@Diana
I just wanted to compliment you for all of your posts.  I really think you provide a very balanced perspective, and I take you at your word that your not an aggressive female (it's the mostly chauvinistic majority in the world who would-"how dare you speak your mind!").  Your story really acurately illustrates many of the issues Japan is living and facing.

I think it is important for people to digest all the information people are sharing about their personal experiences of living in Japan, and we should be grateful to people like Diana and everyone posting here for taking the time to kick some knowledge.  There is enough information out there to give anyone in our position excellent insight to prepare them for some of the realities of Japanese society.  If you look into it you will see patterns that paint a complex picture (with quite a dark side to be sure). 

Before this thread I was very aware of every major element people have discribed in here.  But getting first hand stories only adds greater depth to my understanding, and I am always grateful to people for doing that (and eager to listen).

Many of these elements are actually a motivation for me to want to work with Japanese Youth.  Yes the same problems are everywhere, but when you add it all up Japan has it's own style of societal problems, even some that are perhaps exclusive to Japan.

As Yoda told Luke "don't underestimate the power of the dark side".  What did Luke do?  He ran off to Cloud City, all emotional, and faced some pretty raw realities!  But could he have done any different?  I doubt it.  He was young, he knew what he had to do (try and save his friends) and even a wise Jedi Master couldn't get all the way through to him.  Did he mature in to a bad ass....for sure, but only when he faced the truth and had paid his dues. Yoda didn't stop him, but he did want Luke to see himself clearly and train up, before he made up his mind, in hopes of preventing him some undue suffering. People want to clue others in, and really want to help, and they are in a position to do so because they have lived it! 

Haha - O MAN I"M A DORK!

I also want to echo some of the previous posters and recommend "The Japanese Have a Word for It" by Boye Lafayette De Mente.  I realize not everyone is as interested in Japanese sociology as I am, but it is so valuable if you are preparing to move there (you've already made your mind up) or live there now and are trying to figure things out (I imagine).

May the Force be with you!

Last edited by TaylorSan (2009 May 24, 1:35 am)

jorgebucaran wrote:

1) What about: going to Japan as a tourist, apply for a Job and find help to get a Work Visa. Is that possible?
2) How does it work getting a work Visa in Japan? Do you need to be endorsed by a company?
3) If you need the endorsement, which is the most logical, how does it work getting a job at Japan? Should I just send my CV to random companies?
4) What suggestions and advice can you give?

There is a book I read at my college library called "Make a Mil-Yen" which addresses these points. It has been over a year since I read it, but I remember the answers to your questions 1) and 2).

1) This is not only possible, it is probably the best method. Look for work doing something you love, but teaching eikaiwa is a good fall-back to let you look for work for more than just a few months, and practice your Japanese conversation skills outside of class. Of course, you must say that your purpose is to see the sights, and then work very hard just to find work.
2) You need to be endorsed by a company, so, see step 1).
Questions 3 and 4 are beyond me, but I would also like to know if anyone else can take them.

welldone101 wrote:

jorgebucaran wrote:

Diana wrote:

I thought Japan was the best, things were amazing there, and people were so great. Wow- I was in for a wake-up call.

This is exactly the information, we, the ones that have never been and experienced Japan want to know. Would you elaborate on all of that bad stuff? Enlighten us.

Both you and harhol now have requested people to post bad stuff about our collective experiences, and then played down, dismissed, or attacked those of us who were contributing.  I think it's possible to continue this discussion without saying that futureblues hates Japan, Diana is aggressive anywhere in the world, and things like that.

You are right. Starting with me, we should take a more balanced attitude about how we carry our discussion, after all, for good or ill, everyone's insight is very valuable, specially the one from those that have experienced Japan firsthand. However don't inflate the situation, I do think Diana is kind of aggressive, but hey I don't see how is that bad at all, in fact, maybe she likes it that way. This is something you are shoving in here out of context because it was more playing than anything else, also consider she was the one who brought it up in the first place.

Regarding FutureBlues, something that were never answered was why he went to Japan in the first place? I think this one is a valid question and may help us understand better his position.

Last edited by jorgebucaran (2009 May 24, 2:34 am)

