Job Discussion Forums

[ObaGol]

Hi, I was curious about how you would go about getting a working visa for a job other then teaching. And what is the process. For instance, do you ever see those guys that have the hip hop clothe shops. Those guys are coming from US or Africa and opening their own shops. Do you know if they are on working visas? And lets say I wanted to go to Japan and open a restaurant, or bar or a barbershop. What kind of working visa would that be? Anyways, I was just curious and was wondering if you guys knew anything about this kind of stuff.

[JimDunlop2]

I'm going to pretend I'm Glenski in answering this...

If you're planning on doing something other than teaching English in Japan, you have to honestly ask yourself, what skills have you got to offer a Japanese company that they would not be able to fill with a Japanese worker?

Hiphop shop staff are a different category too. I'm not sure exactly what kind of visa theey come on, but it's going to be SOME kind of work visa (unless they're F/T students at a Japanese school and they're working only P/T to help pay for their education). Nonetheless, when it comes to Japanese, those Africans are usually conversational at worst, fluent at best... They get hired because they are cheap labor and the teens that go to shop there DON'T know that they aren't from "da hood" in New York or something.

Opening a shop would be possible, and something like that would fall under the category of self-sponsorship. It IS possible, but you would have to produce proof of a certain level of income. I'm afraid I don't have too many details on this. The only people I know who have opened shops here in Japan have been married to Japanese spouses, so they've been under spousal visas.

[Glenski]

Gee, Jim, you do such a nice impersonation of me.... maybe I can use you if I ever take a vacation.

One more point I'd like to add...

Some of those black guys you might see are not from the USA, but they CLAIM to be just to pick up women.

Back to the issue at hand, I heard that as of March or April this year, you won't have to lay down a 3 million yen deposit for starting up a business. I'd suggest going to www.gaijinpot.com and asking around. More people in the know there. Especially Trip Hop, a woman who has owned her own business in Japan for many year and keeps up on practically every subject.

I would guess that if business people aren't on a spouse visa, they might hold something like an Investor/Business Manager visa.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/04.html#b1a

[ObaGol]

Thanks ALLOT!!! Guys.

Man, you guys know so much, what would I do without you. Yeah I was really curious because I think I would get bored of teaching and want to try something different down the road.

But if anybody knows anything more about this stuff, let me know.
Oh, and about the black brothers, I met quite a few from Africa. They are allright guys too.