Slashdot Mirror
Jobs in Japan?
Trak asks: "I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture and would love to spend a few years living there. Making a long story, short: my wife just left and I've got some savings, so I'm considering the move. I have a some jobs here in The States that I could rely on for telecommuting work, but I'd rather find a job there in The Land of the Rising Sun. Any advice on where to look and what to pursue? Any horror stories? I've done it all from System Admin to Programming to CTO, so I'm open to just about anything that's available, I just don't know where to begin looking. Thanks."
Japan is a very interesting place to live, and I personally love it there. One job that you could almost definitely get would be an English teacher, if all else fails or if you just need something to do until you can find a better job. As far as SysAdmin type work, Sony is HUGE in Japan, as is DoCoMo. If you could score a job with either of these companies, you'd be set. The other thing to remember about Japan is that company loyalty is highly valued, so don't count on skipping out on a job working for a company. You can do it, but it's looked down upon and you'll surely not want that.
Great! Now you can do reviews of anime on-site for /.! Get packing.
fj.life.in-japan might be a good place on to ask this question moreso then in slashdot.
From what I've heard, don't live in Tokyo. The people of Tokyo itself are extremely xenophobic, and there are many places where foreigners are "not allowed". I also have heard that things become much better once you leave the city, and go out into the country, or to other cities. (This is all secondhand, but I've heard the same thing from multiple sources.)
(And it couldn't hurt to scan google groups.)
http://www.escapeartist.com/japan/japan.htm
Escape Artist magazine is a resource for people seeking expatriate employment, or for a new place to live.
This site usually has many links to Japan based job opportunities.
http://www.1-allusjobs.com/default.asp
Hope that helps!
Knightfall
I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture
Translation: "I have 230GB of tentacle rape hentai."
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Reading between the lines -- the answer to the question you really want to ask is "Yeah, you will." Is Gas Panic still in business?
Seriously, though, getting a job there is a good idea. Getting paid in yen makes life there much more affordable, but more importantly, the workplace is such a central part of Japanese culture that you'll be missing out on an enormous amount by telecommuting. Also, when starting out, go someplace that has a sizeable foreign staff. They'll be a crucial lifeline for the first few months.
I did the bonehead English teacher route (in Nagoya) so can't advise about IT jobs but I did have a blast there.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I used to work in the Embassy in Tokyo -- I was an intern, but I know they have lots of work to do. It was a great job, and there are lots of nationals that work there, to help you get into the culture.
As a non-Japanese, you must have a proper visa to work in Japan. To get a visa, of course, you must already have a job. Basically this means you have to find some company that finds your talents worth going through a lot of government red tape, rather than just hiring a Japanese.
(Note: Yes, it's possible to work in Japan without a visa, but it usually involves "entertainment"-type jobs such as bar host(ess)ing, stripping, or English conversation teaching).
The English-language newspaper the Japan Times (they have a website, too) has a classified section every Monday. You might consider arriving on a Sunday night, picking up a Japan Times on Monday (they sell them at big bookstores and many larger train stations), and start calling around. I did this a couple of years ago, and got several interviews. Most places can probably interview you in Osaka or Tokyo, even if it's for a job is for elsewhere.
As I recall, programmers were the most in demand among IT workers. Unix admin skills seemed pretty highly valued as well.
One final piece of advice: be prepared to make multiple trips. You may get an interview, return home, and then then called back to Japan for a second interview (happened to me).
Anyway, I lived in Japan for over 3 years (Tokyo and Sapporo), mainly as a student, and found it a fascinating experience and a great place to live.
Hope this helps.
Making a long story, short: my wife just left and...
...i want to find me a japanese girlfriend
seriously, one way to start off on the right foot is to avoid terrible cliches such as 'the land of the rising sun' - yes, i know nihonkoku translates roughly to land of the sun's origin - but this moniker sounds james-clavellish-kitschy and very tired
- as bad as calling australia 'down under' or perhaps the usa 'the land of the imperialist warmongers'
finally, i wish you luck on your journey
- they say that travel broadens the mind
Learning the Japanese culture is a BIG intellectual challenge.
You will always be "gai-jin", a negative term the Japanese have for anyone who is not exactly like them.
A quick google search to get you started.
Japan is overcrowded. Because of that and because of cultural issues it will be VERY difficult for you to immigrate without a job already lined up, and because of said cultural issues; companies aren't exactly lining up to go through the trouble of helping.
One thing that seems to be steady is the fact that they do tend to like foreigners to teach secondary and tertiary languages if you're adept with non-anime japanese.
In a nutshell, from what I can tell from over here in the USA, our economy has things good compared to what they're dealing with in Japan.
From what I've read in the Wall Street Journal for the past few years, Japan is in the midst of a long recession. Layoffs have started to be implemented. Banks' financials are shaky and their central bank has pretty much exhausted what they can do (they've got their borrowing rate down to almost zero percent -- can't stimulate the economy much more than that!) Come to think of it, I recall they're actually in a depression -- people are putting off purchases, now, because they'll be cheaper, later. So businesses are starved for income and cut prices to drum up business; lather, rinse, repeat.
I'm not saying you shouldn't go, but I most certainly would advise you to take a long, hard look before you leap.
