Tag: japan

Friendship Bribes

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As I’m preparing for meeting dozens if not hundreds of new people in the coming months, I’d been doing some thinking and research into what non-perishable food items I can bring with me to share with my (hopefully) new friends.

In the US, you might consider doing something like this if you live in or visit an area with very well-known specialties, but it’s not expected that you will bring anything with you.

When Americans travel abroad, they buy souvenirs – a word based in the French verb “to remember” – something for themselves to help them remember the trip they went on. Perhaps they also buy gifts for friends and family, but I don’t believe most people feel compelled to do so. Souvenirs are everything from trinkets to clothing, but most important to this discussion is the fact that they generally are not food. After all, it’s hard to remember your trip months down the line by the cookies you ate 5 days after you arrived home.

Some people may disagree, but in my opinion food items purchased while abroad, whether for yourself or others, are merely gifts and not souvenirs. There’s no specific word for it.

On the other hand, when one travels within or outside of Japan and returns home, one is socially obligated to bring back omiyage (お土産) for family, friends, and colleagues. I don’t have statistics for this quick blog post, but if I had to guess I’d say 80-90% of all omiyage is food. Any trip to an airport, major train station, or even grocery store in Japan will bring this point home neatly.

Part of this is just pure practicality – if you’re obligated to give every time you travel, then everyone around you is obligated to receive and presumably store whatever you give them. Unless of course it’s consumables! Then all you have to take care of is the mountains of packaging surrounding it.

I personally feel like this lightens the pressure of picking the food gift as well – if they hate it, at least they won’t feel like they need to hold onto it lest you show up at their house one day in hopes of seeing that beautiful cat statue displayed in their living room.

It was a bit difficult for me to pick out items that I felt were unique because, having lived in America for basically all but four months of my life, none of it felt very special. So I went online and searched (in Japanese) to see what people were bringing back, or at the very least, what websites suggested people bring back.

In the end I went the snack and candy route, as that’s the easiest to divide up (individual packaging), least likely to get damaged in transit, and most importantly won’t spoil quickly.

Here’s what I bought:

  • Cheez It snack packs in three flavors
  • Snyders 100 calorie pretzel packs (3 different types!)
  • Goldfish in classic cheddar flavor
  • Milk Chocolate Flipz in Halloween themed snack packs
  • Ghiradelli assorted minis
  • Ghiradelli pumpkin spice caramel
  • Ritz peanut butter sandwich snack packs
  • Skittles
  • Smarties
  • Lindt assorted mix
  • Starbursts
  • Reese’s/Hershey’s Halloween mix
  • Sour Patch Kids
  • Candy Corn
  • Butterfingers

This is a bunch of aggressively bright colored packaging with all the prominent American flavors:

  1. Sweet
  2. Salty
  3. Sour
  4. Peanut Butter
  5. Cheese

I’ve got fruity, chocolate, peanut butter, cheese and just plain sugar. Doesn’t get more American than that, at least when it comes to non-perishable snack food.

The final touch will be to package all these up into adorable little gift bags, hopefully in red/white/blue coloring for that extra ~American~ flare. I may still pick up a couple extra nice items for my new bosses, but these will be great for meetups and especially the start of my internship.

Now I just need to figure out how to fit all of this in my suitcase…

Obvious in Hindsight

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At this point in my journey, I wonder if, when I told people around me that I’m moving to Japan, they really just thought “Well, obviously.”

I think about Japan all the time – I suppose I don’t talk about Japan all the time, but it’s present in everything I do. I wear fashion from Japan, I have all kinds of jewelry, accessories, and shoes. I listen to Japanese music and watch TV shows. I follow almost exclusively vloggers who live in or frequently visit Japan. I cook Japanese food. I’ve even imported small furniture or houseware items because that’s the style I like.

I don’t mean to say I only consume products or follow trends from Japan and nowhere else because that’s not true, but the ratio of Japanese to non-Japanese things has been steadily growing.

None of these things mean I want to be Japanese – I don’t wish my race was different or that I was born in Japan, or anything like that. I can enjoy and be interested in a different culture without rejecting my own. I do hope that someday my Japanese becomes good enough to make people wonder if I’ve lived there most of my life. The desire to sound native is a universal one for serious language learners worldwide, I feel.

There will probably always be a distance between me and most Japanese friends I make – our experiences growing up were very different – but that doesn’t mean we can’t get along or talk about shared experiences we’re having now.

My goal for living in Japan is to integrate.

My perspective will be different than those who grew up in the country, and I want to share that, but I don’t want to stay totally separate. I don’t like things from Japan because Japan is some mystical wonderland where everything is kawaii and perfect.

I like what I like because I like it.

I like Japan.

I’ve always known this, but I followed the most common sense logic I encountered everywhere: Japan is a great place to vacation, but a terribly difficult place to live. So of course I believed I also did not really want to live there, I just wanted more time to travel! Like, every year! Maybe multiple times a year if I could manage it. I’d shop online and have boxes delivered every month full of new wonderful things for myself and my apartment. It’s almost like living there.

So, why didn’t I want to move there, again?

What was I staying here for, again?

Something that I struggle with is doing or not doing something based on what people around me will bother me about. Not so much what they think, but what they will do and say. I actively avoided doing things that would invite uncomfortable conversations because I just did not want to have them, at any cost.

Telling people I was moving overseas was not a small task to ask of me.

I avoided it for 10 years.

I think now that I’m older, and I’ve experienced a lot of things that have shown me that the only person who will truly make my life great the way that I want is me… well, I almost can’t even be bothered to worry about it anymore.

This is my life and I’m going to live it the way I want. No more regrets, no more I could have or should have.

