At the invitation of the bloggers of the previous article, I will open a Chinese IT programmer who lives in Tokyo, Japan. The discussion in this article is mostly for myself or my Chinese (former) colleague. Please bear with me.

First of all, I said before that Japan's IT is not developed, and to what extent? The most popular social networks in Japan are Facebook, Twitter, and Instergram, and local products are far less popular than those introduced in the United States. In China, shared bicycles, group purchases, takeaways, online cars, and mobile payments are still at a relatively early stage in Japan.

Most of Japan's web pages, mobile apps, still stay at the style level of a few years ago. Interested students can search for answers that are known, such as

Https://www.zhihu.com/question/28800965/answer/100000820

I graduated to Japan in 2009. The reason for choosing the reason to go to Japan at that time was actually very naive. I just didn’t have a special job in finding a job in China, so I didn’t get the job that meets the expected salary. I failed to interview the big American company and got the chance. The offer of a company,At that time, the exchange rate of the yen was in full swing.(100 yen = 8 RMB), and the next year's salary can be 400,000 RMB, so it is gone. After a year and a half, as the yen exchange rate continued to fall, this figure fell by 30%, which directly led to the collapse of domestic graduates.

At the same time, I went to Japan with 6 students, all of whom were graduates in 2009. The company is still more suitable for graduates recruited from overseas, from the first month of visa application, and looking for English. The rental agency and so on have given support. Basically, you don't have to worry about it.

In the first two weeks after coming to Japan, I was always taken by the intermediary to look at the house. The rent in Japan is really expensive. Because of the company subsidy, our group of people tend to rent two places from the company, each In the month, you can get a subsidy of 30,000 yen, but even if you count the subsidy, it is far more than the level of renting in the country. But the cheapest colleague we rent is also aMonthly payment of 70,000 yen(At the time, equivalent to 5,600 RMB), it was just a one-bedroom apartment with an area of ​​less than 30 square meters.

I was renting a 1966-built Apart, 12 minutes walk from the station. The entire house is 3 stories high on the highest floor. 26 square meters, one bedroom and one living room, the room is a Japanese-style bedroom with tatami. It is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, even if it requires a rent of 70,000 yen. At that time, the salary of each month was about 350,000 yen, and it was really extravagant to spend 20% directly to rent a house.

When you come to Japan, no matter what you buy, you will be silently converted into RMB in the heart. One tomato is 80 yen, 6 pieces are 2, two green vegetables are 100 yen, 8 pieces, and the fruit is more than 300 days. Yuan, it is also prohibitive.

My wife and I live in Japan, and she has no income for the time being. So we buy food and cook at home every day for saving. I have a lunch at noon, and my wife will take the next day every night. The company is placed in the refrigerator. At that time, apart from the rent every month, the cost of eating for both of us was only over 30,000 yen. It seems to beUnbelievable.

Because of our frugal life, we can save more than 10,000 RMB every month by removing all kinds of expenses. At the time, it felt okay, as the exchange rate fell,Every month, less and less money is saved. In the first year and a half of the first company's work, the company's revenue has been reduced, so only when it left the company, it added a poor 100,000 yen to the annual salary. The Chinese colleagues who entered the company with me have changed jobs after I have been. I have not been alone in the original company.

In 2014, I switched to the former company I. At that time, the exchange rate of the yen had reached 100 yen = 5.7 yuan. Although living in Japan, there is not much difference in such exchange rate changes. In addition, the new work has brought about a substantial increase in wages, basically 60% more than the original, and suddenly there is a feeling of "turning the serf as the master". Moved to another place,The monthly rent reaches 130,000 yenThe area is 35 square meters, which is much newer than the original place, and the location is closer to the station.

In the past 14 years, my colleagues who worked together in Japan have started to buy houses. I also felt that buying a house in Japan was far from being possible. First, I worked for more than 2 years, and I didn’t have much savings. Second, foreigners were Buying a house in Japan requires a 20% down payment, and the review of the loan is stricter. The price of the house that the colleagues I knew at the time was mainly concentrated at 3,000 to 40 million yen, mainly in villas that were bought in remote or suburban areas of Tokyo.

The concept of Japanese villas is not similar to that of China, because the land is small and expensive (relatively speaking), many villas are like the picture below, on a relatively small ground (70 square meters), covering 2~3 layers of thin and tall Type of building with a compact car parking lot at the door (some villas are subject to land restrictions and no parking spaces)

In domestic cities, it may be difficult to imagine that in places like Beijing and Shanghai, there are so many people living alone, and such houses are even far below domestic prices.

