hahahaha yeah. Well, my mom lived in tokyo for 2 years when she was in the military and she told me alll about their work style...Though, she did forget to mention the extreme overtime.

Well I guess that'll keep lazy americans like myself from ever wanting to live over there.

It would be a really amazing experience...But i'd probably end up killing myself because it sounds like 'salarymen" as you called them, have no social life..and have no home life. They just work for their family until they die....

May I be honest here? I seem to disagree with almost everyone posting here.

If I were the employer, I probably wouldn't hire you if you showed all these qualities that these posters are advising you to show. I see no point in hiring a non-Japanese who tries so hard to look, act and live like a Japanese. I'd hire a real Japanese if I wanted my employees to possess those qualities that are uniquely Japanese.

You wouldn't think you would last long if you had to act like someone that you weren't on a daily basis, would you? Japanese employers prefer to hire people that they can imagine will be working for them for 10-20 years.

I'd hire a non-Japanese if he had the qualities that I couldn't expect my Japanese employees to have so that he would help broaden the horizon for my company by bringing in new ideas, new perspectives, etc...

Bingo. The only social life is drinks after work with their co-workers. The general idea is "the way of successive generations", meaning that you work hard to get your children into good schools, so that they can get a better job than you had. That is the reason for such strong emphasis on education in Japan. Without getting good grades, and getting into the "right" schools, your potential future is severely limited.

Another bad thing about Japan which people often hear little about is the typical married relationship. The husband works, the wife stays home. Sex rarely occurs, and occurs even more rarely once children are born. Such relationships are what keep "relief centers" and "soaplands" in business. I had fun looking at the signs for such places in Kabukicho last weekend.

thanks for the tips and advices..

I hope you can post more.. thanks!:)

maybe I can contribute something different in the company... im just asking for little tips and pointers, not to change myself entirely...

If Japanese wanted employees just like them why do they have to invest in other countries?

...Do you know how many threads i went through and had to post just to get what you just told me?

THIS is the kind of info I was looking for about life as a Japanese male/female... AND THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE THREAD! This is the information I wanted to know about crazy cultural differences

Exactly. Everyone here wants to live and work in Japan, but the nuts and bolts of actually doing it are a little different.

That's why you see things like this happen:





wow.... scary!!!
(btw- i have no idea why sometimes i can get this thing to do quotes and sometimes i cant... sorry!!)

Don't think that Japan and the US are all that different in terms of working hours. Just because Japanese dads sometimes come home after midnight doesn't mean they were at the office the whole time.



WORK HOURS PER YEAR BY COUNTRY

Those charts always show American's working more than Japanese. But my wife always points-out the fact that they work so much UNREPORTED overtime that the statistics are probably incorrect.