10 Interesting Facts About Living in Japan

[rubyredknowsitall]

I've been asked to do an AMA on here a few times, but to be honest I'd never be able to be open or strong enough to answer all the potentially personal questions - some AMA I've looked through have got a bit brutal!

But I thought I'd share a few really interesting topic points about living here (if you're interested in Japan)

1. If you want an abortion - you need the fathers signature on the consent form before a doctor will proceed. In theory this should only be if you're married but in reality it's not as doctors are afraid of being sued. I whole heartedly disagree with this - my husband thinks it's terrible too. No signature - you're having a baby. I had an abortion two years ago and thankfully the man in question supported me, but I can say that requiring him to be supportive is a highly vulnerable place to be emotionally. They're also expensive and it wasn't until 2023 that medical abortion was legalized - I had to have surgery in 2022 at 6 weeks.
2. If you divorce/ sperate in Japan there is usually NO joint custody of children, so usually fathers are never allowed to see their children again. The man I stated above (Mr abortion) was in this situation, and has NEVER met his 14 year old son although he pays maintenance and has gone to court multiple times to try and get a single visitation right. It's broken him a bit I feel.
3. There's no such thing as GPs in Japan - you go to the specific doctor in question immediately. So if you have a stomach problem you go to an "internal doctor". The good point is basically no waiting times, but after leaving the UK system I still don't fully understand how conditions that require multiple specialisms get treated....
4. Before you get your provisional driving licence you have to go to a driving school (with classroom lectures), learn to drive on their internal course and pass a test. Only then are you allowed on real roads - they think we're mental! Despite their vigorous driving schools, I've not seen much better driving here........
5. House prices depreciate similar to cars - they're very much not an investment. Reason is they get torn down fairly regularly and rebuilt owing to upgraded earthquake regulations. As such houses are built very cheaply without central heating etc (winter is actual hell with many rooms in my home reaching 2 degree C last month). There's a reason uniqlo invented heattech!
6. There's no such thing as joint bank accounts - and if a husband or wife transfer money between each other, above a certain threshold is taxed. A member of the family needs to be legally registered as the 'head of the household' - so if I overpay something like state pension the refund can go directly back into my husbands bank account (or vice versa if I'm head of the household). This does also mean that when I passed my driving test and was added to my husbands driving insurance as a new driver, it cost us an extra 5p a month. :) Until I crashed the car into a fence............
7. Wives are legally able to be registered as 'dependents' on their husbands, so if they earn beneath a threshold, the husbands company will pay their pension contributions and health care contributions for them.
8. Minimum wage where I live is 931 JPY - £4.89 an hour, and state pension is equivalent to about £4,200 a year.
9. A major part of their economy is UPF - wafer ham with plastic cheese and lettuce sandwich is an example of a staple sandwich here - my healthy diet actually took a huge hit upon arrival. They eat a lot more meat and a lot less fish than I expected.
10. Ovens are not in most kitchens here - baking isn't part of the traditional Japanese diet - deep frying is. ALOT of food here is deep fried which unfortunately I can't digest.

To those wondering the good points about Japan - there's a lot! The nature is a million times more beautiful than the UK in my opinion, the country is seriously safe with actually too many police, education is outstanding and the gap between the rich and poor is much narrower. Customer service is brilliant and it's a culture with clearly defined rules that most people abide to (no eating or talking on trains or buses etc).

This last point is a bit more controversial so I'll just say it's from my personal experience but men seem much more prepared to get married and accept that women need "stability" to have children. They're much more aware of our biological clocks and don't approve of women getting picked up an put down if it's going to wind her time down. This attitude has done nothing towards the birth rate though 😂

Curry pan! My husband is addicted. They're here forever :)

I love this. Thanks op!
I watch far too many of those clips of people living in Japan doing skin care or housework (because I am sad).

..no talking or eating on public transport

which most people adhere to. Heaven. I’d move everyone for this alone I think.

A work colleague who visited Japan was shocked at the number of men who looked at porn on public transport, usually in graphic novels/comics. She said they were very open about it.

Is that something you have observed?

Have you experienced much racism towards yourself as a non Japanese person?

