At 26 I realised I needed to make a change. I had joined a company straight out of university which was great but needed to explore the world. In the lobby area of our meeting rooms there was a brochure about some of the senior leaders at the company. A very happy looking guy with a tan was crouched on the edge of a boat in the sunshine somewhere in Asia. Looking out of the 10th floor in the middle of a grey, drizzly day in Manchester, I realised, “it’s time!”
It sounded cool, exciting and maybe I can earn a lot more to return home in a blaze of glory in a few years! That wasn’t quite how it turned out…
The idea of also being part of a “start-up” office sounded very cool! So it was finally decided I would move to Kuala Lumpur. We announced everything to the team, I began working my notice and went about saying my goodbyes.
A few weeks before I was due to leave however, I heard back that we couldn’t get a visa as the ratio of foreigners to local staff in KL was 1:10. Already 3 senior people were flying out to begin work, and hiring more than 30 recruiters in their first year was unrealistic. I agreed. So it was suggested I speak to the head of our Japan office.
Moving To Japan
Now to be clear, I literally knew NOTHING about Japan. There was no Japanese influence in the UK whilst I was growing up, or at least not in my tiny home town. Too old for Pokemon and too young to see the phenomenal economic success of the 90’s. So I did what any normal person would do in this situation, I freaked out big time!
Fortunately though Japan was and is a fantastic country. I however was not as fantastic at integrating sadly and had a fairly traumatic first year or so before eventually settling down.
Every person that moves to Japan has a library’s worth of comical error stories from buying washing up liquid as hair gel through to buying a baguette for your soup only to find it is packed full of jam and cream. Whilst I probably have more stories than most to share, they only serve to show my complete lack of knowledge about the country, language and culture. The fault of these misunderstandings can squarely be laid at my feet and not those of Japan. This country is amazing and has enabled me to create a life for myself and my family that I could probably not have created anywhere else. So instead, here are some tips I would recommend from my own experiences as well as seeing many people coming in and out of Japan:
- Language – wherever you move to, invest time in the language. My Japanese is woeful but I have tried and will continue to do so. The importance of trying cannot be overstated
- Friends – Get out of your comfort zone and spend time with people of all nationalities. It is amazing, life changing even, to hear different people’s stories, their jokes and perspectives
- Accommodation – don’t do what I did! That is, stay in your temporary accommodation and on the final weekend very quickly choose the first thing you see. Do lots of research, find out where most people your age are living and try to stay within your budget
- Say “yes” to everything for the first 6 months. Every invitation for drinks, sports events, beach, skiing, networking and so on, just do it. Its amazing the friends you will make, sometimes in unlikely places
- Overthinking – try not to overthink, it can be easy to slip into feelings of being overwhelmed, missing home, wondering how long you want to stay in this new country, was this the right thing to do? But the reality is that, everything will be ok. One day you will look back on your experience and realise how fortunate you were. Get up, get out and keep yourself busy
- Be amazed – I am still regularly amazed by Japan after 9 years. One morning I woke up in my apartment and looked down to discover a “matsuri” or festival taking place along the street by my apartment. I thought I lived in the middle of nowhere but apparently it was on the route of a festival. Imagine the child like wonder of seeing this from someone who has no idea what is happening. These moments are unbeatable. What is even more amazing is to think that this is one country, one city. What are you missing out on in all those other cities and countries around the world??
- Work harder than everyone else – In between moving from the UK to Japan, I negotiated a 6 week break to travel around SE Asia. After a few beers I was speaking to an older guy about how excited I was to be moving abroad and how quickly it would develop my career “all I need to do is move to Japan, hit these targets and boom! I’ll get promoted”. He paused, looked up and gently suggested that I should be the hardest worker in the room when I get there. Ok I thought, sure, whatever and didn’t think about it again. He knew. It’s brutal trying to be successful in a new country. Everything is different and the only way to be successful compared to your colleagues is to work harder than everyone else. There is no red carpet rolled out for you on arrival, you will need to prove yourself once again.
- Take a break – it’s exhausting to work 12 hours a day, go for evening drinks and be out all weekend. Do take time off to do nothing, go to a beach, hiking, skiing, cycling whatever it might be. It’s too easy to run yourself into the ground. Look after yourself.
- Humility – When I moved to Tokyo, I thought I knew it all. I was an idiot. It was only after realising that my team knew infinitely more about this new country and how to do business here that I began to understand how to develop some small amounts of success
In summary, learn from my mistakes and go in with an open mind. Consider what YOU can do to adapt to your new surroundings, not what your surroundings can do to adapt to you!
