A friend of mine is obsessed with Japan. She loved manga and all that, lived there as a university exchange student for a year.
Now she wants to go back as a Japanese student and then search for a English teacher (or other jobs that can give her a visa).
But she says that she doesn’t like Japanese people that much. That they are quite narrow minded and that work is too much.
Edit:
[She worked as a teacher while her university exchange time. Hated how they treated her at work, and how they treated her when searching for jobs and all that. She said how the government treats foreigners different and all that. How she cannot speak her mind and all that.
I’m just scared that she might go there, perhaps running away from her life in Ireland and then come back after a few years even more unhappy that she is now.
I think everyone should move around and live in other places, it’s just that she lived in other places before and feels like she is just running away from her life.]
I don’t think she should go, but I don’t know if I am just being judgy. I think important are actually the most important part when you move to a new place.
What do you guys think?
7 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Advice for a friend. Should she move to Japan or not?**
A friend of mine is obsessed with Japan. She loved manga and all that, lived there as a university exchange student for a year.
Now she wants to go back as a Japanese student and then search for a English teacher (or other jobs that can give her a visa).
But she says that she doesn’t like Japanese people that much. That they are quite narrow minded and that work is too much.
I don’t think she should go, but I don’t know if I am just being judgy. I think important are actually the most important part when you move to a new place.
What do you guys think?
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If she lived there for a year already, then it’s not like she is going in blind.
You said you don’t think she should go but then didn’t provide any reasons at all as to why you would think that.
Thinking Japanese people are narrow-minded and the work culture sucks aren’t really new ideas. If they aren’t deal breakers for her, then that’s her decision. I think if she does move, she will find Japanese people less narrow-minded than she thinks and the work culture more difficult than she expects. At the end of the day, she would still be moving to one of the highest ranked countries in many quality of life metrics, albeit at a disadvantage for being a foreigner.
That’s a gross generalisation on her side about Japanese people, even if she spent a year there and got that impression. She needs to rethink how she sees a whole nation of people. Japan has a certain reputation and stereotypes but that’s no excuse to just lump everyone in together.
I don’t think she should move somewhere where she doesn’t like the people as that is going to make her very isolated (and Japan is isolating enough, and being a foreigner is even more isolating).
On top of that, she has to put up with Japanese people every single day. I doubt she’ll enjoy that if she dislikes them + their politics and economy which will affect her + the work is too much and pay is too little especially for an English teacher, which is likely the only job she would qualify for… So, yea.
tl;dr no.
So the only thing she likes about Japan is anime/manga?
Without invalidating your friend’s experiences or your worries – letting one or even a few bad experiences sour her on an entire country and culture would be a waste.
>Now she wants to go back as a Japanese student and then search for a English teacher (or other jobs that can give her a visa).
Your friend should have a more specific career in mind. “Japan at any cost” is a great way to waste a decade of your life discovering that what you do is more important for your overall happiness than where you do it.
Now, if your friend genuinely wants to be a teacher, there is nothing wrong with that. But English education in Japan is very much a two tier system and its extremely unlikely that one can make the transition from ALT/Eikaiwa to University/International School teaching. So if your friend actually wants to be a teacher, she should be getting a teaching license where you are and start getting classroom experience. A masters of education wouldn’t hurt either.
If she can’t get along with people around her and don’t want to work hard, Japan is not a good place for her.