A friend asked me about working in Japan, and I made the following list. I thought it would be worth sharing in case you were interested, but it is extremely random.

What are the top 10 most surprising things about working in Japan that you wish you had known before you started.

1. Learn how to file taxes (確定申告), it’s really annoying until you know what you’re doing.

2. I’d also recommend taking personal finance seriously, there is a really good blog called RetireJapan. 

3. Japanese people truly do devote themselves to their company, even if the company doesn’t give them things in return, like lifetime employment that used to be the norm. You don’t have to put up with that, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

4. There’s a distinction between Seishain (company employees) and Keiyakushain (contract employees) that affects how much money you can borrow for a home loan for some strange reason.

5. Also Japan has an inheritance tax that no other OECD country has that means that if you inherit money from overseas above a certain amount, you have to pay quite a large amount of it (like 1/3). 

6. The countryside is way better than a big city. Good food, good people, good fun out in nature, and good money if you know what you’re doing (it will be harder to earn good money in the countryside because the high paying jobs aren’t there, so you’ll have to be creative and freelance a bit). 

7. University jobs are easier to get, you just need a Master’s.

8. Connections mean a lot in Japan, it’s quite surprising, there’s still a lot of cronyism, so use it to your advantage.

9. Housing is cheap as chips.

10. I should probably also add that although they’re trying really hard to avoid it, there is still a lot of sexism in Japan. 

です。That’s about all I could think off of the top of my head 🙂