A friend of mine recently asked me if I had any advice for getting a job as a foreign exchange student in Japan. I said that I did, but that I should really save some money so that I could bring back something. I also told him that I didn’t have any idea what kind of job I would be getting. He asked me how I was going to bring back money to Japan.
The Japanese have always preferred to pay their workers in yen, since the currency is more stable, but that can be a problem in the long run if you don’t have any savings. There are still some places in Japan where you can buy dollars for a fair price, but you should definitely save some money before you think you’re going to be able to get by on that. You can easily get by with a few hundred dollars a month.
In Japan, wages are paid in yen, so I got him to tell me I would be making about 24,000 yen (about $23,400) over a year. That’s a lot of money, and considering he was only asking me how I was taking care of myself and how I was doing I thought he was trying to make it sound like I’d be living in a nice big mansion with servants and a staff.
Sure, I believe he meant it as a compliment that he wanted to live in a mansion, but there’s the problem. If you have money, you can afford to buy things that aren’t for sale. You can buy a fancy kitchen and have a staff to clean it, or you can buy a fancy kitchen and have a beautiful house with servants to clean it and serve you.
For the sake of economy, most Japanese companies only have one set of employees. So they decide to offer a job to people who arent already employed. This is all the more reason why a housewife living in Tokyo cannot afford a car or a maid, but she can afford a car and a maid because she has a job. We can not afford to pay 24 000 yen for a car or a maid. We can not afford to live in a mansion with servants and a staff.
It’s the truth and the reason why, if you want to pay 24 000 yen for a maid, you’d better have a job.
Now that I’m using this as an excuse to get my hands on a maid, I will get one, and I’m pretty sure I’ll make it an extremely unpleasant experience. But I will still pay 24 000 yen, and if I can afford it, I’ll get one.
We do not charge any income tax here in Japan. Because all of the income that we receive is used to help fund our operations.
The first maid we got was a really nice girl who made us feel very welcome and who was really sweet and helpful. Later we got a girl who was a pain in the ass, she made us feel extremely unwelcome, and she was the most annoying person ever. We have since gotten a few more, and they are all pretty wonderful. The best is probably our last one, she was the maid that we had to fire.