The above picture is the average price per square meter of land in Tokyo for the past 25 years. In the 1990s, Japan’s real estate bubble burst, and the next 20 years have not been able to slow down. In recent years, there has been a recovery trend, but in general The growth rate is far behind. This icon shows that the current average land price in Tokyo is 1 million yen per square meter, which is 60,000 yuan per square meter. In fact, most buyers will avoid the most expensive areas, at our level of consumption. Buyers generally choose to buy a house of 30,000 to 50,000 square meters.

And if you buy an apartment, it is a directly renovated apartment, the price is generally similar to the villa, and even the unit price is higher. Generally speaking, the location near the station will be covered by the developer, and the villa will be covered far away from the station.

At that time, my own deposits were not many, only about 4 million yen, taking into account the 20% down payment, and just did not meet the continuous working years required for the bank to review the loan, so I did not buy a house, but chose continue waiting. In 2015, housing prices in Tokyo were still picking up rapidly. The “quick” here is only relative to the previous 20 years, and the increase cannot be compared with domestic real estate. Colleagues around me have talked about buying a house, and they have also started to shoot.

At this time, we were a little impatient, and we thought about going faster, and we started looking for an intermediary to see the house. The original budget is to buy a villa of more than 30 million yen. After seeing a few houses in the northern part of Tokyo (which is relatively close to the city but the price is cheap), I feel a little small (basically 3) The floor, living area is more than 70 square meters. Later, after raising the budget, I saw a house in Nerima (one hour from the city center), 108 square meters with garage, but the price also mentioned nearly 50 million yen. At the time of the impulse, I paid the deposit, then took a little old from the domestic parents and bought the house.

A simple comparison of the difference between buying a house in Tokyo and a big city in the country (Northern Guangzhou-Shenzhen).

price:This refers to the absolute price (the price after the exchange rate is converted), not the local income. The house price in Tokyo is far behind by Beijing and Shanghai. The house I bought is less than 50 million yen in 108 square meters. According to the exchange rate of 100:6, it is about 3 million yuan. The average price is 30,000 yuan per square meter. The time I go to work is from It takes about 55 minutes to get to the company door (the company is in the center of the city, Ebisu). In addition, the Japanese construction area is calculated according to the actual floor area. It does not contain any pool area. The balcony aisle and other areas are included, so if the actual living area is used, the average price of Japanese real estate is even lower.

loan:In the 20 years after Japan’s bubble, the interest rate on real estate loans was terrible. The latest activity rate is around 0.6%, which is 0.6% instead of 6%, and about 4% in China. For the down payment, foreigners need 20%, and after obtaining the green card (now the green card policy is relatively loose, usually available within three years), you can enjoy the same discount as the Japanese, you can get up to 100% loan and 0 down payment. After I made a 20% down payment, I borrowed 39.8 million yuan (about 2.5 million yuan) for a period of 35 years. The monthly repayment amount is about 120,000 yen, that is, more than 7,000 yuan, compared with income. No pressure. And in the first ten years of purchasing a new house, the government will have a 1% loan balance subsidy (simply say how much you still owe the bank, 1% of the owed part returned, the highest return of 400,000 yen a year), so the top ten Not only did the year not give the bank interest, but it also paid off a portion of the principal. The domestic mortgage loan period is short and the interest rate is high. Even if the loan is the same amount, the monthly repayment amount may be about twice as much as that of Japan.

House purchase and miscellaneous fees:In terms of cost, Japanese real estate is definitely higher than domestic ones. The first is that the agency fee is 3% of the total price of the property + 60,000 yen, and there is less room for maneuvering. Therefore, the house that buys 3 million yuan must give the agent nearly 100,000 yuan, which is the buyer and the seller. Pay, so when a suite is traded, the buyer and seller's agent will take 6%. In addition, the loan usually requires a one-time payment of about 2% of the loan amount, which means that the loan of 3 million needs to be handed over to the bank about 60,000, and this 60,000 and future repayments do not matter. In addition to the stamp duty, the cost of changing the ownership of the house, etc., basically prepare for the total price of 7%. With a 20% down payment, foreigners who purchase a home in Japan basically need a down payment of around 27%.

