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02-22-2009, 09:04 PM
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02-22-2009, 09:25 PM
I should so show this to a classmate of mine...
I want to go to Japan because, living in a diverse area, interacting with Japanese culture, people, language, and such has captivated me. It's not at all about the anime/manga. However. It'll be very difficult for me, I expect- but I assume so because I almost ruined my high school career, and until this recent semester as a senior year, i have never gotten above a 1.7. (this past semester 2.07. Dx) Needless to say, I have to get my bloody nose to the grindstone. I have to basically excel, or attempt to in city college before I make any more plans of leaving this city, let alone the country. I need to straighten up before I could make a respectable living anywhere- so I'm looking around for good programs to use. Japan is just my choice because I loved it too long not to consider it. And I'm sorry if people may think this sounds idiotic, but I feel more at peace around Japanese people. (Oh god that does sound idiotic) I want to get a decent job, but looking at some posts, I wonder if I'll be looked down upon because I still would want to work even if I got married and had a kid. People look down on me in my hometown and accuse me of only wanting to date japanese guys. And yes, while my boyfriend is from tokyo, and I have an ex from Kyusyu, I get tired of that assumption. I fell for these guys because they're the different kinds of guys, personality wise, that I would love to be with. (not to mention when I was four, swedish guys were the thing, xDDD) If I ended up getting married while in Japan, I wouldn't expect them to move here with me automatically, just because. I hate that some guys/girls who only want to date/marry asians do that. It's compromise, and who knows, you guys may end up in Egypt for all we know! My classmate is different. He's planning to drop out, brags about knowing japanese words, (when he yells at me on the side when I use it with my friends and tells me I should speak english...) and says he is going to end up "drifting" in tokyo because "his cousin lives there and will take care of him." ... Sounds like a match any girl would die for, doesn't he? ;] All sarcasm set aside- in actuality, we're sort of friends, he puts me down when I try saying that Japan isn't what he thinks it's like, and says I know nothing. Sure, neither of us been there, but still...
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02-22-2009, 09:38 PM
I have a few reasons of wanting to go...
Both my math teacher and my dad went and they both loved it. I recieved postcards that my dad had gotten when he went and my math teacher showed me pictures ^-^ Another reason is because I want to go maybe a week or so and visit some temples (I have a picture or Kinkakuji(I believe it was) Temple, and it's really gorgeous, and get some pictures of other places. Last reason, because I've always been facinated with it (my mom says its cus I was gonna be born there but who knows) the culture, the language. It seems much better than my boring old town (and Alabama period) but then again...I get facination out of anywhere new. (Texas being my biggest in the U.S.) But I'll probably never end up going unless my school keeps the senior class trip to Japan for another 3 more years.
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02-22-2009, 10:31 PM
Sorry for the long and rambling nature of this post. I kind of got lost in it.
For me I had absolutely no interest in Japan prior to going there for work. But going to Japan for 2-3 months sounded better than being in England for a guaranteed 6 months in a region that everyone says is horrible. In the end I spent 6 months during a 7 month span in Hiroshima. The weather was horrible at times and the working conditions sucked. But the things unrelated to work were great. While I was in Japan I made some good friends and some not so good ones. I also fell in love with the way Hiroshima was structured. You have factories next to housing with a restruant on one corner and the grocery store around the next and a school in the middle of it. That combined with the public transportation and the ubiquitousness of the bicycle makes the city so much more liveable than the american model where everything is confined to its own area far away from each other. Sure not everything is right next to each other but it is more accessible. When I came home I immediately missed the atmosphere and routine I had gotten into while in Japan. This was a far cry from the "I don't care what you say I'm going home in a week." email I had sent my project manager a little over a month earlier. But what had happened was I was isolated alone in Hiroshima for the last two months. I had gone over there presumably for a month to relieve another coworker and finish the last details. I was the only American dealing with the Japanese customer and their rediculous business practices on a daily basis. For the first three weeks I had my girlfriend to keep me steady, we had met while I was there previously, then we broke up in part because I had lost myself in Japan. I then started to hate being in Japan and lost myself even further by hanging out with the long term english teacher crowd. Which in general means going out and drinking and lamenting on something every night and going to bed a couple hours before you have to get up and go to work. After a little while I steadied again and found where I fit in. I was the white foreigner that wasn't an english teacher/bartender; I was respectable because I had a real job. I didn't have to get drunk every night, but I would go out on the weekend. I would meet up with friends, both Japanese and not. I had settled into a normal life. But now I was heading back to the states. When I got back home, after about 1 week I started looking into ways to get back to Japan. I came across the Research Student Scholarship. It is a scholarship that the Japanese government will grant to certain foreigners with degrees in the sciences and wanting persue a graduate degree. This would be the perfect opportunity for me. I have a BS in Engineering and had been considering going back to school. So started looking at Universities in Japan. After being back in the states for a month I am still dearly missing Japan, on a Tuesday night I decide to check on a weekend flight to Japan. There happened to be an ultra-cheap flight available and I sent an email to my ex-gf and ask her if she would meet me if I visited Hiroshima for the weekend. Even though we broke up 2 months prior, we had still seen each other and talked on a regular basis, but on my last night in Hiroshima I refused to meet her, so I think she might say no. Initially my reason for this is to just say Hi! and clear the air because I realize that she is probably the biggest part of Japan that I miss. But I realize that the biggest reason we broke up was I had forgotten who I was. I had been considering proposing at the time but didn't trust myself in that situtation. So now I was going to propose. While in Hiroshima for the weekend, we go to the Hiroshima Castle grounds and in the spot where went on our first date, I propose and she says "yes". We have since gotten married and decided to live in the U.S. There was a bit of debate about where we were going to live. Because I have no real attatchment to my family and she is very close to hers, I suggested that we live in Japan. However, the financial aspect is overwhelmingly in favor of living in the U.S. Living expenses are about the same, but we can live comfortably on my wages alone in the U.S. In Japan an engineer with my experience makes about 2/3 of what a U.S. engineer with the same experience does. To add another perspective, an ALT make more than an engineer with less than 5 years experience does in Japan. This would mean both of us would have to work in order to survive or I become an english teacher/bartender/fake priest. The latter is definitely out of the question though, because my wife despises them despite being friends with several. And the former is just a bad decision, while I can be happy doing anything as long as my family is taken care of, the thought that both of us need to work to survive is too scary for either of us to undertake. However, in the next 5-10 years we will probably move to Japan. This is primarily to be close to family. We both grew up with tight knit extended families and would like the same for our kids. With the exception of one cousin all of her family lives in Hiroshima prefecture. On the other hand My family is spread out across Oregon and Washington and as we have gotten older my cousins haven't stayed as close as we used to be and I hope my brother never reproduces.
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02-22-2009, 10:53 PM
That's quite a story!
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02-22-2009, 11:21 PM
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One more thing, for people who want to go and visit, Please please please, DO SO.. you will like it (Love it) I don't know about the rest, I just like japan because my dad worked there when I was a kid, So I ended up living there for 2 years in Yokosuka... it was a good experience. It wasn't a long time, but it happened to be an age when I started to come to my sense, so I just miss it enough to want to go back every year and stay there if I could.. BUT reality tells me that I am not sure if I want to built my career there
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02-22-2009, 11:26 PM
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02-22-2009, 11:38 PM
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