Hey guys! So I've been getting a lot of questions about how can you actually get to Japan. Well,
I've been putting off making this video for a while because it's kind of a dry subject
so in order to make it more exciting to those of you who already know how to get to Japan
or know everything about Japanese visas, Jun and I have been drawing really bad pictures
of cats in Paint and we're going to show them in this video. Along with all of the really
poorly drawn pictures of cats in Paint that you guys made for us! Thank you so much! So,
all right. Let's get to it.
First, to get the obvious out of the way, you need a passport. So get a passport in
your country. Good job! Okay! The second thing you need is a visa. A visa is a little permission
slip that Japan will put into your passport that says you can go into their country.
There are four primary types of visas that all of you will be getting. It will either
be a student visa, a work visa, a spouse visa, or a working holiday visa.
But before I get into those, first I'm going to tell you how you can get to Japan without
a visa. And that is by using the visa exemption program, which is a special agreement between
Japan and I believe like 66 other countries, which I will link to down in the description
so you can see if you're one of them, that will let you go to each others countries for
generally 90 days, if the purpose of your visit is for tourism, commerce, a conference,
visiting relatives or families, or etc. Things like that. If that's the case you don't need
a visa at all. All you need your passport, a round-trip ticket (so what that means is
you need proof that you're going to leave Japan before the end of those 90 days--they
WILL ask for that), enough money to support yourself while you're there (although they
rarely check--They've never checked for me and I've been in Japan, I've gone into Japan
like 7 times now), and you need the address and the phone number of the place that you
will be staying, because you will have to write that down on your little immigration
form when you get off the plane.
So that is what I've used the most to go to Japan so far. The first time I went I used
a student visa but after that, every single time I've visited, it's been using the visa
exemption program. You can generally use it about twice in a row, although people might
start questioning you, especially if you're just leaving the country for a few days and
then coming back to renew your 90 days in Japan. It starts getting questionable. So
if you just want to live in Japan, try to find a way to get a legitimate visa because
eventually they could kick you out of the country. And you could be gone from the country
for a long time--you could be banned from the country for a really long time.
Okay! So let's get into real visas! First is a student visa. To get a student visa you
need to be accepted into a school--any level of school in Japan. The easiest way to go
to school in Japan is to do an exchange. How an exchange works is your high school or your
university will have an exchange program with similar high schools or universities in Japan
and both schools will send students to each other. So to do an exchange like that all
you have to do is find your foreign programs department in your school and talk to a counselor
there and they will walk you through every step. It's super easy. Mainly that involves
paperwork. Sometimes they might ask for references or you might have to write an essay or something
like that. You can also apply directly to a Japanese school, like a university. For
this you would apply the same way that you would apply for a university in your home
country. But of course the application and everything else is probably going to be in
Japanese. They might also require you to take the JLPT, or Japanese Language Proficiency
Test and get a certain score before admitting you into their university so that they know
you will be able to understand the classes since they will all be in Japanese.
What some students do during university is they will study abroad in Japan and if they
like the school that they studied abroad at enough they will submit an application to
transfer universities and finish their degree in Japan. And if that's something you want
to do then you will have student counselors there who will be able to walk you through
that process.
So, once you get accepted into a Japanese school all you have to do is submit an application
for a student visa. And the school that you're applying to or your student counselor will
be able to tell you exactly how to do that.
The second type of visa is a work visa. To get a work visa you have to get hired by a
Japanese company. The most common way for foreigners to get a job in Japan is by teaching
English. There are a lot of ways to apply for these jobs, the most common being the
JET program, although there also private companies you can apply to such as Aeon or ECC. You
can get directions for applying on their websites. Generally, you do not have to be able to speak
Japanese, maybe not even at all. However, they do typically require you to be a native
English speaker. If you are not a native English speaker, then you can also apply to teach
your native language in Japan, although I don't have any examples for you.
Also, a requirement of the work visa is that you must have a Bachelor's degree in any field.
There are exceptions to this such as if you are applying to a specialty field and have
a number of years of proven work experience. You can also get a work visa if you work for
a company in your home company and they transfer you to an office in Japan. However, since
most of you watching this are really young, this is generally not going to apply to you.
Or if you don't want to teach English, you can apply for jobs in other fields. However,
in this case you are generally going to be competing with Japanese people for the same
job. So you should really have a reason why should hire someone abroad and go through
the process of applying for a work visa rather than hiring someone from their own country.
But you can look for jobs like this gaijinpot.com, daijob.com, or jobsinjapan.com. Whether or
not you will need to be able to speak Japanese is completely dependent upon the job.
The third visa I'll go over is the spouse visa. This one is simple enough. All you have
to do is be married to a permanent resident in Japan. Typically your spouse will need
to have a job and be able to show proof of financial support for you. If you are moving
from your country to Japan, it doesn't matter if you have a job--your spouse, the person
living in Japan, is the one who's going to have to have a job. You can also try to get
someone else to sponsor you, although it doesn't always work because they want your spouse,
the person living in Japan, to be the one with the job who's supporting you.
And finally I will go over Working Holiday visas. This is exactly what it sounds like.
You go to Japan basically for a holiday but you also work while you're there. I put this
one last because it's not available to Americans! I'm sorry, my fellow countrymen, we can't
use it. You can only do a Working Holiday in Japan if you are from Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, South Korea, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or
Norway. This visa lasts for one year, or two periods of six months if you're from Canada
or Australia, and you can only do it once. And you must be between 18 and 30 years old.
There is a link to the website if you want to know more.
So YAY you're on your way to Japan! But wait, now you need to go through immigration when
you get off the plane. And this one is really easy; for 99% of people you're going to get
through just fine. However, immigration does have the right to turn you right back around
and send you back to your home country on another plane. They will ask you on your immigration
form, "Have you been found guilty of a crime in Japan or another country?" when you're
on the plane. If you check "Yes" to this then they may not let you into the country. Do
you think they're going to know if you're telling the truth if you check "No"? However!
Be aware that if at any point the Japanese police suspect you of a crime, they can hold
in jail for up to 23 days without letting you contact the outside world except for you
lawyer or your embassy. If you do want to tell the truth, it's up to the immigration
official to decide whether or not to let you into the country. In that case it would help
to bring supporting documents if you have some sort of minor conviction. However, if
you have a drug conviction or a felony, they're probably not going to let you into Japan.
So these are all the most common ways for a foreigner to get to Japan. The whole process
is a lot easier than it seems at first--mostly what it is is filling out a lot of paperwork.
So, thanks for watching guys--I'll see you next time!