jorgebucaran, let's imagine a person who has set the realistic goal of teaching eikaiwa. This is a fulfilling job if you work for a small company. This is not an ALT position, it is entirely different. I have worked both jobs. Further, it is unrealistic to think that you could work in many typical minimum wage positions, especially those that involve customer relations. I don't even know if convenience store workers get minimum wage, they probably get more. Construction work is minimum wage and available to foreigners, but I don't have any experience with it, and I think Eikaiwa is a much better option. Edit: forgot to mention, average pay is about 2500-3000en per hour, maybe in a range of 1500en to 6000en per hour. In some places, you can work as much or as little as you want.
Anyway, the gist of it is that you come to Sapporo, Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, or somewhere big and getting bigger. (Most JETs that complain are sent to small places getting smaller.) Eikaiwa is just as available outside the big city you choose as it is inside the city center, so you dont have to live in the city if you dont want to, but it is a good place to start. (The Fukuoka-now classified ads list companies all over kyushu.) Ideally, you find an Eikaiwa job before you come and they get you a working visa. I think Eikaiwa is a lax enough job that you can spend a year doing it, spend your first few months on contract getting used to the atmosphere of the place you are living, and spend the last few months looking for work in your preferred field.
If you are playing on hard, you pack your bags and tell customs you are here to see the sights, find a place to stay for a few months. This could be difficult depending on where you live, so if you choose this route, then maybe try and sort out where you are staying before you come, or expect to pay what amounts to booking a hotel room for a month. In Tokyo it's easy to find a place for a few months at less than 10000en per day. Other places, maybe you can cycle between hostels, staying a few weeks at each for 2000en per day. Do your job search, get into the swing of it and make several interviews every day until you find a place that you fit in with. Pretty much like any other job search.
If you want a job that's not eikaiwa, then good luck. If you want to get a work visa, then teach ekaiwa. You will have 3 years with a working visa to look for a better job. I hear it's hard to get a job without a work visa.
The book I mentioned, Make a Mil-yen, is by Don Best. It will have info useful to playing the Japan Lifetime Employment Game on both normal and hard mode. JET is easy mode, but it's no fun, and might make you want to stop playing.

Last edited by chully (2009 May 24, 4:16 am)

Guys remember I have no experience on this matter and I am actually looking for all the information, advice and help I can get to understand what I need to do in order to, laid out simply, go to Japan, work and live there permanently. I don't know what to expect at all in between all these processes so that's why I ask for advice.

How do I get a work visa if I don't have a job in Japan? Does that make sense? I thought you'd find the job and they would help you get the visa. How come work visas are only for a year? Does it mean I need to leave the country to renew it? What do I need to do to live in Japan indefinitely? And another different question, how does it really work finding a job in Japan? Don't want to be stupid but is it just sending my CV and having interviews with random companies of my area? (Software Development)

Last edited by jorgebucaran (2009 May 24, 4:46 am)

As to the clarifications of your edit jorgebucaran, there is at least one whole book written about this, which I recommend.

@chully

Funny.

Now to the core of everything, you said that "They don't need you for any longer than that. " What do you mean? Is that like a norm? And if they don't need me more than that how is it possible to: "You need to hold a job indefinitely." Aren't these two exclusive?

I am getting that book, Make a Mil-yen, thanks!

@thistime

You say "Theoretically you could come here, get a job, get the visa, quit your job and stay here." But then I would need to prove employment so how would I do that? Why would I quit my job? Do you mean that it would be a facade like job just to obtain the Visa so I could move to the country and then work as a freelancer or try something else?

What the visa says is you have the legal right to work in Japan and just for everyone's peace of mind, here is how I will be supporting myself and contributing to the economy. You need the job to get the visa, but once you get the visa it is yours and cannot be taken away from you if you quit your job. Plus, how would they know if you are still working at the company or not? But if they require you to come in to immigration every year (or 3) then you cannot go more than one year without a job.

It is actually very common for people to take one job that they don't want but is easy to get sponsorship for to get the visa and then quit and move onto another job that they want but wants a visa holder.

harhol wrote:

This sounds like my day-to-day existence growing up as a teenager. Unless I'm missing something obvious I don't see how this is exclusive to Japan. I think the old cliché is at work here - the Japanese have a word for it.

Alright, here we go. No, having trouble making friends in adolescence is NOTHING like tatemae in Japan. Tatemae is when people will harbor grudges against you for reasons unknown and never admit it to your face, forever. Tatemae is me talking to my vice principal about my girlfriend and mentioning that she's so busy with school that I mainly only get to see her on weekends and having everyone else in the room stop what they were doing and go, "Man, you're really uh... brash and forward aren't you? Most Japanese wouldn't talk about their relationships like that." Tatemae is never ever getting getting past the superficial stuff with anyone or your co-workers watching you do something wrong over and over again and never telling you about it. When girl's cleavage is a little too pronounced, people will say, "Aren't you cold?" over and over and over again, everyday until you get the point and close up your shirt, even in the dead of winter. Tatemae is no friendly back and forth conversations with waitstaff at restaurants, zero real conversation beyond the weather with anyone you don't know, and even with your closest friends, that lingering feeling that you don't actually know anything about what makes them tick-- because you don't. Do you have friends who will bum a night at your place or let you bum a night over at their place from time to time? Won't EVER happen in Japan-- you'll likely never even know where your friends live unless you specifically ask them and this will likely make them uncomfortable to the point where they may avoid you, except, again when you call them, in order to save face. Do you have platonic friends of the opposite sex you hang out with in public, maybe even eat lunch or dinner with, 1 on 1 from time to time? That doesn't exist here in Japan. Men and women together 1 on 1 in a restaurant means they're dating or married. There is absolutely no middle ground. Tatemae is your Japanese "friends" never inviting you anywhere, or ever calling you. Tatemae is meeting people at a restaurant, bar, or evening establishment, girls, guys, whatever, and getting an response email later that night from the cute girl/guy that says, "Hey, NEXT TIME you're around, lets hang out." (Meaning specifically-- not this time, or ever." Tatemae is not having any of those groups of friends that you have inside jokes with, or specific group rapport. Tatemae is all that stuff you here about how Japanese people talk about nothing but work, any time and all the time. Tatemae is women who ignore the fact that their husbands work late every night and visit prostitutes or who say, "Well, he needs that, so as long as he's happy." And finally, tatemae is that phenomenon/scandal a while back where mothers were giving their sons sexual favors like blowjobs to ease their stress before major high school entrance exams.

