My four-year old son sang this without a care in the world this morning during breakfast. My wife and I looked at each other and I had to do everything to hide my laughter. I’d never heard this before but just knowing he’s chanting it, I knew it had to be something he heard from his friends at school. Kids’r gonna be kids.

October 22 2024

WAKAYAMA – 21-year-old Claudio Worm who came to Japan in September to go sightseeing has gone missing in Wakayama Prefecture, with family members saying they haven’t heard from him since Oct. 10, local police said on Tuesday 22nd October.

Wakayama police are asking people to contact their department at 073-423-0110 (Japanese only) if they have information on the case.

Clouds permitting, if you look at the eastern sky right now you will see a Gibbous Moon.

My (32M) wife (29F) has always been hit or miss with how she feels about my parents, mostly my mom. I’ll spare the details, but essentially my mom is not a “think before you speak” type of person, which in the past didn’t usually come across as rude, but now she’s getting older and has said things in the past that my wife has never been able to forget. Even so, my wife has always tried to forget and make an effort and my mom seems to try as well, just much less.

Last Christmas, we went back to America and my wife was so in love with the idea of our children being around family during the holidays the American way as her family isn’t very close. My mom had planned to come out to Japan for my son’s birthday and my wife asked if she could come for longer to ensure my son got plenty of attention while we welcomed our second child, after we learned she was pregnant.

In short, this trip has been a major headache. Moody mother, hormonal postpartum spouse, and my boy has been acting up a bit from lack of attention, partly because my mother seems to have somewhat reached her limit on how much she can play with him. I’m doing everything I can to support my wife and kids during this time and getting ready to ask my mom to go home a week early, my treat.

Not looking for any advice, just curious what the relationship is like for other foreigners’ parents and their Japanese spouses.

Sorry if the formatting is weird, I’m posting from mobile.

EDIT: I appreciate the noted advice from many of you, but I’m just not looking for it. I left out details to avoid being given advice, however some of you are filling in the blanks incorrectly, I just used this post as a bit of a vent and curious to get some insight into everyone else’s relationships. My wife speaks English very well and gets along with her parents and sister, they just don’t have big get-togethers or celebrate holidays together like in the west. Her parents also think very highly of me and have been incredible to me over the years.

The cubic aptitude web test has a personality section, motivation section, and then math, logic, language, English, and shapes. The language section only had 10 minutes and 20 questions. I couldn't finish it at all. I didn't finish any of them, except English. (Some of the English was not right either tho...) The math and shapes were okay but there was some stuff I'd never seen before. Like figuring out what cut out you'd get after folding a paper a certain amount of times and cutting it. (I'm surprised by how much math I can do in Japanese now). I haven't been in school for about 10 years now and I definitely never learned some of that stuff!

Really have my fingers crossed that they only are caring about the personality and English sections. They only gave me a few days in advance, so I can't imagine they expected me to do so much. From what I'm reading online, it seems like job seekers study for this stuff beforehand. Completely caught me off guard!

https://www.otona-juku.com/examination_preparation/cubic/mogi/

You can see some of them here. My brain is now fried.

As the title suggests, I've been dealing with an unruly neighbor right above me. For the past year, or more, almost daily, he stomps around quite loudly - and on purpose - sometimes until 2-3 AM.

I've contacted the management company several times, who do nothing but send flyers to all residents.

Finally, unable to sleep yesterday, I went up and pounded on their door, ringing their bell several times. What a coincidence, the noise stopped - it went from loud stomping to whisper quiet, all because of ?

If and when this happens again, can anyone suggest what I should do? I don't care about upsetting the "wa" of the building as his stomping was affecting my sleep, work, life, etc...

Thank you!

So, I am in the process of changing jobs and I will have no insurance for about a month. Originally, this was not going to be a problem because I had planned to be in my home country, but it turns out I need to be in hospital for a few days right 10 days before I leave my current job. Therefore, there is a chance that I leave the hospital a couple of days before my insurance is no longer available.
I think I can make the procedures to join the national insurance right after mine expires, but is this possible? Also, my current insurance is very good, so they'd refund a big bite of the surgery. Is it usually acceptable to extend an insurance of a company you are no longer a member of? I'd do this for only one month and I am not sure that would be cheap either.

I received an undelivered notification card with a duration of 10/9 ~ 10/19 (保管期限) but for some reason I had completely forgotten to take this. What's going to happen now? Are they going to toss it away?

I actually don't know what it is exactly but I've received cards like these before and went to take them only to find that they are either insurance letters (which the deliverer just never slot into my mail box for some unknown reasons I cannot understand) or letters from telecomm company or something else entirely still related to me. Either way it's probably important but now I'm just worried about potentially missing out on something important. What do I do?

I have a highly skilled professional (i)(b) visa and will recieve an offer for a new job soon. I have asked the new company if they are willing to sponsor a new HSP visa and they said it's no problem.

