Hi all,
This will probably be quite a lengthy post, but I want to make sure I cover as much detail as I can to make sure I’m not setting myself and my wife up for failure due to my desires.
I am 31 years old and from the UK and like a lot of people here, it has been a goal of mine to someday live in Japan for a bit to experience the culture, lifestyle and to see the as much of the country as I can. I have always been open about one day living in Japan with my wife, however late last year I proposed the idea of actually doing it for no more than 2 years (unless we really enjoy living there). Initially, she was *open* to the idea, but more on this later.
I currently work for a company that is a subsidiary of a large Japanese corporation and the company itself has just opened it’s first office in Japan. I have expressed my desires to work in Japan to my current company but the answer is always the same: “We’ll see”, which usually means “probably not”, which is a shame because I really do like working for my current company and would be ideal to get an internal transfer. My wife works for a consultancy that also has a large presence in Japan so I have presented the idea of her requesting a transfer to the Japanese branch. She is highly respected and senior in her position and I don’t think the business would want to lose her, considering that the work that she does doesn’t have to be aligned to a particular time zone, however no action on this has been taken yet.
**This is our current situation:**
* A combined income of £168k (£103k for myself and £65k for my wife).
* Current mortgage on our house, estimated value increase since purchased of around £50k. If we were to move to Japan, we would have to sell the house as I will not be able to get a Buy to Let mortgage.
* Have a dog
* Close friends and family do not live close by, usually go a few months without seeing either.
* Regarding Japanese language ability: I can read and type pretty well, but my speaking and listening still need a lot of practice. However, I can get away with a daily conversation. My wife on the other hand has 0 Japanese ability.
So, I went about doing my research into finding a position, cost of living, visa, etc and I went through the recruitment process for a FinTech company and after 3 months of interviews, I was offered a position and this was the offer:
* 13.1m yen salary
* 1.5m yen sign on bonus
* Sponsored visa
* Flights to Japan paid for by the company
* 400,000 yen towards moving costs
* 1.5 months serviced accommodation whilst we look for our own place to live and the company will hire a firm to help us find a place.
* 500,000 yen housing cost
* WFH First Policy
* Free Japanese lessons
They originally wanted me to start in February, which at the time of applying would have been fine, but unfortunately some unforeseen circumstances have since arisen so I had to decline the offer. However, I expressed how much I wanted to work for said company and said that I would love to re-apply in a few months time for a later start date to which they responded with “I will always be at the top of their list for this position so to contact them again when I am ready” which I am very grateful for.
With the salary and bonus combined, when converting into £ is roughly £10k less than what I take home right now, so taking tax and things into consideration, I don’t feel like I am taking a huge pay cut with this deal, nor will I be losing out on much money when moving over (we probably won’t be taking any furniture with us, and our dog will be coming with us so I suppose the fees will cover the cost of his transportation). If my wife was able to get the transfer, then this would be extremely ideal as I believe our annual take home will be somewhere in the ball park of ¥18,143,400 ([according to this tax calculator](https://japantaxcalculator.com/)) which I believe is more than enough to live comfortably anywhere in Japan.
So far this all sounds very nice, however once I received this job offer and presented my initial research to my wife, she brought up some concerns she has:
* If she doesn’t get a transfer, what will she do? It doesn’t look like she will be able to get the same job out there without having business level Japanese. Will she be able to get a part time job somewhere?
* Also, if she doesn’t get a transfer, will the 13.1m yen salary be enough to support both of us, plus our dog?
* Will she be lonely in Japan if she doesn’t have a job and can not speak Japanese? My wife is quite sociable, likes to join clubs and things like that so she doesn’t want to be alone.
* What will happen to our friends back home? She seems to believe that they will “move on” from us, although I’m not too sure what that means as I don’t think our true close friends will ever stop contact with us, just because we’ve moved to Japan for a couple of years.
