Today I am going to talk about my experiences moving abroad, how it has changed my life, and some of the most important lessons I have learned over the past 8 years. Hopefully you will all find something useful or relatable in this episode!
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Vocabulary
- Immigration (Noun): The act of moving to a foreign country for the purpose of residing there.
- Her family’s immigration to the United States brought both challenges and opportunities.
- Visa (Noun): An official authorization attached to a passport, permitting the holder to enter, leave, or stay in a foreign country for a period.
- Before traveling to Europe, she needed to obtain a tourist visa.
- Overwhelmed (Adjective): Feeling defeated or unable to cope.
- After receiving multiple assignments on the same day, she felt overwhelmed.
- Bureaucratic (Adjective): Relating to the administration of governmental agencies characterized by excessive red tape and routine procedures.
- The bureaucratic process of getting a business license was time-consuming and frustrating.
- Language barrier (Noun): The difficulty that arises from differences in language between people who are trying to communicate with each other.
- The language barrier made it challenging for them to have a meaningful conversation.
- Lonely (Adjective): Feeling sad and alone due to a lack of companionship or social interaction.
- Living in a new city where she knew no one, she often felt lonely and isolated.
- Friendship (Noun): A close and supportive relationship between two or more people.
- Their friendship grew stronger over time as they shared experiences and supported each other through difficult times.
My Experience Moving to Japan
On the 31st of July 2016, I hugged my parents goodbye, boarded a plane for an 11 hour flight to Tokyo, and changed my life forever.
I was young and immature. I had just graduated from my degree in the UK two weeks earlier, and I wasn’t even 21 yet (I would turn 21 during my first few weeks in Japan).
I was also doing something I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do. During my final year at university, I decided that I wanted to take a gap year, maybe travel and work in another country, before returning to the UK to start a master’s degree.
I looked into becoming an English tutor in various countries, and found a scheme called the JET Programme which sent assistant language teachers to almost every town in Japan: from major cities like Tokyo to the tiny villages of Japan’s islands.
This wasn’t a private company. It is a government initiative, one of the largest cultural and education exchange programmes in the world and came with much better benefits and support than many other jobs I’d seen advertised at the time. I decided to apply, and after being interviewed in the Japanese embassy (as it was for a government job) I found out I was successful.
Great news! I had a job for after I graduated with a decent salary… I was able to travel to and visit a new part of the world… I was able to work in education… I was going to have the opportunity to learn a new language… it was everything I was looking for.
It was also terrifying. I knew nothing about Japan. I had never studied Japanese, never watched Japanese animation, never read Japanese books, never visited the country, and never even met a Japanese person until my job interview at the embassy.
I really knew nothing at all about the country other than some general (and inaccurate) stereotypes.
In fact, I didn’t know anything about the city I was moving to or the schools I was working at. Normally, my predecessor (the person who had the job before me) or supervisor (my boss) would have contacted me with information and advice… but this never happened.
Eventually I found out I was going to live in a city called Niihama, which is on the Japanese island of Shikoku in Ehime prefecture. I looked online for information in English, and there was only a little available – there was a famous festival held once a year, it was near mountains and the beach, and that was pretty much it.
So, when I boarded that plane in July 2016, I was terrified. I knew nothing about Japan, nothing about my new home, and nothing about my job.
Adapting to My New Home
After a short orientation in Tokyo with over 1000 other JET Programme participants, we were all sent to our new homes at the beginning of August.
I honestly can’t really remember too much about my first few days or weeks in Niihama. I flew to the largest city in the region with 3 of my new colleagues and we were picked up by my new boss and some more experienced teachers.
On that first day, we registered our information at the city hall, opened bank accounts, met the mayor, signed up to internet and phone plans, bought furniture for our new apartments, and had to deal with the incredible heat of a Japanese summer. As I spoke no Japanese, I was being helped by my wonderful colleagues… and it was a surreal experience.
By 11pm that night we had finished all of the tasks for the day, and I was dropped off in my new apartment. My suitcases and furniture had not yet been delivered.
The only part of the day I clearly remember is the feeling at the end of that day. I was exhausted, hot, overwhelmed by everything that had happened, and was now sat in a large apartment that was completely empty – no furniture, no bed, no curtains, nothing in the kitchen, and I had no clothes other than what was in my backpack.
I remember plugging in the internet box I had just purchased, calling my mum back in the UK, and nearly bursting into tears.
Fortunately, a few minutes later my belongings were delivered by a friendly staff member of the city board of education. The next morning, at 5am, I was picked up and taken into the mountains for a 2-day junior high school education camp.
