Weighing pros and cons of Japan | Lifestyle

Today, I’d like to use this multiple-award-admiring column to answer one of the fundamental questions I receive about living abroad: Do you think you’ll ever move back to the United States?

In deciding between life in the two countries, I weigh it category by category.

Food. Never once in my life, before moving to Japan or since, have I thought, “I could really go for some Japanese food.” Like all good Americans, I eat Mexican and Italian.

Japanese food features an inordinate number of pickled vegetables, raw fish and seaweed. It’s not that I hate these things, it’s just that I’d never seek them out. Living here, though, Japanese food seems to seek me out, no matter where I run.

Its saving grace is that it’s healthy, but you can find healthy options within any type of cuisine. Food-wise, I wish I were still in the United States.

Jobs. My wife’s main attribute in the workforce is that she’s fluent in Japanese and English. In Japan, that’s an enormous deal. The country is notoriously poor at English, making her skill set a hot commodity.

If a company here conducts any international business (and so many do), they’ll need an English speaker like her on staff.

In the United States, fluency in English isn’t notable, and Japanese ability is only narrowly marketable. For her to put her skills to proper use, we’d need to live near a Japanese company, I suppose, and they’d need to hire her.

As for me, my work experience is in teaching English as a foreign language. This sort of thing is needed all over Japan at every educational level. It’s hit and miss in the United States, and English teachers there aren’t as scarce.

As far as earning potential is concerned, Japan’s the place for us to work.

Immigration. My wife and I have two options in our lives: either we live in Japan where I’m an immigrant, or we live in the United States where she’s one. We’ve spent time in both scenarios, and as far as our lives are concerned, it’s better for me to be the immigrant under the Japanese system.

Several years ago, I managed to secure a Japanese permanent residency visa. I’m welcome here for life and with fewer hoops to jump through than a U.S. green card entails. (My wife has been through the green card wringer, and I can tell you that the paperwork and expenses were orders of magnitude greater.)

What’s more, from where we stand, U.S. immigration policy has looked chaotic for several years now. Much of it depends on the executive-order whims of the administration in power, meaning the lay of the land changes.

When planning your future as an immigrant, you don’t want the possibility of wild swings in the rules that govern you.

Japan’s system, though not perfect, wins this matchup easily.

Education. We have a kid now, and his schooling certainly plays on our minds. By the raw test scores, Japan routinely outperforms the United States in fields like math and science, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

But it’s not as simple as that.

The Japanese education system relies on rote memorization to a crushing degree. This makes the country a perennial top 10 in the STEM fields, but the workload on the kids is ludicrous.

What’s more, a focus on rote memorization comes at the expense of skills like critical thinking, formulating opinions, interpreting texts, and debating positions. Many foreign parents here, myself included, hope to rescue their kids from Japan’s intense memorization grind and place them in a system that prioritizes other creative skills.

It goes against the international rankings, but I lean toward the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as having the better rounded education system.

Safety. Here’s a challenge for you: Scour legitimate data sources and find one significant measure of public safety where Japan doesn’t beat out the United States. I’ll wait.

Homicide rates, violent crime, theft, etc. Japan has tamped them all down to a minimum. Even the suicide rate — traditionally high in Japan — has been falling, pulling even with the United States in the last few years.

You may be thinking of former prime minister Abe Shinzo now. His assassination this month on the streets of Nara certainly shook the country’s sense of safety.

Still, it’s important to remember that one notable tragedy doesn’t cancel out nationwide trends, and those continue to be stellar.

Despite the events of this month, Japan is miles safer than the United States — and nearly every other country in the world.

And that sums up a few of the major decision points. There are positives in both directions, but Japan’s safety, its job prospects and the relative ease of its immigration system (for us) are hard to beat.

That’s not to say I’ll stay here forever. Things change, and I’m always willing to reassess.

Would a Pulitzer Prize and a Kentucky Colonel certificate sway me at all? They certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Justin Whittinghill is an Owensboro native who works as an assistant professor of English at Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan. His column runs on the last Sunday of the month in Lifestyle. He can be reached at [email protected].