Hello, was hoping to get some advice from some seasoned veterans in this area. I want to emphasis this is a issue that has a lot of privilege and I’m by no means complaining just confused / frusterated.
Quick context: Originally from Canada, Moved to Tokyo a year ago - have 4 months left on my visa. I had planned to move to tokyo long term if possible in the meantime I’m here on a student visa working freelance for companies abroad. Ironically, my freelancing took off and I’m essentially a digital nomad kind of by accident.
I’m faced with a strange decision that feels very hard to choose. I really do want to stay here but after thorough research : Quality of life in japan + Salary + type of work are all not so great options for me at the moment. I am not having any fun because I’ve been working so much and having to go to school for visa limitations as well so I’m not really even seeing much of the country. I just got broken up with basically over a technicality of the person being too busy and feeling like my visa was going to end up being an issue long term so they couldn’t “see a future” with me. And while this is a (valid concern it still sucks.)
I make far more money + love what I do + work far less with what I currently do freelancing but that doesn’t get me a visa.
I have to return to my home country for my pets as I was planning on bringing them here and still could but not sure it’s really worth it. But I don’t want to live in my home country. I know there are much worse situations and places but its a long traumatic story. So I feel a bit amiss and I feel like most people have probably come across these issues and I was just wondering how they deal.
My options as far as i can see:
Give up quality of life to stay somewhere you want to be. Doesn’t feel like a long term solution
Keep the job and go back to home country, get other visas, travel around a bit. Never really have a permanent space or permanent relationships. Doesn’t feel like a long term solution but one hell of an adventure maybe?
go back to my home country get a solid good good-paying job that I love and is secure but not really having freedom. No matter how much I try I feel like I shouldn’t be living there. - I know extreme privilege nothing to complain about. Did this for 31 years and it didn’t make me happy. not to mention the housing crisis is really beyond screwed.
I’ve been dealing with feeling like my heart is in two places (trying to achieve lofty goals and wherever my pets are.) But I feel utterly stupid to give up this kind of freedom that was very unexpected.
Life’s a trade-off for everything and I know no choice is perfect, but I do crave a place to settle and run a small studio out of.
Appreciate any insights.
thank you
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It sounds like the idea in your head is that Japan is where you want to be. But the reality of work/life balance, type of work, etc. are all lacking. Try nomading for a while and see if you find a place you like.
Dawg… what… its a nomading page. Were going to say nomad if it makes you happy…if not go to your home country… this has nothing to do with “privelage”. Make a pros and cons list if you cant figure out what you want to do.
I feel like giving up quality of life would mean that I do not want to be in that place. With your pets it might be more difficult, but I would take advantage of the opportunity you have and travel to find where your quality of life will be what you want. It’s a really big world and there’s something for everyone, so in your situation I think it would not make sense to force yourself to stay somewhere you don’t want to be.
Also, I think it’s good to be aware that your situation is more fortunate than others but it sounds like maybe you let it affect you negatively. It’s a fact that you’re better off than most people, but you worrying about it is going to do nothing but make you feel bad and no one in these countries cares if you just feel bad about it so it doesn’t help them. Unless you’re just doing absolutely evil shit around the world, then you being better off than other people won’t affect them negatively and you might as well enjoy the opportunities that you have.
Ok so I’ve been doing the nomad thing for years and I’ve spent ~4-5 years in Japan. Basically you have two options in front of you.
- You can apply for the business management visa. I was going this route just before covid hit. To get this you have to invest $100k USD into whatever company you form (could be the consulting/freelancing stuff). You may need to hire a few locals at some point too… If the freelance work is really going well you might be able to expand how much work you’re capable of taking on. That would take care of the employee hiring.
- You can hire what’s known as an employer of record (or EoR). An EoR basically exists for companies who are outside of Japan but want to hire someone inside Japan. The EoR basically hires that person locally and takes care of everything from pension contributions, health care coats, tax payments, etc. They can also sponsor work visas. I haven’t found any info saying it was impossible to just hire yourself though… It seems like you could just pay the company directly and they’d sponsor the visa.
They charge a fee to the foreign company to do all this of course and I only learned about this after leaving Japan so wasn’t able to test it for myself. I don’t know how viable it is as an option but I haven’t been able to find anything specifically telling me it’s not possible.
As far as the costs to do this, consider your salary minus the cost of contracting an EoR company. If that total is equal to or higher than the average income levels for a local person, working for a Japanese company and earning a Japanese salary, you don’t actually lose anything… You’re still coming out on top.
You’d have the salary without having to deal with mandatory overtime or minimum N2 Japanese for professional level jobs or needing $100k for the business manager visa.
If you want to stay in Japan and keep freelancing check for self sponsorship of visa.
i don’t see your pets mentioned in any of your options. you chose to be responsible for them until they die. so you need to figure out how to give them a good stable life, then you can figure out how that can be best as possible for you.