It`s getting near that time when I should be worrying about booking flights for Christmas. Mostly, my company is very accommodating with regards this. I`ve been in Japan for 9 months now and, contractually, after a year my company will pay for a return flight home for holidays, which is great.

The only thing is, how long would be an acceptable time to take off? A colleague of mine took 11 days off in June to go back home and was scowled at, although he did get to go. I`ve been saving my holidays, and if I book them right, combined with the national holidays, I can get 4 weeks back home. The problem is: would this be acceptable with a Japanese company? During my time here, I`ve never seen anyone take a holiday. Sure, they might take a day here or there, but that`s mostly due to sickness or hospital visits. Rarely, someone will add a couple of days off to a week that`s already mostly a national holiday (example: Golden Week), but no one takes 2 weeks off during the summer to travel.

I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this and whether my 4 weeks off will be looked at in contempt? Surely, they`re my holidays, I can take them when I want. right?

They are your holidays, but the question is whether or not your taking them would impose a hardship on your co-workers or your company. This isn't unique to Japan, as the same is generally true of working in the U.S. Just because you've saved up a ton of vacation time doesn't mean you can take it all at once. From my experience, I'd say that taking three weeks in either country is about the max, and two weeks is more the norm. More than that and your company may realize they can do without you permanently.

You're right that in Japan, people do not take a lot of holidays. Having family overseas provides something of an exception, however, and you can make a decent argument for a couple of weeks off. Remember, though, that the Japanese work ethic places work first and everything else--and I mean, everything--second.

By the way, a lot of people are in the same boat here. I just had a couple of weeks back in the States, but I basically had to forfeit a piece of my anatomy just to get that.

I'd be amazed if you could take four weeks. It would have to be for something exceptional, you know, like a life or death situation. That's not just in Japan but also in the UK.

In my experience, I don't know of anyone taking more than two weeks in the UK and the most I've seen in Japan is twelve days. Attitudes are changing in Japan to holidays and overtime, but you have to be reasonable. I'm fully behind everyone taking their full allocation of paid leave, but I'm afraid I don't think you have any right to take such a long period all in one go. If you manage it, I'll doff my cap to you in awe.

The thing is, there isn`t really a workload for me here. Me being here causes more of a workload on people than me not being here, I think. I`m here mostly to get a handle on the Japanese said of things, learn how to speak the language, and then they`re shipping us off to other branches around the world. It`s a pretty unique thing in general, especially for Japan.

I`m technically only taking 11 or 12 days of actual holidays. The rest just happen to be weekends, or days that we would otherwise have had off anyway. They seem to be of the mindset of making us as comfortable as they can so I`m not sure how off the cards a four week holiday would be.

It`s definitely not something I`d try in a normal working situation.

I wouldn't try for more than 10 in total. As in 10 days for your whole trip, not the actual days you take.

You could put in a for a lot of vacation and see what they say. The worst they could say is no. It's not likely they will fire you or anything for wanting to use your vacation.