an international workplace.

3) Is it worth while? What are the pros and cons? In my line of work, it would be easier for me to get posted to places like Shanghai, HK or London and such. But moving to JP has been on my must-do list for a long time, then again career progression supercedes that. 

4) What do working professionals in JP do on their off days? Considering that I am single nor I do see myself getting hitched any time soon, I'll probably be staying alone there. And instead of spending my time in gyms / starbucks, are there any public activities / clubs of various interests where I can get to know more people? ( "clean" places by the way)


Sorry for the wall of text. To me, I would always make careful planning for every decisions I make, especially if it concerns my career. Hence, I would appreciate any kind folks here that could offer their views on working in JP.


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## larabell

Getting a job with a company that will ultimately send you to Japan is preferable as you're more likely to get help with housing expenses, working visa, and other things you'd otherwise have to take care of on your own... not to mention the language requirement isn't likely to be as strict.

To answer your questions:

1) If you've been lurking for some time, you've probably seen any number of discussions about cost-of-living. Housing is the main expense and that depends on what you're willing to accept and how close to the main part of the city you want to live. The range is anywhere from 80K to 200K yen. Assuming about a third of your 600K goes to taxes, insurance, and other obligations, you should be able to get a mid-range 1 bedroom apartment in a reasonable place and still have enough money to survive. It's hard to say anything more concrete than that because it really depends on your lifestyle. But 600K yen per month is a reasonably wage for Tokyo.

2) If you're working in an "international workplace", you're probably not going to see all that much discrimination. I don't know how bankers are, in general, but I haven't seen much outright discrimination in the tech field. Of course, you're going to run into people who think the Japanese way is the only "right" way but I'd bet you'll run into those kinds of people no matter where you work. If you're a reasonably friendly person who doesn't mind conforming to Japanese customs, you should have no problem.

3) That really depends on you. If Japan is really on your "must-do" list, as you say, then obviously it's going to be worth it. If you're just thinking Japan might be an OK place to make more money than you could at home (as some seem to think), you're likely to be disappointed. There are pros and cons no matter where you choose to live and those are going to be different for different people (and if you're thinking about pros and cons relative to your career, you should know more about that than anyone here). As you might have guessed, the main "pro" for most expats living in Japan is the culture. The main "con" is that it's different from what you're used to back home and it may take some time to adjust.

4) Whatever they want to do. If your Japanese is up to basic conversational level, you should be able to find others interested in just about anything you can think of... and perhaps a lot of things you never thought of. You'll probably also meet people at your place of employment who have various interests outside of work and who would be happy to introduce you to their hobbies.

It sounds like you have doubts, which is understandable. But your questions are too vague to be answered in concrete terms. If you have more specific questions about life in Japan, feel free to ask. But there are over 13 million people just in Tokyo and every one of them leads a different life. However you see your life unfolding, you can almost certainly find jobs, people, places, etc which are compatible with your vision, assuming you're willing to put in the effort.

I would recommend checking out one of the English-language "things to do in Tokyo" magazines to get an idea of how much there is to do here. One is called Metropolis and another is called Tokyo Time Out. Both have websites which you should be able to find via your favorite search engine. There may be others, too. Metropolis even has a classified section with ads placed by people looking for others who share various interests. If you end up with some free time and you have a particularly uncommon interest, you could always run an ad there looking for others to join you.


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## daigensui

Hello Larabell,

Thank you for the prompt response ! 

I am still considered a fresh graduate (barely 1 year of experience under my belt) in my home country. Hence being a greenhorn in the workforce, I ain't sure what to expect as an expat working overseas. 

All of my information gathered until now were basically feedbacks from my colleagues who are expats themselves. Though, those who had worked with businesses or offices with mainly Japanese seemed to agree on one thing - that is the "Japanese office culture" would be very strict. Although I currently reside in a SEA country, most of the corporate cultures here are more skewed towards the western way. You know.. pretty laid back, beer fridays, and so on.

In any case, I don't expect to be making more money while being in Japan (But I do expect my posting to Japan to be resulting in a raise..standard expat package that is). Like you said, its the culture that attracts me in the first place but of course I wouldn't move if the proposed offers are mediocre. The last thing I would want is to be stuck in a job that doesn't add any substantial value to my CV. It might be probably difficult to strike a balance between the two, but nothing is impossible I'd say. 

Your post was informative, Larabell. I guess I would stick to polishing up my language skill for now and to read up more on Japan ! I'll be making a week's trip to Japan in the coming January during my block leave, hopefully then I could find out more about the country and its people. I would also check out those sites / magazines that you mentioned


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## larabell

In my limited experience (four companies total), office culture is definitely stricter in a Japanese company than in a company which is a subsidiary of a foreign company -- which is presumably where you would end up if your home-country employer assigns you to their Japan office. I'm also talking about the tech industry, not banking, which I imagine might be stricter across the board.

One place I worked had the stereotypical Japanese set-up... rows of desks facing each other with no walls between them and the head of the group at a desk at the end facing down the row (so you're pretty much always within eyesight of the boss). Then the department head would have a desk against the wall facing the whole room. If you've watched Japanese serial dramas (like soap operas but with a definite beginning and end) you might have seen similar layouts in the office scenes. The Western companies seem to at least add short walls to the layout but there's a strong belief in teamwork and communication, as opposed to privacy and concentration, so if there are walls, they'll be mostly decorative.

On the other hand, it's not that much different from how investment banking offices (ie: Wall Street) are depicted in Western movies so maybe the difference isn't as striking for banking as it is for tech (where US workers often have their own offices with a door).

Also, putting in long hours seems to be fairly universal here. Nobody wants to be the first one out the door so, even if it's possible to finish all one's work in 8 hours, many still stay longer -- at least until the boss leaves. That seems to be less true now than it was 20 years ago but that might just be the culture of the specific companies more than any real change over time. If you get a chance to meet some of the ex-pats working in the Japan office of your company before you make the decision, they could tell you a lot more about the work environment in that particular office. At the very least, you should ask the company if they'll send you over for a visit before you make the final decision. It might not work but it's worth a try.

As far as career value... it depends on where you want your career to go. A career in international finance should benefit from a period working in a foreign country but... which one depends on who the big players will be a decade from now. China will almost certainly be one of the big players but where Japan will be by then is harder to discern. Just bu way of contrast... foreign experience in my field (software development) is moot because the job doesn't depend on knowing how things work in various countries or being able to speak multiple languages. In other words, your stay in Japan will add value to your CV to the extent that your career path makes use of your knowledge of other languages and cultures (ie: international business, etc).

Spending a week here is a good idea. If you're working for a company that has an office here, see if you can connect with someone in that office and just stop in to see the office. I did that on one vacation before I lived here and, even though I was on vacation, I offered to have a meeting with the support people in the office because it gave me a much better idea how the culture worked. But even if that's not possible, just travelling around the city will give you a clue about what it would be like to actually live here... as long as you don't spend the entire time in the hotel .


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