The phenomenon didn't start with Lafcadio Hearn, but in his day he became best known for it -- the foreigner who comes to Japan and writes a book about his experiences. His female contemporary, Isabella Bird, was a remarkable Victorian explorer who took herself off on great treks to then-obscure spots of the globe, among them Japan in 1878. Bird traveled Japan's little-known back country and Hearn deeply studied Japanese culture, but now, apparently, all you need do to find material for a book is come to Japan and get yourself a job.
Laura Kriska's 1997 "The Accidental Office Lady" recounts her two years at Honda. Darius Mehri's 2005 "Notes from Toyota-Land" chronicles his three years with that automaker. Niall Murtagh's "The Blue-Eyed Salaryman," also published in 2005, describes how he went, according to the subtitle, "from world traveller to lifer at Mitsubishi." Since Murtagh bailed out of the firm after 15 years, though, that "lifer" epithet sounds a little strained.
Murtagh relates how he took his Ph.D. in computing at Tokyo's Tokodai University and got hired by Mitsubishi. He then covers the well-trodden turf of the foreigner coping with Japanese society -- foreigner-averse real-estate agents, life in a wooden-frame building, neighbors complaining about the noise -- all, of course, mundane matter to anyone who has spent any time in Japan.