jorgebucaran wrote:

@harhol, I am very interested in hearing what your plan and goals are in terms of going to Japan, working and living there, etc.

My ultimate goal is to become a permanent resident of a country that isn't the one I'm living in now. That's why my first choice career plan is to apply for a job in the diplomatic branch of the civil service, in order to get a posting abroad. I've always wanted to learn Japanese and I figured that knowing another language will help my job application (I'd estimate that 0.01% of British people are bilingual, probably even less), so that's why I started learning the language. Obviously if I do get into the civil service my most likely destination is Japan, which suits me because it sounds rather appealing. I wouldn't mind being posted anywhere, though, so long as I was able to leave the country!

If I don't get into the civil service (interview in December, possible job offer in January or February) then I'll be in the position of knowing a fair amount of Japanese and not having a job. So that gives me three basic options: either I can get a different job in the UK, go back to university for a postgraduate degree or apply to teach English in Japan. Of these, the latter two are the most appealing and I wouldn't mind doing either. I could also apply for a graduate job in a company like Fujitsu in the UK in the hope that I'd get posted to Japan. I have no idea what the chances of this happening are, but I imagine most multinational companies will have a significant number of employees overseas. As a final option I've thought about applying to a news agency like Reuters and becoming a journalist posted abroad, which also sounds cool.

So my overall plan is to live and work somewhere outside of the UK, and right now Japan is the first choice destination. It's not a case of "I must go to Japan" so much as "I must go somewhere else" - I'm just bored of this country basically. Ultimately I'd like to be self-employed and running my own business as well. I see opportunities for this kind of thing in Japan also. All in all it seems like the ideal destination for me. Clearly it has its faults but it can't be any worse than where I am now.

jorgebucaran wrote:

Putting aside citizenship, what is required to reside in Japan indefinitely? Lay out all the variables and options, the crazy ones, the commonly accepted ones, the lucky ones...

The easiest/fastest way is to get a job that sponsors you for a work visa, work for a couple years, get married to a Japanese citizen (it's easier to get a marriage visa if you are employed), wait a few more years, apply for permanent residency (you generally stand a chance of being granted one after five years in-country with secure finances).

If you don't do the marriage bit it takes over 10 years /w a stable job in-country to get PR.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 22, 8:53 pm)

jorgebucaran wrote:

@FutureBlues, I read all your posts and finally understand your point of view,
[...]
which led me to believe you were not happy at all in Japan or were subject to several discouraging experiences, maybe you just don't like the culture that much or maybe you like the culture you grew up with a lot, understand please, some people actually dislike fervently the culture they grew up with, like me, but that would be jumping over the other side of the spectrum.
[...]
in fact if someday I manage to become a Japanese citizen I will investigate how renounce to my nationality. Many of you may think that is ridiculous but only because you have not experienced first hand what is like to live in here and compete in a game where it does not matter how good or smart, different and creative you are but how well connected or bluffer you can be.
[...]

I'm not sure that you can read a couple posts on a forum and understand somebody's point of view, especially if that point of view is coming from somebody who has lived in a different country for 4 years.  We who live here like to complain about all the silly things that are.. well.. silly, but there are an equal number of things that are better obviously tying us here.  They are just much harder to talk about.

"subject to several discouraging experiences" is equal to "setting foot in Japan for more than two weeks".  You WILL have discouraging experiences here.  It's Earth, they are humans, it's just like any other country, including the one you left.  There are goblins here just like in your country.  I've met some.  They ruin your day, just like goblins in America would.

About "liking the culture you grew up in".  I'm not sure you can detach the culture you grew up in from your identity as a person.  Thus 'not liking the culture you grew up in' would be akin to hating yourself.  Of course there are facets of any culture that people don't like.  Lots of these things about your real personal culture will surface when you come face to face with one as different as Japan.  Many of them you will be able to integrate into your life here, others you will dejectedly discard, or willingly discard, and perhaps (not likely in your case it seems) enough will pile up that you will be driven out.

