In Episode 15 of the Just Japan Podcast, host Kevin O’Shea interviews Jordan, an Australian university student studying at Kobe University. Learn more about studying abroad in japan and Jordan’s advice about improving your Japanese language skills while here. The “Questions About Japan MAILBAG” portion is also in this week’s episode.
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If you have any questions about being a University Exchange Student in Japan, you can contact Jordan on Twitter: @joudandou
The Sex Toy vending machine video I mentioned in episode 15! I shot this on my way to work last year. I was floored, especially since it was in a residential area.
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Nice episode, as always.
Are you sure about visa part-time jobs, though? For YouTube, I don’t think there is a problem, because it is not considered work: you are not employed by YouTube.
You can also have a part-time job if you have a general work visa (e.g. spouse visa), but many people have a visa tied to their field of work. For instance, I have a researcher visa, and a teacher might have a “specialist in humanities” visa. With such a visa, I am not sure you are allowed to have any job (part-time or full-time) outside those directly linked with the visa type.
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As far as I know and I just discussed this with several seasoned teachers and an HR person at my school, As far as teachers go, if you have a Humanities or Instructors visa, you are allowed to work part time jobs as the visa is portable and yours. In a case like mine, my school doesn’t allow me to (company rule).
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I completely agree with the portability of the visa, in the sense that it does not tie you to a single company. So, in theory, part-time jobs are allowed.
My concern was that these part-time jobs have to be in a field related to a visa (i.e. with my researcher visa, my part-time job would have to be in research). As you said, companies do not want you to work for their competitor. So, in practice, part-time jobs are not really an option.
For instance, the Instructor visa is for “instruction of foreign languages or other education at elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, etc.”.
And the Researcher visa is for “researches conducted under a contract with public or private organizations in Japan”.
Neither visa is valid to work in the marketing department of some large company or at the local combini as your main job, and I have not seen anything about part-time jobs being exempt from these definitions.
But I could be wrong, of course. Google is not very helpful on this topic, as most pages dealing with part-time jobs in Japan are aimed at students (for obvious reasons), and they are on a different type of visa.
Well, in any case, it is not as if we had time for a part-time job anyway. 😉
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An interesting question indeed. In the future hoping to do an interview with a rep from the General Union in Osaka. They represent teachers. I’d be curious to see what they have to say on the topic. 🙂
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