A Truly Fucked Gaijin

[TFG]

Oh, the mindset has always been the hunter.

[homesweethome]

Thanks for the input.

Oh, the mindset has always been the hunter.
However it is always best to let the prey think they are ones doing the hunting, for a while anyway. Lol

Thank you very much, you just made my day.

[Catoneinutica]

[quote="TFG"]Hope someone can provide some advice apart from the (RENTAN) Charcoal in the car sketch for this classic fucked gaijin scene.

I am a British national in his late 40’]


TGF, you have my sympathies for your plight. You should heed what HSH has to say - he's well-versed in J-property transactions.

I'd also like to express my appreciation for making one of FG's most thought-provoking posts, which I quote in its entirety. In my mid-40s myself, and having lived in Japan for over 10 years, I feel like a neutered, de-clawed housecat. If I got tossed out of the house to fend for myself on the streets, I'm not sure I could cut it. Although I've got PR as well, a combination of divorce and failure of my little kabushiki gaisha would probably have me heading back to the US and enrolling in Law School or something equally loathesome - and who knows what kind of job I could get at nearly 50, particularly with the big Japan lacuna on my resume. Still, since you'd like to stay in Japan, I'm really quite surprised you've been having trouble getting a teaching job. There are any number of olde farte guys like us teaching in Japan, particularly business English. Unless you look like Quasimodo, I can't imagine what the problem is. Do you have a degree?

As for the divorce, this may be an incredibly naive question, but how is property divided? Are assets acquired during the marriage apportioned 50-50? Does Japan recognize "community property"? It seems you should get at least half of the value of the house, whether it's in your ex's name or not.

Moreover, one reads about all these May '07 divorces coming up where the spouse will be entitled to half of the other spouse's pension. This will be true for FGs with PR too, will it not?

[TFG]

Yeah,

[Jack]

The over 350 jobs I have already applied for are English teaching jobs which I have the experience and credentials for. However, the problem is being in my late 40's or so it seems. I even got sent an email that should have been an internal email at one of the schools I applied to which stated, "This applicant has all the credentials and experience we are seeking but I don't recommend employing him because of his age"! Needless to say, this was a kick in the mental groin.

Is such blatant discrimination fair game in Japan?

[rooboy]

Maybe you've lived wrapped in cottonwool in a futon closet to be asking a question like that.

Japan is not like Australia, US, Canada etc with their obsession with minority quotas, ageism, sexism, racism, now appearism all coming under Equal Opportunity laws with bite.

The Japanese can do what they like about employing anybody - they can tell anybody they're too old, too fat, too female, too male, too black, too Asian, too gaijin etc.

People go to court over these things and sometimes get a few hundred thousand yen but as there's no real Anti Discrimination Law in Japan (ie one that is clear and enforced nationwide, has set penalties for set situations etc) you might as well be back 100 years ago or so.

As for the OP Fucked Gaijin - why can't you get a job at Berlitz? They hire within Japan. Yokohama isn't the back blocks compared to places outside Honshu and if you were living in Honshu in places likeYamaguchi Ken or somewhere like that you'd be entitled to feel things are hopeless.

Also try the big companies - most of em have English programs for their employees. Send an outstanding CV emphasisng the fact that you're a BUSINESSMAN who's run his own business before and is now seeking to 'broaden the scope of my career'.

If you write the CV fluently in Japanese you've got more chance of getting taken on than not. Make yourself a teacher of Business English and try and string together a no of part time jobs like one in Berliz. Hell - Yokohama is relatively near to central Tokyo, and other areas with heaps of English schools.

Sounds as if you're letting negativity get the better of you, don't.

[TFG]

Thanks for the moral support people.

[amdg]

**Mainly for the benefit of those who find themselves in TFG’s position before their marriage/relationship falls apart.**

OK, I’ve done the research about this kind of situation and also consulted with a Japanese bengoshi who I know, and here is the deal, pretty much as you would expect:

If you are married and you haven’t made any written agreements about the ownership, then there is an automatic presumtion that the ownership of the property is shared 50/50 (as accrued from the date of the marriage), unless one of you can prove otherwise. So unless your wife (or ex-wife) can show that she contributed more than you, it will be assumed you have 50% ownership of the property or of the equity that that has accrued since the date of the marriage. This last part is important, it means that if she purchased the property before you were married then you only get 50% of the amount of equity that has accrued since the date of the marriage.

In order to counter any rebuttals that your wife (ex-wife) might try to make about your 50% ownership, it is very helpful to have an official paper record of the transfers from your bank account to hers (marked as ‘loan repayments’ or similar). So set up a automatic monthly bank transfer.

If you are unmarried, then the best way to proceed is to see a judicial scriviner and have him/her draw up a written agreement about ownership (the division can be specified as you like – 50/50, 60/40 etc.). The agreement must then be registered, which the judicial scriviner can do too. If you don’t do that you are likely to have a very costly and protracted dispute proving your entitlement.