I have been living in Okinawa and working at an eikaiwa for a couple of years now. I like living here but I hate teaching English. I had a job in america as a junior florist for a while before moving here and despite the long working hours and shit pay I really liked it. From what I’ve seen online, there seem to be a decent number of local, entry level floral designer jobs posted around where I live. It’s something that I am really interested in and could possibly see myself doing long term on a more independent basis if I could get more experience. Honestly, I’m kind of at a point where I’m gonna have a mental breakdown if I can’t see a light at the end of the eikaiwa tunnel and moving away from Japan is not an option rn. My questions are:
1. What level of japanese proficiency would you guess a trade job / non-customer facing position like a floral designer would be expected to have by potential employers? I want to take an intensive course at a language school this summer and am wondering how realistic applying for jobs afterwards would be.
2. Are jobs like this willing/able to sponsor foreigners?
3. I have 3 years left on my current work visa as an English teacher and I know that if I just applied to a different eikaiwa/ALT position I’d be fine, but can I switch to a different category of work?
Thanks in advance!
3 comments
Japanese cares about convenience. It’s very inconvenient to hire a non-speaker and a foreigner for a non-English-teaching job. Chances to join other types of work are slim to none if you didn’t pass at least L4 of JL.
>2.Are ^{florist} jobs like this willing/**able** to sponsor foreigners?
There is no work visa category for florists (or most other trades). You would have to get another visa like a student visa or dependent visa which would only allow you to work part-time, less than 28 hours/week. To work full-time, you would need a Spouse of Japanese visa.
Language barrier aside, your first consideration should be whether working as a florist qualifies you for one of the [29 visa categories established by the Japanese government](https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/guide/qaq5.html). The only one I could possibly imagine would be “cultural acitivies” visa, although this is not a longterm solution. The primary purpose of that visa category is to study/apprentice something like ikebana and then take it back to your home country. Without permanent residence or a spousal visa, this sounds like a dead end to be honest…