Supposing that the average one-room, inner-city Tokyo apartment just like the one pictured above expenses around 60,000 yen (US$610) per month, including the person expenses of just stepping into a condo (excluding transportation costs, movers’ fees etc), you’re considering at the least around $2,500 right off the bat. Every month to live in their property although many property owners and estate agents are now coming to realise that compulsory gratuities are incredibly old-fashioned and ask only for partially refundable security deposits, there are still nevertheless hundreds of thousands of landlords who demand a non-refundable cash payment just for the privilege of, well, paying them cash.

5. Bureaucracy

All this talk of ridiculous traditions and long-standing guidelines like gratuities paid to landlords brings us nicely on the basic theme of bureaucracy in Japan. We all know that this really is technically a summary of items that Japan gets wrong, so just what we’re basically saying let me reveal that Japan gets bureaucracy so extremely “right”, for the reason that it absolutely excels at making inane procedures much more laborious and painful, and that changing even a rule that is single a Herculean effort.

We realise that an element of the reason we are able to enjoy located in a country like Japan where every thing operates so smoothly – trains arriving on time every day; first-class customer support; everything from scheduled roadworks and deliveries being carried out bang-on-time with zero hassle – is basically because there are a lot of rules and expected standards here. As large-breasted country singer Dolly Parton once quipped, “If you want the rainbow, you need to endure the rainfall,” and she’s right. Nevertheless when it comes to bureaucracy in Japan you’d better bring a rain layer, umbrella, and possibly a good noticeable change of clothes, since when it rains it absolutely pours.

Likely to start a bank-account? Even though you appear along with your application form completed in perfect Japanese, a valid residency card, passport, Japanese driver’s licence, a lot of recent utility bills, passport photos, birth certificate and a priest and an attorney who are able to vouch for both your identity and character, without your hanko – a small little title stamp utilized to “sign” official documents and that anyone could have composed – you won’t get anywhere. Why? Because it’s the guidelines! Attempt to explain to your boss that the return plane ticket actually works down cheaper than buying a Daly CityCA escort one-way and that your business could cut costs by bending the rules this once, and you’ll be agreed with after which immediately told “no”. As it’s the guidelines. Suggest a minor change at the job as well as the bosses who’ve “done it because of this for years” will suck air through their teeth while colleagues squirm awkwardly in their seats wishing you hadn’t made a fuss. It in the government or working life, and people often view those who try to affect it as individuals to be wary of as they aren’t pulling in the same direction as everyone else when it comes to Japan, change does not come easily – and not without vast amounts of paperwork and hoops jumped through – be.

They state that if the West created bureaucracy then Japan perfected it. We don’t know who “they” are, but they’re right.

6. Packaging

We’re perhaps not speaing frankly about conventional packaging that is japanese breathtaking gift-wrapping here – that’s fantastic – we’re talking about Japan’s fondness for going crazy utilizing the synthetic and sealing every possible customer product in its very own air-tight prison. Japan may be well ahead of numerous Western countries in requiring its citizens to separate their waste into burnables, plastic materials, bottle, glass, cans, and paper (like you wouldn’t believe if it’s not in the correct bag or box it won’t be collected), but it still gets through plastic.