Did My Dream Come True at 29? (Part 1)

Hi everyone. July's article is a little late, but I am insisting that a day only ends when I go to sleep, so I am going to force the argument that it is still 7/31.

Although I marked this as "Part 1," I am not sure whether "Part 2" will come out smoothly. The things I want to write next cover a wider range, and my thoughts are not clear yet, but you can look forward to it for now.

The main reason I wanted to write this article was to sort through my own thoughts. It was also inspired by 持續搖擺的 29 歲.

This article contradicts my previous one, because the option of returning to Taiwan has often appeared in my mind this month.

At 29, I achieved one of the biggest goals of my life so far: coming to Japan.

But after arriving, I lost interest in everything. Only then did I realize that "coming to Japan" had allowed me to put aside many questions I should have faced long ago.

As long as I kept waving the flag of "I want to go to Japan," I could keep expecting that changing my environment would solve my problems.

As I wrote in The Thought of an Ideal Life:

If I keep searching for an "ideal life," I will never find it, because as long as I am in the state of searching, I will never properly face my present. If I am not living in the present, it is hard to truly feel life, let alone judge whether it is ideal.

I have to emphasize that this is about me, because I know plenty of people who were reborn after going to Japan, the United States, or Australia. That story simply did not happen to me.

Why I Came to Japan

At first, I wanted to go to Japan because I longed for Japanese culture, the climate, and the living environment. I also liked listening to JPop, it is close to Taiwan, and I already had many friends there. -- Leaving Taiwan for Two Years: Going to Australia and Japan

I have been dreaming of Japan for too long. I need to witness the ending of this dream first. Only after it is fulfilled or broken can I truly move toward the next step. -- In Australia, But My Heart Is in Japan: Graduating From Four Months of Working Holiday in Australia

After actually coming to Japan, I do feel there are many things I truly like here. My room in the share house is small, but the layout is square and sunlight comes in. The shared kitchen is cleaned regularly, and there is even a large public bath. These were things I could not have imagined when I lived in Taipei.

Walking outside is comfortable too. Cars usually yield. There are no scooters, though there are many bicycles, and Japanese people can be quite dangerous on bicycles as well.

The four seasons are distinct. At the ski resort, I could feel snow gradually piling up after winter arrived. When spring came, I could slowly see the ground appear after the snow melted, with a few green shoots emerging. Two weeks later, everything was lush green. Now that summer has arrived, I am drenched in sweat just walking home from the station, but there are many fireworks festivals and Obon dance events. In autumn, there will be maple leaves to see.

JPop also means I have achieved ticket-lottery freedom. When artists announce shows, I just register online, and usually I can win. Even if I do not, there are other shows to enter. Japan has many long weekends, and almost every long weekend has a corresponding music festival: Count Down Japan for New Year, Japan JAM during Golden Week in May, Summer Sonic during Obon in August, Rock In Japan during Silver Week in September, and so on.

Every season's new anime can be seen advertised on the streets. I do not worry about being unable to buy merchandise I want. If I see an exhibition, I can just go. Once I saw a street ad for the Look Back exhibition and went straight to Azabudai to see it.

These are all things I once longed for. They really exist, and they are within reach.

But besides these things, Japan has also brought many new problems. I have started weighing the new problems Japan gives me against the problems I had in Taiwan. Which problems do I want to coexist with?

Coming Here and Staying Here

Coming to Japan has already completed one item on my life list. I can answer to the version of myself from five years ago. Staying here is another question.

When the pandemic restrictions had just lifted, I once flew to Japan and worked remotely for a month and a half. The company suddenly shutting down during that period is another story.

At the time, I wanted to actually experience life here and talk with friends who were staying here. Over the years, I had also kept adjusting my expectations of Japan. But no amount of research or mental preparation beforehand compares with actually holding a visa and working here for a month.

It is like what my friends who invest often say: "It does not count until you put money in." After you really put money in, every move affects your chips, and that sense of being in the game only appears in the moment. That is when you truly become part of the game.

After working in Japan as a software engineer for a month, that sense of immediacy and the shape of life afterward suddenly emerged from the fog. Both joy and pain were branded onto my body.

The Challenge of My Current Job

I work at a large company with teams that use different languages. Because I speak Japanese, I joined a Japanese-speaking department. But working here has made me realize that being able to communicate in Japanese and feeling comfortable working in it are still two different things.

I originally thought the biggest challenge would be Japanese or technical ability. It turned out to be the working hours. There is a lot of shift work: load tests or system releases in the middle of the night, for example from 1–6 AM or 4–6 AM, about one to three days a month. It makes it hard to maintain a routine or plan my time outside work.

In my current team, coworkers rarely chat outside meetings. In Taiwan, I used to joke, “Good coworkers at work, strangers after work.” But looking back, many of my close friends are former coworkers, and many opportunities have come through them too.

Only after coming here did I realize how important those conversations outside work were to me. Now I often go an entire day barely speaking except in meetings, and work feels quite stifling.

I'm grateful to a Twitter friend who introduced me to other Taiwanese people at the company. Being able to speak Chinese at lunch gives me a breather, and I now have friends to vent with.