I want to recognize what’s important to me now, instead of finding it obvious in hindsight.

Two Weeks Before Departure

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Let’s do a quick recap before the ramble!

I have the following left:

  • 14 days before my flight
  • 3 full work days
  • Everything to pack

I am feeling:

  • Very excited!
  • Gradually more anxious
  • Slightly worried I’m forgetting something important

I’ve been to Japan for varying lengths of time in the past, and I’ve traveled a lot in the last 10 years, so the process of packing and actually flying doesn’t worry me. Really, that’s the easy part. The truly nerve-wracking scenarios involve talking to hundreds of total strangers in my second language and having to prove I can be a competent, valuable worker in just a 30 minute conversation.

In short, I’m not nervous about being in Japan, I’m nervous about networking and securing a good job with visa sponsorship.

When it comes to being in Japan and dealing with everything unrelated to work there, I’m just excited! I love the trains, the scenery, the food, the calm chaos of crosswalks and train platforms. I’m not afraid in Japan. I know that there are plenty of scary things that could happen, but at this point I don’t feel that it’s more dangerous than where I live right now. It feels like a dream to think this time in just over 2 weeks I’ll be back in Tokyo – I know it’s not for good (yet), but one step at a time.

In the past couple months, I’ve learned so much about so many things, including myself. I never thought that making this decision would have the effect it did. I feel less conflicted, less anxious, more confident, and so much happier than I felt this time last year. It’s like realizing a dream I didn’t even fully understood I had. I mean, of course I knew I wanted to go back to Japan, but I hadn’t realized how much I wanted it.

I honestly think part of that was being afraid that if I admitted to myself how important this was, I’d have no choice but to go through with it.

There have always been reasons not to go. None of those are enough to stop me anymore.

So, I’m going.

14 days!

First Step of 1000 Miles

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On Oct 17th, I will board a flight that starts my two month journey of pursuing a full time job in Japan.

During those two months, I will be working as an unpaid intern, applying to jobs, and attending every networking event I can find.

Oh, and writing a bit here and there, taking a bunch of photos, and maybe even some Youtube videos! You know, in my spare time.

So let’s start with the basics:

Who am I?
I’m a 33 year old female who is looking for work as a Software Developer in Tokyo.

Aren’t you a little old to be moving countries?
Absolutely not. /end

Okay, so why now?
It’s true, if I just wanted to move to Japan I probably could have just applied to become an English teacher when I was 22, right out of college. Unfortunately, I did a lot of research about that option, and the life it would give me, and that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. I also think I probably would have had a really hard time and might have just given up after a year.

I’m a very different person now, and I’m in a much better place to achieve my dream of living in Japan long-term.

Can you even understand Japanese?
The short answer is yes. I majored in Japanese language for my first degree (graduating in 2007) and I passed the N2 level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in 2010. My goal is to pass the N1 and maybe start seriously studying for the 日本漢字能力検定 (Japan Kanji Aptitude Test) once I’m settled in Japan.

2010 was 8 years ago, why haven’t you passed N1 yet?
Lack of dedication, mostly, but also because it’s difficult to reach that level of proficiency living outside the country. It’s certainly possible, but I didn’t put in the time.

If you pass the N1, will you be fluent? Are you fluent now?
No, I don’t consider myself fluent. My personal bar for “fluency” is quite high, including feeling comfortable in a variety of situations and conversations, and being able to read anything that’s put in front of me (unless of course it’s specialized literature like medical journals or similar).

I certainly can get by in most situations, and I would say I’m conversationally fluent. There’s still a lot I would need to learn in business situations, for example, to consider myself fluent.

Like most language aptitude tests, the JLPT is not a true measure of fluency. Just like having a 800+ TOIEC score does not indicate fluency for English, for example. Standardized tests are a singular measure, usually for passive understanding of a language – reading and listening only. Additionally, such tests are in a controlled environment and have clear patterns to them. You can be good at the test, but terrible in real life. This is one of the big reasons why I want to live in the country – to improve my comprehension and ability to express myself in the language.

Wait, HOW LONG have you been studying Japanese?
Approximately 15-16 years, depending on how I count it.

Isn’t Japan expensive?
Yes and no. Cost of living is relative – my frame of reference is a city outside Boston, Massachusetts, which, if you’re not familiar with the area, is a decently expensive place to live. Boston itself is quite expensive, and the areas around it are still pretty expensive. I plan to do a detailed comparison once I’ve completely moved, so watch out for that!

How can you afford to do this?
I’ve been working full time for 6 years, and started seriously saving up about a year ago. I certainly have enough to cover me for a few months, and my ultimate goal is to get a full-time offer with visa sponsorship starting by April 2019.

Additionally, although this internship is unpaid, it is reimbursed – the company is paying for my roundtrip flights and living expenses for those 7 weeks during the internship. I will still be covering my part of rent and utilities back in the US during this time, but all my day to day costs are covered by the internship.

Again, I plan to do a detailed accounting of all of this later, so look forward to that if you’re still wondering how this is possible.

I want to know what you’re doing real-time! What social media do you use??
You can follow me on Instagram here: berryaesthetic
and on Twitter here: berryaesthetic

Are you going to do Youtube?! I want to see life in Japan!
That’s my goal, but I’ve never made videos before so temper your expectations. I’ll promote that link once I have a video to show!

Do you play games? Will you do Twitch streams? What about IRL streams?
I do play games! I don’t yet know if Twitch streaming will work out for me – I’ve done some streaming in the past, but had to stop due to scheduling constraints. (And you know, needing to sleep sometimes!) I’d love to get back to it, but that probably won’t happen until I move next year. If you want lives, follow my Instagram above – I might do some Insta lives occasionally!