r/movingtojapan • u/Lina0116 • 2d ago
General What is it like?
So, I'm a producer and project manager for advertisement and e-commerce. Been in this industry for almost 10 years. I do have a BA.
Been living all over the world for the past 13 years, and relatively recently I settled in the Netherlands. This past year my industry hasn't been doing great and have meen having a hard time in general when suddenly the travel bug hit me again. The same one that had made me move and live in different countries; and for some reason this time it got it's sights in Japan.
So, lately I've been thinking about life, my career, what I want to do... I don't even know where I'm going or if I should keep on doing whar I'm doing so I wanted to learn of other people's perspectives.
What got you into Japan? What was the thing that made you say "this is the place I want to be at"? Did you move with the career you already have or did you flipped your life completely to do something completely new? I've seen some people say that they left everything and moved to Japan without a concrete plan or to start from scratch but I'm sceptical about that, I don't really think that's possible, unless specific conditions are met? Maybe I'm wrong?
How did you do that? How hard was it? Did you already speak Japanese or did you learn it there?
I'm married, my husband is a barista, so what I was thinking is that probably I would have to find a job and get him on a spousal visa? Maybe not and it would be easier for him to get a job? Maybe there are other ways? We're both European, btw, I know a lot of the times nationality matters to make things easier or harder.
I would really like to try living there at least a year, really immerse myself in general. See what it's really like. I like being able to say that I lived in X or Y country, especially when I bump into people from those places in another country. I love the experience of being somewhere else.
Anything you can tell me about your experiences and what you know would be amazing!
Just a note before anyone comes at me (because I've seen it happen a lot whenever someone says that they want to move to another country) I am not actively trying to move at this precise moment, I'm currently not taking any steps towards it or started any processes yet. It's something that came to mind, I started pondering it and thought maybe... therefore I decided to ask those who have been able to do it. I don't like just jumping at something without an actual plan behind it, otherwise it's just a recipe for disaster.
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u/Flat-Cut-1133 2d ago
I can’t answer everything but you can’t get a spousal visa as neither of you are a Japanese national. In your case for work it would be significantly harder to find a job in that specific field, you also need a jlpt 2 minimum or N1 to even get your foot in the door unless you target English speaking companies (not really knowledgable on if it exists in Japan for your work type). If your husband doesn’t have a BA etc. then he’d need to go to a senmo gakko? something like that and study a specific course or get a bachelors. < research more about that as there’s pros and cons to each route
You can experience Japan on a WHV and that allows you to work in Japan part time? And experience the culture basically - so I’d suggest you and/or your husband do a WHV for a year to see if it’s something you can accustom yourself too and be in long term
Side tip: you should do some research on if you’d be able to land a job in your specific field and how competitive it is before you think about moving. As lots of English speaking jobs have serious competition