I have tried to address these concerns and provide reassurance to the best of my abilities, but because I obviously don’t have any real experience in any of this, so my wife still has these concerns. So we’ve both agreed to go away and do our own research on this matter. She is speaking to one of her friends who moved to HK with her partner 5 years a go and still live there to this day to get some perspective about moving overseas, and here I am presenting our situation to you.
So, for those of you that have been there, done that and got the T-shirt, I suppose I only really have 1 question:
**Given our current position, the offer I received with or without the potential transfer for my wife and my wife’s concerns; do you think moving to Japan for 2 years is worth it given my long term desire to do so?**
Thank you very much for reading and offering any insight and advice.
6 comments
All of your wife’s concerns are *completely valid.* But most of them aren’t r/movingtojapan issues. They’re really more r/relationship_advice (Both you/her and you/her/your friends)
>If she doesn’t get a transfer, what will she do? It doesn’t look like she will be able to get the same job out there without having business level Japanese. Will she be able to get a part time job somewhere?
She could get a part-time job. But without some level of Japanese that’s probably going to be a part-time job teaching English, which is going to be a significant step down in both prestige and job satisfaction for someone who’s coming out of the high power business consulting world.
>Also, if she doesn’t get a transfer, will the 13.1m yen salary be enough to support both of us, plus our dog?
That’s like double the average national salary, so… Yes. It will obviously depend on where you decide to live and what sort of lifestyle you decide to have.
>Will she be lonely in Japan if she doesn’t have a job and can not speak Japanese? My wife is quite sociable, likes to join clubs and things like that so she doesn’t want to be alone.
That depends on her. If she’s willing to put herself out there and make an effort there’s no reason she should be lonely. Knowing some Japanese would certainly *help* with socialization, but it’s not an absolute requirement if you live in a reasonably large city.
>What will happen to our friends back home? She seems to believe that they will “move on” from us, although I’m not too sure what that means as I don’t think our true close friends will ever stop contact with us, just because we’ve moved to Japan for a couple of years.
That’s where we really leave the purview of this sub and dive into r/relationship_advice.
All that said… I’m gonna dive into a bit of relationship advice myself: It honestly kinda sounds like she doesn’t particularly want to go. Obviously I don’t know your relationship, and all I know is what you said, but… Nothing you have said has indicated any desire for “Us” to go to Japan. It’s all “I”. And her list of concerns, while valid, also seem a bit off. A bit defensive, I guess.
Again: I don’t know you, and I don’t know her. But I’ve seen a lot of posts like this, and the ones where both parties actually want to make the move talk a lot about “we” and “us”.
> Will she be able to get a part time job somewhere?
She can work 28hrs a week on a dependent visa. However, this is generally limited to basic part-time jobs paid around minimum wage. Without Japanese ability, it’ll probably be English teaching. (Other jobs like this that students or dependents with Japanese skills generally do are conbini work, restaurant work, etc.) Would she be OK doing this? She could also work online as a contractor for a company outside of Japan, but the 28hr/week restriction would still apply and she would have to be a sole proprietor and pay taxes on all income she makes.
> Also, if she doesn’t get a transfer, will the 13.1m yen salary be enough to support both of us, plus our dog?
In Tokyo? Yes. Outside of Tokyo? EXTREME YES.
I made 8m when I first came here and it was more than enough to support myself, my husband and our three pets before he got his own job. I make 12m now and if my husband wasn’t working, we’d be absolutely OK. However, make sure you’re OK with the way the exchange rate is going; if you’re paid in yen and have expenses overseas — for example, I have student loans in the US — you’ll need to make sure your budget would cover those expenses if the exchange rate continues to drop.
> Will she be lonely in Japan if she doesn’t have a job and can not speak Japanese?
