There is an American exceptionalism embedded in the idea that y'all think you can just pick up and leave and go wherever you want. It's cute you think you'd be welcomed. Americans aren't exactly popular in the world.
I will be straight up, considering the United States’ behavior towards refugees fleeing persecution, I’m not sure that Americans who try to do the same shouldn’t have their passports flagged and be asked to leave.
But ESPECIALLY if you try to flee to a country USA has interfered with.
I often tell them to try and see how it plays out.
Because, shit, I actually tried emigrating to Canada for work about a decade ago - I didn't make the cut, because my field wasn't in demand (to be fair, coders are a dime a dozen)
Took six months of paperwork and interviews to get a polite decline
More folks have been asking me about Japan recently.
I tell everyone the same thing:
Getting a job and visa is all about having the skills desired and a college degree (in most cases), but the pay isn’t great.
Getting citizenship is way more difficult and you have to be fluent in Japanese.
As a note, work visas last from 6 months to 5 years (at most), then you have to reapply. And if you don’t have a job/company, then you have to go back to your home nation.
There’s “permanent residence”, but you can’t just try for off the bat. In many cases, you need to live here 10 years first.
Isn't Japanese culture also mostly hostile to immigrants? (I have only one example of a friend who was half Japanese and grew up in Okinawa and was treated *horrifically* so my knowledge could be biased.)
Yes and no. Times have changed, and so has the culture.
That said, it’s not something I can distill in a single post. If you don’t mind waiting a bit (it’s 1:30 here), I can give a more detailed answer based on my own experiences (Korean-American, lived here in 96, 2000-02, and now) in the morning.
Not a problem, I’ll post once I’m awake and such. ^_^
I will say that despite the issues folks here might have with non-Japanese people, the threat of racial violence is much, much lower than in the U.S.
I didn't know citizenship was even an option, though it's been a couple decades since I was very engaged with the notion (I remember reading an incredibly good book called Japan: The Land of the Broken-Hearted, about various immigrant experiences).
