JAPAN | WORKING IN JAPAN

How I Moved to Japan at the Age of 31 without Being an English Teacher

The path was not easy and required some major sacrifices early on in my life.

Whenever I tell people back home in Singapore that I live and work in Japan, people become somewhat envious of me — at least superficially. But I have sacrificed a lot to walk this path, and it’s not one that I can recommend to many.

Quite a number of those who move to Japan initially do so through the path of teaching English. For many, based on my experience, there are only 3 exit plans — continue to teach English, move on to recruiting (usually for foreign companies in Japan), or go home.

Unfortunately, English teaching in Japan is not particularly highly valued. As Rahil C., shares in his piece “Why I’m Leaving Japan,” his annual salary in Japan as an English teacher on the JET program is only 3,600,000 yen (before tax) which converts to USD 24,758 at current exchange rates (USD/JPY = 145).

The alternative — apart from becoming an entrepreneur — is to pursue a regular corporate career in Japan. Obviously, this is fraught with difficulties that make it extremely difficult for Japanese people — let alone foreigners — to succeed.

If you are keen to move to Japan and make a life out of it, I hope the path I have taken can be of reference to you. A major caveat though — it requires extremely long-term planning, networking, sacrifice, and even a bit of luck to fully execute.

Step 1: Study Japanese in your youth — preferably before you enter the workforce.

My affair with the Japanese language began relatively late — at least when we are talking about language learning. Based on the latest psychological linguistic studies — albeit based on English — a group of researchers concluded that to become native-like in a language, one needs to learn the target language by the age of 10, at or latest by 18 to be reasonably fluent. After that, there is a steep decline in acquisition potential.

I started learning Japanese at the age of 20. A little bit too old, if we’re to go by these researchers’ conclusions. But if living and working in Japan long term (or anywhere else in the world where the working language is not your native tongue) is what you want to do, it’s better to start earlier than later.

In my experience from prowling online forums like Reddit, and even LinkedIn, many foreigners avoid studying Japanese formally. And even if they do decide to study it, they don’t appear to want to commit fully to it.

For instance, on Instagram, where “teacher-influencers” have become popular, many learners often ask for Romanized Japanese text in videos. A thread on LinkedIn discussed the merits of studying Japanese with kanji — as if this should ever even be a thing!

My advice: Do or do not — there is no try. If you’re interested to dive into the intricacies of the Japanese language, please check out my articles here.

Step 2: Network with people that can potentially land you a job in Japan or at a Japanese company.

I had begun looking into career opportunities in Japan well before completing my graduate studies. I sought out Japanese recruitment agencies that ran career forums and other programs. Through one of them, I even visited Japan as part of a fully funded career forum. Seek these out. Being part of a Japanese language and career community helps.

I was lucky that my university was attractive to Japanese companies. For that reason, job forums and talks were often held at my university. In one of them, I met an HR professional who eventually got me a job at a Japanese company in Singapore. It was that particular job that finally got me into Japan — let’s call that Company A.

Take note: Networking within a professional Japanese context often involves alcohol. Drinking is not mandatory, but as things go in Japan, it doesn’t hurt your career to drink. Be mindful of the health risks and always drink in moderation, though I cannot say I have always taken my own advice to heart.

Step 3: Join a Japanese company in your country that ideally has programs to send you to work in Japan.

A major reason why I decided to join Company A was the internal transfer program. Work for three years, and then I would have the opportunity to work in headquarters in Tokyo.

Honestly? It was a major slog. I had to accept a much lower salary compared to what my peers were receiving. Plus, I also had to accept working conditions and a job role (sales and marketing!) that were probably not optimal for my MBTI personality type (yes, INTP!).

Throughout my 3.5 years of working at Company A in Singapore, I continued to look out for opportunities to get employed directly in Tokyo — but they never did work out. My trips to Japan were often too short to arrange for interviews, and the fact that I was not physically in Japan with a valid visa probably made me a less attractive candidate.

It’s safe to say that without that earlier career sacrifice, I would have probably never moved to Japan in the first place. It turned out that the longer path was the shortest one.

