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In Need of Repatriation Advice? 231

Posted by Cliff from the turning-japanese-and-back-again dept.
kir asks: "I've been living in Japan for the last 10 years -- 6 in the USAF, 4 in 'freedom'. My wife and I recently decided to move to the U.S. (back for me, not for her). I am wondering what advice the vocal Slashdot minority might give me. I'm most interested in tips on finding a job from here and gauging a proposed salary based on a location of which I know nothing. I'd also find helpful tips on preparing for culture shock (both my mild case and my wife's possibly severe one). Thanks!"
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In Need of Repatriation Advice? More

In Need of Repatriation Advice?

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  • Culture Shock Advice (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sux2BU ( 20893 ) *
    I've been in a similar situation as you (although I was only there for 8 months). I would recommend moving someplace with a sizable Japanese community. This would help ease the urges for Japanese books, food, and other media. Being prepared for a trip or two back (at least for her) would be a good idea too. You're going to want to make sure she knows as much English as possible before you go (including slang) - that'll help with the shock. Culture shock is going to suck sometimes. The best way to deal

    • Re:Culture Shock Advice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jazman_777 ( 44742 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @03:47PM (#11837064) Homepage
      Culture shock? The shock is in moving from a country with a culture to a country with no culture.
    • Here's a fun one : unless her Engrish is already really, really good (ie, you guys speak English at home all the time) she will go through a phase during which she is thinking in her native language, translating on the fly back and forth to English during conversations. Discussions will be quite a bit slower with people not familiar with her accent (and with whom she isn't used to either.)

      Then comes the worst part - after about a year of speaking nothing but English and thinking in English she will forget
    • Big slabs of that are now Japanese-owned, and the laws are marginally less insane in Oz than in the US. So far.

  • Start working on immigration now... (Score:5, Informative)

    by afabbro ( 33948 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:06PM (#11835948) Homepage
    The INS (now BCS) is the most backward, retarded, morass of a bureaucracy you can imagine. My wife's been in the country for five years and still doesn't have her green card...it was "lost in the mail" once and the replacement will take 24-30 months. They're the worst government agency I've ever dealt with.

    Also, don't assume that just because you're a citizen and are coming back, your wife can come back. If you married her overseas, she has no more legal right to enter the US than any other alien (IANAL, but that is my understanding).

    My advice is to talk to an immigration attorney ASAP.

    • Re:Start working on immigration now... (Score:5, Informative)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:18PM (#11836095)
      The INS (now BCS) is the most backward, retarded, morass of a bureaucracy you can imagine. My wife's been in the country for five years and still doesn't have her green card...it was "lost in the mail" once and the replacement will take 24-30 months. They're the worst government agency I've ever dealt with.

      I have an extremely important piece of advice with regards to this:

      When you deal with the INS, you always deal with the office/branch at the location you first immigrated to. In my fiancee's case, this means the California INS. Even though she lives in Portland and hasn't lived in California for 5 years.

      This absolutely sucks. The California INS is swamped with millions of Hispanic/Latino immigrants. I am not trying to make a negative comment about those folks, but the system is overloaded by the sheer mass of people and it will take YEARS longer to get through it than it would if you were going to a different office.

      By no means should you enter the United States at California, or any other location with a heavy immigrant load!

      Also, don't assume that just because you're a citizen and are coming back, your wife can come back. If you married her overseas, she has no more legal right to enter the US than any other alien (IANAL, but that is my understanding).

      Would it be possible to get a divorce in Japan and re-marry in the US?

      My advice is to talk to an immigration attorney ASAP.

      I second, third, and fourth this advice!

      • Re:Start working on immigration now... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:22PM (#11836153) Journal
        Would it be possible to get a divorce in Japan and re-marry in the US?I wouldn't recommend this:

        1) Having a screwed-up marital history in your case is going to make it much harder for her to enter the country and to get a green card when she arives. Keep things simple and honest.

        2) Staying the hell away from the Japanese legal system is a good idea.

      • Would it be possible to get a divorce in Japan and re-marry in the US?

        Not required. The worst case is the US will say your marriage is not recognized. In that case you just tell them you intend to get married as soon as you come to the US. You grab to witnesses off the street, head to the courthouse and have a judge marry you. Legally you are now wedded in the US. Once in a while you will need to put the US wedding date down on legal forms, but otherwise you can count the original wedding as your

      • Great advice!

        Luckily, I've already done this. In fact, we got her re-entry permit as well (so she can stay out of the U.S. for two years - vice one - and keep her immigrant status). Getting one's spouse's "green card" is a pain in the rear, but can be made easier if you play their game. The folks at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo were very helpful... when I played along.
    • The INS (now BCS)
      That explains why Auburn wasn't national men's football champion.

