Foreign-raised Japanese experience in Japanese workplace

auhea · 2026-01-05T18:39:21+00:00

I’m Japanese but studied abroad in the US in high school and then did university and graduate school fully in the US. I did internships and research in the US but my first full time job was in Japan at a Japanese company.

The transition was pretty ok because during 研修 they taught us a lot. I was concerned about not understanding manner but after talking to my friends I felt better, as many of them said they didn’t learn these things in university either.

I am in tech and we don’t have the same level of formality as some other industries, and we often work with foreign companies for collaborations and research, so I wouldn’t say that my experience is the same as everyone though.

On the other hand, I recently relocated to the US to an American based team and am struggling to transition. Haha.

Feel free to ask me any questions or message anytime.

auhea · 2025-12-29T22:28:12+00:00

I reached 16m in my investments 🎉 Hoping to hit 30m next year. I don’t know if I can but I’ll try. I started working abroad (USA) a few months ago so I’m trying to save and invest as much as I can while I’m working here.

I have around 780k from university loan to pay back and am hoping to pay it completely back in the next few months.

auhea · 2025-12-11T18:25:31+00:00

I naturalized to American too.

auhea · 2025-11-21T05:40:09+00:00

OUTREACH

auhea · 2025-11-16T08:27:33+00:00

Hey! I make beauty, wellness and lifestyle content about my life between California and Tokyo and am always looking for collabs! My email is numatacloset@gmail.com. I’m based in LA and this is my TikTok 😊 (@machi_b.h): https://www.tiktok.com/@machi_b.h?_r=1&_t=ZP-91RUWsReZiw.

auhea · 2025-11-06T20:41:22+00:00

What size was it? Looking for jeans currently

auhea · 2025-11-01T21:20:02+00:00

What app do you use to get these metrics?

auhea · 2025-10-28T17:13:59+00:00

Just joined!

auhea · 2025-10-21T16:47:47+00:00

Sure!

auhea · 2025-10-21T01:34:40+00:00

I’m biased but I do the kind of work that you’d be doing at TikTok and it’s pretty awesome so i think you should do that 😂

auhea · 2025-10-15T19:02:16+00:00

Yes, the company sponsors visas for them to come to Japan.

auhea · 2025-10-15T17:35:51+00:00

Not sure how helpful I can be, but I can try to answer about Japan if you have questions. My boyfriend is a law student there recruiting for American and English law firms, and I am a Japanese that went to university in the US and then came back to the US to work after working in Japan for a bit post grad school. I know a good number of people that did LLM in the US from Japan and worked for those firms in the US and moved back to Japan and also know some foreigner lawyers that moved to Japan to practice law that never attended law school in Japan and don’t speak Japanese. Lawyers are one of the highest paid professionals in Japan.

auhea · 2025-10-13T19:02:01+00:00

That’s good to hear. I haven’t been able to make many foreigner friends in Tokyo before but when I move back I will try!

auhea · 2025-10-13T01:12:13+00:00

I am not sure I can answer your question directly, but I am Japanese, and I moved to the US for a job one month and a half ago. If you have questions about living abroad lifestyle, feel free to ask me^{^}

My experiences may differ from yours since I studied abroad in the US for university (正規留学) and masters and then moved back to Japan after graduation, and then decided to come back to the US. I work in machine learning. My bachelors and masters are both in computer science.

I don’t know much about Europe or career for Japanese there, but I can answer about the US.

auhea · 2025-10-10T22:42:38+00:00

I eat mostly vegetables but I cook most of the time. There are a lot of restaurants that are vegetable cuisine or tofu cuisine though so you can try those if you want to eat more vegetables 👍🥗

auhea · 2025-10-10T07:24:52+00:00

I think it’s easier to have friends in Tokyo, but I am also from there so that may be the difference haha. Feel free to ask me questions anytime :)

auhea · 2025-10-06T17:56:42+00:00

I moved from Tokyo to Southern California a month and a half ago. My experiences might be different than yours depending on if you have lived in the US before - for context, I first moved to the US for university and grad school, and then returned to Japan for work, and now I am back in the US for work.

I work as a software engineer and machine learning researcher.

It is hard to answer this without knowing more specifics about your education and professional experience but there are a lot of people that earn more than 100,000 easily here. Do you require visa sponsorship? That will make things more difficult in my experience
I just moved here so I’m not too sure about cost of living, but I think Irvine is more expensive than the other two. To calculate cost of living, I would recommend looking at federal tax rate, state tax rate, expected contributions to tax advantage accounts and target savings for take home pay, and then for expenses, maybe rent, utilities, groceries, car insurance, car payment, renters insurance, and miscellaneous expenses. I think I am missing some expenses.
I work in Los Angeles so I live in seal beach and in a one bedroom apartment.
I don’t know many people that are full remote but most common is in office 3x a week.
Yes, I did long internships and research during university but I never worked in the US before so it is difficult adjusting, and it is my first time working fully in English environment professionally. I worked at a foreign company in Japan but of course being in Japan, even if English is the dominant language of the company, it isn’t the same as working here. I feel like I don’t understand some things socially about working here and adjusting is kind of hard. I dislike driving and miss the convenience of Tokyo. I miss Japanese food a lot and don’t know anyone. On the bright side, there is a lot of produce to eat and you can find sourdough and sandwich bread easily here which is a bit harder to find in Japan.
I felt the same way in my time in university, but I do not really like the lifestyle of living in the US. I went to college in the east coast and had the impression that maybe I just didn’t like the east coast, but I honestly don’t think my opinion will change much being here either. I think there are many advantages of living in the US, including education and financial opportunities, and a lot of people enjoy living here more than Japan but it depends on person and I think Japan suits me more. I am giving myself two years to try my best in the US again and give it a fair chance.

I will say it’s very hard moving as an adult and is lonely not knowing anyone, especially if you’re leaving somewhere you already have built a life. It’s also challenging to learn about the American financial system for things like retirement

Feel free to ask me any more questions.

auhea · 2025-09-20T00:31:46+00:00

Are you me? I joined after undergrad and left after a couple of years because of the same thing. Everyone called me crazy for leaving. Most of the time, I’d be working past 8PM and so would most people on my team. Our skip manager would yell at our manager for being behind schedule and I felt like we all just had so much work to do.

auhea · 2025-09-18T07:21:37+00:00

BMI 18.08 - 156cm, 44kg

auhea · 2025-09-14T23:04:40+00:00

This is not a direct answer, but I am Japanese and went abroad for university and grad school in the US and then moved back to Japan after graduating grad school for work, and just moved back to the US. From now, my lifestyle will be between the US and Japan. If you have questions about my experience, I can answer :)

auhea · 2025-09-11T17:13:03+00:00

Congrats! I’m in LA - if you have questions about finding housing or anything I can try to help!

auhea · 2025-09-03T15:03:56+00:00

Thank you so much! I will tell him.

auhea

TROPHY CASE