# Difficulties



## nsinclair2 (Oct 17, 2014)

From your previous experiences, what would you say are the biggest challenges/difficulties with taking an expatriate assignment overseas?


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## larabell (Sep 10, 2007)

For me... it was language and finding reasonable substitutes for stuff I was used to buying but couldn't get here. One of my best examples was shopping for shampoo when I first moved into my new place.

These days, the latter doesn't have to be a problem. If you can spell the name, you can type it into Amazon.co.jp and, chances are, they have what you want and can get it to you by the next day.

There's one other thing that bugged me to some degree but I was expecting it so it wasn't any shock... the lack of privacy in the office. I'm in tech so in the States I was used to closed-door offices or, at the very least, cubes with four walls that reach past everyone's eyeballs. Here, unless your company is fairly well-off or you're a top manager, you end up elbow-to-elbow with your co-workers. But that may not be an issue if you're used to that back home, too.

Communicating with family was also a pain the first time I came to Japan because all they had was fax and snail-mail (calling by phone at $1 a minute wasn't a viable option). That's another thing an expat today isn't as likely to run into.


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## larabell (Sep 10, 2007)

I don't often post links here but this article is right on-topic for this thread:

Japan from the outside - Not easy, but not that different ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

I like the phrase: "...don't worry about the 5%. Get the 95% right." That applies to both business and the whole idea of culture shock. If you spend your time looking for differences, you could overlook how much living in Japan is like living anywhere else.


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## BBCWatcher (Dec 28, 2012)

And within that "different" percentage many of the differences are quite appealing! Japanese toilets, for example.


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