Hi everyone!!
I’ll just start out by saying I won’t posture anything; more or less I feel ignorant to this whole process. That’s why I’m here!
I am 26F with an unmarried partner, 27M, and a son. We all have American citizenship. We don’t have any degrees, but I am a licensed tattoo artist and my partner has been in the restaurant/food industry for 12 years at this point. We are both N5 right now and our continuing our Japanese language studies.
I am well aware that tattoo artists don’t qualify for the artist visa routes, and immigrating to the country as an artist is extremely difficult. That being said, I am in contact with a studio owner by the military base in Okinawa who has expressed extreme interest in me. She says that since they are located by the base they get a lot of business. I understand immigrating as a business manager to open my own shop might be a marginally better option, but I’d really like to be in an established shop so I can build clientele since I’ll be wholly new to the country.
My biggest goal at the moment is to travel to Okinawa first to do a guest spot at her studio as I’ve never been, and basically scope out the area for my family and the opportunities that might be afforded to us.
I’m mostly just trying to figure out the most feasible options. My current line of thinking is that if I apply for the student visa to attend language school, I could be allotted the 28h of work. I’ve read that Japan has a shortage of restaurant workers, so with his experience my partner would be able to apply for the SSW visa to work in a restaurant when he reaches the language qualifications? We’re also not adverse to getting married if it’ll help one or the other with a spousal visa.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading in all sorts of avenues, looking on the JP Immigration site, lurking on this subreddit, and also reading up in Amerexit (although the sub feels like anything not European gets negged…)
Anyways ! As the flair suggests, I’m really just hoping for any advice or feedback I can get on the logistics of our plans. If you’ve read this far thank you in advance!!!
by throwaway_35798615