Out of pure curiousity, Im wondering if people here did trial runs of Japan before moving longer term?
This will probably apply more to people with access to the WH visa or those who enrolled to a language school for 3-6 months, or even a year.
Im curious if this is a good approach, as the decision of moving to another country is a big decision, regardless of what you know about the country.
by Adept-Objective-1066
14 comments
If you have access to Working Holiday, this can be a good way to do it. Otherwise there aren’t a lot of good options for this, because the experience of being a student is very different from working here.
That’s the main problem. You can go on extended vacations in Japan, you can study in Japan for 3-6 months, but none of that really gives you an accurate impression of what living and working in Japan will be like.
And lots of people dont have access to the Working Holiday visa, anyway. In the end, you can check very basic compatibility things about Japan with a vacation (do you like the food / weather?). Then, you just have to jump in and give it a shot.
My best advice is to come here knowing that it’s fine if you want to leave in a year or two. Don’t burn any bridges back home and keep an open mind, you may decide on a different country to move to or you may decide to move back home. No better way to try than to just try.
I suggest anyone who wants to move to Japan try to work there before making any decisions. Without this your knowledge of Japanese society will be incomplete.
Generally this is seen as a good idea. The more data you can get, the better— and staying for a longer time (especially NOT in vacation mode) will help you evaluate the situation.
In my case, we had never even visited & moved as a family of 4 a few short months after I landed a job… it worked out great for us, but people generally think that’s dumb and/or risky 😆
We were fine with the knowledge that we might decide to go back home after a year or two if necessary (in fact, the original plan was to only stay in JP for 2 years) and we had a house/savings/family back in the US in case we needed to do so.
I didn’t even had money to travel outside of my state in my home country, Japan was an unthinkable dream.
I had sort of started my business in the states. I had done a 1-month stay in Tokyo as a “market study” kinda thing (technically it was just a vacation) 12 years ago and learned enough to come to a decision to move here.
Sold everything back home and made the move. Ultimately, it was worth it, but things change once you get here, because you’re faced with things that were impossible to face before making it official (i.e. Family separation, Bank applications, job searching, tax work, healthcare, pension, apartment hunting, etc…). It’s hard when you do it alone and don’t speak the language, too.
So, it’s very possible to do what you want, but you need to be really committed to the idea. It’s a lot of work. Don’t fail yourself if you attempt it.
I studied abroad living with a home stay for a year, which was a really good introduction into living in Japan and gave me a good insight for what my life would look like.
Just moved back to the US after 11 months. I was planning on staying. Quit my US job. Well tried to, but the compensation bump and other things definitely seduced me and decided to move back to the stays for max 2 years
PS: wife is japanese so I get access to spouse visa
Yes, but not with the intention of moving to Japan. I’ve always been in a Japan-related field so I did a six week language program in Japan, and then returned for a 2 year research stint. However, I never really wanted to live in Japan permanently.
That changed when I got a job offer and then decided to move my family here. I’m glad I did a couple of shorter periods first to have a better idea of moving here permanently would be a good plan.
Nope I got married then moved I didn’t have any expectations and don’t really watch anime but I knew a chunk of Japanese from just talking to the wifey and history because I’m a nerd
Nah, you can’t know until you do.
There are some basic things to research and understand before going. But after that you won’t know if you really like it long term until you have lived there long term.
Don’t be afraid to do something you don’t like. The worse case scenario is you get there and after a month or two decide you don’t like it… and then spend another however long just dealing with it. Not the end of the world.
Nope. I had been there a few times on vacation, but that was it.
Nope. Spent 10+ years researching obsessively over it (both the good and bad, to try and get some sort of averaged out picture of life there).
Eventually I took everything I had (financially), and went to a full time language school in Tokyo.
Been here for 9.5 years now, I’m also married to a local. Unless there’s some geopolitical or economy based reason, I don’t plan to leave either.
Full disclaimer: I haven’t made my permanent move yet, I can’t vouch for the efficacy of these methods in confidence yet and I invite discourse as to elements of residency these don’t account for, these are just the things I did to familiarize myself before moving. Until you’re a resident, you can’t get a full grasp of what it’s going to be like living there full time. Before my partner and I decided to push for me to move to Japan vice her coming to my country (easier for a number of reasons specific to our situation), my trial runs looked like this:
– I took regular visits, some as short as a week, some as long as 3, and made sure to come at least once in every season to get a feel for the weather around where I’d be relocating to (You definitely want to have an idea of what summer and winter extremes are like). I took these visits as frequently as possible (Limited by PTO) until I reached the point where I was approaching COE processing and then I refrained to simplify that process.
– I stayed at her apartment instead of a hotel. Instead of eating out every night, I made trips to the grocery store, bought groceries by myself, cooked at home, took the trash out. Went with her on her commutes to and from work. We also sat down together and went over how things work like utilities, phone service, registering at city hall, etc.
– While these were ultimately vacations, she was working most weekdays, and instead of doing standard touristy things during these trips, I tried to stay local to the area, familiarize myself with things like markets and general stores, do the sorts of things she would do with her time during the week instead of staying around tourist areas, bars, clubs, etc.
There’s a little more but I think those are the big things that really helped me build confidence. I guess we’ll see how effective my preparation really was in the coming months, but I feel pretty good about things so far.
Came here with a Working Holiday visa after graduating from high school and while I didn’t have the intention of fully moving here or even doing a trial run, this year most definitely left me yearning for Japan. Made the decision to fully move here all the more easy, too. I don’t think I would’ve ever committed to moving to another continent without having lived there first.