Japanarama

[JapJok]

Ops Normal, my views are appended.

1. Share a clean (furnished) unit (with another expat?)

No problem, but it will be a long way from anywhere if in Tokyo or Osaka, and the transport costs to anywhere meaningful will probably exceed the cost of moving in closer. Balancing act.

2. Drink lots of beer ?

Provided you drink it at home. Beer from the supermarket is quite reasonably priced, but from the bar quite unreasonably. In Tokyo a cheap bar will cost upwards of US$5 a jug and almost half of that will be `head` (without the `job` suffix; that`ll be another 500!!) An expensive bar will be US$20. If you want conversation from a lovely, it will be another 50.

3. Eat some cow every now and then ?

Achievable if you pick the right place, and Australian beef is reasonably plentiful and available in supermarkets at what I considered an acceptable price.

4. Go out and enjoy the nightlife at least a night a week ?

OK, but not much of it considering your other goals. Better to lure them home if you can. You could use the line that you are a great chef of Japanese cuisine, because most of them aren`t adventurous eaters...Japanese is first choice.

5. Do my job, go home, and stay out of the politics ?

Do your job and go home is an easy one. Stay out of politics not nearly so easy. You will (unknowingly) be discussed at all levels within the company.

6. Have lots of meaningful very short term relationships with the local lassies even though most western girls wouldnt piss on me if i was on fire ?

I get it...nothing serious, just deep and meaningful sex. How crass you are! Your type aren`t welcome in Japan Ops Normal. Seriously, if you like crooked teeth and legs like bent chopstix, then you could be OK in this department.

I recalled reading in Lonely Planet Japan before going there that `Japanese girls fall in love faster and deeper than those in any other country` so be prepared for some problems if you only want to wet the wick and bail out.

Ever hear the joke about the difference between a hostie and washing machine? Well a washing machine doesn`t continually `phone you after you dump a load in it. That`s no joke. It was written about Japanese hosties...so I`m told.

7. Save some money that I could send home to dear old mum ?

Forget the saving money of 3.5K a month. That is barely subsistence level in Nippon.

Thats the dream..... Is its feasible or do I need a reality check ??

Dream on. Actually, you will see from the above that some of the dream is achievable, but you`ll do it tough on that booty.

Bleep, bleep, bleep.....reality check MAY be required

Stereolab, as KM says, gomi isn`t the biggest problem, it`s the gomi nazis who are the big problem.

Low crime rate??? Certainly at a personal level it`s low. Petty crime is almost non existent; e.g., the chances of having your pockets picked, or mugged are zero, but big crime is BIG. Murders are frequent (temper that with the knowledge that this country has 125 Million sphincters walking the streets so a lot of people to murder) but I don`t know if any higher, per capita, than anywhere else on the globe.

EVERY day politicians and business leaders are indicted on SERIOUS crime charges, (embezzlement, issuing false prospectuses, publishing false company figures, fraud, etc., and all this on a bigger than grand scale, zillions of yen at a time) and this in a country where corruption oils the wheels. I think the police have a cutoff point of about a billion yen..over that and you`re in deep $hit, but under you`re OK.

Certainly suicide seems to be a LOT higher in Japan, and they recruit eachother on the net to perform group suicides. Sort of like an ad on a swingers` site.

`Attractive couple, good income, nice house, seek like minded people to top themselves Saturday night, your place or ours. Coal burner provided, but attendees must share cost of coal`. The preferred method is small coal burning heaters.

Cases of medical negligence seem to be very high there, but once again I don`t know the figures or comparisons. My view was that if I even thought I had something that may be serious, I`d be on a flight home or at least to Singapore.

Nobody has yet mentioned the sensitive topic of halitosis, or for those challenged inthe English language, dogs` breath. Japan is the halitosis capital of the world. This country leads the world in dental research, (my dentist told me) but dental hygiene is a very low priority. $hit, even the people in third world countries take better care of their teeth.

I remember many years ago, in India, talking with a tooth powder salesman. Big market he said, and everybody used it, but they used water from the Ganges, so it negated the effect anyway. But they tried. In Japan, it seems they don`t.

I used to think they wore masks because they had colds and didn`t want to pass them on, but I now know it`s an attempt to shield themselves from the vile breaths of their countrymen. You don`t have to worry about farting in a train there; it`ll be disguised by the halitosis.

I believe a good part of the problem is caused by a very high protein diet, but can`t say for sure. Certainly they don`t have a lot of veg or carbs in an average meal.

And smoking!! It`s a huge problem in Japan, for non smokers atleast, and along with Italians (in Italy) are the most inconsiderate smokers in the world, but is there anything such thing as a considerate smoker? Maybe not. This no doubt contributes to the above problem. If you really like smelling like an ashtray most of the time, and one that hasn`t been emptied for a month, then go to Japan.

Recently, the first civil action for damages caused by passive smoking was successful. The plaintiff was awarded US$700 (Yep, 700, not 7,000, 70,000, or 700,000) and the judges noted that there had still been no definite link established between passive smoking and heart/lung disease!!! Wonder if the judges were smokers and where they`ve had their heads for the past 20 years?

It`s a fact that smoking kills a person`s sense of taste, so that may explain why they`re so keen on raw fish, raw donkey, raw chicken, raw whale, raw etc..

Town Planning. It`s like theGold Coast, but much worse, sort of like, what town planning?? We had an FO who was a former architect/town planner, and if his architecture/town planning was anything like his flying, then it`s no surprise.

Houses are made of plastic...plastic, but it looks like stone, brick, weatherboard, or almost anything you want it to look like, but not much like them. For a supposedly affluent country, the standard of housing is very poor indeed.

There are a lot of third world things in Japan, a first world economy (still, in spite of theri efforts), and one of the BIG plusses is that you can drink the tap water...it`s clean.

Something positive to finish off on.

Grab a copy of Alex Kerr`s book, The Fall of Modern Japan. It tells it all.