This is a really interesting thread. Can I ask how people with autism are treated there? I'm talking specifically about someone who acts/looks different from the 'norm' and is obviously autistic.

As a white, thin woman, no. But white women get an easy ride world over

Not talking ... I didn't notice that at all? And eating is fine on the bullet train

You don't want to be different here. I'm 37, my husband is 38, we're both left handed but he writes with his right.
There was a girl in Osaka who had naturally dark brown (not black) hair, so she had to dye her hair black for school to be the same as the other students. This ended in the school going to court and her winning a small settlement as she failed to graduate high school over this.
Gay marriage isn't legal.

I'm not sure about autism but yeah........you really don't want to be different here! It's a very conservative society

@pantsalot penultimate paragraph, last sentence, brackets. I could quote but will take me ages on phone.

Since posting I see someone has mentioned men openly looking at porn on public transport. Perhaps I’d opt for the slob with the KFC over here then.

An interesting list, thank you.

A lot of these points are hugely sexist. Do you know any Japanese feminists who are working towards ending the worst of the sexism?

@pantsalot In the opening post, penultimate paragraph:

Customer service is brilliant and it’s a culture with clearly defined rules that most people abide to (no eating or talking on trains or buses etc).

the f'ing porn in this culture. They don't even see it as porn you know. Sexualised content is very accepted here, and possession of child porn was made illegal only in 2014 I think.

I'm intrigued that you say the education system is excellent - British friends live there (with their children) and they say that the secondary system is heavily based on rote learning, with the expectation of cram school in the evening as well as 'normal' school in the day. Their children have been to Japanese primaries, then International secondaries. One of their children has high functioning autism. The Japanese primary was completely unable to support him; they switched him to an international school (which worked for him) much earlier.

What is it like to shop in a vegetable market?

Is it true that wives are supposed to look after their husbands, eg peel and prepare all fruit before the husband eats it, even in someone else’s house?

Ah, shinkansen - yes eating and drinking alcohol etc is fine on that. I mean the regular commuter trains in Tokyo. You should have noticed that?!

Thank you so much for sharing, it's fascinating! I've always wanted to visit after spending 6 weeks on an exchange to a Japanese boarding school in Switzerland. I can speak and read Japanese but have never been to Japan. The people are so lovely, and the culture is really interesting.

This is interesting. Japan is in my top 10 of countries to visit, but it's unaffordable for me sadly at the moment. Very expensive!

Great thread OP… what brought you to Japan?

Great thread OP.

I’m assuming the lack of heating explains why kotatsus are so popular. Do you have one and are they as awesome as they look?

Great thread OP.

I've been to Japan a few times and love visiting. Our last trip was cancelled because of the pandemic but we will be back again.

I would love to live in Tokyo for a year or so.

I've never heard of a vegetable market hun. I buy my vegetables from the supermarket.
Regarding women looking after men - it ay have been true in the past but not in any of the relationships I've been in. Only 1 guy I dated couldn't cook and that was a deal breaker for me. My current husband is pretty dirty though (ex-husband wasn't) and when I caught him basically 'fake hoovering' once I got pretty argumentative.

He said I'm better and cleaning so he'll leave the hoovering to me - I said that's impossible now I know he's reached 38 without knowing how to do it correctly, and proceeded to give him a full 'lesson' on hoovering while he went around the house doing it. He's never fucked up since.

Thanks for this. I lived in Japan 20 years ago and didn’t know all of that

my snippet is how odd going swimming is. Firstly, walking up and down the pools is a “thing”. Some of the pool is for walking, some for swimming. And every half hour or so there is an alarm or whistle. And everyone gets out for 5 minutes. I was flummoxed until I found out that it’s so that nobody “over exerts” themselves.

There was a programme recently called 80 weighs around the world (something like that!) and 8 very obese people got to visit 4 countries, one of which was Japan, and they had a meal with two Japanese folk who told them that the Japanese were not a culture that would like to see obese people as they don’t like to stand out in any way from each other - very interesting I thought

God, I miss my kotatsu!

And yes, they're bloody awesome but they do make you quite lazy!