If you become a Japanese citizen you won't have to worry about renouncing your citizenship of your home country, it's not legal in Japan to be a dual citizen.  The game in Japan is also not about good, smart, different or creative you can be but how well you can conform and how few mistakes you make.  And your connections and how well you lie of course.  One of the core principals of Japanese culture is tatemae.  The face that you put on in front of people to lie to them.  We're talking actual culture now, not kimono and tea.  You will be confronted with a lot of harsh truths when you get here and the better prepared you are before hand, the easier it will be.  Understand that Japan is a country where "if you don't get caught, it's not wrong" is a fact of life.  And that people will lie to your face for months or years for no other reason than to save face and avoid confrontation.  Of course a side benefit of this is that everybody gets along great in public!  The dark side being that you will not become 'good' friends with anybody.  You missed that chance by not being a high school student here, and after high school it's very difficult to form nakama style bonds (which is why most corporate businesses are to other businesses by their employees high school classmate bonds).  Even husbands and wives in Japan practice tatemae upon each other, so if you think you will get close to anybody by being "honest" you are fooling yourself already. 

Personally I don't mind this so much, since the idea of "acquaintance" is much stronger here and approaches the idea of "friend" in western cultures.  So you can be very happy in your circle of compadres.  For good or ill tatemae is one of the cans of grease that allows this country to exist the way it does.  It's not "a good " or "a discouraging" experience, it is a fact of life that bequeaths both at the same time.  "Loving" tatemae doesn't change how you feel when it causes something bad to happen to you and "disliking it" doesn't change how you feel when it causes something wonderful to happen to you.  I think you should definitely read some books about this.  Preferably the one I linked earlier (who is sympathetic towards Japanese culture) rather than say, the chrysanthemum and the sword (which is antagonistic towards it).  It will help prepare you make an even smoother transition when you get here and have a leg up over other foreigners in the county because you'll have a more intrinsic understanding of how things work and won't have to fumble around for a year or two before you figure out how to act in order to gain peoples trust (which is pretty much the only thing that matters for business).

jorgebucaran wrote:

[...]
I am not sure what kind of business you would run in order to work as a freelancer but whatever that is I wonder if that should be my basic idea in order to reside in Japan indefinetely, what about just working for a company? Would that mean I need to marry that company?

Is it possible to just take a flight and go to Japan and stay there forever? I understand how childish my question sounds, but I do this so you understand that I am willing to go to many extents in order to achieve this and I am open to almost all suggestions.

I think you can find a niche pretty easy that will let you make a freelance company.  You might have to work over here for a company to get your foot in on the visa end, but there are tons of local, little computer companies.  Most companies hire out work to other companies to create these huge webs of reliance on each other.  (another big culture thing).  However according to some authors I've read you need connections, which is something you'd be able to make if you worked at a bigger company for a while and started hanging out with people in your community.

It's harder to take a flight here and stay forever because there is no land-locked border you can walk over to refresh your tourist stamp.  You have to fly to Korea and back every 3 months to get re-stamped as tourist.  If you come on any kind of work visa it's fairly easy.  If you come on a student visa it's very hard and usually means going back to your home country for some time (in my experience of friends who've swapped visa types).  All my friends who where here on a work visa and swapped jobs or companies or quit even for a while had no problem staying ever.  You have to be really on top of the paperwork while you are here, like months or years ahead in planning, to make sure you don't hit any bumps.  If I hadn't planned ahead 6 months for my trip home, the speed bumps I hit during the re-entry permit application would have derailed me and left me stranded.

I think with your level of enthusiasm you'll be fine.  You absolutely have to have a very positive attitude (like you do) to process some of the things you'll run into here.  However, preparation and realistic expectations can easily go hand in hand with sublime confidence in your ability to be happy.

re:welldone:
I think you are making the tatemae case a bit too strongly. While it indeed exists, many younger people are becoming more westernized. The kinds of people who try to meet foreigners want to meet them specifically BECAUSE they can be themselves and not worry about keeping up appearances. It's part of gaikoku-akogare.

That doesn't mean that people at your workplace, store clerks, etc will be so, but it's not true that you'll never get close to ANYONE. I have a number of very close Japanese friends.

Someone earlier mentioned "The Japanese have a word for it". I second that it's an excellent book about "real" Japanese culture, but it is somewhat out of date. Many of the concepts described no longer exist, or are much less important in modern Japan. While it was published "only" 12 years ago (1997), it seems to reflect pre-boom and 1980s boom Japan more than the modern day.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 22, 9:04 pm)

welldone101 wrote:

The game in Japan is also not about good, smart, different or creative you can be but how well you can conform and how few mistakes you make.  And your connections and how well you lie of course.  One of the core principals of Japanese culture is tatemae.

