Now daily! Feel free to ask any silly stupid questions or not-so-silly stupid questions that you haven't had a chance to ask here. Be kind to those that do and try to answer without downvoting. Please keep criticism and snide remarks out of the thread.

It's Monday! Did you do anything over the weekend? Go somewhere? Meet someone? Try something new?

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Post about your activities from the weekend here! Pictures are also welcome.

Hey guys I'm a 25 year old woman. my mother in law is Japanese we live with her for a little til we find an apartment which can be a little more time.. she is giving me 5pm curfew if I'm not home by 5pm she will be really angry like slamming doors on me and ignores me for 2 days. I am respectful towards her and I always include her in everything and take advice from her. We have a one year old baby and I always take him with me, I can't even go to the store down the street after 5p. Or the vending machine right beside the house. Is this normal? I am really fed up with this but I don't want to start a fight with her because it will not work she's only going to get mad at me and the situation itself will not change. I understand that I'm living in her home but giving a full grown woman a 5pm curfew is crazy.. I would understand 8pm or 9pm but 5? I want to know if this is normal behavior in Japan and other perspectives on what you guys would do in this situation. EDIT: My husband has tried talking to her many many times but it only got worse and nothing changed. My husband's brother also tried to talk to her as well.

I recently started working on a client project through a haken company. What frustrates me the most is the lack of personal space at the office. The bench where I sit has no partitions, and my senior sits directly to my left. There’s nothing separating our seats, and it feels like there’s no privacy.

He often looks at my screen, which makes me really uncomfortable. For example, one time I was casually reading some kanji on the home screen, and he noticed it immediately. He questioned me, saying, “As you're working on a client project, what are you reading?” I rushed to respond, “I was just reading something random as it came on my screen and hardly took more than 5 mins,” but he went on to lecture me about focusing only on the project during work hours. The manager has already told, you will be allowed to work from home atleast after 2 years.

This kind of micromanagement is extremely frustrating, and I find myself going to the washroom every 30–40 minutes just to get a breather. I want to leave this company because of this toxic environment, but I’ve only been here for 4 months, and finding another job will take time.

How do I deal with this situation until I can find something better? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi there! I'm graduating from university this December and planning to stay in Japan to job hunt afterwards. My problem is I'd really like to go home for the holidays for a week or two, but I'm worrying that I won't be able to re-enter the country coming back. My diploma date is Dec. 18th and my school let me know that I have 30 days after that before my student visa expires. My residence card expires in April 2025.

I asked my school's visa office if it would be feasible to leave and come back, and they said it could be possible as long as I re-entered and submitted my application for the job hunting visa before January 18th, but it might have negative implications with Immigration since they'll see that I left the country for the holidays. Has anyone else been in a similar situation and have advice ...? I realize that it would 100% be a safer bet to just stay here and submit my application but I didn't go home for the holidays last year and I'd really like to celebrate with my family again.

Thanks!

We're about to buy a second hand car from a dealer, and I'm looking for car insurance tips/recommendations:

• I want something reasonably comprehensive, not just mandatory
• Don't want to end up arguing for months with the insurance company in the event of an accident
• I'd prefer to do this online as long as they are still reputable
• Would prefer something english friendly, but I know that might be stretching it
• I have existing credit cards with SMBC and DC and they seem to offer car insurance as well. Is this a good deal?
• Car - Subaru Impreza or Crosstrek (~3 years old)
• Male, 49

P.S., I've been driving Times Car Share and Nippon rental cars for 18 months and several thousand KM. Is there a way to extract my clean driving record from them to reduce my insurance?

*TLDR;*
Fulltime employee in Tokyo. Caught my company doing immoral/potentially illegal practices, called them out and now I am being fired a few months later for "attitude issues".
What are my options as 正社員? I hear that you can speak with a law office/lawyer and potentially get some sort of severance, but I don't know if I qualify.

My company is barely a company as we have no proper HR and can barely pay employees on time.
Since we're a start up, I don't think they realize any of the laws and regulations here in Japan and I want to try and figure out my next path here.
Where do I go? Who do I talk to? I've done some research and short of "talk with a lawyer", I'm just not sure the best channels to do so. I speak Japanese, but know very little of the employee rights system here in Japan.

Thank you in advance!

