Time flies when you’re having fun, and this has certainly been the case for the last twelve months. It was just 366 days ago that I moved from Canada’s Eco-City of Vancouver to Kakamigahara in Japan and, while still a rookie in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. The people here are great. The food is amazing. The country is relatively peaceful. And, above all else, my wife and her family lives here.
There are some interesting differences, though. One of them involves an odd assignment many foreigners must complete before submitting a resume or job application to a company: writing an essay about why we want to live and work in Japan. This simple assignment was considered to be just as important when applying to a job as a post-secondary education and a willingness to do things the “Japanese Way.” So, to mark the first anniversary of living in Japan (and living with my Reiko), I thought it would only be appropriate to write something along these lines. The difference, however, will be that I will not use gross generalizations or try to impress anyone by kissing ass and sounding like some innocent high school graduate who has yet to learn that the world is not quite the way they had imagined.
It’s Been One Year, So Why Japan?
I’ve lost count of how many foreigners I’ve met who are just counting the days before returning to their home countries. In many cases, these people miss their friends and family, while others have come to realize that this country is just not for them. Many expected to stay for a year, but are shocked to say it’s been three, five, seven or more. Some have become frustrated with the Japanese method for completing even the most trivial of tasks, while others have decided to move on as they see no sunny future. Regardless of the reason, I’ll fully support a person’s opinion on the matter as it’s theirs to have. If the costs outweigh the benefits, then it’s time to move on.
That said, in the year since my arrival, I’ve found quite a few (potentially lucrative) business opportunities worth pursuing. I’ll admit that Japanese laws (mainly the tax side of it) have stood in the way of a few things I wanted to try but, at the end of the day, the only thing standing between me and a financially secure future is my Japanese language skills. There are still a number of possible ventures to try, though, all of which can lead to an early retirement.
So Why “Teach” English?
Okay, I’ll admit that helping others with their English language skills was not exactly what I had in mind when I had moved to Japan. Just the thought of representing yet another stereotype did not appeal to me, nor did the requirement to use English the proper way (something that I often fail to do when I’m feeling particularly creative). However, after nearly ten months of the work, I think it’s benefited me more than it has the people I’ve worked with. Not only do I have a greater appreciation for the logic behind the language (something I failed to truly appreciate while studying it in school), but I have a much better grasp of the rules and structures required when putting pen to paper, so to speak. If you’re thinking to yourself that the content on this site is hardly grammatically correct and is often riddled with tense confusions and rapid alternations between passive and active voices, then I’d be happy to commend you on your superior understanding of the English language. However, this site was given the title of “Jason’s Random Thoughts” for a reason … the word “random” grants me liberty to be excessively casual and syntacticly incorrect as I choose.
So long as there are few egrarious spelling mistakes 
Another advantage to helping others with their English is to build an appreciation for all the people that want to communicate, but find it incredibly difficult to do so.
My Japanese sucks. In fact, it more than sucks … it’s horrid. I typically understand about 40% of what I hear, and I can only say about 100 things with any real fluency. While I can read Hirigana and Katakana at the same speed as an 8 year-old, my limited 300-word Kanji understanding leaves much to be desired. I used to have very little patience for people in Canada that could barely speak English when they would ask for my help or when I was working in a store and needed to communicate with them. The thought that would most often run through my head was along the lines of, “Why’d you come to the country if you can’t speak the language!“ Well, now I have a much better appreciation for what these people went through in the first few years of living in Canada. Hopefully I can teach the same lessons to my children.
With the Japanese proficiency tests fast approaching, I am putting quite a bit more effort into studying the language … it’s one of the reasons I haven’t been updating this site too much in the last week, but I’m still a long ways away from being fluent enough to communicate with people on a regular basis.
This is something that will be resolved in Year Two.
Reiko’s Family Is Here
Ah, yes. The classic reason for staying. Being married means that I am setting down roots in this not-so-foreign land. But why is it more important to stay within 10 km of Reiko’s family, while my own is over 12,000 km away?
I can’t realistically answer that. I can say all kinds of reasons … but I doubt many of them would be understood or believed. That said, by staying close to Reiko’s family, she has the luxury of spending more time with them. Although her parents are not really old, they’re not exactly young, either. Should one of them become sick, I know that Reiko would want to be there to help. It’s much easier to do this when we’re in the same country. We might move to Canada at some point in the future, but it hasn’t been fully decided, yet.
The New Land of Opportunity
So far I’ve mentioned two semi-personal reasons I would want to stay in Japan, while briefly mentioning the third: opportunity.
Despite what many will tell you, Japan is one of the new lands of opportunity. Neither Canada or America can offer me the same things that this country can in terms of potentially profitable prospects, because everybody in North America thinks in a similar fashion. This is not the case in the resolutely-isolationist nation of Japan.
I’ll admit that my computer skills are not in demand in this corner of the country, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t take those same skills and make them usable in this nation. Despite what many people think about Japan and technology, the two are not as integrated as one might think. Sure, Japanese cell phones have lots of features like high-speed internet, TVs, instant movie streams, and more. But 97% of people don’t actually use these features. On top of this, when it comes to Japan’s use of the internet, people who have learned how to navigate the web in English will find the Japanese sites very reminiscent of the old Yahoo! and GeoCities days. Nothing is easily found. Search engines are expected to use AOL-like “keywords” which, for reasons I’ve not yet discovered, are never sniped by other companies. Music is still bought on CD for ridiculous prices with few using iTunes or any of the other legal options for downloading music. Movies are still rented rather than downloaded. SEO and SEM are unknowns in the realm of the online world and blogging is just something done by children, rather than businesses and highly-educated people with a passion for a particular hobby.
All of these things stand to be exploited in the near future, and I fully intend to make sure many of them are exploited by me. There is lots of opportunity here for someone that is willing to put in the time to make it work.
So … You’re In Japan Why?
Reiko and I have started to pool our talents to make some money online. At this point in time, we haven’t earned very much. That said, with the vision and the goals that we’re putting in place now, we hope to be earning 100% of our income from online ventures within the next three years. It will be difficult, that’s for certain. But together, we’ll accomplish our goals and have the opportunity to retire early or travel the world … letting our online businesses pave the way to a secure and prosperous future.
That’s why I’m in Japan.
It seems the next time I fly back to Canada, it will need to be a direct flight. I have no intentions of saving a few hundred dollars by flying into Portland or San Francisco, only to run into some complication concerning US Customs and my digital equipment. According to this article from PC World, the US Border Agency says it has the legal power to seize our digital equipment indefinitely in the name of security, thus granting the U.S. government the opportunity to collect massive amounts of information about it’s own people, and those who are just passing through.
