Careers

I had the chance to study Japanese when I was a sophomore at university in China. My teacher was Japanese, and taught us a lot about life in Japan and Japanese culture, and that greatly changed the image of Japan that I had at the time. That was when I thought I wanted to go to Japan and see the country for myself.

Before coming to Japan, my Japanese level was below N2 (on the JLPT), so at the time I wasn’t really thinking about finding work in Japan. But as I was studying at Japanese language school and university in Kobe, I started to think that it would be kind of a shame just to go back to China after this, and I decided that I wanted to work in Japan. Kobe is kind of like Suzhou in China, in that it’s a big city, but it’s also quiet and stylish.

I mainly studied Japanese language, culture, and business in the Japanese Course at the Global Communications Department at Kobe Gakuin University. I’d already gotten my bachelor’s degree in China, but I thought that by studying at a university, I’d be able to study more general, less focused topics than at graduate school, and I hoped it would be easier to make Japanese friends. I decided to study abroad at a university in Kobe. A two-month internship was required for this course, and on top of the lectures on business manners and interview practice, there was excellent job hunting support, so I didn’t have any difficulties in my job hunt, even in a foreign country. participated in internships in a wide range of fields such as hotels, architectural firms, and machinery trading companies.

In my second year of university, I participated in the Consortium of Universities in Hyogo/Kobe‘s Hyogo International Student Internship, where I interned at a nail trading company. In 2016, I created a report as a member of the Hyogo International Student Internship Reporting Committee. It was a really valuable experience.

I was interested in cosmetology from the start, and when I was a student, I worked part-time doing cosmetics-related interpreting. While aiming to get a job in the cosmetics industry, I met Mr. Yang, my CEO, at a Kobe New Year’s International Goodwill Party in my third year of university, and he invited me to participate in his company’s new project. That’s how I entered the company.

The project was to sell Chinese medicine-based cosmetics in japan, and I was put in charge of project development and delivery of goods. Another of the company’s strengths is in hair care products, and we’ve expanded to 2,000 stores across Japan. I hope to keep working hard to expand our original products across Japan.

The first impression you make is really important, so I was very careful about my clothes and makeup. It seems that some international students did not pay much attention to these job hunting rules.

At the actual interview, I was extremely concerned about making Japanese mistakes, and I was really nervous, but I’d been really helped by the practical knowledge I’d been given at the university, such as how to self-analyze and how to write my cover letter. I think that kind of advance preparation is really important.

From what I’ve heard from my friends working in China, I think the stability of jobs in Japan is a big different. In Japanese companies, it’s normal to work there for a very long time, and there’s a culture of working at the same company until you retire. In China, it seems that many people want to enter a company, gain some knowledge, and then start their own company. My plan is to continue to contribute to my company and keep living in Kobe.