Living in Japan
Want to Move to Japan? — 6 Questions to Carefully Consider First
You deserve to enjoy the best of Japan rather than succumb to bitterness
This is part II of a set of articles about why foreigners who move to Japan end up hating life in the country. To read part one, click here.
In this article, I share six questions you must think through carefully before deciding to move to Japan. Going through the list properly will make you make a better-informed decision.
Most of these questions apply to being an expat anywhere, except the language barrier can be higher than in most places.
As a disclaimer, I want to highlight that I am writing from personal experience and may not fully apply to your situation, so take it with a grain of salt.
#1 Do you know why you want to move to Japan?
Do you want to move to Japan because you visited Japan once or twice on a trip and fell in love with the culture?
Or is it because you have extensively studied the history, culture, and language, and you want to take that understanding to the next level?
As Tamara Mitrofanova tells us, wanting to move to Japan because you love anime is problematic.
Are you moving to Japan because you have created an image of Japan in your mind, and you believe that moving to Japan will give you something you are missing in your life?
Or do you like the adventure of discovering and living in a new place, learning everything about the culture?
In other words, do you know why you are moving to Japan?
There are many good reasons to move to Japan. I moved to Japan because I wanted to level up my Japanese language. Some of the reasons why I stay:
The beauty of the four seasons and the natural landscape (I am from Singapore), the spirit of craftsmanship, excellent customer service, high quality of food and produce.
Not to forget the more mundane aspects: safety, great healthcare coverage, well-maintained public infrastructure, reasonable cost of living (although rent can be very expensive in Tokyo), people’s civic-mindedness, and the network of friends that I’ve made in Japan.
#2 Are you aware of the opportunities and costs?
Still, you need to be aware of the type of work opportunities available to you. Without a native (or highly fluent) command of the Japanese language, the type of jobs that are available to foreigners are limited at best.
English teaching (or foreign language teaching) is a perennially popular choice, but the pay is not fantastic. According to anecdotal evidence on forums like Reddit, the monthly income is capped at around 300,000 yen.
Since the Japanese yen has crashed to the rate of around 130 USD/JPY, that’s only around 2300 USD per month.
Other alternatives for non-Japanese speakers are in recruiting focusing on English-speaking candidates hiring for foreign firms (gaishikei), but the sales-driven nature of the job may not be a good fit for most.
There are also other jobs in tech and software, but as I have written elsewhere, having technical skills is not sufficient. Japanese companies continue to prioritize language skills.
Unless one can get a position at American tech companies like Google or at Amazon where English is usually sufficient, Japanese language ability will still be critical to securing a job in Japan.
If one is bilingual in English and Japanese (able to hold meetings, prepare documents, and make presentations in Japanese), then more doors open to you. Still, you’re not being hired solely for your language skills. Having experience in specific industries is still critical to getting the job.
It is also important to understand that the average salary in Japan is not high. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s Overview of the 2019 National Living Basic Survey, the average household income before tax is 5.55 million yen (approximately 42,700 USD at current exchange rates). The average income in Japan before tax is 4.33 million yen (approximately 33,300 USD).
You also need to take into account all the hidden costs — the taxes, social security, and healthcare insurance payments that you’ll be making — as well as the cost of rent and daily living.
Of course, if you are in the enviable position of receiving an expatriate package, then this point may not apply to you.
#3 Are you able and willing to learn the Japanese language?
One of the biggest problems that foreigners face in Japan is the Japanese language.
Please don’t expect most Japanese people to be able to speak English to you, even conversationally. That is not likely.
Not being able to communicate in the language of Japan gives you a severe handicap in day-to-day life and at the workplace. Japanese is not the world’s simplest language to learn.
Forget about the ads on Facebook telling you that you can master Japanese in two months. Harsh truth — no, you won’t.
Still, a little is better than nothing. Commitment is key.
I have come across people who have lived in Japan for a decade or more without knowing more than a splattering of Japanese phrases. To be honest, I don’t really know how that is possible. It would severely limit the world you experience and defeat the purpose of being in Japan.
How would you feel? —Most likely, you’d feel alone, isolated, unable to express yourself.
