| COUNTRY |
| Myanmar |
| EDUCATION |
| Bachelor in Marine Mechanical, Myanmar Maritime University |
| COMPANY |
| A leading Japanese manufacturer of industrial sewing machines, renowned for its high precision overlock and interlock machines used in garment production worldwide. |
| SUMMARY |
| A Burmese worker in Japan shares how anime inspired him to pursue a life and career in a new country. With the support of FAST OFFER International, he was able to make the move and begin his journey. He also reflects on his experiences working in Japan, including the challenges he faced and the valuable lessons he learned along the way. |
ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံရှိ မြန်မာအလုပ်သမားတစ်ဦးသည် နိုင်ငံသစ်တွင် ဘဝနှင့်အသက်မွေးဝမ်းကြောင်းပြုရန် anime က သူ့ကို လှုံ့ဆော်ပေးပုံကို မျှဝေသည်။ FAST OFFER International ၏ ပံ့ပိုးမှုဖြင့် သူသည် လှုပ်ရှားမှုကို လုပ်နိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး သူ၏ ခရီးကို စတင်နိုင်ခဲ့သည်။ သူရင်ဆိုင်ခဲ့ရတဲ့ စိန်ခေါ်မှုတွေနဲ့ လမ်းခရီးတစ်လျှောက် အဖိုးတန်သင်ခန်းစာတွေ အပါအဝင် ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံမှာ အလုပ်လုပ်နေတဲ့ သူ့ရဲ့ အတွေ့အကြုံတွေကိုလည်း ပြန်သုံးသပ်ပါတယ်။
A Dream Sparked by Anime | Anime မှ စိတ်ကူးယဉ်အိပ်မက်တစ်ခု
My interest in Japan started like it did for many others — through anime! Popular anime shows were all the rage among my friends, and I couldn’t help but be curious about them. I started watching as well, and I was immediately drawn to the unique aspects of Japanese culture that were portrayed in them. The rich traditions, culture, and language intrigued and captivated me. What started as a simple curiosity quickly turned into a deeper passion to learn more about the country and what it’s like to live there as a Burmese worker in Japan.
ကြွယ်ဝသော ဓလေ့ထုံးတမ်းများ၊ ယဉ်ကျေးမှုနှင့် ဘာသာစကားတို့သည် ကျွန်ုပ်ကို စွဲလန်းစေပါသည်။ ရိုးရှင်းစွာ သိချင်စိတ်ကြောင့် စတင်ခဲ့ရာက တိုင်းပြည်အကြောင်းနဲ့ ဂျပန်မှာ မြန်မာအလုပ်သမားအဖြစ် နေထိုင်ရတာ ဘယ်လိုမျိုးလဲဆိုတာကို ပိုမိုသိရှိလိုတဲ့ နက်နဲတဲ့ စိတ်ဆန္ဒဖြစ်လာပါတယ်။
Inspired by Senpais to Be a Burmese Worker in Japan | Senpais မှ ဂျပန်တွင် မြန်မာအလုပ်သမားဖြစ်ရန် လှုံ့ဆော်ပေးခဲ့သည်။
During my university years, I often came across posts from my senpais (seniors) on social media, where they shared their experiences of what it’s like to be a Burmese worker in Japan. Their stories left a lasting impression on me, especially how they managed to blend their professional ambitions with life in a new country. That’s when I realized that if I wanted to work in Japan someday, I would need to learn the language.
My Language Learning Journey | ကျွန်ုပ်၏ ဘာသာစကား လေ့လာရေးခရီး
I began learning Japanese at a local language center. However, the pandemic forced me to switch to self-studying Japanese. Even though it was challenging, I remained committed, using resources like YouTube, Japanese textbooks, and even reality TV shows. These tools not only improved my conversational skills but also helped me understand technical terms related to my field of engineering.
Joining the FAST OFFER International Program | FAST OFFER International Program တွင် ပါဝင်ခြင်း။
After graduating, I discovered the FAST OFFER International program, which connects international graduates with Japanese companies. I signed up, and thankfully, I met all the qualifications. FAST OFFER International sponsored my trip to Japan so I can attend job interviews with companies in Tokyo.
စာရင်းသွင်းပြီး ကျေးဇူးတင်စွာဖြင့်၊ အရည်အချင်းအားလုံး ပြည့်မီပါသည်။ FAST OFFER International သည် ကျွန်ုပ်၏ ဂျပန်ခရီးစဉ်ကို ကမကထပြု၍ တိုကျိုရှိ ကုမ္ပဏီများနှင့် အလုပ်အင်တာဗျူးများကို တက်ရောက်နိုင်ပါသည်။
I didn’t succeed right away. In fact, I failed several interviews at first. The process was nerve-wracking, especially the in-person interviews, which were different from the online ones I was used to. But my mentor kept motivating me, and that support, along with my own determination, kept me going.
