In Japan - Setting up Camp ...

Two and a half months since I made my way to Japan — which my sense of time tells me is obviously wrong; there’s no way that much time has already passed. Two weeks of a “grace period” between immigrating and my first day at the job, and two months of trial-by-fire since then — here are some bits and pieces from along the way:

In transit

We start on the way from Germany to Japan. I noticed a neat localization during the announcements in the plane when the meals were explained. In German, we were told “vor der Landung in Osaka servieren wir Ihnen ein Abendessen”, whereas in Japanese, we were going to be served 「朝食」.

Continuing from the airport, I briefly thought I had set myself up for an adventure, when I noticed I had only brought 3,000 Yen in cash, and there was no ATM taking foreign credit cards in sight. Luckily thought, the train fare to the new home was going to be less. So I put the 3,000 Yen onto my good old 無記名SUICA and was on my way. While changing trains midway, I had a quick chat with a fellow foreign traveller, who then turned out to have also just laded in Japan to start working here.

Setting up stuff

Went through the typical Japan setup process at the ward office of registering residence, entering insurance, etc. In other words, a mini-game where you’re tolerance level for self-inhibited semantic satiation is tested by having you write your full name and address over, and over, and over, sometimes even twice on the same piece of paper (… because “same as above” checkboxes would be too easy, right?).
To my surprise, after only registering my residence I was told that everything’s done, since I’d enter health insurance and the pension system through my employer. But … what about the two weeks between now and when I start work? After explicitly asking, I was handed the paperwork for immediately entering insurance — i.e. more full name and address shenanigans.
A few days later, when I went to see a doctor and presented my health insurance card (with my name and address on it) at the reception …. I was kindly requested to fill out a form asking, among other things, for my full name and address. Later, picking up prescription meds at a pharmacy, I handed in my insurance card … and was kindly requested to fill out a form asking for my full name and address.

Next up were phone contract and bank account. Signing up for a phone number was quick and easy. Did it at Yodobashi Camera and went with IIJmio. When setting up payment information though, the card holder name was automatically taken from previously entering the furigana for my name. Interestingly, the card registration went through.

Bank accounts were a mixed bag. Setting up an SMBC account at a local branch office here was done without any problems in less than an hour. Key point: I brought a copy of my work contract. If you can’t prove to have work lined up, banks aside from Japan Post Bank will turn you down within your first 6 months of residence. A few small observations regarding the setup process:

  • SMBC is heavily trying to push people to use their app, but after clearly stating I want nothing to do with that I could open my bank account w/o getting the app and now have a physical OTP generator for authentication
  • on their registration form (web form on a tablet they and you) I only filled out the fields that were implemented to be required input fields. Upon seeing the results the lady at the counter was noticably confused and said it was necessary to fill out everying
  • registering a hanko was done through an input device where you physically “stamp” on some reading surface

I was less successful with online registrations on the financial side. First, I got rejected by Sony Bank (iirc I messed something up with the proof of work). Then, I got rejected for credit cards from SMBC, Rakuten, and Amazon. Looking back, it would’ve probably been smarter to try to get an EPOS card on site in some shopping mall. What I’m now considering is getting a “prepaid credit card” (e.g. SMBC, LIFECARD), since there doesn’t seem to be a review process, which then should(?) allow me to start building a positive credit record in Japan.

So, to recap:

  • (1) register residence
  • (2) get phone number (requires an address)
    (2) pray your foreign payment method works
  • (3) get bank account (requires phone number)
    (3) if (2) failed, temporarily use a friend’s number and update it after doing (2) using the bank account from (3)
  • (4) get a credit card (requires a bank account)
    (4) probably best to go for something where you can apply locally

Only (4) left to do for me …

Work adjacent things

I started to work on July 1st, by the 21st the insurance switcheroo (from 国民 to 厚生) was finished.

Given the option between a Windows machine and a MacBook, I chose a MacBook as my work machine. Reasons: I should easily find my way around the terminal, can use Homebrew, and since I never used MacOS it’d give me a change to acquire a new set of skills/experiences. It took some time to get used to, but I’m currently quite comfortable with the following setup:

What still trips me up from time to time is the different set of modifier keys, i.e. command and option. Also, I’d like to get rid of the dock. For the moment I’ve set it to the smallest side and auto hide.

Apart from that, stuff works … I’m neither amazed nor frustrated. What I do still miss and should look into is brushing up my zsh with autosuggestions, syntax highlighting and a nice prompt.

Misc

All in all, except for the brutal summer heat, life’s good. :)

Looking forward to cooler weather and what else the next few months will bring. Updates, as always, will be tagged #JPpr.

2024-08-31