    • Re:Start working on immigration now... (Score:4, Informative)

      by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposer.alum@mit@edu> on Friday March 04, 2005 @01:11AM (#11841691) Homepage

      You definitely should figure out your wife's immigration situation and act carefully. The deal is this. As the spouse of a US citizen she is entitled to permanent resident status. However, the government can take as much as two years to grant her that status. Therefore, you either want to apply for it while you are abroad with a LOT of leadtime, or you want to get her into the United States first and then apply for it. So long as she enters the US legally, she won't be deported if she then applies for permanent resident status as a spouse.

      The catch is that most visas, including tourist visas, have as an explicit condition that the applicant NOT intend to stay permanently in the United States. So, suppose your wife gets a tourist visa to enter the US. You then go to the US embassy and apply for spousal status. By applying for permanent residency as a spouse, she has just declared her intention to stay permanently in the United States and has thereby invalidated her tourist visa. What will happen in this situation depends on the immigration officer with whom she deals. Some may let it slide, but some are jerks and will cancel her tourist visa.

      The upshot is, if you aren't prepared to wait to return to the US until your wife's permanent residency is approved, which as I say can be a matter of years, what you want to do is say nothing about her intention of staying in the US or her marriage to you and get her in on a tourist visa. Once she is safely in the US, she can apply for permanent resident status.

      She should also be aware that once she has entered the United States and applied for permanent resident status, she won't be able to leave the United States with the assurance of being able to return until she gets her permanent resident status. So if there are things she needs to take care of in Japan, such as visting elderly or sick friends or relatives, it would be wise to take care of them before she leaves.

      One other point. There are two main issues that the immigration people will be interested in in reviewing your wife's application. One is whether she is excludable for a reason like being a war criminal. You probably don't have to worry about this kind of thing. The other is whether your marriage is legitimate. They're on the lookout for fraudulent marriages entered into for the sole purpose of immigration. If you've been living together for some time in Japan that will help. Make sure you have documentation of that. They will also interview you individually and will be suspicious if you don't seem to know each other very well. Even if you do, be aware that sometimes cultural differences, or just idiosyncrasies, will have led to there being things that you have never talked about. So make sure that you each know about the other the kinds of things that American husbands and wives know about each other: personal history, birthdays, likes and dislikes, etc. If, as sometimes happens, you don't know her family very well because they disapproved of the marriage, bone up.

      This is based on my knowledge of immigration law and of various friends' situations over the past 25 years. I am not a lawyer. You should check on current US immigration law and possibly consult an immigration lawyer.

  • We can probably give salary advice, but we need to know where in the US are you planning on moving to, and what field you are in.

  • Regarding salary information... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xaroth ( 67516 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:07PM (#11835963) Homepage
    I'd start with salary.com [salary.com], actually. There's a lot of information on cost of living, expected salary ranges by geographic location for virtually any position, and comparisons between different areas so you can start to guage how expensive it is to live somewhere.

    As a personal recommendation, Saint Paul or Minneapolis, MN (or the surrounding area) is probably one of the best places for a tech-minded person to find work right about now. The salaries are still high versus the cost of living, and there are a lot of positive things about Minnesota... just so long as you don't mind the freezing cold in the winters or the massive snowdrifts. ;)
    • Minneapolis is a bad idea from a cultural perspective. There is a very small Japanese community here, and that will make culture shock that much worse.

      I would recommend someplace on the west coast, as that's where you'd most likely meet more Japanese and have some of the comforts (like Japanese bookstores) that you'll be missing. Seattle, WA and Los Angeles, CA are the places I've found with a large Japanese presence.

      And I do know what I'm talking about. I lived in Japan, and moved back to Minneapolis.
  • you're going to leave _japan_ to come _here?! my advice would be to rethink the whole idea.
    • Yes. Why move? Is there any reason other than the US is where _you_ came from? Job? Something else? Why not just visit now and than to get your U.S.A. fix?