ငါချက်ချင်းမအောင်မြင်ဘူး။ တကယ်တော့ ပထမတော့ အင်တာဗျူးတော်တော်များများ ကျရှုံးခဲ့တယ်။ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်သည် အထူးသဖြင့် ကျွန်ုပ်အသုံးပြုခဲ့ဖူးသော အွန်လိုင်းစနစ်များနှင့် ကွဲပြားသည့် လူကိုယ်တိုင် တွေ့ဆုံမေးမြန်းခြင်းများကို စိတ်အနှောက်အယှက်ဖြစ်စေပါသည်။ ဒါပေမယ့် ကျွန်မရဲ့ လမ်းညွှန်ဆရာက ကျွန်မကို အမြဲလှုံ့ဆော်ပေးခဲ့ပြီး အဲဒီပံ့ပိုးမှုတွေနဲ့အတူ ကျွန်မရဲ့ကိုယ်ပိုင်ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက်နဲ့အတူ ကျွန်မကို ဆက်သွားခဲ့တယ်။
My hard work learning Japanese and familiarizing myself with Japanese business culture paid off, and I finally received a job offer from a Japanese company.
The FAST OFFER International program was instrumental in my success. They provided support for my travel, accommodations, and gave me invaluable advice on how to present myself professionally in interviews. I learned everything from using respectful language like sonkeigo to the importance of wearing a suit — details that are crucial in Japan’s business environment.
My Life as a Burmese Worker in Japan | ဂျပန်ရောက်မြန်မာအလုပ်သမားဘဝ
Soon after receiving a job offer, I began my life as a Burmese worker in Japan. Here are some of my top realizations so far:
1. You Can Overcome Language Barriers | ဘာသာစကား အတားအဆီးများကို သင် ကျော်လွှားနိုင်သည်။
One of the biggest challenges I faced was understanding technical Japanese, particularly engineering terminology. However, I never gave up. I relied on YouTube, textbooks, and the support of my teachers. Thanks to their guidance, I became more confident in both conversational and technical Japanese, which has been crucial in my work.
2. Gratitude and Commitment are Embedded in Japanese Corporate Culture | ကျေးဇူးသိတတ်မှုနှင့် ကတိကဝတ်များကို ဂျပန်အသင်းအဖွဲ့ယဉ်ကျေးမှုတွင် ထည့်သွင်းထားသည်။
Living and working as a Burmese worker in Japan introduced me to many new cultural norms. One practice that stood out to me was the emphasis on gratitude. For example, phrases like “Otsukaresama desu” (Thank you for your hard work) are commonly used to thank colleagues after a hard day’s work. This kind of formal expression was new to me and felt quite different from the casual ways we express gratitude in Myanmar.
Another cultural difference I noticed was Japan’s dedication to punctuality and commitment to work. Once, during a severe typhoon, my company didn’t cancel a planned meeting. Instead, they shifted it online to ensure the work continued smoothly. This left a lasting impression on me about Japan’s work ethic.
3. Exploring Japan Like A Local Is Fun | ဂျပန်ကို စူးစမ်းလေ့လာရတာ ပျော်စရာကောင်းပါတယ်။
As a Burmese worker in Japan, I got to experience the country like a local. I was able to visit underrated spots and try one-of-a-kind dishes during my free time.
One of my most memorable experiences so far has been visiting Kamakura, a city known for its tranquil temples and stunning natural scenery. The peaceful atmosphere and beauty of the area truly amazed me. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Japan.
I’ve also enjoyed trying Japanese food. Ramen and sushi have become my favorites, and I even had the chance to try fast food from chains not available in Myanmar. It was a fun and delicious experience!
My Goals for the Future | ကျွန်ုပ်၏ အနာဂတ်ပန်းတိုင်များ
Looking ahead, I am excited to continue working as an engineer in Japan. I hope to contribute to my company and society while also continuing to explore Japan’s natural beauty and immersing myself fully in its culture.
ရှေ့ကိုမျှော်ကြည့်ရင်း ဂျပန်မှာ အင်ဂျင်နီယာတစ်ယောက်အနေနဲ့ ဆက်ပြီးအလုပ်လုပ်ရတာ စိတ်လှုပ်ရှားမိပါတယ်။ ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံ၏ သဘာဝအလှကို ဆက်လက်ရှာဖွေပြီး ၎င်း၏ယဉ်ကျေးမှုတွင် အပြည့်အ၀ နှစ်မြှုပ်ကာ ကျွန်ုပ်၏ကုမ္ပဏီနှင့် လူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်းကို ပံ့ပိုးကူညီရန် မျှော်လင့်ပါသည်။
This journey has not only improved my skills as an engineer but also taught me the value of persistence and purpose. I am determined to keep growing, both professionally and personally, while embracing the Japanese way of life with respect and enthusiasm.