One thing I didn't notice in your post is how knowledgeable you are with their language? There are 4 parts to learning a foreign language: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I studied German in High School and am still able to get by with the reading and speaking, but listening was hard (different intonations and accents) as was the writing (like programminng in a language I didn't know too well.) At least German uses basically the same alphabet as English (with the addition of some umlauts -- the two little dots over vowels). Japanese -- you need to learn a whole new alphabet, let alone the vocabulary and grammar. You've got your work cut out for you. And, if you've never learned any language other than English, doubly so. It was a real struggle to learn German in high school -- it was a whole new way of thinking. It's not like I'd think of what I wanted to say in English and do a literal translation! I had to learn to THINK in German. But, having done that, it's much easier for me to learn another language. I am now in the process of teaching myself ancient Greek and it's so much easier because I've already learned how to learn a language.
In the interim, have you given some thought to going over there for a month or two of vacation? Then you'd have a chance to get a real feel for what things are like over there. You may well find "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." But, having spent some time over there, you'll have some great experience that you can leverage should you decide to come back. I can assure you, you'll not see the world in the same way again! I was fortunate to have had a job that paid me to work for a week or two in 5 different countries in Europe. It truly broadened my horizons!
It's good you are soliciting feedback and I hope you are able to garner useful information from people who have actually lived there. So, here's wishing you the best of luck in whatever you decide.
P.S. One last thing: practice using chopsticks. =)
I don't know about Japan, but I just read that he'll be delivering the opening keynote address for Macworld Expo/San Francisco 2003.
More like Judge Ito was an important judge in the U.S. during the O.J. Simpson trial, but there has never been a European judge in Japan.
If you don't speak Japanese, don't expect that you can get an IT job easily. I went to the first Slashdot meetup in Tokyo and everyone was looking for a new job and having a tough time finding one. The foreign financials (i.e. Merrill Lynch, etc.) are good places to work but they all have budget problems right now. Most American firms have repatriated their R&D and localization so there's little demand there for English speakers or developers. Working as an IT specialist inside a Japanese corporation requires that you speak Japanese.
I must ask a few things. First how do you pronounce 'Fukuoka'? The first 4 letters seem to stick out.
Where does the 'small town' come from? I live in London, Ontario, Canada. It is what I consider a medium sized city of 330k people. So it is weird for me to see small town being 1 million people. I am thinking of going to a small city (90k ppl) when I move on.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
I liked this from the article you linked:
"Tsurunen's candidacy aroused considerable media attention, and his relatively narrow defeats each time marked him out as a serious contender. It is perhaps hard for us to grasp the significance of his achievement, as most European countries, and this includes even relatively isolated and homogeneous Finland, are a good deal more multiculturally-inclined than Japan."
Go there for a month and have a blast and come back here to work is probably your best bet. I've been enamored with Japanese culture myself from time to time, which started when I was dating an Americanized Japanese girl when I lived in Singapore.
While Japanese people and culture and fascinating, and it would be wonderful to be a part of it, the problem is you never will be. You were born an outsider and you will die one, even if you master the language and the subtleties of social interaction.
While I respect them and their culture a great deal, please understand that at their core they're among the most racist cultures around. You'll never really have true respect among them, although they'll certainly be polite to you if you're trying. They have some good reasons for their arrogance, but being from the west I would imagine their inability to do anything but look down on you will eventually turn you off.
11*43+456^2
I must ask a few things. First how do you pronounce 'Fukuoka'? The first 4 letters seem to stick out..
FU KEW OH KA
Where does the 'small town' come from? I live in London, Ontario, Canada. It is what I consider a medium sized city of 330k people. So it is weird for me to see small town being 1 million people. I am thinking of going to a small city (90k ppl) when I move on.
Tokyo has over 50 million people living in it. I know the Atlas say something like 12, but that's becuase the city itself extends beyond it's own borders (Technically, Tokyo is no actually a "city", it's more like what we would refer to as maybe a county. It has lots of little cities inside it, but they have ONG since merged into one mass.)
So, when you are dealing with citties on that scale, 1m is peanuts.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Or talk to an international head hunter like Robert Half. Most of the big job sites like Dice and Monster have listings for other countries as well.
Also try talking to HR at Fortune 500 companies which have offices overseas. They're usually thrilled to find knowledgeable people who actually want to travel.
We're looking for anybody who's good at making games, mainly seriously good animators and programmers right now.
We're based in Kyoto, Japan and are both english and japanese speaking.
The Japanese govt runs the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme which places foreigners in teaching and "Coordinator for International Relations" posts with Japanese universities, schools and organisations for a year. Salary, travel and accommodation is all arranged by the programme. My gf used to work for the company that ran it in the UK, and many of her colleagues had been on it and all loved it.
Well, for starters, read about these poor souls who got stranded over there. I don't think they've managed to get home yet...
They have a pretty extensive journal, I suggest starting at the beginning.
-Jeff
I must ask a few things. First how do you pronounce 'Fukuoka'? The first 4 letters seem to stick out..
FU KEW OH KA
I think that, for a lot of people, that pronunciation would be unclear as well.
FOO KOO OH KA..To get the vowel sounds right, try saying You Two Go Blah. Don't elongate the vowel sounds, though - They're meant to be short.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
It may be hard to believe, but this is worse.
There are very few people of European descent in important positions in Japan. It is a cultural thing, I think, not a genetic thing. There is great difficulty in learning the culture well enough to be considered one of them.