u/NoticeStreet5909

I have lurked on this sub long enough to know that it is frowned upon when people mention that their Japanese skills are not fluent/native, but in my case I had to move to Japan rather sudden because my partner (A Japanese national) got a good offer and wanted to move back, so the whole family relocated from Europe. So sadly I did not come here as a Japanese speaker.

I was signed up for a 3-year contract with a company (IT / SaaS development related), and thought I was going to use those 3 years to reach at least N2 and then search for a contract with a local company. Unfortunately due to sudden financial issues the company I worked for laid me off with a 1-day notice and I had to stop paying for language classes, which has really slowed down my learning process. As good as YouTube videos are, it's just not the same as being in an actual classroom.

While my partner has a steady job, it's a bit tight because we also have a kid, and moving here, finding apartment etc. took a good chunk out of our savings.

So my new plan is to find any kind of job that I can take while continuing studying so that I can find a job within my field. I have over 5 years of experience, so technical skills should not be an issue, but I do need to get the language up to a higher level.

I have of course applied for English-teaching roles, but as a non-native speaker, the only offers I have gotten so far have been between 90,000 to 100,000 a month. While it is better than 0, I would prefer if I could find something that could provide for my family AND allow me to start paying for language classes again. So at least in the 280.000 - 300.000 range.

I have heard that Haken jobs may be an option, but so far I have only been able to find them through Yolo and Tempstaff.

Tempstaff does not seem to have any offers for foreigners that do not speak N3-N1. Yolo does, but I have not had much luck applying for any jobs there. I began applying for hotel cleaning jobs, but got rejected for several reasons. One place did not want me because I only have working experience in the IT field. Another place rejected me because they only wanted SEA staff. I actually had three in-person interviews, and they all seemed completely baffled that a westerner was applying for these roles and didn't quite know what to do with me.

I have gone to Hello Work a few times, who insist on only focusing on IT-roles, even though they all require Japanese. I have asked for non-IT jobs, but again I get the explanation that they are primarily for SEA workers on work visas, and not for a westerner on a spouse visa. I don't know why, but I am sure there must be some legal reason behind this.

Has anyone here been hired for a Haken position? If so, where did you look?

I am one of those foreigners who didn't actually plan on coming to Japan. I moved here because my spouse (a Japanese national) decided to move back here due to a better job opportunity with a local company. We had discussed all of the pros and cons that I would be facing after moving here. Of course we knew language would be my biggest issue, so the first priority was of course to enroll in a language school. For jobs it looked more promising as I have 5 years in IT and the company I was working for in Europe was already remote, so we didn't expect much trouble there.

Well, sometimes bad things just happen, and I ended up losing my remote job after a year, which was much sooner than expected, and the first thing we had to cut down on financially was my language lessons which were simply too expensive, but this also meant that I switched to self-studying which slowed down my learning process significantly and made job hunting here even more difficult. As it turns out, there really isn't much in terms of English-only IT roles in Japan anymore. I think I have gone through 4 or 6 recruiting agencies who either gave up or ghosted me after the "big ones" like Rakuten and PayPay turned me down.

I was given the advice to network as much as possible, which I have been attempting to do for a few months now, but what I have discovered is that when it comes to reaching out to fellow westerners here you have to put up with so much cynicism and negativity towards you, especially online. For example, I was lurking around the JapanJobs subreddit, and it's just so disheartening to see people. even with spouse and kids being told to basically leave Japan because they aren't yet fluent speakers. I was going to post there, but I could already see what it would result in if I asked for any advice there. It's a similar harsh tone I have encountered in other places, mainly from fellow westerners. Despite actively learning Japanese and moving here for family reasons, some people still respond to me like I deserve everything bad that is happening to me because I didn't foresee going to Japan and started studying the language 5 years ago. It sometimes feel like this particular community has a lot of bitter people who kick down others to get a temporary boost of confidence. It is completely different from the stories I have heard from the SEA community here. I know a Vietnamese guy who recently went through an experience similar to mind. He reached out to the local Vietnamese community in Japan and was flooded with support and encouragement and eventually ended up with a job and even had people help him out with his studies. Some even went as far as sending bags of rice to his family during their hardship.

When going to meetups, I have met some friendly people from Europe/America, but their friendliness usually does not extend far beyond formal introductions and basic small-talk. Even when an event is career-related, the overall tone is very much "I found some success in the past, but I will not share it with others", and when it comes to talking about language skills it quickly becomes very condescending. The only times I have seen some genuine emotions have been after drinking parties where people begin to open up, and very often you have people sobbing about hos miserable they are or go on angry rants.

To be absolutely clear (cause I know this will likely be the first response I get when I post this), this is not about me wanting someone to pity me, but it would sometimes be really nice if westerners here could stop seeing other westerners as some sort of competition, and instead share their knowledge, encourage newcomers and just show more support of each other overall.

Maybe I have just been unlucky. I know that especially online communities can be extremely harsh. It just saddens me that despite being such a small percentage of the immigrant population here we can't get along.

We are only on week 2 since my wife gave birth to our son.

I was already struggling with stress and sleep deprivation before he was born. What I thought was a secured 3-year contract at my old job ended up in a 1-day notice layoff. Being an immigrant in a foreign country I have been struggling for 5 months finding a new job while my wife is burning through her savings to support our child. I have reduced my own meals to 1 meal a day (a bowl of oatmeal) and that is how I have been living for 2 months.

After our newborn came I wanted my wife to recover herself physically and mentally. I did not want her to have any more stress, so I told her that I wanted her to stick with her sleep cycle, do the things she enjoy and not worry at all about the baby. She just needs to pump milk and that's it. My wife asked me many times if I was sure, and I promised her I would take all responsibility for the baby while continuing my job hunting.

I am very very happy that I can do this for her, and she is very grateful to me, but I have not told her how miserable I am...

This is day 3 without any sleep. He cries non-stop and wants milk almost every hour, even though I am trying hard to stick to the 3-hour schedule the wife gave us. Tonight he pooped no less than five times within 20 minutes, two of those poop ended up all over his clothes, so I have now been changing diapers and clothes over and over, which is almost impossible because of how much he moves. He is constantly looking for something to suck on, trying to feed of everything that comes near his mouth. Pacifier helps, but he constantly spits it out and then throws a tantrum.

I am so tired, my last blood pressure measured 171/100 and I headache, chest pain and have started vomiting, and on top of this I have to sit on LinkedIn trying to write enthusiastic resumes and apply for jobs.

I don't know how my body is going to survive months of this. but I don't want my wife to suffer with me. She was so relieved when I told her she could sleep as much as she wanted, go out when she wanted etc. I feel like I have lifted a giant burden off her shoulders. The problem is that my own shoulders cannot carry it anymore.