My Advice for Foreign Talents Seeking A Job In Japan | ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံတွင် အလုပ်ရှာနေသည့် နိုင်ငံခြား အရည်အချင်းရှိသူများအတွက် ကျွန်ုပ်၏ အကြံဉာဏ်
To anyone hoping to work in Japan, my advice is simple: be persistent and believe in yourself. It took me several attempts before I received my first job offer. In the beginning, I struggled to balance interviews with completing my final year project, which made the process even more challenging.
ဂျပန်မှာ အလုပ်သွားလုပ်မယ့်သူတိုင်းအတွက် ကျွန်တော့်ရဲ့ အကြံပြုချက်က ရိုးရှင်းပါတယ်- ဇွဲရှိရှိနဲ့ ကိုယ့်ကိုယ်ကို ယုံကြည်ပါ။ ပထမဆုံး အလုပ်ကမ်းလှမ်းမှု မရရှိခဲ့ခင်မှာ အကြိမ်ကြိမ် ကြိုးစားခဲ့ရပါတယ်။ အစပိုင်းတွင်၊ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်ကို ပို၍ပင် စိန်ခေါ်မှုဖြစ်စေသော ကျွန်ုပ်၏နောက်ဆုံးနှစ်ပရောဂျက်ကို အပြီးသတ်ခြင်းနှင့် အင်တာဗျူးများကို ချိန်ခွင်လျှာညှိရန် ရုန်းကန်ခဲ့ရသည်။
Another piece of advice I’d offer is to seek guidance from seniors who have gone through Japanese job interviews themselves. In my experience, their insights were incredibly helpful— not only in understanding Japanese work culture but also in preparing for the interview process and knowing what to expect.
Believe in yourself, even when the road gets tough. With persistence and proper preparation, you can achieve your goals.
FAST OFFER CAREER GUIDE: How To Land A Job In Japan As a Burmese Worker: Step-By-Step Guide
Inspired to live in Japan as a Burmese worker? Here’s what you need to know to make your dream a reality. Although it may seem like a distant goal for now, it’s entirely possible. In fact, the number of Burmese workers in Japan has been steadily increasing. From our experience here at FAST OFFER International, many successful candidates from Myanmar have secured job offers in fields such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and more.
Ready to take the first step toward your dream? Here’s a step-by-step guide.
Learn Appropriate Japanese For Your Field
Being able to speak Japanese is always a plus. You don’t need to be extremely fluent — just proficient enough to communicate effectively with colleagues and clients in your field. For example, if you’re aiming to work in engineering or IT, you’ll need a proficiency level of at least JLPT N3 or N4. Additionally, you need to learn specific Japanese jargon related to your field. However, for roles in the humanities, N2 may be required, as the work often involves more communication with others. Start improving your Japanese by taking our free Japanese classes in partnership with the Association of Japan Myanmar Mutual Communication (AJMMC) to enable a smooth transition from language learning to job hunting.
Give Your Profile An Edge
Aside from having the right degree for your field, it’s also important to make sure your final project is relevant to the kind of job you’re aiming for in Japan. The specificity of your final year project affects the kind of companies that will consider hiring you. For example, if you want to work in mechanical engineering, your final year project must be related to it.
Internships are another key part of the process. It will give you real-world experience and help build confidence in your career. If you can, try to land an internship with a Japanese company; it’s a great way to boost your resume and show employers you’re serious.
Once you’re ready with your final project and have already gained enough experience with an internship, you’ll need to prepare a Japanese-style resume called a Rirekisho to apply to Japanese companies via their website. It includes not just your background, but also things like your job preferences, commute time, dependents, and more. Burmese foreign talents who wish to start a career in Japan can also seek help from AJMMC to assist with connecting with partner companies.
Sign Up With A Trustworthy Agency
Applying for a job in Japan on your own is certainly possible, but it can also be overwhelming. From doing cold calls to preparing all the necessary documents, the process can feel daunting when you’re doing it solo. The good news? You don’t have to go through it alone. With the right guidance, landing a job in Japan as a Burmese worker can be a much smoother and more secure experience. At FAST OFFER, our experienced mentors will support you every step of the way — from interview coaching to matching you with companies that align with your skills and interests.