Tatemae is like NOTHING you've ever experienced, emo adolescence or no. Again, we've all gone through parts of our life where our faces were cratered and we weren't popular but tatemae has zip, zero, zilch to do with that. You can sit there and tell yourself that all this sounds exactly like whatever country you live in, but I guarantee that you'll find it nearly impossible to form any long-term friendships of any sort, no matter how good your Japanese is, if you come here after you've already grown up.

harhol wrote:

Diana wrote:

Getting Japanese people to open up to you was also something I found very hard. [...] Not willing to admit their feelings, very private person, etc.

Getting people to open up and admit their true feelings is easy in other countries?

See above. Maybe it isn't easy in other countries, but in Japan, it's impossible.

harhol wrote:

Diana wrote:

You are always going to be foreign in Japan, no matter how hard you try.

True of anywhere, surely?

Surely, you jest. Surely. You're from the UK, right? Do you look at people of Asian/African/Middle Eastern descent and immediately know that they AREN'T from the UK? If an Asian woman walked into a cell phone store, would you immediately assume she was from Asia and ask her for her passport when applying for a phone? Would a black person be treated completely differently at a hotel than a white person? How would you, yourself, pick out someone in the UK who wasn't from the UK? Would you be able to pick me, an American out of a crowd on the streets of London with 100% accuracy and know immediately that I wasn't a citizen of the UK? No, that's pure nonsense. America, even more so. I've never looked at a person in America and immediately assumed that they weren't American. If a Japanese man got off a plane in Los Angeles and went into a cell phone shop, they'd probably ask him for his address in L.A. before they would ask him for his passport. And furthermore, whereas a person of mixed or even pure descent from a foreign country can usually eventually integrate themselves fully into European and American countries, you'll never be in a single situation in Japan where people assume you can use chopsticks, or that you can speak Japanese, or that you know to take your shoes off when you enter a room. In every instance where I've ever been asked to show ID, I've never once been asked to show my Japanese Driver's License, it's always the foreign registration card and it will be, always.

When I went to England when I was in high school, we were driving to the airport to go home and we passed a fish and chips store. I hadn't ever had fish and chips before, so I begged my sister to stop and she did. I walked in there, ordered fish and chips and turned away from the counter to walk out of the shop. From out of nowhere, a large, salty looking man-- another customer who was still waiting in line, took my fish and chips, just grabbed them straight out of my hand, and smothered the whole package in vinegar. For a second I thought he was going to eat them himself, but no, he sprayed them with vinegar, until it stained the paper, and then took the big salt shaker next to the vinegar bottle on the trash bin and blanketed my fish and chips in huge, crystalline salt. Then, he shoved the whole soggy package back into my hands and smiled, "That's the way you eat fish and chips," he said, and then added, "if you don't like it, I'll buy ya' another." I took a bite and it was delicious. His foresight saved me from some really dry, mediocre fish and now, years later, when I go drinking and see fish and chips on the menu I always make sure they have vinegar and salt before I order it, all because of some random guy that made my day that day on the way to Heathrow.

That story is a prime example of something that will never, ever, not in a million years happen to you in Japan.

FutureBlues wrote:

I guarantee that you'll find it nearly impossible to form any long-term friendships of any sort, no matter how good your Japanese is, if you come here after you've already grown up.

What a load of horse manure. 

Sorry, but *your* failure to form long-term friendships does not project onto anyone else, let alone everyone else (with your absolutely worthless guarantee, no less).  I came here when I was 43, and my experience is somewhat different.  I assure you that I was "grown up" when I arrived.

The subject line of this thread is absurd, anyway.  There is no "best place in the world" in as much as it would apply to everyone.  We are all different.  Anyone who would assume that the best place for them is going to be the best place for someone they know almost nothing about is rather naive, to say the least.  Can you say jejune?

Japan is wonderful.  Japan is terrible.  It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.

Grow up, people.  Sheesh.

And I apologize for interjecting a much needed note of reality into this scatological nightmare.

I have spent the night at a Japanese friend's house. I can go to a Japanese friend's house for dinner. I have Japanese friends that I share inside jokes with. I have Japanese friends I feel close to. I am married to a Japanese guy and have NEVER felt like I was being treated like a foreigner by my in-laws. They have always been incredibly kind and warm and welcoming. Men and women go out as friends just one on one.

I'm not saying these things to brag but to show that they do happen.