Five gifts that living in Japan has given our family

Moving abroad with your family can be tough - it presents a number of challenges logistically, emotionally, and otherwise. It also presents a lot of opportunities though, and those are the elements of expat life in Japan that I’m training myself to see the beauty in. There are a number of things our family has benefited from as a result of our decision to live in Japan, and here are five key ones we’re grateful for.

Our kids get to be bilingual

What an incredible thing this is! My four year old speaks better Japanese than me, since she’s been immersed in it since she was an infant. Back home, having a bilingual child would likely be the result of expensive private classes or the blessing of having a multicultural family. We’re fortunate that here in Japan our kids get that option just courtesy of day to day life.

NHI is a godsend

Before living in Japan we lived in America, and the healthcare system there is confusing at best. Different providers, premiums, and deductibles all left me shaking my head after having grown up in Australia where universal health care is the norm.

Japan’s healthcare is cheap (especially so since we’re residents living off quite a minimal income right now), and despite the long waits often occurring in conjunction with walk-in appointments we’re grateful for a system that keeps our family healthy and happy without breaking the bank. Our daughter spent two nights in hospital around this time last year as a result of her asthma, and we didn’t worry at all about the cost of the stay or the medication she was prescribed.

We challenge our comfort zones daily

If I was still in Australia, I’d likely be in a similar job in the same town I was living in - there was no real impetus to change. Living in Japan though? Our comfort zones are challenged every day. Whether it’s navigating a doctor’s appointment in broken Japanese or trying different career options, we’re thankful for the ways Japan has encouraged us to expand our boundaries and test our limits to shape us into better people. The comfort zone expansion has even extended to our children - it’s been a delight watching my daughter come out of her shell and blossom at her Japanese preschool.

We’ve been able to share our own culture with others

I’d never really thought about what it meant to be Australian before living abroad. Very often, I get asked questions about home, particularly about what foods are considered as being Australian. These opportunities have been a wonderful way to share part of my own culture, customs, and foods with Japanese friends and neighbors, and hopefully be a good ambassador for my country in the process. Same for my husband, as he’s American and has a whole different range of experiences to share about his background.

We got to free some of the shackles of our usual lives

When you live in the same place all your life, there tends to be an expectation to keep doing things at the same pace. Here in Japan we’ve been given the gift of learning more about ourselves, what we truly enjoy, and what direction we want to go in as a family. We’ve tried new careers, and my husband even returned to student life to get his PhD, which would have been seen as a risky deviation away from a stable income source to many people back home. We’ve been given more time as a family as a result of living in a small town, and right now we're not worrying about commutes and high pressured rat-race careers. While our children are young this has proved to be a huge blessing, and something we’re very grateful to Japan for.