Becoming a consultant

Hey there,

as promised in my last post from December I will be back in Japan. Not from April, as I thought, but from March 17th. And it will be for at least one and a half years. So I think there will be a lot of new aspects about Japan to write about.
As I mentioned before, I will go to Tokyo to work as consultant. I will not tell you what company I work for, but it is a relatively big Japanese consulting company. Of course I will try and give you insight into the work of a typical Japanese company. Things are just done differently than in other countries.

I signed my contract at the end of December, and from beginning of January I got a lot of information and e-mails from the Japanese Headquarters. They asked me to register with their internal network and also to read a couple of books and take some test. For example about Keigo (敬語) the Japanese business language, Japanese business manners (which are extremely different to other countries business manners), and also MS Office tests. Doing all this in January and February was nice, since I didn't have anything else to do really. And I actually learned a lot of things I didn't know before.
I think most of you know that Japanese have some kind of ceremony when it comes to the exchange of business cards. You give and receive them with both hands, never put a business card in your backpocket etc. But there is actually much more to the business manners of Japan. One of the most surprising things for me is the very strict dresscode: As a man you HAVE TO wear only black suits and white, long sleeve shirts. Girls have a little bit more freedom, but skirts and white shirts are usually worn with black shoes with low heels.

On the 2nd of March I had my first workday in Germany. I didn't start working alone, but with two other people, which is really nice and we get along really well. As a welcome party we went to a really fancy Japanese restaurant in the night, which gave us the opportunity to get to know our new colleagues. I really enjoy the familiar atmosphere in the German office, and I am relatively sure this wont be the case in Japan.
For the next two weeks we will receive additional information on everything we will do in Japan, and of course on our career opportunities within the company.

After arriving in Japan we will have another two weeks of training to get used to all Japanese again, since your 6 month long training will be in Japanese only (yes, I am a little bit worried).