I mean, no one can answer this. You get out what you put in. If you move to Tokyo, there are a LOT of foreigners. She can easily find some sort of group of other foreign spouses or British citizens and link up with them. Wards have social groups, Japanese lessons or other support services for foreigners (depends on the ward). If you don’t have kids, it will be a bit harder because, the older you are as a woman, the more the socialization and local municipal services/groups are geared towards women with children and SAHMs. Personally, I find the options to meet women my age without kids lessens as the years go by. Even the younger wives of my husband’s coworkers all have kids already. (I work remote for a foreign company, so I don’t have coworkers to hang out with.) However, some women have no issues at all. Her milage may vary.
Knowing Japanese will make things easier, of course. Some people have a tough time making friends here due to the cultural differences. Some people don’t have issues at all. A lot of socialization and/or “meeting new people” is also super hobby-based — so if she has a hobby, probably best to lean into that.
She can go to language school full-time or part time, and that will help her language skills and also probably provide a way to meet people.
> What will happen to our friends back home?
I mean, again, no one can answer this. The longer you stay, the more likely the less-strong friendships will fade away. I got rid of social media at the start of the pandemic, and I found that there’s a lot of people (casual acquaintances or people who I wasn’t friends with very long before moving) I lost touch with as a result. But my close friends? We are still friends. Do we talk less because of the time difference? Yes, so I try to email or arrange calls when convenient. We send packages and letters, too. Does it take more effort to maintain these friendships? Absolutely. Out of sight, out of mind — and it doesn’t have a reflection on you or your friends; it’s simply harder to be BFFs and talk all the time with someone 5000+ miles away. The onus might fall onto you to initiate maintaining those bonds.
Before the pandemic, I was going back to the US 2x a year, and I’d always try to see as many friends as possible. And, now that the border situation here is less-insane than it was in 2020 and 2021, it’s easier to go back to that travel pattern. I was able to go to my close high school friend’s wedding this summer, which was awesome. And, when tourists can enter Japan again, encourage people to come visit you. Pre-pandemic, we had friends or family visiting at least every other month; some would stay with us, some we’d just meet up with a few times while they were in town. People love having someone to show them around Japan, and you might find people will clamor at the chance for a visit.
>If she doesn’t get a transfer, what will she do? It doesn’t look like she will be able to get the same job out there without having business level Japanese. Will she be able to get a part time job somewhere?
Could always teach English. IDK about her company policy, but I’ve known a married couple where the wife took a break from work for two years to accompany him to Japan.
>Also, if she doesn’t get a transfer, will the 13.1m yen salary be enough to support both of us, plus our dog?
Yes. More than enough.
>Will she be lonely in Japan if she doesn’t have a job and can not speak Japanese? My wife is quite sociable, likes to join clubs and things like that so she doesn’t want to be alone.
This may be a bit more complicated with Corona, but especially in Tokyo there is a huge community of expat wives.
>What will happen to our friends back home? She seems to believe that they will “move on” from us, although I’m not too sure what that means as I don’t think our true close friends will ever stop contact with us, just because we’ve moved to Japan for a couple of years.
I’ve been living here or 12 years, my good friends from back home are still my good friends.
I just want to address you having a dog: Japan requires at least two years worth of rabies vaccines, a rabies blood test ~6 months prior to departure, 180 days of quarantine prior to departure assuming the results of the blood test were sufficient, and an exam from a veterinarian approved by your country’s animal quarantine agency no more than 10 days before departure.
If you don’t accomplish all of these things, your animal will be impounded upon arrival for at least 6 months. If the animal quarantine agency in Japan at your port of arrival is overwhelmed, they reserve the right to put the animal down.
This means, at minimum, assuming that you’ve already gotten your dog at least two rabies shots, you’ll need to wait ~6 months before departure to successfully import your dog.
Just.. take a long holiday? What exactly about the culture of going into the Tokyo office, coming back from the office is it that you are desperate to experience? If it’s working from home, you won’t even experience that. Is your daily trip down from your tower mansion to the local seven eleven worth uprooting you and your wife’s lives for?
Japan is fine and all, but it’s not worth slashing your salary in half to move over there