Over the next weeks and months, I gradually got used to life in Niihama. My language skills improved really quickly as I spent all my free time studying; I made friends with my colleagues, and we leaned on each other for support; I began to travel and visit the amazing places in the area I was now living; and I worked at wonderful schools with some wonderful people.
The Best Decision of My Life?
July and August 2016 were some of the toughest months of life… but the rest of my time in Niihama has some of the best moments of my life.
Although I left in August 2018, my experience of moving abroad to Japan changed the course of my life.
I returned to the UK to do a master’s degree (as I had originally intended), but my time in Japan made me change my focus. Instead of studying the politics of war and conflict (my original intended focus) at King’s College London, I chose to study the Politics of Asia at SOAS, University of London.
During my time at SOAS, I was encouraged by my professors to apply to some study abroad and scholarship opportunities. I was successful.
I graduated, and then moved to Taiwan to study Chinese for six months. Then a year or so later, after a delay due to COVID, I accepted a scholarship to move to Japan again and enrol as a research student at university in Tokyo.
Going back to my time studying at SOAS in London, I had wanted to practice more Japanese. I began attending language exchange events and met some really cool people, including one person who is now my wife and the reason I am living in Japan once again.
My choice to move abroad in 2016 was terrifying, but also the most impactful and consequential decision I could have made. Everything I have done in the past 8 years, from studying Japanese politics, learning Chinese, and meeting my wife, to starting Thinking in English and studying around the world, is a result of leaving the UK.
Lessons I’ve Learned from Moving Abroad
I have learned so many lessons, gone through so many challenges, during my years living abroad.
I’ve had to learn how to become more confident, how to speak new languages, how to deal with living alone and being independent in an unfamiliar world, and much more.
Moving abroad can be an expensive, frustrating, confusing, lonely, stressful, and disappointing experience. It can also be wonderful, enriching, fulfilling, and excellent for your personal and professional development. It can be both good and bad at the same time.
I’d like to talk about some of the challenges I have faced and lessons I’ve learned while living and moving abroad.
Of course, I should point out that I am incredibly priviliged and I have been so fortunate with some of the opportunities I have received. I come from a working-class family, and all of my times living overseas have been funded by scholarships, my employer, or myself.
But I am also conscious that I have the privilege of a British passport and the English language. If I had been born in another country with a different native language, it may have been far more difficult for me to move overseas and experience what I have experienced.
But hopefully the challenges I’ll talk about are still relevant to all of you listening who are considering moving to another country, perhaps an English-speaking country, at some point.
Moving vs Visiting
First, moving to a new country is incredibly different to visiting a country as a tourist. This is a lesson that I think many people moving abroad learn quite quickly.
I have friends who moved to Japan because they loved visiting as tourists, and it turned out they didn’t quite like full time life here as much.
The new and exciting things that appeal to tourists quickly lose their shine when you live somewhere permanently. You don’t have time to travel as much as you’d like, and you have to deal with all the problems and issues that come with living in a place.
Things like taxes, healthcare, insurances, education for your children, renting houses, buying furniture, working or studying five days a week, and worrying about pensions and savings only get more complicated when you move overseas.
Every time we have some free time, boring normal life gets in the way. For example, tomorrow my wife is off work, and I don’t have any meetings until 8pm… but it turns out I need to go to the bank and the city hall to register my new ID for the renewed residence card I received last week, and then we need to go to a furniture shop because I broke our bookshelf.
Living abroad, especially the longer you live abroad, eventually becomes boring and normal. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is important to realise that your life will not always be full of action like a vacation.
Language Barriers
I’ve learned that continually improving your language skills is one of the best things you can do to help the process of living overseas.
I have continually studied language, even when I hit a level that allowed me to live and exist in Japan perfectly comfortably. I want to be more proficient and more fluent. I want to be able to experience more of the culture and parts of life that increased proficiency delivers.
A lack of fluency in Japanese has caused challenges in many ways: it is hard to understand letters that come through the door, it is difficult to make friends, it is challenging to find housing, there are often mistakes or complications when I have important things to do, and there are constant misunderstandings.
However, making the effort to continue improving and practicing your language skills is incredibly beneficial. As you understand more of the language, it often helps you to understand and respect the culture at a deeper level.
Making and Losing Friends
I think one of the biggest lessons people learn while living overseas is how to make friends and how to deal with friends moving away.
Making friends is hard when you move abroad. Culture and language can get in the way, and building a social network takes a lot of time and effort.
