Author: Roman

When I was in elementary school, an employee of the Japanese embassy visited our school and showed us a documentary about Japan and folded some origami with us. I was so fascinated by this country which seemed so different to Germany and my small hometown.

Since Japan has one of the best health care systems and is a pioneer in using technology for medical purposes, we want to establish a connection to use synergies between our company and the japanese health care system. On the other hand it was a dream of mine to study Japanese language and it’s culture since I was a little boy.

This is the first step to rebuilding my life in Japan. This is the first step to be properly integrated into Japanese society and reuniting with my loved one there again. I want to be a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world.

I was supposed to move to Tokyo at the end of March 2020 right when the pandemic started. I had quit my day jobs, sold all my furniture and put my apartment up for rent. I was lucky enough to be able to extend my lease for my apartment but I have been living here surrounded by carboard boxes and no furniture for over a year now. Because of the pandemic, I cannot get a job and I’ve had to rely on my freelance work to survive which has been mentally draining. I feel like it has been a year of my life put on standby, unable to make plans for the future. To say that it’s been difficult is an understatement and both my physical and mental health have suffered from this wait and this lack of purpose. Now that a whole year has gone by, I’ve had to make the decision to go temporarily live with my parents just in case I have to leave suddenly once the borders re-open. Leaving the city to go back to the countryside is a huge decision and I’m only able to make it on the grounds that this is a TEMPORARY matter. My visa has already been extended for a year so it’s getting to a point where it can no longer be extended. If I’m to move to Japan, it has to happen very soon. It may sound dramatic but this is my livelyhood in the balance here as well as I’m sure the livelyhoods of many other students here. I’m sure I’ve aged 5 years because of the stress from this past year. For our mental healths, please let us resume our plans or at least help us make a proper decision if we are to give up on our visas.

It is very likely that I will give up entirely on my dream of moving to Japan. I really want to go, but I have wasted a year of my life waiting already and I need to move on to other things.

Without the chance to live and study in Japan I do not believe that my ability to truly learn the culture and language will ever be possible. There are so many things about a language that cannot be taught by a book and cannot be learned by watching videos. There are nearly endless lessons I could learn just by waking up and living in Japan and when you combine it with the opportunity to exchange cultures, make meaningful bonds, and study there truly is no alternative choice to studying Japanese anywhere else in the world.

Experiencing delays is very difficult on my family and I. I quit my job back on March 1st so I could come to Japan, but now that there have been delays I am stuck with no income. This has been very stressful for me.

The world would mean it for me. By that I mean it would mean another world collapsing for me and I would be devastated again. I wanted to come to Japan last year to study, but thanks to Corona that never happened and I ended up finishing school at home, via online school. I was very sad and devastated when I heard that I could not go to Japan. I had hoped that I would finally be able to enter this year to study there again and had to painfully learn again that it won’t work out. So as I said, it means the world to me when it is postponed again.