Exodus from Japan

I’ve heard that many young Japanese people are considering the option of working abroad because of the dimming prospect of Japanese economy and the uncertainty of Japan’s future (also widely shared feeling of stuck in the mud). Especially for Japanese IT engineers who suffer from too long working hours and less income than American counterparts, moving to another country where the future economic prospect is better will be appealing. There are many web sites that will tell you generic information about how to find a job outside of Japan. I would like to talk about how I got out of Japan.


After I graduated from college, I worked for a Japanese subsidiary of an American firm. About 20 years ago, I found an opportunity to work at the HQ in America. After working 2 years or so as an “on loan” staff, I officially transferred to the HQ. I got my green card and citizenship. Later I started to work for another major US corporation. It may appear to be an easy transition of “bubble generation” guy, but it wasn’t always easy.


The first challenge was English communication. Even thought I passed Step test 1st class (Eiken ikkyu) and regularly watched American shows since high school, it was still challenging to conduct business in English with coworkers (mostly grew up in the US) in my first year. That was a humbling experience for a man who was always good at English in schools (when Japanese schools teach English like Latin it’s not totally surprising though).


One day my manger suggested that I should take training to correct English pronunciations which I did. I went to speech therapy sessions for non native speakers at a university for a year. That place had a very orthodox training. They started from practicing vowel and consonant sounds. Then they moved to practicing the pronunciations of words and phrases. After that I took another course that was focusing on rhythms and intonations for another year. That helped me speaking English a lot. I recommend Japanese people who didn’t grow up in the US to take English pronunciation courses.


Another challenge was the INS (now called CIS: Citizenship and Immigration Services) paper works. I was working for a large American firm and married with a US citizen, but I was compelled to hire my immigration lawyer. A friend of mine got really upset because INS lost the petitions for his foreign born wife and had to wait for extra years. It is sad, but not surprising.


One Japanese immigrant said: People asked me what it takes to live and work in a foreign country. They asked me “is it a language skill or a business skill?” I said “a working visa”. You need a permission to simply stand on the foreign soil.