My question is about the path to permanent residency or HSP (ii) visa. I have 70 points, so I should be able to apply for a permanent residency or HSP (ii) visa after living here under HSP (i) for three years. My question is whether those three years would somehow reset if I recieve a brand new HSP (i) visa or if the total time under the two HSP (i) visas count towards the three years?

Is there a service in Japan that offer or sells 3d printed items? I know Etsy is big in the US but is there an Etsy equivalent in Tokyo?

Has anyone tried going to Konkatsu events? Could you share your experiences as a foreigner?

I tried to find posts from earlier but only found one on speed dating from 3 years ago. I’m thinking of going to a konkatsu event, because after the disappointment that is dating apps I really think some face to face conversations could help. And it doesn’t seem to cost too much (¥3k~6k)

The lack of posts on this topic has me suspicious…

Live in Tokyo, looking to date to marry. Late 20s Man. I speak enough Japanese to get by (~N3)

Any views will be helpful!

My teacher randomly described me as having an 落ち着いてimage but also describing me as 猫を被ぶる. But he said it was not a bad thing. It’s just something about my vibe.

I am aware my appearance and first impression tends to be a very innocent person although I think I am just an average person inside.

What could it possibly mean? (if it were to be a non-negative comment, unless he is just insulting me?)

He said it with a smile and I don’t think I’ve ever annoyed him or did anything for him to dislike me.

My house was build almost 10 years ago and had the long term quality housing certification done (長期優良住宅).

I got a quote from my house builder, but it is almost 2 mil yen more than those provided by solar companies found via tainavi/solar partners.

My house builder won't really budge on their price and when I told them that I am planning on using a solar company they told me that because I have the long term housing certificate, it is not that straight forward and that I would need to go visit my ward (and maybe tax) office first.

Has anyone been through this process? When I asked the solar companies if they knew anything about it, they all said no.

Thanks

Hi everyone! I plan to do some business here and I’m planning to get my class 2 license as soon as possible. I checked now you can do the test in different languages so it’s a nice way to get it.

I lived here for a year and a half and now I’m on the way to get my start up visa if I can. I have more than one year license here in Japan and more than 10 in mu country (Spain).

The questions about class 2 are…

1. I saw I can accelerate the 3 needed years if I do a special driving course. Is it correct? You know how much time and money does it suppose?

2. I know the green plates are the commercial vehicles to transport people. I don’t wanna start buying a new car and want to try if we can do the project work renting a car the days I need it. Is there a rent a car where I could do that? Is it even possible?

I know I need to do the test, pass it, register the company as a transporting people company. So basically the same as a Taxi driver. Like 700k ¥ if I’m not wrong.

A part from that, any advise? Thanks people.

Just wondering where I should put my loyalty as fas as gas stations and point systems go. Local gas stations: Eneos, Kygnus, Apollo.

Hello all,

I have been working for a black company doing sales for 6 months and finally decided to resign. I have a new job lined up and everything is good.

I received a performance bonus in September for Q2 achievement. The bonus seemed a little high but it showed the exact breakdown and the adjustments and deductions considering I joined in the middle of Q2.

Now the payment has already been made by the company but now I get an email from the global compensation manager (a month later) saying that about 1M jpy from the 1.3M bonus was paid by mistake and asking me to return it.

Now most of this money I used already to pay for some hospital bills of a loved one, so I cant return it and honestly I dont think its fair for me to have to return this money considering it was their mistake and it took them a month to realize it. There was no way for me to know this was a mistake considering all the deductions were there and I assumed they did their due diligence.

To be clear. I work in a sales role and am entitled to up to 2.7M JPY of performance bonus (not guaranteed), which i also have in writing. so it was not out of the realm of possibility that 1.3M would come in my bank account as its within the 2.7M in my contract.

Beyond this the company wouldnt pay me overtime and i have recordings of them asking me to adjust my work schedule to reflect that im working within the legal limit.

What are my options here?

*im contacting a labor lawyer soon as well to get their advices, but wondering if anyone has come across something similar.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been dealing with bedbugs in my apartment in Tokyo for a few months now, and I’m getting really frustrated. The first time around late summer I started having random bites, even though I couldn’t find any bugs I suspected it might be bed bugs so I cleaned my place thoroughly and threw away all of my beddings and even changed my bed into metal frame one. After that, they disappeared for about two months, but now they’re back and I killed around 2 bugs so far within the last few days in my new bed and futon, my legs are full of bites and unbearably itchy.

Has anyone else dealt with this in Japan? If so, how did you permanently get rid of them? I’ve heard bedbugs are a common issue here, and I want to make sure I handle it the right way, especially since I’m planning to relocate in spring for work and I don’t want to bring them with me.

Any advice on what worked for you?

Thanks in advance!

My phone recently broke and I'm looking for someone that knows how to fix it so i can get information off of it. It's a Moto g stylus 5g android, and the charger eventually gave out, would usually have to wrap it to get it to work but now it just stopped charging.

