In The Business of Chasing Dreams

This is my daruma.

I got it last Christmas from Pam Laycock, the COO of Torstar Digital, in a “Secret Santa” exchange.

I painted one eye of the daruma. If and when my wish comes true, I will paint the other eye.

Of course, I had to make a wish at that time. But what to wish for? Well, that was easy. My wish and my dream are the same: to get a job in Japan.

Actually my dream is a bit more than that. My dream is actually to live and work in Japan, and to have my own apartment. And in the apartment I will have a kotatsu, a Japanese-style kettle, and a ‘shower toilet’. And then from there, I can pursue success in love, career, and Japanese language, as I live out my days in the land of the rising sun.

But nothing like that can really start until I get a job. No job means no money, no stability, and no permission for long-term stay. Come September I will have already used up two consecutive 90-day tourist visas, and to be honest I’m a bit nervous about what suspicious immigration officials might say, if I attempt to enter a third consecutive time.

I didn’t really know exactly what would happen once I arrived here, but I had a basic plan. Rent a room in a guest house, then get my resume out to as many recruiters as possible, in order to land some kind of IT job, likely with a foreign company where English-speakers are needed. I didn’t know if my plan would work or not, but I knew I had to come here and give it a try.

But after 2-3 months of living here, it became apparent that this plan was not working as well as I’d hoped. There are many things working against me. My Japanese is not “business level” (at least not yet). I have no technical certifications, only ten years' work experience. And the one thing that has worked against me the most is that I do not have a proper work visa - only a tourist visa.

I knew this would be an obstacle when I arrived here, but I had no idea just how much of an obstacle it would be. Many times I’ve come so very close to landing a job here. Some of them great jobs that pay way more than what I was making in Toronto. But in the end, things always fall apart in the end over one thing: the visa. Companies don’t want to wait 1-2 months for the visa to process. When they are hiring someone, they want someone right away. So instead of hiring someone like me, with ten years’ experience, they’re more than happy to hire a guy who is less experienced but can start right away.

To be honest, emotionally these past few months have been quite a roller-coaster ride for me, as I continually weave back and forth across the line between hope and despair. So many times I’ve seen my dream within my grasp, only to watch it fall apart right in front of my eyes.

But dreams have a habit of not dying, even in dire circumstances. I’ve been doing everything I can to stay here, in hopes that somehow a solution to my problem would present itself. I discussed my problem with Boris and Mark, two friends I made at the guest house, and I’ve done my best to follow their advice.

What they recommended to me is that I get a job with an English school, thus enabling me to get a work visa. Once I have the visa, then I can continue my search for a meaningful IT job.

Now those of you who are reading this, you might wonder why I didn’t consider this option before. But there were two perceived facts that prevented me from pursuing this course of action in the past:

1. To get a work visa, a bachelor’s degree from a university is required. I do not have a university degree, I have a three-year college diploma.

2. If I got a job as an English teacher, my visa would be a ‘humanities’ visa, which is not the kind of visa required for IT work. IT work requires an ‘engineer’ visa.

But after spending time here, I have learned that not everything you read and hear is actually true, and that some commonly-accepted truths are actually not entirely accurate. Since arriving here, I have learned that:

1. There are many college graduates, even from two-year programs, who are holding sponsored work visas. Many of these are from Canada.

2. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website in Japan (MOFA) makes no mention of “bachelor degree” when speaking of the requirements for a humanities visa. It merely says “college graduate”.

3. Although the ‘engineer’ visa is the most commonly-used visa for IT work, in the realm of English-language IT support, a humanities visa can also be used (I learned this from a recruiter).
Even in the cases where an Engineer visa is required, the time it takes to change from one work visa to another is considerably shorter than it is to get a new work visa from scratch.

So, armed with this new information, I took it upon myself to look for an job at an English school. And that’s where our story, my story of last week, begins.

(to be continued)