[steven]

Misericordias, my experience with the Consolate in Osaka blew me away. I went there to take care of some business just last month. The people there all seemed extremely smart... like on the elite level. They were answering all kinds of complex questions on the fly in both English and Japanese (American and Japanese people). A lot of it had to do with different laws and rules. The topics covered a lot of things like passports, visas, marriages, among other stuff. I'm not sure if the people there majored in Engilsh or Japanese or what, but it seems like their knowledge of international stuff was pretty expansive so I'm certain their studies went beyond a simple degree in language. If you're really serious about it maybe you could look on the website and see if there's any information. If there isn't, what harm would calling or e-mailing them do? I think it would be a good idea to get started early on something like this because it seems like these people probably did a lot of studying before they got their jobs. I'm sure a lot of stuff comes up again and again as to make some of it routine, but I'm telling you, they were very efficient about it so it seemed like they had to know all of the stuff they know before going in.

As a pointless side note, I find it extremely ironic that level of proffesionalism was nowhere near matched in government run places in California, which is actually in the USA.

Again, if you want to LIVE in Japan you should know Japanese. Sure a lot of people don't know Japanese and come here... the majority of whom return home after a year or two. At least knowing enough Japanese to get by really helps... being fluent, however, can be a life saver. The kind of treatment you get from people is completely different. It makes you way more independent so you don't have to rely on other people to tell you how to do things (which can at times be faulty information).

If you live in a big city with a lot of foreigners I'm sure it certainly is easier (which is the case for most people I'm sure)... but the smaller the town the fewer foreigners there are. In my town out of around 50,000 people we have about 250 foreigners (this stuff comes in the mail... haha). I suspect most of those are chinese, with some phillipinos mixed in, some brazillians, and a couple middle eastern families, and maybe about 15 Americans/half children, so if you live in the inaka like a place like this, then it can turn a "boring" place into a really exciting place.

I think what you're saying is ineresting though, GoNative. What I get from it is that where you are has more to do with WHERE you are than whether or not you can speak the language. Knowing the language will unlock more opportunities, certainly, but being in a place like where you are sounds fantastic. If you end up in a place like that it doesn't matter what country you are in as paradise is paradise. I do believe though, that knowing the language could only enhance that experience. Although I have to admit, there was certainly something magical about my first trip to Japan 6 or so years ago when had just been studying Japanese in high school... it was a euphoric feeling. It was like the beginning of culture shock without the shock at the end. Which is another good thing about knowing the language-- less culture shock (as I really haven't had much of that to deal with when compared with other people).