I'm a current US resident with an opportunity to move to Tokyo for work. Residency + employment aren't a problem. I'm ethnically Japanese with a Japanese name, a pretty heavily tattooed young woman, and have some roots over there but my language mastery is currently barely N4 (which isn't a problem for the job itself, but more socially). If I accept this job offer, I would be getting paid in yen, approx 300k a month. I've visited multiple times and lived with family for a few months, albeit not in Tokyo (another large metro).
The benefits to taking the job would be the standard classics of being able to leave the US, lower cost of living, being close to some aging family members, connecting to my roots.
I'm worried about the tradeoffs of being a Japanese-appearing tattooed woman who doesn't have a very good mastery over the language. Every time I've gone in the past, I don't get a "foreigner pass" in social interactions because I look Japanese. I can brush it off for a short trip, but living there full time I feel would be very different.
I'm also concerned about getting paid in yen and wondering if it would be more problematic to my long term financial health, especially if I need to return to the US (I also have family here).
My Japanese parents don't think its worth it, but they're fairly conservative, and only spent a handful of years or so in Japan in the 80s/90s. So I'm really unsure of what the actual temp check is for someone like me!
Does anyone have any experiences or thoughts to share?
by ConsistentPastaSauce