Entering Japan this time was not as straightforward as it used to be. On immigration, the officer seemed unhappy and asked why I wanted to come to Japan – again. I’m not sure whether he was not persuaded by my answers or whether he simply followed standard procedures, in any case he called his supervisor and I was led into a small room for additional questioning. Several times, I had to lay out my plans for Japan, where, when, and with whom I was going to put them into action, and why on earth I hadn’t had that glorious idea earlier or, better still, in my own country. In the end the officer appeared satisfied, stamped my passport – for another 90 days – and wished me luck for my endeavours with a hearty “gambatte kudasai”.
So, what did I tell her? I told her that I was here to open my own business. I know 😉 I wrote about this before, and about the requirements, and then I shied away, being too afraid of the consequences. Now, however, after another three months of unsucessful job hunting, where I have implicitly been told countless times that I’m not good enough, I’ve had it. To listen to that kind of talk, I could have stayed in Austria in the bosom of my family… Now I have made up my mind: I will do my own thing, I will go self-employed. After all, I do not mind that my Japanese is less than perfect and that I am not an English native speaker…
You want details? Well, I want to start a webpage geared towards tourists – both foreign and Japanese – coming to Kyoto, in both English and Japanese. Income generation through advertisements. I figure that a) the tourist industry in Japan – both international and domestic – is large enough to afford me a share and b) with my background I can do the necessary computer work on my own. The only obvious problem I see right now is c) my lack of decent Japanese, but I am sure this can be addressed in one way or the other. Of course, just having a dotcom will most likely not provide instant income to convince Japanese immigration to let me stay, so I am planning to set up the business with a broader foundation, for example to include IT consulting (think web design), language consulting (think translations), and content provider (think writing). I think the right mix will make the business viable and I can always shift focus later on.
So much for the grand vision. The gritty details I shall spare for future posts – plenty of them to annoy you, I am sure… In any case, wish me luck!