People that come to Japan usually follow one of 2 job paths: teaching English or work in tech. If you can’t work in tech then you probably won’t have a good time. It’ll be a lot to adjust to and teaching pay is not good. Many people leave. The older you are the harder to adjust I think (just from what I’m hearing). I came here with my wife and we both spoke English and still do. It wasn’t as much to adjust to for me. And I don’t work a teaching job obviously.
Discussion
In terms of finding companionship it usually doesn’t work out for majority of people. It can be fun but eventually you’ll realize you can’t stay in a long term relationship, too different culturally. I wouldn’t recommend it.
The only reason it works for me is because I met my wife in the states and we knew each other for a long time. She was very Americanized by the time we came here.
I didn’t know you ever lived in America, I thought you always lived in Japan, interesting. Thanks for the insight.
I grew up in Michigan and later moved to California and Washington.
What made you want to move to Japan?
We thought about starting a family and figured we’d do it here. I was getting bored of US and just said fk it let’s do it. Sold everything and moved in a few weeks.
Are you self employed doing design full time? I’m getting sick of the US too, feel like both sides of politics are evil and war criminals.
I currently do product design at Amboss.
If I wanted to pursue product design as a career, do you have any recommendations on where to start? How long did it take you to do it full time?
You can probably get pretty far self teaching and practicing. I am fully self taught but I’ve been designing for a long time. I have a large list of clients behind me and multiple agency experiences.
I’d read everything I can, learn the tools and practice a lot. Goal should be to get paying work in the field as soon as possible. Look for UI/UX designer position once you feel comfortable and have a portfolio. Preferably take on a few freelance clients and make something you can show off that you got paid for.
There’s no time frame I can give - all depends on your motivation, effort and ability to learn and move fast.
All I can say is that no one ever becomes a good designer - it’s always a work in progress and you’ll constantly look back at your previous work wondering how it was so bad.
There’s a Reddit sub called japanlife and it’s full of sad and predictable stories about people coming to Japan thinking they’re going to have a wonderful time but end up leaving depressed and alone.
I kinda want to get into tech too, not sure. If I could work from home in any reliable capacity I would feel much more open to trying things out, but I can’t now.
Maybe I need to just stack hard and try to achieve financial freedom to the point I can have more options at least .