#4 Are you interested in meeting local people?
It’s not easy living in a foreign country. You need a local support network.
Meet Japanese people. Talk to them. Understand what makes Japan tick.
Some aspects of Japan will be difficult to understand and appreciate without interacting with people.
Once people open up to you, you get more direct cultural insight, and that builds a positive feedback loop for you to deepen your cultural understanding.
Those that never acquire a decent level of conversational Japanese will likely stay exclusively within the expat community. That is a viable alternative if one just wants to get by without committing to learning the language.
But you will have a very stunted view of how Japan operates.
#5 Can you manage your expectations?
Ultimately, much of it boils down to expectations.
No matter how well integrated you are in Japan — unless you’ve taken the step to naturalize — you are a guest in Japan. But being an outsider is not necessarily a bad thing, since the Japanese are some of the most hospitable people in the world.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, foreigners were also entitled to payouts of 100,000 JPY (about 1000 USD) from the Japanese government (source: own experience).
Of course, this was a stimulus program designed to get money into the hands of local businesses, and the more that is spent the better for the people. But even if it is just a token gesture, this shows the growing awareness on the part of the government that foreigners in Japan are here to stay.
This is not to say that there isn’t any discrimination. There is discrimination against foreigners.
According to a 2017 survey on internationalization and citizen participation by Associate Professor Kikuko Nagayoshi at the University of Tokyo, over 60% of the 3,880 respondents said that a rise in the number of immigrants would “lead to a spike in crime rates” and “jeopardize security and order.”
As a foreigner of Chinese ethnic descent, I can, for the most part, blend into Japanese society. I do not stick out so visibly in Japan. Others are not so lucky.
In other cases, especially in rural areas, “othering” is still a problem, as Diane Neill Tincher mentions in her story.
On another occasion, a European friend told me that he sometimes feels that people are intimidated by him. People avoid sitting next to him on the trains, especially if there are other seats available.
Although these are anecdotes, it points to an underlying tension and discomfort with otherness.
Discrimination happens everywhere (even in multicultural Singapore where I am from), and it happens in Japan. Just because a country is known to be polite does not make its people immune to racism and discrimination.
#6 Can you be objective about Japan?
When you’ve lived here long enough, you’ll learn to appreciate the small details of Japanese culture. And you’ll stop judging it. To live in Japan long term to accept Japan as it is, warts and all.
You’ll need to be objective about that.
You’ll also need to be objective about your home culture. Nostalgia for our homes can often cloud our judgment.
If you’re seriously considering moving to Japan, you can learn more by checking out my various writings on Japan, which document various aspects of living in the country.
I don’t claim to be the single source of truth, but I do hope that my writings help to shed some light on what you might expect to face if you decide to move to the land of the rising sun.
Take note, what I’ve written above will not fully apply if one has been sent to Japan on a short-term expatriate assignment.
Still, if that is the enviable position you are in, please don’t end up hating Japan before it’s time to go home.
Japan is a beautiful country with a lot of things to love — physical beauty, the spirit of craftsmanship, the high quality of food, excellent customer service, medical healthcare coverage, safety, and well-maintained public infrastructure. The civic-mindedness of people is also underrated.
More importantly, I have a network of friends, and I have a job that lets me contribute to society.
If you decide to move to Japan, I hope you can find your own reasons to stay.
Final Thoughts — My Advice If You Really Want to Move to Japan
- Know what you’re moving to Japan for.
- Weigh your opportunities and costs.
- Commit to learning the Japanese language.
- Meet local people, get to know them, and become an insider.
- Manage your expectations.
- Learn to see the good and bad sides of Japan objectively.
©Alvin T. 2022
Update: An earlier version of this article wrote that the average salary in Japan was 5.5 million JPY. This was incorrect and has been corrected to 4.3 million JPY.
The author is an editor of Japonica and also writes on a wide variety of topics. His key topics are society, culture, modern work, and cryptocurrency, with the occasional fictional story, creative piece, or reflective essay. Discover his most-read stories here.
If these topics interest you, consider subscribing to receive new stories from the author via e-mail.
