Message for newcomers to Japan

- by Yogendra Puranik ‘Yogi’ on 11-Jan-2020

Japan is not a new destination for Indians. As per the written evidences available, Indians have been coming to Japan from the 6th century, when knowledge about philosophy, language, culture etc. was transferred from India to Japan. After that many Japanese students went to India to learn various sciences.

Now Japan has become destination education for the Indian students, destination work for the engineers and destination business for the tradesman. Indian tradesman started coming to Japan since the Meiji period is around year 1900. And the flow grew in the 1990s as Indian IT engineers started coming, in large numbers, to support the Japanese and international businesses.

The first impressions of Indians when they come to Japan are, neat and clean, peaceful and safe, mannered and polite people, scenic and beautiful sites, standardization across the whole nation and so on. Once you start living here and spend a significant time, that is when you start realizing the differences from India, a typical kind of loneliness and monotonousness, life full of rules, the daunting language barrier, the haunting food culture and so on. As you go ahead with your experiences, you may also start experiencing discrimination at work, hatred on road or in community places and so on. 

Japan is still a sacred nation with very little knowledge about the true Japan in the overseas. It could be because of the ‘tatemae’ culture in Japan which means things are not how they are seen. Hence, it is very important that you study a bit about Japan, its language, its culture, its food etc. before you come to Japan. And if you are coming with a family, it is important that you include them in your learning process.

If you are coming to Japan for work, or as a dependent family, you are recommended to take at least basic level Japanese language lessons before you come to Japan. This will make your life a lot easy. Do the same for your family members in case they are accompanying you. 

While Japan is an advanced nation, it is very different from the Americas or the European nations. The overall behavior of the people here is sublime. There is no jazziness in the infrastructure or display of things. Everything is designed to the necessity.

Japan offers a strictly controlled entry to Indians. Every kind of visa application needs a list of supporting documents which are scrutinized over a sufficiently longer period. The documents must be as per the stipulations. There is no jugaad in the scrutiny of documents and any other aspects of life in Japan. Even then some skilled workers and refuges are successful in finding loopholes in the system. Some black agents are also fooling the aspirants by providing wrong information and unrealizable dreams. Hence be careful. We have seen that these people generally go through hardships while living in Japan. Hence, we do not recommend illegal entry to Japan.

If you are a newcomer, please go through the other relevant articles in this section and on this website. And if you need any specific help that is not covered on the site, please feel free to contacts us.

All the best

For All Japan Association of Indians (AJAI)