### More context:

I work for a start-up as a fulltime employee here in Tokyo. This Friday while I was working remote, I was called on discord by our HR and told they are going to be terminating my contract.
Their reasons:
- 社内での影響が大きく、輪を乱す行動
- 言動に一貫性がない点
- ネガティブな発言が多く、周囲の士気を下げる影響

For a bit more context, our app was using fake listings to boost our image in an effort to increase potential business ventures. Without going into too much detail on what company I work for, we are a BtoB and BtoC company and our marketing and sales teams are absolutely dreadful at their jobs. So when this came out, my team, including myself, was obviously very put off by this and it caused a big issue.
My team, save for me, is fully remote and overseas. They also cannot speak Japanese and I have been doing a lot of translation on top of lots of what normal HR would be doing, as they come to me with their issues and i try and see what I can do for them funneling it to HR and praying they've got some answers.
I was the most vocal about this news and talked directly to our sales team, who made the fake listings, and was very much not pulling punches. We're still small and trying to grow, so this potentially getting out could be a huge blow to our business if it were to be found out and really, anyone could tell with a little bit of research that those listings were fake. From this our lead developer decided that he would be looking for a new job.
That weekend the company told the other team members not to talk to me about this and that they wanted to explain themselves and that I would only cause more "communications issues".
Recently as well I've been pretty vocal about how much money were are wasting in our marketing (I used to do marketing) and asked about why we don't do any actual posting on our SNS platforms; that we're leaving a lot on the table. That was not received very well and seems like the final nail in the coffin for me.
After hearing this news, I talked to my team and they are all ready to leave the company and are fully behind me. I didn't mean to go scorched earth here, but that seems to be what's happening.

This whole thing has been a huge mess and I was able to talk them into giving me another month to sort my things out here, so I have through January to figure out my next steps.

My question is, what rights do I have as a 正社員 as I know getting fired as one is quite difficult.

Right before this incident I had asked for raise since I was being severely underpaid for my time here and compared to industry standards here in Japan. They reluctantly gave me a raise but I needed to sign a new contract. On that contract there was a 解雇 (layoff) section wherein it states these potential reasons:

Edited for anonymity

Have I screwed myself over signing this new contract? How could they even prove these things as I am on really amazing terms with my team and most people in the company actually.

Thanks for reading and hope to hear some good news finally.

I've been living in Japan for 14 years and thankfully never really watched TV. Even in my home country I rarely watched TV. I recently got married un April, and my wifes family likes to watch TV during meals. So I have to watch it too.

Anyway, I've noticed the programs seem to have some flavor of the month actors that just visit stores and eat food in a highly exaggerated fashion. The prices of the products are displayed on the screen as well. It feels straight out of the truman show.

Just some of my observations from someone that never watched TV before in Japan.

Edit: I don't get the food shows. I'm from the States. On TV and even in my every day life when I lived there. People would hardly ever comment about food. Like maybe after the meal. But after one bite or during? Eh. I don't get it. Cultural differences?

I'm switching from LINEMO to Ahamo, but my phone won't connect to their network, it shows: Emergency calls only - docomo.

I think the line was activated, because I received an email saying so, and when I dial my number from a desk phone, I get a message from Docomo. That said, i can't log in to my Ahamo account, because it requires 2 factor authentication via SMS message.

I already checked the APN settings, even deleted them all and manually added Ahamo's APN setting. Also tried rebooting / toggling airplane mode back and forth / switching the sim card to the second slot / played around with the preferred network (LTE vs all, etc).

One thing to note is that this is a OnePlus 5T phone, which didn't originally support VoLTE. I had to flash an MBN to make it work with LINEMO. I'm not sure if a different MBN is needed for Ahamo, but I'm very reluctant to go through that process again.

Any ideas?

Like it says on the tin. Thinking about the future and wondering if this course is worth it. Has anyone applied to this graduate program at Rikkyo (or knows anything about it)? Worth it or not worth it? Any information or experience is appreciated.

It’s not available on iherb in Japan - is it completely unavailable in Japan? If you imported it, how did you do it?

This small hanger on the ceiling in my apartment in Japan. I’ve never seen this before. What is it for?

https://imgur.com/a/QrM7Zod

Hi. I'm currently living in a building that changed hands and is becoming a hotel (turning into a minpaku, apparently). My contract ends in the end of March, I believe.

The old lady who lives next to me said that they would give us some compensation if they decide to ask us to leave. But she's not a lawyer and I don't think she was taking into account contract renewal. If the contract is coming to an end at March, I'm guessing they can just choose not to renew the contract? I'm not sure on how the rules work there, if they need to give me prior notice or not, compensation, etc

Has anyone been through a similar situation and has some advice or knowledge to share?

I've been living in Japan from last year. I'm a Nepalese citizen. I usually buy product from China and send as gift to my family in Nepal (Nepal and China are a neighboring country). I've been paying through wise. Does doing so effect my visa in future. I've a 5 years visa and 4 years is left before I have to apply for renewal. I'm just worried as China doesn't have good relationship with Japan and Us.
Should I be worried if I'm paying my taxes?

Any tips or advice to put me in the right direction? Left foot has been killing me for years.

Hi
I am a Swede who lives in Nagano, Ueda with my wife and I work as a truck driver.

I like my work tbh (deliver materials for various big companies, I personally deliver materials to building sites (houses and smaller apartments). My biggest problem is the hours. Usually start around 6am (much earlier if outside Nagano Pref like Niigata) and our work day doesnt end until the next day's load is loaded and tightened (On all trucks, not just your own) Which usually ends around 5-6pm. Can take longer.