It's been about two months since I joined at the end of May. Apart from the shift work, I'm slowly getting used to things. I can get by in Japanese. When coding, I use AI extensively for assistance, then check the logic myself. My workday is once again chopped up by meetings. There is more documentation than coding, with several layers of approval to obtain. Many meetings are there simply because a system release or document check requires one person to enter data or operate the system, and another to act as a buddy and check alongside them. Whenever the service has had an incident recently, another step gets added to the process.

The Challenge of Japanese

Having the language of daily life become a foreign language in every direction is actually quite stressful. I did not feel it as strongly during working holiday.

When I entered Japan again with a work visa and felt as if I had "graduated from Taiwan," I realized that life from here on would be like this. A wave of panic suddenly hit me. I have confidence in writing, reading, and expressing my thoughts, but only in Chinese. After switching to another language, that confidence was taken away. I suddenly became a foreigner who is not good at expressing himself.

I am not sure whether this will improve as my language ability improves. Based on my experience learning English, maybe it will. My Japanese has indeed been growing. This month, I revisited an old place and went to Zepp Haneda for a Suzuki Airi concert after two years. I was surprised to realize that I could understand what Airi was saying. Two years ago, I also could not have imagined that my first job in Japan would require me to use Japanese.

On the other hand, seeing friends who majored in Japanese or have lived here for years still struggle with the language has made me realize that this will be a long-term challenge.

Being a Foreigner in Japan

After reentering Japan on a work visa and deciding to put down roots here, I discovered that visa expiration dates, renewals, and the direction of government policy all carry a quiet psychological weight.

Even though I'm already working and paying taxes here, it's hard to take being able to stay indefinitely for granted.

Policies and news about foreign residents used to feel distant. Now I find myself wondering: could these changes affect my plans? What else do I need to prepare in order to stay?

Looking back at Taiwan, foreigners living there also have conditions and procedures to deal with. As a Taiwanese citizen, I rarely had to think about any of this.

Before, I was thinking about how to get to Japan. Now I'm asking whether I can accept the conditions of living here long term. There are many things I love about this place, and I worked toward coming here for a long time. But it was only after moving here that I discovered the worries I would have to face.

On this topic, I want to recommend 觀光以上，公民未滿。.

Things Japan Did Not Change

The pressure and burnout of being a software engineer, the tug-of-war between career and creation, and loneliness.

My Software Career

Before leaving Taiwan, I had written about feeling burned out with my software career.

My working holiday showed me other ways of living. In the end, I chose to return to software and made it to Japan. But once I was back at work, that familiar exhaustion returned.

Still, I enjoy contributing to open source with 源來適你, and I enjoy building my personal website. Those experiences feel very different from my day job, and they make me want to understand more clearly what exactly is wearing me down.

Loneliness

After coming to Japan, I have felt a stronger loneliness than before.

I felt it in Taiwan too. I have always been someone who is afraid of loneliness.

But when I was in Taiwan, I later used "I have to work hard so I can go to Japan" to press that loneliness down. After the goal was achieved, the loneliness I had suppressed for so long came pouring out.

Only after coming to Japan did I realize how afraid of loneliness I am.

To some extent, the thing I feared most still happened. My roots in Taiwan were too deep. The two writing groups and one open-source community I had in Taiwan all became remote online participation after I came to Japan, and it feels quite lonely.

But if I had not come out, the goal of wanting to come to Japan would have kept stopping me from facing the loneliness I felt inside.

I think I have only now truly stepped onto the road of looking for home.

I am in Australia now and will go to Japan next year. I hope I can encounter a place that gives me the feeling of home, or find people with whom I can create a sense of belonging, like Cikapasi, the Ainu orphan in Golden Kamuy, who traveled with Tanigaki and Inkarmat and later stayed in Karafuto after meeting people willing to accept him. -- Written After Becoming Homeless

Closing

Thank you to everyone who read this far. Although I am giving a warning that there may not necessarily be a "Part 2," I will still try to write it. This article is mostly about "now." The next one will write about some things "afterward."

In the share house, I often see people on video calls. In Taiwan, I hated talking on the phone. I never expected that now I would be video calling friends almost every day. Thank you to everyone who has chatted with me during this period.

Thank you to Yuuya, U-ken, Nayu, Joyce, Zihan, V, Lydia, Xian-ge, Josh (from the UK), Teacher Josiah Luo, Diamond, Ningyu, Kaiyuan, Weiyin, Elaine Lee, Guanzhi, Fangkuai, Buding, Andie, Yuanhao, Daiying, Yihui, Shihan, Eric (Pumpkin), Charlie Cat, Jason & Eric.

Thank you to everyone else who supported and encouraged me through messages.

Thank you to Kalan, Huli, Leafwind, and Sam Kuo for the articles you have shared. I have kept going back to read what you wrote during this period, looking at the thoughts of people ahead of me who live in Japan.

Thank you to min, YA-Xuan, and Hyuanverse for reading my draft and giving feedback.

Without all of you, I do not know what I would become.