A Heavy Decision

I knew I would have to make this decision eventually, but I didn’t know it would be so soon. Do I stay another year here in Japan? After having this decision weigh on my mind basically since I got here, I decided yes, I would stay here in Japan until August 2025

Before I’d ever seen my new apartment, or spent a day at my school, I was told by someone from the prefectural office that recontracting decisions would be coming up in December. In the end, this was pushed till January as my paperwork took a while longer since I had been a late arrival. 

The second day after returning from my New Years vacation, I was handed a sheet of paper “Intention To Reappoint”. I was asked to sign in one of two areas, did I intend to stay, or intend to leave at the end of my current contract. 

I arrived here in Japan on November 6th, and was asked to make this big decision just over two months later. Did I mention that I wasn’t able to change my mind after deciding? 

I wrote down my information in the area indicating I would like to stay. Barring any misconduct on my part, or any weird paperwork issues, it seems like I’ll be staying here in Japan until August of next year. 

It’s honestly been a relief just to have the weight of that decision off my shoulders. I’ve been going back and forth, sometimes my feelings change day to day, even hour to hour. I miss home, my friends, my family, my cat. I often feel like an outsider, lacking enough Japanese skills to communicate, and still learning the customs and the culture. 

Other days, I’m excited by those things. I get to see what life is like in a country not built and governed by people who look like me, who have different backgrounds or education. Canada is a country that survives and relies on immigrants from other cultures, but I could never fathom what that feels like. 

It’d be pretty presumptuous of me to say I could relate to newcomers to Canada, but at least this gives me an idea. I struggle with the language here, I misunderstand the customs, people give me strange looks, and I have to find and build community from scratch. 

I wanted to come to Japan to challenge myself, to try to see the world from a more global perspective, and I’ve certainly been getting that. I couldn’t tell you if I’d feel the same in a few months though. By August of this year I might be regretting my decision, wishing I could return to the warmth and familiarity of home. 

That’s been the trickiest part of this decision, I’m not just deciding if I want to stay a few more months, I’m already committed to August of 2024, it was deciding if I wanted to stay another year on top of that. 

Regardless, I’ve made my decision. Now, I no longer have to juggle the what ifs and maybes swirling around in my head, keeping me up at night. I can simply commit to doing my best while I’m here. If I’m going to be here until August of 2025, I can do my best to enjoy my life, explore Japan, and reach my goals until then. 

This does feel like a selfish decision, or like I’m taking my life back home for granted. I’ve got people who love and miss me, and I’ll be away for possibly major parts of their life. But this really does feel like a once in a lifetime experience. 

As I often try to remind myself, this was my dream. After becoming a game designer, I didn’t really have any other goals to aim for. I have games or companies I’d love to work for or work on, but those never felt like material goals. 

When I was in university, my life as I write this blog was everything I was working towards. It was the reason I went back to school, why I started studying Japanese, and why I wanted to learn how to teach English. 

Sure those things have a side benefit of making me a more rounded person, or more educated, but for those times when I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to come to Japan, I was pretty depressed. I started to think this dream wasn’t meant to be, or that Japan didn’t want someone like me. 

Now I’m here, deciding if I want to stay longer, and it feels pretty obvious to me that I’m just not ready for that dream to end. 

I feel pretty confident saying that I won’t be renewing next year though. Almost two years away from friends and family is a lot, and my cat will be 9 years old by the time I get back. While I do feel at home here in Japan, I’m not sure it’ll ever quite be home in the same way Vancouver is. 

Even if I can build community here, make Japanese friends, and become more fluent in the language, I often feel like Japan itself views me as a guest. With foreigners making up less than 3% of the population, I don’t feel like I’d ever really become part of Japan. 

There’s also a fair share of cultural differences that I’m not quite sure I’d ever get used to. In some ways I’m not sure if Japan would ever really get used to me either. Those differences are part of what I came here to examine, but there is a certain amount of friction that comes along with those differences. 

I have to be very conscious of my tattoos here, and if people learn of them sometimes their entire perception of my character can shift. My presentation at work is more restrictive, having to remove my earrings and tie back my hair everyday while wearing more professional attire than I’m used to. 

I could go on and on about all the different ways our cultures clash, and someday I just might! But it’s safe to say that it’s a lot of small things almost everyday, and that without a good release it’s easy to imagine them building up to a breaking point. 

I’ve been very grateful to have found another native English speaker working in the same field to help me blow off steam. Though they may be leaving me in March of this year, and if I haven’t managed to make any other friends by then, I’ll certainly be struggling with feelings of isolation. 

Even hoping this decision would help give me peace of mind, I still find myself drawn to thinking more about the possibilities of what could be or might come to pass rather than focusing on what I could be doing now.

I’ve still yet to join a club at any of my schools, pursue a hobby that involves me leaving my house, or try to study Japanese more regularly. It’s a tough balancing act of pushing myself to make the most of my time here, but also giving myself the grace to decompress in ways that allow me to unwind comfortably. 

I’m sure my time here will be tough, but it wouldn’t be worth doing if it was all easy for me. I understood how things worked back home because it was all I ever knew. It’s not until leaving all that behind that I’m able to reflect on the culture I was steeped in and see it for the first time from an outside perspective. 

I’m so so grateful for all the people back home who have been supporting me throughout this journey. If it wasn’t for all of you checking in on me and following along with my adventures through this blog, I would certainly have been ready to head home.

Despite the culture clashes, feelings of isolation and the language barrier, the experiences I’ve had here really are one of a kind. I feel like everytime I open my laptop to write I have some new story to share, and since I can’t tell it to my friends over drinks like I’m used to, I’m glad to have this blog as an outlet. 

I’m sorry to be away from you all for a while longer, but I feel like this is where I can continue to grow and make the most of the opportunities I’ve been given. I hope that through this blog I can at least return the favor in some small way. In a year and seven months I’ll wake up back home, but for now, this dream continues.