Maintenance costs:The maintenance cost of Japanese real estate is also relatively high. The villa and apartment should be discussed separately. Japan's real estate property rights and land ownership are generally owned by buyers (there are special circumstances where the land is rented), and China's words are known to have no ownership. But the price of ownership is the need to pay water. In the case of a villa, the main cost is the annual property tax and land tax, which are 0.5% of the value of the property and land assessment, and halved in the first ten years of purchase. The property land tax for the first two years after I bought a house was about 100,000 yen (more than 6,000 RMB). In addition to the property and land tax, the apartment also requires management fees (ie property fees) and repair funds. Japan's property fees vary by apartment and size, but in general it costs more than 10,000 yen a month, and some even needs more than 20,000 yen, and the repair fund is saved for 10 years and 20 years. Money, the money is starting to be cheaper for a few years, and the older the apartment, the more expensive it will be, because the cost of repairing it is higher. In general, it may cost more than 30,000 yen per month for these two expenses. However, it is precisely because the apartment has a repair fund that guarantees the quality of the house to a certain extent, so even if the house is old, the appearance and internal facilities will not be particularly backward, and there will be little domestic “small and small”. Case.

So in simple terms, the Japanese house is a good place to buy a good living, and it is the ultimate goal of the Chinese youth who are not the Japanese slaves.

It took a long time to talk about the housing market, and it was also to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.Let's talk about the work and life as a programmer..

I'm herethe firstThe company is a Japanese-style IT company. Before entering the company, I heard that the game department had a serious overtime behavior. So when I graduated from technical training, I specifically mentioned that I didn't want to go to the game department.

The on-time working hours prescribed by the company are 9:00 am, 7:30 pm, and one hour of lunch time at noon. When you go to work, you need to use the number plate to punch in, and the company needs to use the work card to open the door. If there is a situation that cannot be matched (such as trailing others), then the next door will not be opened. If you can't arrive on time at 9:00 in the morning, you should send a late mail.

As a newly graduated student, it is quite uncomfortable to go to work on the free day in the lab to go to work on time. After getting used to it, I will develop the habit of going out to catch up with the corresponding subway on time. At night, I usually want to go back earlier. At 7 o'clock, I don't really have much work to do, but the other Japanese in the group don't have a meaning to go. Every time I am biting my head at 7 o'clock. Half or as soon as 8 o'clock, say "ld. I have to go first", and then go home in the reply of everyone's "hard work".

Although there is no such thing as a leader looking for a conversation, I feel that I am still lazy. Although Japanese companies have a style of overtime work, in recent years, the legal regulations are strict, and ordinary companies must abide by them. For example, if you work overtime for more than 45 hours, you must pay overtime. If you work overtime for more than 3 months, the company will be warned by the government. Even have “Malicious overtime” An example of a warning that the overtime pay is too high and is warned by the company.

Second homeThe company is an American company, and its corporate culture is also biased towards Silicon Valley, with flat management. The biggest feeling after entering the company is that everyone is getting off work early, and less than 7 points may be less than half of them.

In the event of bad weather, you may choose Work From Home. If you have a headache or a child, or if your child is sick, it is definitely a leave of absence. Just send a letter to the group and the boss will not approve. There is a fixed TGIF (Thanks God It's Friday) event on Friday afternoon, and everyone is drinking beer in the kitchen to share their work. The company has free drinks, snacks, and often has a variety of activities. In general, the balance of life work is very good.

Beginning in 2017, there is an Unlimited PTO system. Programmers can take unscheduled holidays while maintaining performance and are not subject to annual leave. The development momentum of the company is very good. There is no promotion pressure for the programmers. After upgrading from the first level to the second level, you can stay at this level forever. Even if you don't upgrade, you will not be dismissed.

Overall, it is a great place for programmers who don't have a big ambition. When I was in the second company, my first child was born. After birth, there are many things that I need to take time off (hospital inspection, vaccination, etc.). I will not hesitate to take this time every time I encounter such a situation. The Americans who are bosses have never asked.

Current jobThe company is also a US company, culturally similar to the second company. Welfare is not comparable to the second company, but it is still very good in the balance of work and life. Because I often have a meeting with the United States at 8:00 in the morning, I usually settle my child at home eight o'clock in the morning and then go to work by car. After 6 o'clock in the evening, I will get off work on time, go home and buy food to feed the children to cook and so on.

Although the company does not have such a bad system of Unlimited PTO, basically the individual has a manager who is very nice to approve when he wants to take time off. I will try not to work because of the excessive delay in my personal life. I feel that the company gives a relaxed environment, provided that the individual has a conscious sense of ownership. For example, if there is any emergency at the weekend, if I happen to have time, I will go and see, I can't find time, and I will esclate into the group.

If I have been working in a Japanese IT company, maybe my life is another scene, but as I said before, Japanese life + American companies is a balance I personally take.So far I feel that this balance is still quite comfortable. As for the future, I have not been able to consider more.