Step 4: Make sure you pass the JLPT N1 at some point. Preferably before moving to Japan.

Oh yes, the much-dreaded Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) that every Japanese language learner will need to deal with at some. Is it a good measure of your Japanese language ability? No. Is it a must? No. Is it good to have? Definitely.

Most employers are going to want JLPT N2, at the least. Achieving the highest level of N1 is not a guarantee of Japanese language fluency — but it shows the employer that you’ve committed to studying the language. Having it is better than not having it.

Even though I passed the JLPT N1 even before I arrived in Tokyo, to be sure, it was just the bare minimum to even get started. As I detailed in my account of how I passed the test, “the only test that mattered was real-life usage.”

Step 5: Maintain your mental health, don’t succumb to workplace toxicity, and look out for new opportunities.

Much has been written about the excessive overwork that Japanese companies are infamous for, and I won’t go into too much detail. When I first moved to Japan, I too, underwent the punishing regime of relentless overtime work.

If you plan on staying long-term, your first gig shouldn’t be your last. It’s important to continue to improve your Japanese skills and develop your networks. Continue to connect with professionals and recruiters — your journey has only begun.

I was lucky enough to have been scouted by another company in Tokyo. At first, I thought it would be risky, and even felt guilty for wanting to betray the company that had kick-started my career in Japan. But ultimately, I’m glad I chose to move to a different company.

Japanese culture tends to valorize staying a lifetime at one company — it’s even easier to get a mortgage if you have a stable job at a major firm. But even then, times are changing, and every time I take the metro, I’m bombarded by recruitment agency ads.

As your situation evolves, it doesn’t hurt to keep your options open.

Q&A: Foreign Companies vs Japanese Companies?

I worked in a Japanese company in my home country before transferring to the headquarters in Japan. Yet, there is another path: working in a non-Japanese firm and then getting an overseas posting to the Japanese office.

This is a path I have not walked and cannot advise on the merits of that. Working in Japanese companies will accelerate your cultural learning and even boost your mastery of honorific language. It will tune your mind and enhance your awareness of the intricacies of Japanese communicative rituals. I daresay some of these rituals are less obvious in so-called foreign firms in Japan.

Indeed, according to a consultant who used to work in Tokyo, many foreign companies can be more “Japanese” than Japanese firms, particularly in very traditional B2B-based companies (consulting and financial services and other legacy firms).

Another option is to look at tech firms in Japan. Japan faces a shortage of tech workers, and consequently, more tech firms in Japan have begun to embrace English as the official language. For these companies, Japanese language proficiency is usually not a requirement. If one is not prepared to commit to learning Japanese and figuring out the complex Japanese norms, seeking out these tech firms maybe be an option.

Be warned though —in the past couple of years, many big Japanese companies announced lofty English language ambitions, only to have to roll back on some of their more ambitious “Englishnization” goals. Perhaps the situation is more optimistic at smaller software-focused firms.

Is Japan Really for You?

So far, I’ve avoided talking about the feeling of “being an outsider” that many foreigners seem to comment on. I’m lucky since I’m ethnically Chinese and I don’t look very different from the average person on the streets of Ginza. Even simple things like a rice-based diet or seeing Chinese characters are extremely mundane to someone from within the East Asian cultural sphere.

So, feeling like an outsider is not something that I’ve felt as keenly compared to some other observers. Your mileage may vary. That being said, like many foreigners, I’ve experienced the difficulty of renting in Japan which Vicky goes into detail about in her article The Unique Challenges of Renting in Japan.

In contrast to the more common narrative — leaving one’s home country to teach English in Japan on the JET program — the path I took was a lot more calculated, and I had to make major sacrifices to see it through. It’s certainly not for everyone. But if you’re still young (still in college or university), it might just work. Good luck, and all the best.

If you have any thoughts or comments, drop them in the comments below. I’ll try my best to answer.

© Alvin T. 2023

Want to know more about working in Japan? Discover more in my “Working in Japan” series of articles in the link below.

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