It's just human nature, but the Japanese penchant for doing business in-person seems to be catching on even more than normal. Recently I've noticed an increase in the number of foreign managers who are hiring people they know and trust, to help them battle their way through...

Some months ago, I received an interesting request from a lady in a lesser-developed Asian country, wondering if her daughter's fiance, who was living in Tokyo, could support her daughter here in Japan. A natural enough question, given that the prospective groom would be whisking their child away to Japan for a number of years. What made me sit up and take notice, however, was when she explained that he only received...

Have you ever wondered what salaries in the top end of the market are like? In a country where some companies employ up to 400,000 people, you'd imagine that top executive salaries would be massive, as they are in the USA. Interestingly, within Japanese companies - even large ones - the salaries of CEOs are typically less than...

We continue our discussion on Kakunin Kaisha, or "one yen companies", with a continuation of the article submitted by Andy Hunne (andy@sentinel-it.net). The paperwork required to establish a Kakunin Kabushiki Kaisha (KKK) was relatively easy as it was done by my Judicial Scrivener, hired for the purpose. I told him what I wanted and he created it. I spent about 2 hours with the scrivener and have had maybe three phone calls in the past week with him to clarify a couple of minor issues, so the whole process...