Amazing news (to me), definitely thanks for bringing this up. Becoming Japanese is not just a whim of mine, I want to learn extensively about different cultures (specially those very different). Japan is one of them and the most important in my list.

@welldone101 considering Jarvik comments, how would you approach this important concept of Japan's culture? I mean, would you go about explaning this again from a less biased or more modern perspective?

Finally

welldone101 wrote:

About "liking the culture you grew up in".  I'm not sure you can detach the culture you grew up in from your identity as a person.  Thus 'not liking the culture you grew up in' would be akin to hating yourself.

That is your opinion. In this regards my opinion is completely the opposite. In fact, my personal motto is "I am what I want to be" and honestly even though I will encounter a true alien world over there I am sure that there is a solution to every problem and I will find the way to break it. Of course, that is also my opinion.

Last edited by jorgebucaran (2009 May 22, 9:40 pm)

jorgebucaran wrote:

In a side a note, I am curious, how is it that no one has mentioned anything about Internet? For all I know the "best" Internet I can get here in Venezuela is close to 1.5 mbps (that's mega bits and not mega bytes).

Tell me about Internet in Japan.

It's fast, and has been since before the rest of the world outside of Korea got fast.  It's not necessarily cheap, but it's pretty fast.  (100 mbps is fairly common)

Last edited by Wally (2009 May 22, 9:46 pm)

Wally wrote:

jorgebucaran wrote:

In a side a note, I am curious, how is it that no one has mentioned anything about Internet? For all I know the "best" Internet I can get here in Venezuela is close to 1.5 mbps (that's mega bits and not mega bytes).

Tell me about Internet in Japan.

It's fast, and has been since before the rest of the world outside of Korea got fast.  It's not necessarily cheap, but it's pretty fast.  (100 mbps is fairly common)

How much would you typically be paying for internet? For example, in Australia I am paying $60/month for 24, 000 kbps (no idea how that translates into mbps, but I believe it is *significantly* slower than 100mbps) with a 30GB download cap per month. And this is one of the best plans you can get. I have a feeling Japan would be much, much cheaper if we compare relative speeds vs price.

Last edited by blackmacros (2009 May 22, 9:56 pm)

harhol wrote:

lol, I'm still on 512kbps...

Are you sure? Maybe what you have is 512 KB/s. There is no way I win this one, Internet in Venezuela is the slowest.

Last edited by jorgebucaran (2009 May 22, 10:47 pm)

Wally wrote:

blackmacros wrote:

Wally wrote:

It's fast, and has been since before the rest of the world outside of Korea got fast.  It's not necessarily cheap, but it's pretty fast.  (100 mbps is fairly common)

How much would you typically be paying for internet? For example, in Australia I am paying $60/month for 24, 000 kbps (no idea how that translates into mbps, but I believe it is *significantly* slower than 100mbps) with a 30GB download cap per month. And this is one of the best plans you can get. I have a feeling Japan would be much, much cheaper if we compare relative speeds vs price.

I think for US$ 50 equivalent you can get the best deals in Japan.  And there are no caps that I know of, although I've heard rumblings about upload caps, but not download.  As I say, Japan, a decade ago, decided it was going to be in the forefront on this.  Korea may have beaten them (Oh, the sacrilege!), but Japan is one of the broadband big guys.

Japan has an advantage compared to places like Australia, and it is population density.  There's an infrastructure that has to be built out for this kind of thing, and population density makes it economical to do so.  It's not likely to be economical to run fiber optic out to "Chapped Lip Sheep Station" in NW Territory, right?

Haha, quite true. I'm glad that I've got the speed I have now actually. (btw, wolfram alpha tells me 24,000kbps=24mbps, so it is a little under a quarter the speed you quoted as standard in Japan). When I lived in Perth I only had 512kbps :-(

Personally I had literally no culture shock in Japan. I had already been working in a Japanese restaurant (that was actually staffed by Japanese people), had a Japanese girlfriend, and studied some Japanese language/history/culture/pop-culture before going. Also, I moved to Texas for 4 years when I started middle school, so I already had the experience of adjusting to a new culture (Canada->Texas is almost as different as Canada->Japan). I had also visited like 10 other countries before going to Japan too..