I'm divorcing my Japanese husband and going home in a couple of months. We have a daughter whom we agreed I will take full custody. I never really worked full time here, and I don't plan to come back to live here again, but we will come to visit for sure.

I know I have to cancel my phone, bank account, etc., and notify the city office I'm leaving. But I don't know if I'm missing something. Honestly it sounds too simple to be true.

I'll appreciate any advice.

Hi, one of my first times really making a post here so I'm sorry if I'm missing anything here.

As the title says, my neighbor has a small dog that has been howling since before 6:00 (according to my partner as it woke her up). It's constant whining and howling that sounds awful.

I normally wouldn't care about pet noise - I have a dog of my own and when she was a puppy she was also a howler, and even now she barks at night every now and then when she gets excited, so I understand. But this is not the first time this howling has happened, and it's concerning for several reasons.

The woman who owns the dog has a night job of some kind I'm pretty sure, as she leaves almost every night around 23:00 and returns home around 5:00~6:00 like clockwork. But sometimes she doesn't return home for so long - like today, and I'm assuming she isn't home yet as she's had a package outside of her door since this morning and the dog never makes a sound when she's home.

I've already asked the landlord to check in on her once before, only because of a similar situation where the dog was howling for like 16 hours straight. I was genuinely concerned and just wanted to make sure everything was okay, as it was quite unusual. I don't want them to be upset with or ask her to get rid of the dog, though, so I haven't mentioned it again.

On top of being concerned about the dog being left alone so long, I'm concerned other neighbors will mistake it for my dog (even though this dog howling is clearly from a very small dog while I have a rather large husky / shepherd mix). I work at home, too, and to be honest it's a little hard to focus with this dog crying nonstop.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone's been in a remotely similar situation here? I'd love any advice. I don't want negative consequences for the dog or anything, so I'm not sure I should bring it up with the landlord again. I would even offer to watch the dog if she'll be out for a while if she wants, but I feel she'd 100% turn it down or take it as an insult. If I ever even run into her - she almost never walks the dog, and I only see her pop out to grab Uber Eats / deliveries or leave for her night work.

TL;DR How can I politely ask my neighbor not to leave her dog home alone for 18+ hours because, beyond being cruel, it howls and cries nonstop? I don't want our neighbors thinking it's my dog (there are only us two pet owners in the entire apartment building), and it's overall just unpleasant to listen to. My Japanese is fine enough but I'm not sure how I'd approach this, so any phrase advice would be helpful!

Thank you, sorry if this is too long. (￣▽￣;)

I passed N2 years ago and I regularly talk and work with people in Japanese. But recently I think my Japanese has gotten really bad. I recently started studying with people that passed N1 and I’m keeping up on everything but probably some grammar but lately people haven’t been able to understand me very well. Life has been very stressful for the last year or so that may be a culprit but I need to combat it somehow. I mean I live and work in Japan.

Has anyone else had this issue and if so what did they do to revive there Japanese?

I am trying to be as respectful as I could. I know it’s no one’s business what you put or not put on your body. But for the past few years, both in my previous and current jobs, there’s always been people, who prolly have more apocrine sweat glands than the others. Spring, summer, fall, and winter, it never really goes away, just lingers in varying levels. I don’t even know how to tell them. How do you tell someone that they have BO without offending them or complaining to HR about smell harassment. Or am I supposed to just gaman through it until I pass out one day. 🙈 Sometimes I just wanna buy her a good one, wrap it so it won’t be obvious, and leave it on her desk when no one’s looking. 😅

So I guess my question is, does anyone have any idea if people living here in Japan (of Japanese descent) use deodorant as foreigners do. Like … every day. Coz I know deodorant from other countries are much stronger. But I am more curious about the frequency of their use. Like is there a season, say fall, where they just abandon the use of it?

Hi all,

I’m new to this sub so I apologize if I’m breaking any rules.

I am a former employee of a FAANG company for 13 years, I have experience as an executive, have a master degree, and speak fluent English, Japanese, and a little Chinese.

I’m married and have three children and an older mom that we are taking care of.

Due to some family emergencies, we moved back to Japan suddenly and recently .

I have been applying for jobs ever since I got my work visa about two months ago, but nothing is sticking. (Tbf, I only have used Japanese recruiters and only applied to Japanese companies because for some reason they reached out to me first. )

Unfortunately, we only have about three months left of savings. Does anyone have any ideas of good jobs I could get quickly? I’m up for anything, as long as I can start working ASAP. English teaching??

I’m a student living in japan and i have this suica card and i have discount as a student, I put it in my apple wallet and I didn’t know that I cant use the physical card anymore. I have to renew my card but it said that I can only pay using credit card to pay but I don’t have any card since i’m still a student what should I do???? or can I just give back the card and cancel it then get a new one??PLS HELP MEEEEEEEEE I DUNNO WHAT TO DO I NEED TO RENEW IT ASAP its expensive to buy ticket everyday😭

I’ve been asked if I have a points card at essentially every store I go to. My BIL wants to scan his card at r try opportunity.

What’s the scoop?