    • Re:stay there! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by really? ( 199452 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @06:19PM (#11838840)
      How much time have you spent in Japan? (Vacations don't count.)
      Unless your answer is "more than six years" your advice is not exactly useful; not to say anything about the fact that we have no clue as to why he wants to get out of there.
      I for one, would NEVER want to bring up a kid in Japan, with their fucked up educational system. ESPECIALLY NOT a kid that the Japanese consider "half". I spent fourteen years in Japan, ten of which were working in "education," so, I have a little bit of a clue as to what is what. I am by NO means expert ...
      • So far the "half" thing hasn't really been a problem. On occasion, some dumb older kid says something like, "Don't play with her. She's half gaijin." Luckily, my daughter is a strong little otenba (tomboy) and tells him or her to piss off in the way only a four year old can. ;-)
    • We've decided to move to the U.S. for many reasons, but the most important is our quality of life. For example, we live in a 550-600 sq ft apartment that costs us $1200-$1300 a month (depending on the yen rate which is KILLING ME right now - my company pays me in dollars). Factor in utilities, food, and my daughter's Youchien... it hurts.

      Have you ever lived in Japan?

  • Most important advice: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chemisor ( 97276 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:12PM (#11836023)
    Don't work in IT!

  • Don't (Score:2, Funny)

    by bhima ( 46039 )
    Don't do it.

    The US is not the same place it was 10 years ago. Lately it's become a rather unpleasant place to live.

    I suppose some people would say this isn't sudden change but rather a slow change but the end result is the same: There are a lot of nicer places in the world to live... Move to one of those places instead.

    Seriously!

    • If it wasn't for the sky rocket real estate prices, U.S would be fine.

      You can live in alot of different countries in the world and still enjoy U.S entertainment.

    • Why did parent get rated Informative? It has no advice on how to make moving back to the US less problematic; rather, it's just a whine from someone who has complete hatred of America. If it had constructive advice it'd be more useful.
      • I have to admit, I'm more surprised by the moderation than you. But just because I point out that the US is not the place he left, does not mean I have a "complete hatred of America" in fact I lived there for almost 18 years. There are some really nice places in the US to visit, and some really great restaurants. I also rather enjoy American literature. However the fact remains the US is NOT the best place in the world to live and it's going downhill.
    • How has the US become an unpleasant place to live?

  • Possible job opportunity (Score:5, Funny)

    by MarkGriz ( 520778 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:18PM (#11836094)
    Requires C#/Visual Studio experience.
    Click here [slashdot.org] for details.

  • Look left before you cross the street! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:18PM (#11836098) Journal
    I wasn't in Japan nearly as long as you, but having dealt with my transition and seen couples go through the same thing -- don't underestimate your culture shock relative to your wife's, for two reasons:

    1) When you're accustomed to being a highly visible minority, losing that status can be at least as disconcerting as gaining it.

    2) Not speculating on your particular relationship, but as a general observation ... there's a reason why the expat went to the local spouse's country in the first place and a reason why the spouse was drawn to him/her. Frequently the spouse wants to head to the expat's country more than the expat does.
    • Thanks for giving me ADVICE (unlike many of the other commentors). I especially like your first point. I understand and often use my status as a highly visible minority. It will be weird to lose it after all these years.

      Your second point is spot on, but doesn't really apply to my relationship. My wife has some serious reservations about moving to the U.S.

      Thanks again.

  • Do you need security clearance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) * on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:23PM (#11836169) Homepage
    Can't find it on-line, but just this week there was a news story about a Canadian who spent 18 months in Japan teaching English. It's a pretty commonplace thing really.

    Upon his return he landed a job as a baggage handler at one of our airports. At least he thought he had until he was refused security clearance.

    His sole mistake was living somewhere where the Canadian Security agencies felt that they couldn't verify his movements and activities while out of the country.

    If you're considering government work you just might want to look into this ahead of time.
    • Interesting. But... I already have a U.S. Govt security clearance. The Japanese are a very close alley to the U.S. Having a Japanese spouse is no big deal. If she were Russian, that would be a different story. (My friend married a Russian women and promptly lost his security clearance. He eventually got it back once she and her family were checked out.)

  • Consider Hawaii (Score:4, Insightful)

    by astrashe ( 7452 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:30PM (#11836225) Journal
    I'd encourage you to try to get something in a big city, something on the West Coast, or in Hawaii, which has a big Japanese community.

    I have a friend who married a woman from Estonia (they met in the Peace Corps) and brought her back to Nebraska. She signed up for the local university.

    It was very hard on her, and she ended up dropping out. There were a fair number of foreign students at the university, but it's pretty provincial here, and she had a hard time blending in and making friends. She was very unhappy.

    I've had friends in Chicago who fared better -- there are quite a few people from other countries living in Chicago. Even if they're not from the same place you are, you can still compare notes as immigrants. I knew some Russian people in Chicago, and a girl from Viet Nam who got along better.

    One friend, married to a Russian woman, moved from Chicago to Brooklyn, and I think she's a lot happier there. She can go to Russian neighborhoods (even though they don't live in one), speak her native language, buy Russian food, etc. It helps.

