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- Nic Lim, a New Zealand author, uprooted his life in New Zealand to become a school teacher in Japan.
- During his four years there, he weathered a pandemic and dealt with cultural and language barriers.
- There are three things people interested in moving to Japan should be aware of, he said.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nic Lim, an author from New Zealand who moved to Japan for four years to work as an English teacher. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his employment history.
In 2019, fresh out of university, I left home in the thick of winter. After a long plane ride, I found myself sweating in the heat of a blazing Japanese summer, en route to what would be my home for the next years.
Before I left home in New Zealand, I’d lived in the same house, in the same city, for my entire life.
I won’t sugarcoat it: I wanted more opportunities, and to go out into the world and see what it had to offer.
I’ve always loved manga, anime, and other aspects of Japanese culture. And having graduated with a media degree, I felt Japan was the place for me.
So, when I was 21 and fresh out of college, I decided to move. I applied for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which brings foreign graduates to Japan to work as assistant English teachers.
I was accepted to the program and moved to Koshigaya, a town in the central Saitama Prefecture.
There, I was suddenly exposed to a new culture, a new city, and a new language.
Here are three big lessons I learned from my four years living and working in Japan.
You’re going to have to adjust to your new life, and fast
When I got to Japan, I noticed how limited the use of technology was in the classroom.
For example, our morning meeting notes were always printed on paper. Some of my fellow teachers didn’t know how to use email, and that was one of the things that prevented us from switching up the system from printed meeting notes to digital documents.
On top of that, we were using ancient computers that were still running Windows 7. Some of the data was still stored on floppy disks.
Also, the scenes you see in manga where kids draw on blackboards are accurate. In the school where I taught, blackboards were the norm. I developed a hatred of having chalk on my fingers because it’d end up staining my suit with white smears.
The way people work at school was also a cultural gap I had to bridge.
Teachers in Japan also behave very differently from how I did, having grown up and gone to school in New Zealand. More traditional teachers conduct themselves strictly, and go by the book.
Meanwhile, I liked chatting in the hallways with the students, and my style of building rapport with the kids caused a bit of friction with some other staff members.
But I’m proud to say that my students began to trust me, and think of me as a friendly face they could approach. I think it’s because people are more willing to mess up in front of their friends than they are in front of their teachers — and, by extension, more willing to learn.
Being proficient in Japanese before you leave for Japan is a major plus
Before I went to Japan, I did not know a lot of Japanese. I had a basic grasp of hiragana and the numbers, and in my part-time job at a sushi shop, I would count the pieces of sushi in Japanese to try to practice.
But that was about the extent of my proficiency.
Obviously, one of the advantages of being in Japan is that you’re surrounded by Japanese people. It’s a great opportunity to immerse yourself in the language — and I tried my best to learn as much of it as possible when I got there.
But my first language struggle hit pretty early on when there was a typhoon. While the government did a good job of offering information in English, at certain points, my phone would light up, an emergency alert would pop up, and it would all be in Japanese.
I’d look at it and think: “Do I need to run?”
It was daunting, being bombarded with emergency alerts that I just could not understand at all.
I also happen to have an extensive list of dietary restrictions. I’m allergic to wheat, gluten, eggs, nuts, and fish.
If you know anything about Japanese cuisine, eggs, wheat, and fish are core culinary components. When I first got to Japan, I couldn’t read the food labels in shops.
So that was rough — because I had no idea if food would potentially kill me without looking it up on a translator.
You may think you know Japan from the touristy photos people post on Instagram. You don’t.
I think the image that a lot of people have of Japan is what you see in the media — the glitzy streets and neon lights of Tokyo and the shrines and red torii gates of Kyoto.
Beyond Japan’s most romanticized elements, there are regular towns where people just go about their lives in their suburban neighborhoods.
I’ve also traveled to places off the beaten track. I’ve hiked to the source of an onsen on Mount Adatara in Fukushima, and seen some of the more rural parts of the country that tourists don’t often think to visit.
Some days, I would take my bike, pick a direction, and ride until I couldn’t go any further. It was intensely freeing — and I encourage people to leave their comfort zone, and go on adventures like this at least once.
Living in Japan inspired me to write a book, “Gate at the End of Summer.” I wanted to capture the feeling of the best days of one’s high school life. It’s rooted in the idea of enjoying one’s youth, as best as one can — and not wanting summer to end.
I’d go back in a heartbeat
Of course, life in Japan wasn’t perfect — no country is perfect — but I take the good with the bad. But what’s stuck with me since I left in 2023 were the great experiences I had there.
I spent a lot of energy trying to make sure that my students could make the most of their time at school, and leave with happy memories. But I came out of it with beautiful memories of life in high school, too.
My teaching contract has ended, but I’d love to go back — if I ever get the opportunity to do so.
