Hey Guys, I know I haven’t posted anything in a while and I am truly sorry for that. That besides the point though recently I had a sort of argument/debate/conversation or I don’t even know what you’d call it, in twitter DM’s with a person I won’t mention his name but it was pretty out of the blue when he sent me this, and while I will admit I was offended at a lot of points because he came across a little condescending and it seemed like he was making a lot of crazy leaps in judgement based off a couple posts about my personal life on the site. Anyways, I wanted to make this post because although there was a bit of being a douche on both of our parts there is a lot of good points within these messages in both my message and his. That being said lets just cut to the chase and show you the message
Message:
Hey, I just read through some of your site, and had no idea how young you were and how lofty your goals are. I am not much older than you (23), but the small difference between us is an ocean of difference compared to other age ranges. As someone who’s learned Japanese since he was 15, I feel like I almost have a duty to tell you some essential tips on the whole “moving to Japan” thing that might seem obfuscated or difficult when you’re a teenager. The thing I feel like I absolutely must tell you after reading the about section and “plan” section of your website: you absolutely must get a bachelor’s degree.
It will be increasingly hard to get into Japan without one. Your current plan of living with your girlfriend, while admirable, will very likely not work out long term–being 17, feelings change, things happen, life goes on. There’s nothing wrong with this, but you have to understand it’s not a sturdy bridge, so to speak. Without a bachelor’s degree you are basically screwed. It’s like your ticket of entry into the country. I lived there for a year as an exchange student at Waseda University, and I’ll give you some really good advice:
You are still at a point in your life where intense study and hard work can pay off in really sizeable ways. What I recommend you do is look into the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda. It’s all taught in English, and it’s laughably easy to get a degree. You’ll have a nice four years and a bachelor’s from one of the most respected institutions in the country that will open a million doors for you. Employers may even hire you based on your ties to Waseda alone–this is by far the strongest invisible bond that overlaps all other relations in Japan for seemingly no reason. Then you can seek out basically any job in any field you like. If things go south with your girlfriend, you’ll have a reason and a means to continue to live in Japan.
Currently you live in a dream. I don’t say this because I’m trying to insult you or something, I think it’s very admirable how adamantly you insist on achieving this dream. I wish I was that forward thinking about it at your age. I also wish I had someone who could tell me more specific details about something that seemed so impossible. You have to understand that the way you’re describing moving to Japan and starting a life there is a dream. Especially considering you live essentially a hikikomori’s life, you will not be able to adjust to such a wildly different change in lifestyle quite well. Anyway, the point of this message is to tell you to do extremely well in your last year of school, apply to a Japanese university, and get your degree. Do this while the window is still open, or your ideal life will never be granted (even if you move to Japan trying to find anyone who will hire you when your entire resume is online school and McDonald’s will be almost an impossible task).
Text ver of just message & response ——> Click Here
Before I get to my response a short message.
After reading this message for a third or fourth, (can’t remember now) time, I realise in my response I forget to mention a couple of things. For starters I think part of the reason why we ended up here and why he was almost “forced” to make some of these giant leaps in judgement was simply because the lack of actual explanation of my plans on moving to Japan, (at such an early age). I’ve mentioned it sometimes briefly here and there in some parts of some posts put for the most part I haven’t really went into detail. I think MOST if not all of what he was referring to when he wrote this message to me was the post I made titled “The Plan | Start” where I talk about some of my plans with this website and also with my life, and to be honest, I could see how someone who knows nothing about me just from reading that and understanding my age could think that I am just being incredibly “naive” or “lofty” with my expectations. So I will admit that, that’s kind of on me so to say in that I should’ve expected someone to eventually end up sending me a message like his. That being said, although I don’t think this person had bad intentions or was *intentionally* trying to be a dick, to be honest he really came off to me that way, especially reading his message for the first time. Having someone tell you that you are “living in a dream” besides the point, he almost 勝手に painted a picture of me in his mind that is far from my character in reality and I almost felt the “need” to stand up and protect myself. Also I will mention that because of what I’ve just previously stated, I was pretty offended and therefor my response had a fair share of doucheyness (yes I just created that word), and so understand that if you are reading this and you think “wow thats a bit harsh”, or, “damn dude you’re a dick”, trust me I acknowledge I went a bit too far and said some things I didn’t have to simply because I was “upset”. One last thing, my response includes quite a bit of personal things about me so maybe that might interest you are not, either way try to focus on the core points being brought up because that’s what I think can be taken the most from. Anyways, the response I sent was pretty long and somewhat thought out so no more beating around the bush.
My Response
Hey man although I appreciate your advice and your long thought out tweet, like 99% of the things you’ve mentioned I’ve already thought about a thousand times first, my situation isn’t as black and white as “Hey Japan! Sounds cool! Gotta girlfriend there so why I don’t just move over there whipty do”, no. I’ve been planning on moving to Japan since I was fucking 11 anything you can tell me about visas and immigration I’ve probably read up on it and have done more research than you. As far as the me living with my girlfriend, she will be my wife by the time I’ve moved there, we’ve been together for almost 3 years now and have been wanting to get married for a while now, While I’m not saying that lightly like I have some sort of advantage because I have a Japanese girlfriend who I plan on marrying but then again spousal visa is a serious way to bypass the “bachelors degree to jet” path that 90% of gaijin take. Thy being said I DO plan on going to university when I’m in Japan I’ve already decided that I’m going for a scholarship with 文部科学省
(MEXT) that should help with financial situation and also will help me get a degree which will then help me to possibly widen my horizons in terms of companies that will hire me, BUT to be completely honest I don’t even know if I WANT to go that route, I know this is one of those things that you probably don’t get but living a happy life doesn’t mean working your ass off just to get into a decent paying office job at some big company, honestly I’m more interested in freelance translation/interpretation working and programming than I am the other way around. The degree would just be nice to have just like how I plan on taking the JLPT not because I ever intend on using to prove how “good” I am at Japanese but just to have. Also you passively aggressively bash me loads of times in your little book of a message you’ve sent me, you call me a hikikomori (although I somewhat admittedly joked about me being one in one of the posts) that’s not really accurate I also mention I work full time (so clearly not a hikikomori) and I live on my own (pretty much the exact opposite of most hikikomori), but more importantly I guess you attempted to somehow “shit on my dreams” or something buy telling me that I’m “living in a dream” but I can assure you, my life is the farthest thing from a fucking “dream”, yes I can be naive about things and yes I can fantasize (like all of us) but this “plan” that I have is not something new, not something I just pulled out of my ass after fantasizing about going to Japan. I cant even explain to you how much planning and thought has gone into this and I probably wouldn’t want to even if I could because you would just down play it. Honestly from the very beginning of your message you greeted me with a very condescending “I’m better than you so listen to me” attitude and although you continuously preface it with “oh but I admire you and I’m just trying to help” みたいな言い方
at the end of the day what I’m seeing from you is the case of the “I tried the same thing you’re trying to do now when I was your age, failed, and now I’m in my twenties trying to do it again and salty after imagining the idea of someone else succeeding”. look dude, Not everyone’s situation is the same, and trust me if you were giving me actually advice (and not being a condescending dick ) I’d be more than happy to listen and take note, because at the end of the day I AM trying to get to japan, but I also have other goals and ways about doing things and that’s something if you truly did care and want me to succeed you would respect. Also I’m sorry to break this to you but you are an incredibly judgmental and arrogant person, I can understand someone misunderstanding someone based off their age but you don’t know the slightest thing about me man. I am 17, yes, but I am also legally emancipated living on my own and have been since I was 16, I’ve had multiple jobs (not just mcdonalds) and I’ve worked to support my self as an adult whilst everyone else my age was getting high and twiddling their thumbs around doing nothing with their life. when I was 13 I sought out to study Japanese and although at the time I didn’t have any good methods and didn’t know a thing about language acquisition or AJATT or MattVsJapan or anything for that matter, I did what I thought was best did my research and grinded my study every fucking day, and here I am 4 years later with a girlfriend that is the love of my life that If I didn’t speak (and was pretty good at that) wouldn’t even have probably met in the first place. This is just one example.
My entire life I’ve had abusive/shitty parents growing up, everyone around me in similar situations all did the same things, went to drugs, alcohol, basically fucked their lives up. me, I took initiative got out of that shitty situation and decided to start being an adult. I don’t say shit lightly, when I want something I will get it because I will bust my ass off until I do. That being said though considering I’ve had the life I’ve had virtually everything is going to be at least slightly harder for me than others because of the lack of true proper family (which is in my opinion essential for a happy life). The way you talk about getting a degree and going to university to by the way just goes to show that you clearly don’t understand finances and responsibility, like anyone can just go to any university based on their own desire as if tuition costs were not a problem, maybe that’s because YOU didn’t have to worry about that because you fall under that category of people who solely relied on their parents to get anywhere. Anyways I’m on quite a tangent now, I’d like to cover all the points you mentioned because literally all of them are false and its ridiculous how black and white you think my situation is. Lets see, “Even if you move to Japan trying to find anyone who will hire you when your entire resume is online school and McDonalds will be an almost impossible task”, welp for starts, again, incredibly rude and condescending. But that aside the point, I already kind of mentioned this before but my plan isn’t just to move to japan and never go to school or get any sort of degree, like I mentioned before I do plan on going to university (under a scholarship of course) and getting my bachelors (although thats probably the furthest Ill take it), of course in the meantime before I start university in Japan me and my girlfriend would have already been married by then and I will most likely have a part time job saving money here and there and or freelancing work that I can be doing remotely such as translation. Again, I already know what you’re thinking because people like you are so goddamn black and white “oh but you’re just naive, getting married at 18 is dumb you’ll change your mind, trust me ” yada yada, I’ve heard the same shit a thousand times, look, I get it. Hell, I might be naive, but that doesn’t change the fact that this has been what I’ve wanted to do for literally the past 5 years of my life. If it hasn’t changed in 5 years, It’s probably not gonna change in 6 when I proceed with it. And look man, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt there by saying that yes, the way I have described me moving to Japan and what not there was definitely some fantasizing going on there and not completely accurate, but then again, I’m not stupid. I know what I’m getting myself into, what I wrote in that post is besides the point, my mission of moving to Japan is without a doubt happening and not the way you think it has to. Look I understand that going to university in the us and getting your bachelors degree so you can move to japan under the Jet program and teach a bunch of uninterested kids in English and get paid pretty shit for it is the stereotypical “path to Japan” but you gotta understand there are WAY more ways to do it then that. Japan is actually a pretty difficult place to immigrate to if you’re from the US, trust me I know, the options are definitely sparse but not nonexistent. Also one thing you said, which I’m actually kind of shocked that you phrased it this way because if you’ve read my posts I would imagine the response would be the exact opposite but you said “Then you can seek out basically any job in any field you like. If things go south with your girlfriend, you’ll have a reason and a means to continue to live in Japan.” understandable yes even I have thought about the possibility of things going south with my gf as highly unlikely that is because I am genuinely trying to think of all possible outcomes, but the way you phrase this makes it sound like the only reason I want to live in Japan is my girlfriend, and although being with her and starting a family together is like one of biggest dreams in life
living in Japan is too, regardless a university degree is not the only thing there is too life nor the only thing there is to surviving and living in Japan. Anyways, its just as you said basically, you’re trying to give me advice that doesn’t apply to my situation, it only really applies to you, you even recommend for me to go to the save university that you did. You don’t realise this but by you living in Japan for some period and thinking the way you do now you’ve literally (probably unconsciously) fallen into the community of people who lived in Japan for some short period of time and think they know everything about the country and try to “red-pill” everyone else about it. It’s actually ironic cuz there youtuberes in japan like Tkyosam and Gimmeabreakman (not sure if you are aware of them) but they literally talk/rant about this all the time. Ironically the person who seems the wisest isn’t the one blabbering their mouth about all the details of something claiming to know it all its the person who listens and absorbs and understands there will always be more to learn and appreciate. Also (and again, don’t know why I’m even trying to explain myself to you), but its not just my girlfriend, its her entire family welcoming me there, her and her mom literally MOVED to a new house back in october last year so I could come any time and have a place to live anticipating my arrival, Me and her mom have like a somewhat family like bond too, maybe its because I don’t have too much of a great mother figure or something but I sort of latched on to her and she treats me the same, dude, shes literally given me permission to marry her daughter when I turn 18. You know how rare that is? Not just rare but that just goes to show that this isn’t just some fantasy tale its reality. Anyways at the end of the day there are people who support you and your dreams and people who are jealous or upset because their own efforts in life aren’t going too smooth so they lash out on you, I know I will succeed, why? because I have to. There is no other choice. So just like Japanese, Just like my relationship, just like maturing and becoming self sufficient, and all these other things in my life that I’ve sought out and accomplished I will do the same for my voyage to Japan. Again, only two type of people, the choice is yours. Although I would rather not associate with someone who doesnt support my goals. Anyways man, its getting late. There’s probably more that I wanted to mention but at the same time I already feel like I put way too much time into this and explained way too much to you that honestly is pointless because you didn’t support me from the beginning so its all just going to be overlooked anyways.
Nonetheless I felt the need to stand up for myself and my dreams. Also maybe a bit of advice on my behalf this time, if there’s ever a point in the future where you feel the need to give someone else in a similar but different situation then you, first of all, that’s completely fine, but for starters, please, PLEASE, understand everyone’s situation is different and not this black and white thing where one concept can be applied to like 99.9% of everyone’s life, it can’t. Also, don’t be a condescending little asshole and passive aggressively bash the person whilst somehow somehow giving them “advice” , also if you’re gonna give some advice, give some actual advice, literally in all of what you sent me there was only one real point which was “go to university and get a degree before going to japan otherwise you’re screwed”, which is like the most generic bs advice anyone whos ever looked into going to Japan has heard. Again, not black and white. Anyways dude I wont lie I probably went too far by being a dick back and I get it you probably didn’t have the worst intentions sending me that but you really did put a number on my mood and i’m not gonna lie it irritated me, so I’m sorry, but just understand the way you word things and talk to people really affects the way they treat you in return. anyways that’s it for me. hope you can understand my point of view, but yeah
Text ver of just message & response ——> Click Here
Are My Goals Realistic?
This is obviously one of those things that I can’t possibly answer without including my own biases and so the answer to this question is, well, In my opinion, yes. And to be honest I don’t say that lightly, I understand the process of moving to Japan, getting married, university, finding a job, you name it, is going to be a difficult one. That being said, I’ve done my research and I will continue to do so accordingly, honestly at this point the only thing stopping from going right now is the stupid “pandemic” and borders being closed. That’s a whole nother topic in it of itself though so I will leave that for a different time. Regardless, I think this person probably just skimmed a some posts and the general overview of my site and made some judgements based off that and I can’t necessarily blame him, although I will say his “approach” of giving whatever “advice” he intended to wasn’t what I would consider the best, he still probably had good intentions and didn’t intentionally *try* to come off as a douche, (but he kinda did, at least to me), but I’m not mad or upset at all nor do I hold any personal grudge against the guy, hell I can even understand his argument assuming I DIDN’T plan on going to uni at all (but as mentioned in my response I do), and getting a degree will be an inevitable part of me assimilating into my new life in Japan.
Conclusion
In conclusion I spent WAY too long responding too this guy in all seriousness (lmao), but to be fair I think that there are some really valid points that were made by both of us and maybe something to take away from this as a whole and if not well, hey I hope you at least enjoyed listening to be blabber and get my pantys in a twist over this guys message😂, anyways I’ll meet u guys in the next post.