    Having said all of that, I used to know a Japanese woman who was here in Nebraska doing graduate work at the University, and she seemed to like it a lot. So it can be done.

    But she had a clique of grad student immigrant friends -- a woman from Bangledesh, and another woman from South Korea -- and she was here studying Native American culture, so professionally it was a great place for her.

    I don't want to say something sexist, but I think it's harder for women to make these moves sometimes -- they tend to be more plugged into groups of friends, more social. It's harder if you're following someone else, too, and not doing it for your own reasons.

    I'd adivse you to try to give her as much support as possible -- shoot for a community where she can fit in. Don't move to Utah, even if you get the best offer there.

    • Re:Consider Hawaii (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      I don't want to say something sexist, but I think it's harder for women to make these moves sometimes -- they tend to be more plugged into groups of friends, more social. It's harder if you're following someone else, too, and not doing it for your own reasons.

      I'm not expert, but generally I find women have less trouble making new friends. Historically (though I don't know if this is enough to matter) females have moved in with the male, no matter where he lives, which means females were more likely to ge

    • Hawaii is going to be a really expensive place to move to with one of the highest costs of living in the country. Unless you can garuntee yourself a decent paying job and housing you don't want to move there to start off.
      • Exactly. One important reason for our decision to move to the U.S. is the cost of living/quality of life. Hawaii's ratio (unless you love the Ocean) is not so good (and I know many people in and from Hawaii).

    • Also consider Vermont (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dpilot ( 134227 )
      In spite of being the whitest state in the nation, we're a rather tolerant state. From direct knowledge, the Burlington area has large and diverse immigrant communities, including Bosnian, Indian, Viet Namese, Sudanese, etc. Many are refugees who have settled here. The real estate prices are high, but in many respects the state is "backward" compared to the rest of the country, and I like that. (Think last state in the Union to get a Wal Mart, only state capital to not have a McDonalds.)
  • maybe you and your wife should watch the Japanese version of Lost in Translation!!

  • shock (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Councilor Hart ( 673770 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @02:45PM (#11836377)
    preparing for culture shock (both my mild case and my wife's possibly severe one).
    I wouldn't be so sure about who will experience the biggest shock. When you go somewhere new, you are mentally preparing yourself for this shock, but potentially the biggest shock of all comes when you go back.
    At least in my case that was a big eye-opener.
    Anecdotal, I know, but it wasn't something I expected.
    And since you have been gone for 6 years, many things will have changed. Since change is slow and always present, it only becomes clear after watching something with a long time in between snapshots.
  • 100mbps for $40 a month is hard to pass up... I'd kill to live where you are today.

  • A few random thoughts (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chang ( 2714 ) * on Thursday March 03, 2005 @03:33PM (#11836913)
    A few random thoughts...

    Health insurance in the US is a giant pain in the ass compared to Japan. Try to shield your wife from this as much as possible by dealing with the paperwork. There will still come a day when some doctor's office gives her grief over some mundane insurance detail and she'll be furious at having to deal with this.

    As you already know - customer service of all kinds is the US is a nightmare compared to what you are used to in Japan. This will bother you a little but drive your wife absolutely insane. Japanese people take it for granted that service workers do their job with politeness and a smile and as you know US customer service is hit or miss. On the other hand 24 hour stores in the US are way more convenient than Japanese convenience stores.

    Japanese supermarkets in the US can be quite good depending on where you relocate.

    Try to avoid friendships with Japanese in the US who are only here for a few years on overseas work assignments. As they go back to Japan it will devastate your wife. She'll do much better if she can meet Japanese women who are in the US to stay. This may be impossible at first but it might save her some homesick feelings. Even better would be to make some solid American friends but this isn't always going to happen right away.

    The hardest part of culture shock is to stop trying to compare the two countries. There is always an urge to whine about some annoyance that is better here or better there. Try to avoid that urge and just accept the US for what it is and move one with life.

    Good luck
    • With respect to health care in Japan vs US; I lived in Japan for two years and can say that the quality of care there is less than in the US. I had a friend come down with a kidney infection and at the hospital in Fujisawa(southwest of Tokyo) the nurses spent their free time at the nurse station smoking! Seriously!
      Also had another friend who was studying to become a dentist there and he told me that fluoride was not included in toothpaste products made in Japan. Some nonsense about toxic effects; the re
      • Also had another friend who was studying to become a dentist there and he told me that fluoride was not included in toothpaste products made in Japan. Some nonsense about toxic effects; the result is most Japanese have horrible teeth.
        Right, they have the excellent translation of the American documentary, Dr. Strangelove, to thank for that idea..