Returning to Canada from Japan gave me culture shock though. Thoughts that went through my mind = everyone is so fat and poorly dressed, all the food is low quality, greasy, poor tasting, and expensive, all the goods in stores are low quality and poorly designed, etc.

It took awhile to adjust back to eating chemical/preservative filled unfresh food. Japanese people are astonished when they see the best-before date on tofu here. 2ヶ月
後!?　ありえない！

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 23, 1:21 am)

Jarvik7 wrote:

re:welldone:
I think you are making the tatemae case a bit too strongly. While it indeed exists, many younger people are becoming more westernized. The kinds of people who try to meet foreigners want to meet them specifically BECAUSE they can be themselves and not worry about keeping up appearances. It's part of gaikoku-akogare.

That doesn't mean that people at your workplace, store clerks, etc will be so, but it's not true that you'll never get close to ANYONE. I have a number of very close Japanese friends.
[...]

jorgebucaran wrote:

@welldone101 considering Jarvik comments, how would you approach this important concept of Japan's culture? I mean, would you go about explaning this again from a less biased or more modern perspective?

Um.. I guess I was specifically talking about tatemae in the business world.  I've experienced nothing but tatemae in my relationships at work and it defines every day in which I want to get something accomplished.  Of course people internalize it pretty quick so one doesn't notice much after that, but as my wife and I spend a lot of time digressing our days we find it everywhere it hides.  People are more than willing to drop that once we reach the 'friend' level, which basically means anything outside of work (we do stuff like ballroom circle, conversation clubs, and hang out with neighbors/coworkers)

As Jarvik pointed out I've definitely experienced people who talk to me openly because it's safe and they love being able to fully communicate with somebody, so you may get some shocking confessions like that.  And I may be judging all of Japan too harshly on the community of a northern city, but in the year I was in Chile I was able to make amazing friendships that dwarf any I've been able to achieve in 2 years here (and I put a lot more effort in in Japan).  I'd say it just takes a lot more time here; but as Jarvik evidenced it's not impossible or anything.

Last edited by welldone101 (2009 May 23, 2:40 am)

Here's my question, to the people who've joined this thread who want to go to Japan but haven't ever been: Why? Why Japan? Why do you feel so strongly about completely and utterly integrating yourself into a place you've never been before and then why, specifically, Japan?

This is one of the only countries in the world where you have people on forums who want to "be Japanese," and one of the only places in the world where the other side is like, "well, you don't like this Japanese thing? You just want to live in a Western bubble."

The reason I'm posting my thoughts here is because I studied Japanese culture at college on a whim, learned some Japanese, and then ended up coming back here to continue my studies-- to pursue expertise in the language and culture here, I'd say.

Yes, there was a time when I used to watch Japanese anime and think to myself, "Oh man, wouldn't it be great to in a Japanese school and speak this awesome language and eat bento. All these people look so happy in that onsen, etc. etc." But I was young then and I didn't have any perspective on anything. Now, with a couple of years of work experience under my belt, a college degree, and a foreign language as well as 3 years out of my native country, I do have that experience, and I feel pretty qualified to say the things I say about Japan because I've been there and done that, and in fact, I'm still doing it.

Let me give you some background. I lived in El Paso, TX, for most of my life-- a city that is about 85% hispanic-- making me a minority. All my friends were Hispanic. I was a "whitey" etc. etc. When I graduated from college, all my friends got scholarships and acceptance into prestigious schools, partly because of their race. Me? I went to the a state school in town for a year on a very modest scholarship living with my parents and then booked it to the most expensive private university in the country with no real plan or even any assurance that I'd be able to pay back the loans I'd have to take when the time came to do so. I transitioned from a city full of Hispanics, Latino culture and Spanish and ended up in Washington D.C.-- a city with a bustling gay population, AIDS and crime problems, and a huge deficit between the rich and the poor districts. There, I studied Japanese for a year, moved to Nagoya to study for another year, came back, finished school and now I'm here again, in Japan.