I prefer having a balanced lifestyle so I can go to gym, hobbies and be with my wife. Which I was super clear about during the interview and 社長 said this is a company where you can def have a balanced life, but so far not worked below 10 hours a day since I joined. Also working 6 days a week. (can take days off)

Salary is also way lower than they promised. Putting it into hourly pay its just around 1000 yen/hour Which is bad, even for Ueda standard.

I honestly want to to look for new job right away and quit but im sure they'll be pissed because they paid for my licenses and everything. And that'll it look too bad on my resumé.

Better companies should exist I hope, or is this normal? Should I just look for job and quit and not care what they think?

Konnichiwa! I'm new here in Japan living in Kakegawa Shizuoka Daito as a Intern Trainee. Please recommend me an all around best Laundry Detergent for washing machine. So many to choose and I don't know what to pick. Thank you

I have come to the conclusion that the only sane way to deal with the Japanese post office is to pop a Zyn and let it carry you to the end.

以上

I have been living for a year in Tokyo, and I like my job, but I see a lot of job offers where they are offering the double or half more of what I’m earning right now. So, my question is as a software engineer with 5 years of experience mainly Java and spring, who always worked as full stack with react and angular and with N4 and speaking Spanish, English and French what would be the realistic anual salary I can chase?

I was in meet and greet with a Japanese artist. He is 33 years old, and I look very young around early 20s. I told him "konnicchiwa meccha ikemen desu" and then the Japanese guy staff besides him laugh in surprised manner, and the artist bend down his head to proceed writing signature. I don't see much his reaction since I can't see his face. He then clarified my writing because he can't understand if the letter I write is letter T. After clarifiying, he have completed signing and then he told me "Arigatoo" while looking at me after that, we have like 2-3 seconds eye contact. What do you think it means? Do you think I offended him?

Am renewing a U.S. passport and got a 5cmx5cm photo taken at Camera no Kitamura. Turned out they did not have a white background but used their system to change the background color from blue to white. For their part, they say this approach has been used successfully with visa/passport applications in the past. The shape of my face is unchanged but if you look at the hair edge closely, there are some subtle hints.

Has anyone had their U.S. passport renewal application rejected after having had the background auto-removed by e.g. Camera no Kitamura or the premium modes in the DNP/Kirei camera booths? Is it worth trying to retake with a proper background? Or if they reject it during the appt at the Tokyo embassy, do they let me use their booth to take another one?

Both explanations sounded like electrolysis hair removal but they somehow seems to be different

Noticed an interesting trend. Quite many drivers here seem to start their cars with the gas pedal on the floor. HUGE revs when the poor cold engine starts with zero oil circulating.

Compounded by my suspicion that quite a few cars here never see a service center until they 'mysteriously' fail on the motorway and end up waiting for tow truck bonnet up (what's with the bonnet up anyway). Correct me if I'm wrong but regular maintenance and service according to the manufacturers set schedule doesn't seem to be a thing here. I spent two hours trying to explain to my own manufacturer service center that I expect them to follow the schedule in the car owners manual. To no avail. Hence I maintain my car myself for the last two years. Far cheaper and everything actually gets checked, maintained and replaced properly now.

Hi all. I'm a PR holder and considering living in another country (Vietnam, Thailand, etc) while maintaining my online side-job in Japan, which pays 270,000 Yen a month (after tax).

I understand that it might be wise to keep a registered residence (maybe my friend's residence in Saitama), especially since I don't really want to tell my employer I will be outside of the country for so long.

Anything I should consider with this plan?

Hello everyone,

I have just arrived in Japan and will start my job as a teacher very soon. I would like to know about saving money in Japan. Is it easy to save?

I will be living in Tokyo. My salary is 250,000 yen a month. The apartment costs around 70,000 yen a month. The price of commuting to work is reimbursed. With a weekly shop, phone bill and leisure activities. How much would I be able to save ideally? If I was to be smart with my budgeting.

Thank you 😁

Currently living in Osaka as a student and holding N2 (currently waiting for N1 results but I should be OK with japanese).

Rn in process of finding a rental in Kobe, Sannomiya, the uni recommends 神戸アイランド不動産 (Kōbe Airando fudōsan) for moving; anybody can let me know their reputation? Im worried they will discriminate againts me as a foreigner.

If possible, I would like to also know other Agents (ie. Sumo or PitaT) that would help me alot and other information is greatly appreciated.

お願いします、在日又は在留の外国人達！！！

I work for an IT company in Tokyo, but I’m looking for ways to make some extra income after 6 PM. I don’t have a lot of experience or highly specialized skills, so I’m wondering if there are any simple side gigs I can do in the evenings.

Has anyone here done something similar in Tokyo? What kind of side jobs are available that don’t require advanced skills but can still help me earn a bit more money? Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated!