Hello everyone, speaking with my spouse and the rest of my family we’re strongly considering moving to Japan for a number of personal/societal reasons that I won’t get into unless asked/needed for advice. However the main driver being that we want our children to grow up there.
**Some background on our situation:**
* U.S. citizen, currently active duty in the U.S. military and stationed in Guam, 30 years old; I have visited Japan 8 times in which time I have spent about 6 months at my in-laws house total. I am also an immigrant to the U.S., though I was raised there since elementary school.
* Obviously fluent in English, native in Spanish; my ability in Japanese is somewhat domestic and likely hovering around a low N3 range, but this is of course, self assessed.
* Spouse a Japanese national, with 2 children (3 and 1) who are dual citizens by birth
* Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology (never done anything with it since), currently finishing a Masters in Information Technology (but the program has taught 0 hard skills, its all writing essays and such, its designed for working pros so not the best for a newbie like me)
* Work experience has been in the military, performing pollution investigations, inspecting facilities (similar to OSHA) and working with the maritime shipping industry by performing Port State examinations of international merchant vessels
* I would have to (and plan to) liquidate retirement accounts but would have about 80-100k USD in savings at the time of moving
My wife’s family is upper middle class/well off and live in a prefectural capital, they own a mid range family business in the city and much of the family works there. My MIL will be retiring from her position soon due to age and intends to have my wife take on the reins which would bring in an income of about 28万円 per month.
**The plan:**
I have \~4 more years of obligated service in the military which provides time to increase savings and prepare for a move. According to people I’ve spoken to in admin, it seems that the military would pay to ship our household goods to Japan as it would cost the government less money than to ship it back to my “home”. I don’t plan to work for the USG/military in Japan unless its a really good deal as I want PR and to integrate into Japan, not SOFA status, and I don’t want to be under the annoying control of the US even overseas any more than I have to. My in-laws home is a 二世帯 home with capacity for two families, and the intention is to use our savings to renovate half of the house and build a second and third floor above the half, separating the two houses and basically creating a new house out of the old one.
As for work, that is the biggest wild card so far. Logic would dictate to learn the correct vocabulary and transfer my experience to wokr in the maritime field, but my wife’s hometown is landlocked an about an hour (or two) away from Tokyo, Shizuoka etc. I am not discarding he typical ALT or recruiting, but I’d rather avoid it if possible. If I’m able to get the GI bill to work with a local university, I could receive a housing allowance while attending university for up to three years (about 28万円 per month), even as we live free with family. During this time I could continue to develop my language skills, possibly attending language school as well. However, three years is a long time to be in country without getting a real job and I’d rather not stagnate. I would have no issue with finding work with a Japanese company/at a Japanese business/farming/construction etc if I can get my ability up to par, but aside from this of course is also working in the IT field – if I can teach myself some in-demand skills as the Master’s program isn’t really going to get me there.
**Considerations:**
I don’t know if this plan sounds grounded with reality, but as far as I can tell its doable. I am still at least four years out from this event so I am trying to see (other than improving my Japanese more and more) what else I can do to prepare and be successful in moving to and integrating into Japan, and I would appreciate current residents’ analysis and advice on that. Something to consider is getting a large amount of savings , and possibly a monthly GI bill stipend to Japan, which I imagine wold need to be done via wire transfer. I have not yet researched if I would owe income tax on these amounts to the NTA. Would it make sense to start work on renovating and building the house during these couple of years or would it be safer to wait until the JP gov has actually allowed me to get a spousal visa? Aside from language, is there anything I can now do to make my job search more successful in the future?
Thank you and I am sorry for the long post, I tend to write this way on Reddit to lower the number of questions people might ask.
2 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**How to prepare when a couple years out from immigrating? Also don’t mind a reality check if needed.**
Hello everyone, speaking with my spouse and the rest of my family we’re strongly considering moving to Japan for a number of personal/societal reasons that I won’t get into unless asked/needed for advice. However the main driver being that we want our children to grow up there.
Some background on our situation:
– U.S. citizen, currently active duty in the U.S. military and stationed in Guam, 30 years old; I have visited Japan 8 times in which time I have spent about 6 months at my in-laws house total. I am also an immigrant to the U.S., though I was raised there since elementary school.
– Obviously fluent in English, native in Spanish; my ability in Japanese is somewhat domestic and likely hovering around a low N3 range, but this is of course, self assessed.
– Spouse a Japanese national, with 2 children (3 and 1) who are dual citizens by birth
– Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology (never done anything with it since), currently finishing a Masters in Information Technology (but the program has taught 0 hard skills, its all writing essays and such, its designed for working pros so not the best for a newbie like me)
– Work experience has been in the military, performing pollution investigations, inspecting facilities (similar to OSHA) and working with the maritime shipping industry by performing Port State examinations of international merchant vessels
– I would have to (and plan to) liquidate retirement accounts but would have about 80-100k USD in savings at the time of moving
My wife’s family is upper middle class/well off and live in a prefectural capital, they own a mid range family business in the city and much of the family works there. My MIL will be retiring from her position soon due to age and intends to have my wife take on the reins which would bring in an income of about 28万円 per month.
The plan:
I have ~4 more years of obligated service in the military which provides time to increase savings and prepare for a move. According to people I’ve spoken to in admin, it seems that the military would pay to ship our household goods to Japan as it would cost the government less money than to ship it back to my “home”. I don’t plan to work for the USG/military in Japan unless its a really good deal as I want PR and to integrate into Japan, not SOFA status, and I don’t want to be under the annoying control of the US even overseas any more than I have to. My in-laws home is a 二世帯 home with capacity for two families, and the intention is to use our savings to renovate half of the house and build a second and third floor above the half, separating the two houses and basically creating a new house out of the old one.
As for work, that is the biggest wild card so far. Logic would dictate to learn the correct vocabulary and transfer my experience to wokr in the maritime field, but my wife’s hometown is landlocked an about an hour (or two) away from Tokyo, Shizuoka etc. I am not discarding he typical ALT or recruiting, but I’d rather avoid it if possible. If I’m able to get the GI bill to work with a local university, I could receive a housing allowance while attending university for up to three years (about 28万円 per month), even as we live free with family. During this time I could continue to develop my language skills, possibly attending language school as well. However, three years is a long time to be in country without getting a real job and I’d rather not stagnate. I would have no issue with finding work with a Japanese company/at a Japanese business if I can get my ability up to par, but aside from this of course is also working in the IT field – if I can teach myself some in-demand skills as the Master’s program isn’t reall going to get me there.
Considerations:
I don’t know if this plan sounds grounded with reality, but as far as I can tell its doable. I am still at least four years out from this event so I am trying to see (other than improving my Japanese more and more) what else I can do to prepare and be successful in moving to and integrating into Japan, and I would appreciate current residents’ analysis and advice on that. Something to consider is getting a large amount of savings , and possibly a monthly GI bill stipend to Japan, which I imagine wold need to be done via wire transfer. I have not yet researched if I would owe income tax on these amounts to the NTA. Would it make sense to start work on renovating and building the house during these couple of years or would it be safer to wait until the JP gov has actually allowed me to get a spousal visa? Aside from language, is there anything I can now do to make my job search more successful in the future?
Thank you and I am sorry for the long post, I tend to write this way on Reddit to lower the number of questions people might ask.
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This looks like a sound plan and you have a 100% chance of getting a spouse visa if you are married to a Japanese national. It just requires her to go to Japan first, settle it a bit, and then apply for a COE for you, which is a process that could take a few months. With your kids being older by then, it won’t be as difficult for you to manage it.
What if you tried working for the family business too? Maybe they can find a role for you. And as you know, improving your Japanese to N2+ is most important, as well as making sure your kids catch native Japanese from their mum, as they’ll be a bit older and it could be difficult for them to just fit in, though still young enough to bounce back quickly I believe.