Now I say all this because I, personally have lived in 3 very distinct cultures over the course of my life. All of them completely alien to me. In Texas I was a nerdy white guy who didn't speak Spanish or go to Mexico to get shitfaced on the weekend. In D.C. I was a quiet, guy with very little cash and no connections whatsoever studying a subject that was, given the school I went to, somewhat of an odd choice. And now that I live in Japan, well, I'm just a "foreigner" here. But not once, in living in any of these cultures did I decide, "Well, damn. I just *need* to go to ______-- sure I've never been there, and I don't know the language, but really, if I could go to ______ then my life would be complete." And furthermore, I don't know a single person who's ever said that about any country apart from Japan. Everyone wants to come here, as though there is something mystical and magical about living here. The things normal people do here-- eat, sleep, plant crops, go to work, sit on the couch and watch TV are the same things people do anywhere. The music scene in Japan isn't any more romantic or flashy or unique than it is anywhere else on Earth-- there are good shows and bad shows and things in between. I mean, what is it that makes Japan different for people who NEED to come here from every other country on Earth?

Is it the onsens? Those are unique, I guess. I mean, I don't know of any other country that does public bathing, but people don't go to an onsen everyday. I go once a week at most. Usually closer to once a month, probably.

Is it the trains? Yes, the Shinkansen are very, very nice trains and for someone like me, who would prefer to take public transportation, specifically trains everywhere, they are a big plus, but at the same time, not every city has a Shinkansen station. I have to drive an hour and a half to the one nearest me, and rides are expensive. Local trains can be rough, slow and confusing. Sure, you can get most anywhere by train, but the reason for this is not because the trains are different or amazing, but merely because the country is small.

Is it the culture? Would you rather do karaoke than drink at a bar? See a taiko performance over an opera? Go to a museum about Japanese culture rather than a museum about (insert your culture here)? Again, this stuff doesn't happen everyday and if you have work events, I imagine that you'll soon get tired of watching your drunk co-workers pass out, or go all bleary-eyed and start flirting with the older waitresses. I personally was very interested in Japanese literature, but my expertise in the field has atrophied because no one I talk to has read stories like Kokoro and Yukiguni. Everybody seems to know the two Murakamis, but no one has ever read a book by either of them. In Texas, I learned a lot about the Alamo, but outside of school, nobody cares. A lot of the stuff you think you're going to be exposed to on a daily basis here, culture you've fallen in love with, is ultimately academic.

Is it some kind of "zen" that you think you're going to gain by moving here? It doesn't happen. The air isn't different. There's no innate balance to your life that is here but can't be found elsewhere. Eating sushi and soba for a month isn't going to trigger any epiphanies.

Is it the language? This is a valid reason for wishing to move here. However, I'll warn you that Japanese is difficult to learn and all but impossible to master. At five years in I can skim the newspaper, read novels and whatnot with a dictionary at a rate I'd consider medium-slow, conduct business on the phone, trick certain people into believing I'm a Japanese person in certain specific types of conversations, make jokes in Japanese, understand 90% of what I hear on a daily basis, and have fun with my girlfriend, to the tune of a somewhat long-term relationship. But I'm not fluent-- not even close. This isn't meant to discourage anyone, learning Japanese is a great motivator because it does a lot for your confidence and self-esteem, as well as provides you with a useful skill.

But just what is it that makes Japan so magical? I like Japan, but I don't think it's any better or worse specifically than any other place I've lived in. My biggest frustrations occur when something stupid (say, not being able to take out a cell phone contract due to my visa) is confounded by my inability to comprehend the Japanese involved, but honestly after a while even those situations become fewer and fewer. And it's not like I've never been frustrated or discriminated against in America. Sure, the cultural island hotbox amplifies these instances when they occur, and because we're talking about Japan in particular, we're talking about a country that does all it can, both consciously and subconsciously, to prevent foreigners from having an easy time of it, but ultimately, after you get off that plane and get settled, you're going to end up discovering that life hasn't changed all that much really. You're still you, doing the things you do, and it will become clear in time that living in Japan won't make you Japanese.

Your experience here, as with any other country, is going to be colored more by the people you spend time with and the personal goals you set for yourself than any outside factors that stem specifically from things that are "Japanese". Which is why I seriously question anyone who "just feels like they need to drop everything and come to Japan," when they know very little about what they're getting in to. It's not wrong to work on your feelings and do what feels right to you, but I suggest you step back and make sure you aren't heaping all your hopes and dreams on a concept, rather than the real place that you'll eventually end up in.

Last edited by FutureBlues (2009 May 23, 11:44 am)