While I was working for JOIN during my internship I was at a 10 story building with many different companies. One day after work, I was on the elevator with another person who approached me and asked me what I was doing in the building. After explaining that I was working at JOIN, she explained that she was working in the same building at a big accounting firm, member of the Big Four (Deloitte, Pwc, Ernst&Young, and KPMG). Bonding over the fact that we were both foreigners in Japan (she was from China), we decided to exchange contact info and have lunch some day. Since I am interested in the realm of finance and accounting and she was working for a firm I knew and was interested in, I decided to interview her for my first networking meeting.

We went for lunch one day near the office and had some nice chicken and rice, very Japanese. Since I was curious about why she decided to move to Japan to live and work, she told me she had a lot of interest in the culture since she studied her MBA in Tokyo. She told me that at the beginning when she started working (right after her MBA) she did not know any Japanese, which was hard in terms of working at a Japanese firm. She also did not have any Japanese accounting certifications, which is kind of a must in the industry. But she pulled through all that and learned Japanese, as well as studied hard to get her accounting certifications. She expressed how hard it was and I can believe her, even getting the initial CFA level (a finance and accounting certification) in the US is very hard. She also said that to work in a Japanese company having great Japanese was a must, which is very true in my experience as well.

When I told her that to begin with I didn’t know what kind of job I wanted to do in the future and that I was also lost on where to work (Japan, the US, Europe, Mexico) she told me that if I had an interest in Japan and wanted to keep up with my Japanese she recommended me to at least start my career in Japan. Japanese is so hard that if you are not living here for an extended period of time it is hard to keep up. Seeing how confused I was about my future she also said some very nice words to me: Follow your heart. She told me that I am young enough to follow my heart and my dreams and that it is okay for me to make mistakes. Don’t like my first job? Try to change it. Love Japan (as I do?) Come live and work here. She told me not to worry about the future too much but to continue doing what I am doing and something will turn out well. That she had faith I would get a job.

This meeting was really great because she did not only give me career advice but also life advice as someone who is a foreigner working in Japan. Her perspective gave me a great insight into what it would be to work and live in Japan, the challenges and rewards that come with it.  She also showed me that to work in the finance industry, particularly in accounting, it would be a lot of studying and hard work. But hey, I like that, maybe…

This opportunity is really pushing me to pursue a life here, so, who knows, maybe it will happen. I will continue to explore career paths and life in Japan through this fellowship, thank you very much for everything!