Dungarees In Japan

I got over 50 reactions on my posts last week! Thanks everyone for your support! 🎉

No Japanese? No problem... or is it? 🇯🇵

Tokyo’s corporate scene loves promoting the “English-First” trend. Ever since Rakuten launched its “Englishnization” mandate back in 2010, a wave of tech giants, AI startups, and robotics firms have ditched Japanese fluency requirements on paper, pushing employees to hit high TOEIC benchmarks to globalize overnight.

But let’s be totally honest: mandating a language doesn’t magically make a workforce fluent. Talk to anyone on the ground, and they’ll tell you the unfiltered reality often looks a lot more like “Janglish,” silent meetings, and decision-making that still happens entirely in Japanese behind closed doors once the official English presentations are over.

While tech and product bubbles are genuinely opening up to global talent, traditional operations still run deep.
Are these English-first mandates a true global shift, or just clever corporate PR? Let me know your thoughts below! 👇

Think you have to pack your bags and move all the way to Tokyo to build a career with a Japanese global giant? Think again. 🇯🇵💼

Right now, Japanese corporations are among the single largest foreign job creators in the United States, investing billions into regional hubs and local communities. From massive engineering and manufacturing footprints in states like Ohio and Alabama to corporate headquarters, finance, and tech hubs across major US cities, the pipeline back to Japan is already right in your backyard. You don’t need a new passport—you just need to know where to look.

Imagine living inside a floating steel pressure cooker. 😳 Deep in Hiroshima Prefecture, the city of Kure has a literal 2,000-ton, decommissioned diesel submarine—the Akishio—parked right on giant steel stilts on the sidewalk.

The best part? It’s 100% free to enter. You can walk right into the hull, squeeze through the cramped crew quarters, and look through a real, functioning optical periscope out over the bay. If you want to feel the raw, iron soul of Japan’s modern maritime defense, this is the place.

Would you look through that periscope, or do cramped spaces freak you out? Let me know in the comments.👋⚓️