Japan eyes startup visa program

> You will never be completely trusted as a foreigner in Japan, nor will you ever completely fit in.

In my experience this is not really true (though if you read it literally, then it is ;-) ). If you speak, read, write and act like a Japanese person, then people will treat you as if you are Japanese. You will fit in. There are racist people in Japan, but not any more than I've seen in any other country. Japanese culture being what it is, you also won't really experience blatant racism out in the open even if you meet racists.

Having said that, attitudes are much different in the big city than the countryside. When I go to Tokyo or Osaka, everyone initially expects me to be a tourist. When I'm at home in rural Shizuoka, everyone expects that I live there (because there aren't a lot of foreign tourists). But even in Tokyo or Osaka after talking to someone for more than about 10 seconds they know that I live permanently in Japan and treat me that way.

My Japanese is not even that good (although I am very fluent in the areas where I have fluency). I rarely make social mistakes any more and people treat me just like they treat everyone else. I fit in here more than I fit in anywhere else in the world.

If you have difficulty fitting in, then it's likely that you're missing some nuance. Since nobody spells it out for you, it's definitely hard to figure out, but not impossible. You just need to watch what other people do in that situation and then start doing the same thing. The other main thing is to feel OK about being Japanese -- which a lot of foreigners don't in my estimation.

I apologize if my question came off as hostile, but it was meant to be to a certain extent! I've been here for 4 years now (leaving soon) and "expat" just rubs me the wrong way. It's a light term with an adventurous connotation that applies exclusively to Westerners; I've never seen third-world labor described as "expats" here, regardless of however permanent or transient their residence might be. At a time when the notion of immigration conjures up such hostility, it seems in poor taste to cordon off a subset of migratory activity as something distinct: "I'm not in your country, taking advantage of its resources; I'm simply outside my country." It doesn't help that many "expats" I've come in contact with have espoused remarkably reactionary opinions regarding foreigners in their home countries.

I can only speak for myself, but I left a $10/hr job in the US during a recovery that wasn't because I thought I could shake it better in Japan (studied Japanese in uni.) Even though I'm not going to wind up living here forever, I'm still the definition of an economic migrant.

Mid-way through that three year visa, I quit, and created a consulting company. After consulting with an immigration lawyer, I was told it was "probably ok" to be the director of a company on an Engineering visa, so long as the primary thing I was doing was Engineering related. When my three year visa expired, I successfully had my own company sponsor it, and got another three year one, followed by a five year one. Last year, I successfully got PR here.

Its hard to say why you're continually getting one year visa renewals. If you're not already doing it, it could be worth having an immigration lawyer submit the application on your behalf. Because it was a cheap business expense (~80,000 JPY) compared to the cost of screwing something minor up, that's what I did for every renewal I did under my own company (for PR, I did it myself though).

I'd argue that Japan has a relatively friendly policy for skilled immigrants. To get a job as a developer here, all you need is a company that's willing to sponsor your visa and a university degree in a related field. As far as I'm aware, there's no onus on the company to prove they couldn't get a Japanese to fill the position, or quotas on the number of visas like there are in other countries (US for instance).

Furthermore, a great thing about Japanese working visas are that they aren't tied to a specific company, only the field of work (which they've made broader by combining several statuses into the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa category). This means once you have a visa here, you can easily switch jobs, and even if your company was to lay you off or you were to quit, you don't immediately need to return to your country.

What's more, Japan's introduced a points based system to give preferential treatment to highly skilled professionals. While the points they give create a bias towards someone coming from academia or working at a large well paying job, it makes it theoretically possible to get PR here without being married to a Japanese citizen after one year.

There are a lot of problems with Japan. I agree with you that the trainee visa is one big one. The lack of being able to get a clear answer about immigration status issues also makes it challenging, and encourages you to take a certain amount of risk in stepping into a grey area legally, which I understand will hold some people back. But for me personally, and other foreign entrepreneurs around me, it has made it possible to transition from being an employee to entrepreneur with relatively little investment compared to what is required in other countries.

If anyone is interested in more detail about transitioning from an engineer to entrepreneur here, I've written more about my experience here: http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/04/17/creating-company-japan/.