From my own experience, it is relatively easy to make friends with people in the same situation as you. When I was a student, it was easy to make friends with other students. When I was working as an assistant teacher, I naturally became friends with the other assistant English teachers.
It is much more challenging to make friends outside of people in the same situation as you, which is why immigrants so often rely on other immigrants when they first move countries.
I have found it really tough since moving to live with my wife, as I work online (making Thinking in English). I don’t have any people to make friends with quickly and easily as I had in the past.
The other side of making friends while abroad is losing friends. I guess losing is probably a little extreme, but many of the friendships people make while abroad are temporary. You might move, or they might move.
I spent almost every day with the same people back in 2016 and 2017. We would visit places together at the weekend, get dinner after work at least 3 times a week, visit places around Japan and Asia together, and talk every day on social media. Six years later… and I’ve not seen them since and may never see them again.
The same thing is sadly true about my friends during my master’s degree who came from all around the world, or the friends I met in Taiwan, or in Tokyo.
The reality of international friendship is that people come and go. This is a hard lesson to learn, but an important one. I think it forces you to appreciate friendships and accept the temporary nature of relationships.
Life Back Home
Another thing that often surprises people is that life back in your home country, with your family and friends, carries on.
Your friends from home will continue on with their lives. I have missed many parties, trips, and weddings.
Your family will also get older. Every time I return to the UK, I realise how much older my grandparents are compared to my memories.
I’ve also not seen my brother in around 6 years because we both live overseas and haven’t been home at the same time since he went to Australia.
Your life will also continue, but often in a different direction to what you previously thought. My one year teaching in Japan as a 21 year old has now become 5 years living here, being married, and running Thinking in English.
Visas and Immigration
Then the final few challenges and lessons I’ll talk about today are a little more bureaucratic.
When moving to another country you need to deal with visas and immigration. Usually, you need someone to sponsor a visa: often your employer, a school, or your family.
You will need to make sure your visa and residence is always in date. I am currently in possession of renewable 1-year visas here in Japan so every March I need to submit an application to extend the visa (and hope I get a 3 or 5 year one)!
If you lose your sponsor (your job or school), you’ll need to find someone else to guarantee you or leave the country. I left my university in Tokyo in 2022, couldn’t find a good job in Japan, so had to leave.
In Japan, I’m relatively lucky that visas and residence conditions here are relatively cheap. If you want to move to the UK, however, it can be incredibly expensive.
My spousal visa in Japan was free to apply for (apart from a stamp on an envelope) and then cost 4000 yen or about £25 when it was approved. A UK spousal visa costs at least £1846 plus £1000 for healthcare per each year your visa is granted for.
Moving can be expensive.
Finances and Tax
And finally, one of the biggest challenges of moving abroad is dealing with finances and taxes.
First, when you move you have no history in that country. It makes it challenging to open bank accounts sometimes or apply for credit cards or loans.
I naively thought I’d be able to open a business bank account here in one day, like I can in the UK. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult for foreign residents.
Second, you will have to deal with tax rules that may be unfamiliar to you. I am self-employed, meaning I need to do my self-employed taxes every year myself – February and March earlier this year were a stressful period for me!
I know a few people who have real troubles with international tax rules. Every country is different and has different rules, and you should make sure you understand these.
I know someone who has just had to set up an entirely new business in a new country, and buy his old UK based business, because the country he moved to does not allow residents to work for overseas companies.
I know people who have been sacked from their job for trying to work remotely overseas as a full-time employee (which is against most tax rules).
I’ve heard of someone being audited by tax authorities because they sold investments in one country but transferred the profits to a second country.
Taxes and finances are really confusing!
Final Thought
From boarding a plane to Japan as a young and inexperienced 21-year-old unsure about the future, to now living here full-time, moving abroad has transformed my life.
Despite the initial challenges of language barriers, making friends, and navigating bureaucracy, the experience has also been a time of growth, learning, and unexpected opportunities.
Many Thinking in English listeners probably have ambitions or thoughts about moving to new countries, for work or study or life purposes. I made this episode to hopefully share some of the lessons I’ve learned and challenges I’ve faced over the past 8 years.
What do you think? Have you ever lived abroad? Do you want to live abroad? What lessons have you learned from living abroad?
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I was born and raised in China. I have been living abroad in New Zealand and Malaysia for years. I have the same thoughts as you. Living abroad is quite challenging and special at the same time. But I am very grateful for having these opportunities to have a more enriching life experience. Thanks for your sincere sharing.