Japan Love #1

You arrive in Japan, you’re a man, you’re young, you don’t speak Japanese and you just want to discover this new world. Because, yes, Japan is another world especially when you come from a non-asian country. Maybe your first questions are “how people live, how they react, what they like to eat, what is their way of living a love story…“. Well, let’s start exploring all of this through some stories.

The first encounter

You land in Narita Airport, you have a job starting soon and you need to get ready for it. First, you want to reach your apartment that you rent through a foreigner-friendly website (Good luck trying to rent an apartment through a standard Japanese company from abroad). You arrive at your new “Home” and you discover that you only have cold water and that you need to register your name for the electricity subscription. You probably have no smartphone working on the 3G or 4G network because you terminated your subscription before leaving your country right? But still, you need to call those 2 companies because it’s possible that nobody else will probably do it for you. You end up finding a Mac Donald or a Starbuck with free Wi-fi and use a Skype-like service to make your call (you will later discover that you can also find a public phone, or rent a phone at the airport at your arrival… but anyway), that’s where the fun begins:

(operator) — [in Japanese] Hello, what can I do for you?

(you) — [in “Ingurishu”] Errr.. can you speak english ? I would like to register as a new gas user.

(operator) — [in “Japan-english”] I don’t know English, shou shou wo machi kudasai.

(you) — [you wait]

(operator) — [new operator : in “better Japan-english”] Hello, how can I help you? Did you move in an apartment in Tokyo?

(you) — [inside your mind you’re like “OMG I can finally communicate with somebody !! ”] Hello, thank you for asking.

Well, you get the picture here, if you’re lucky you’ll get somebody speaking English and you will manage to do what you need to do but it also happens that nobody is really able to talk to you in English. In that very weird case, you just have no choice but to hang up.

Discover your Japanese company

It’s Monday morning, you’re on time for your new Job in Tokyo. Everybody is looking at you because you might be one of the few foreigners working in the company but your new boss (around 50yrs old) stands out and welcomes you with a very strong Japanese accent “Welcome to your new company, I am Ken-san, How, What are you doing ?”. You’re happy that your boss can talk English but you still have some difficulties to understand everything. Still, you introduce yourself giving your name and telling that you’re happy to be there, ready to work with everybody.

Your boss comes to you and ask “Nihongo daijoubu?”. You don’t get it so you just reply with a “I’m sorry, I don’t understand Japanese”. Before hiring you they already asked you if you could speak Japanese… but well, they expect you to learn fast, very fast. Why? Because even if you can be a very interesting asset, bringing another vision to the company and different skills than the ones they usually get, they still need to be able to communicate with you, tell you what to do, explaining you how things work etc…

You ask your boss about the new projet you will start. He tells you [Japanese-english] “Eeeeto ne.. the project is market, business…etooo Car.. market”. He finally asks a colleague to explain what you will have to do and you’re lucky because this person spent 3 years in the US !

The saviour

This person you just met, this Japanese person who spent time abroad, will save your life. At least you’ll be able to talk about your issues and get clear answers. You explain that you don’t have a smartphone, you don’t have internet but that you managed to open a bank account in a bank where they speak English and have an English web interface. At that precise moment, you get a strange look from this new friend you just met and you ask yourself why… The answer is surprising, you shouldn’t have opened a bank account because the company is using the same bank for all employees. It seems to be pretty common here so you simply agree saying that you will use this bank from now on.

You get all the help you need from this very helpful person and you start working on your projet, reading your emails from your boss and colleagues and you realise (Well, without much surprise…) that everything is in Japanese! Your keyboard, your operating system, all the softwares and all your emails ARE in Japanese. Then you look around you and you notice that you actually don’t understand any indications on the walls or on the doors and you’re like “but where are the toilets…?”.

Your saviour is here to help you with the unknown and you feel quickly at home. You spend your free time trying to say things in Japanese and see if people in front of you understand you. Learning Japanese “sound alphabet” katakana (for foreign words) and hiragana (for Japanese words) gives you some hints about your software buttons and menus’ meanings. You’ll be very happy to discover some useful tools such as “rikaikun” for Chrome and some online dictionaries such as http://jisho.org/ or google translate… They might become your best friends from now on!

That’s how you started working here, in Japan. Now it’s time to discover the city, talk to people (or at least try) and maybe even find a girlfriend !