      • It isn't true that Japan does not allow naturalization. In fact, the Japanese government prefers permanent residents to become citizens. To become a Japanese citizen, you have to show that you have become culturally assimilated. They want you to be able to speak Japanese and adopt a more-or-less Japanese lifestyle. As part of this, they require that you adopt a Japanese family name.

        Like people from other countries, Koreans can become Japanese citizens. Just being born in Japan does not confer Japanese c

  • It's not as great here as it was 10 years ago.


  • My opinion: There is a social breakdown happening in the U.S. now, and it is very difficult to live there. People are less relaxed and happy than in the last 50 years. It will be really, really difficult to adjust to living there.
  • I'd recommend moving to a location with a Japanese / Japanese-American Community. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland are all good choices. Having a comprehensible community available, especially one in various stages of assimilation, can make the transition easier for your wife. At least in these places, you'll be able to find acceptable tea, for example. The downside, of course, is that Real Estate is extremely pricey in these locations.

    Other recommendations: keep some of your money in Yen. I know the Y
  • If you want to come back to North America, give Canada a look. No, seriously. Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, etc. are close enough to the border to make a quick jaunt into Bush's Kingdom possible, but they're still not US territory (yet).
  • My best advice is to go back to the places you know the best, whether it is a region of the US, a particular state, or a locality.

    As far as your wife is concerned (I'm assuming she's Japanese), you'll want to get her involved in something so that she meets new people and makes new friends. That is going to be critical, otherwise she'll be asking to go back.

    And I'd make sure your finances are in order so that you can live for a while in the US without a job. It may take some time to find the right fit. Oth

    • And I'd make sure your finances are in order so that you can live for a while in the US without a job. It may take some time to find the right fit. Otherwise, interview from overseas and come over only when you have a job.

      Oh yeah... that's the goal. It would be unfair to my family to pack them up and move to the U.S. without a job.

  • From what I understand (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MudButt ( 853616 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @04:59PM (#11837862)
    I work with 3 Japanese programmers and two Indian programmers (the reason I mention the Indian programmers is because they also have the same comments).

    By far, the biggest comment all of my co-workers have about the culture change, is that Americans are "uncomfortably" informal. My Japanese couterparts mentioned that it took them several years to adjust to the way Americans speak to eachother. You may also find that some Americans are somewhat uncomfortable with "over-politeness" (or our perception of it, anyway).

    Finally, both Indian programmers mentioned that their Indian born and raised wives still have a very difficult time building meaningful friendships with American women. I don't know that I can speak as to why, specifically. But I can only imagine that the role of women in the United States must be very different than most other countries.

  • Culture Shock (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jac1962 ( 822171 )

    You will most likely experience a greater deal of culture shock than your wife.

    Reason? She expects America to be a strange and foreign place.

    You will expect it to be the same as it was when you last left it. If you haven't visited in 10 years, it's going to hit you a lot harder than it will your wife.

    I spent four years stationed in Germany in the mid-Eighties and loved it so much I didn't bother coming home. When I did finally return I spent a week walking around in a daze. It seemed as if I had been

  • Alright, so, maybe I'm not the most qualified person to give you advice, but I did move from a lifetime spent in eastern France to Southern California two summers ago. 1: Make sure you bring food with you in a move. If you've got a sizeable amount of items you're bringing with you people won't open the container with all your stuff (especially for US citizens). Bring in canned goods, and anything you don't expect to find here. 2: as mentioned in the first reply, trips back to Japan are going to happen, w
  • I spent the last 4 years abroad and experienced a fair amount of culture shock on return. Your wife will know what she's in for... you might not expect it.

    I ended up finding an international social organization ("for those living abroad and their friends") which helped significantly. All of us were going through the same thing and they didn't flinch when I said (for the millionth time) "It's not what I'm used to!"

    In the end, I decided moving back was a mistake. I'm back abroad trying to find a job. I
  • greencard already issued or better?

    I hope so....

    if not, start with a good immagration lawyer in your new home town/area/same ins district NOW!
  • It's the biggest city in the Southeast. The Southeast is known for a lower cost-of-living. For the most part, you get the benefits of big city life (Theatre's, Amusements, Concerts, etc) for less than you'd get in places like L.A., NY, or Chicago. The pay is pretty good (relatively), yet your average daily expenses will be lower (ex. a Gallon of Milk won't cost you an arm and a leg).

    It's a big with a warm/Southern feel and suprisingly, there is a significant amount of very intelligent people around here
    • For what it's worth, I meant "big city" in the above post.

      I also think that "there is a significant amount" is grammatically correct. Please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

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