Chain Pharmacies in Japan

This is a list of some of the major nationwide and regional pharmacy chains in Japan where you can purchase OTC medical supplies. This list is by no means complete, but covers many of the major players in the Japanese pharmacy market.

For more information about pharmacies and drugs in Japan, check out Dan's series of articles here on AccessJ:
Pharmacies and Prescriptions in Japan
Over the Counter Drug Laws in Japan
Online Drug Sale Laws in Japan

NISA: Nippon Individual Saving Accounts

Warm up your engines, eager non-instutional investors, because a new type of tax free trust account is coming to town. That's right, I am talking about the much hyped NISA or Nippon Individual Saving Account (shogaku toshi hi-kazei seido 少額投資非課税制度) that is starting up next year. If you are investing in the future (and you should be!), then this new system is a good opprotunity to get your foot in the investment door. Let's take a look...

Tips when Selling a Car in Japan

I'm in the market for a new set of wheels--to replace my old ones. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've met a lot of people as I've visited a dozen new and used car dealerships to ask about buying something new, and about selling the one I have now. Much of the information differs from what (admittedly little) I knew about buying and selling cars in the US. In today's post, I'll continue to share more of my findings:

Japan Factoid: Nintendo playing cards

Most die hard fans of games giant Nintendo have probably heard by now that the storied company was originally a playing card maker. But I bet you didn't know that to this very day you can still buy yourself a brand new set of 任天堂 cards.

TP#2: Difficult Japanese Phrases

Some of the most difficult words to translate are those that are context sensitive, or need wildly different translations depending on context. I'll take a look at four tricky Japanese → English interpretations in context today: ① もったいない (mottainai), ② しょうがない (shou ga nai, also 仕方ない shikata nai), ③ 面倒くさい (mendoukusai), and the pervasive Japanese ④ よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu)。

① 三連休が仕事で潰れそう。もったいない...
I'm going to lose my whole three day weekend to work. What a waste.
Alternatively: What a shame.

Tips when Buying a Car in Japan

I'm in the market for a new set of wheels, and have been to visit just about every new and used dealer in my immediate area, plus a few more across town (and out of town). A lot of the people I've met have been very cool and have shared their tips with me about buying and selling cars in Japan. Much of the information differs from what (admittedly little) I knew about the process in the US. In today's post, I'll share some of my findings:

Translation Practice #1

This is a foray into the world of Japanese university entrance exam translations (大学入試英作文), with some notes on the things I learn along the way.

Without further ado, let's get started! Today's source is a list of 2009 private university problems from the ticc PukiWiki.

四季の移り変わりがはっきりしている我が国で、とりわけ色とりどりの花が咲く春と紅葉に彩られる秋になると、自然がとても美しいと感じる。（津田塾大、2009）

It's in Your Blood: Japan's obession with blood types

For a long while, I thought that the standard blood groupings ( A, B, AB, and O) only had to do with microscopic antigens on my cells. Boy was I wrong. As it turns out, your blood type determines everything about you core personality...or at least that is what many people in Japan seem to believe.

Your Visa Status After Divorce in Japan

"What happens to your visa status after you get a divorce?" I've heard a variety of opinions on this subject from forums like Gaijinpot. Some people claim that divorce, for those staying and/or working in Japan on a spousal visa, means renunciation of your status of residence (在留資格). Others assert that you are still eligible to stay in the country until the printed date (在留期間) on which that last-issued spousal status of residence expires.

To complicate the issue, until recently there was no clear legal impetus for a divorced foreign national to report the divorce to immigration. Some people seemed to just fly under the radar for as long as possible.

Recent updates to the immigration laws have made this issue much clearer:

In short, if you get a divorce, you'll need to apply for a change in status of residence as soon as possible if you intend to remain in Japan.

The Immigration Bureau's Online "e-Notification" Service

Under Japan's recently revised immigration laws, foreign residents of the country are explicitly instructed to inform the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau of any changes to information they've registered with the bureau. For example, when you change jobs or get a divorce, you're now required to notify the immigration bureau and can face penalties for failing to do so.

To ease the burden of these notifications, the Immigration Bureau has established an online notification service that allows foreign residents to log in and submit many (but not all, as we'll see) of the legally required notifications without making a time-consuming and, for some, costly visit to the nearest regional or branch office.

What is a "Special Permanent Resident", Anyway?

"Special Permanent Resident." It's a term that plagues Japanese immigration legalese, and I've only ever had a vague inkling of what it means. It identifies a group of people that, for some reason or other, has been granted special permission to be in Japan indefinitely without needing to notify the immigration bureau of working situation or marital status, but whose members are still not recognized as actual citizens in Japan.

I'd heard stories of how, especially in the late 80's and early 90's, the MOJ wrote out some special immigration laws to encourage ethnically Japanese Brazilians and other South Americans to come to Japan as laborers. And I knew that there were a lot of ethnic Koreans in Japan whose families had lived here for generations but had been and sometimes still are marginalized to certain communities and severely discriminated against. They had been encouraged to come into the country and stay here for the long haul, but not as citizens.

All these people were the ones the government was talking about when it used the term "Special Permanent Resident," right?

RTK: The Best Kanji Study Tool I've Used

Heisig-Schmeisig: How I (Wish I'd) Remembered the Kanji

I cannot emphasize enough how important a solid kanji vocabulary is for your progression in the Japanese language. Knowing the jyouyou kanji, or at least a hearty subset of them, will unlock so much of the Japanese world to you. If I could go back in time and change one thing about my early Japanese study efforts, I would without a doubt change the way I handled kanji.