We know life as an engineer in Japan is very challenging as we have to cope up with their hardworking attitude. There is no doubt that Japan is a dynamic environment for engineers. But, when it comes to Homemaker, things are fairly different. In this article we are going to have a look at Ms. Gayathri's experience of having lived in Japan.

She is from the historic city of tiruchirapalli in the south of India. She had to move to Japan post her marriage in 2005, as her husband was employed in Japan. And thus she had a thought of learning Japanese to help living in Japan. Not all Japanese speak English though they can understand. So you can’t see the influence of English in Japan even at the time of Globalisation.

 As a tourist, one can survive in Japan without knowing Japanese but when you have to live there, it's better to know the Language. Ms. Gayathri lived in Nishi kasai, a suburb of Tokyo, which is often referred to as ‘little India‘ and ‘second home for Indians'. She had been living in Japan for a decade from 2005 to 2016. Ms. Gayathri, a mother of two children says it was so dynamic living there in Japan. She was all praise for Japan’s public transportation facilities and says she used to return home late at night with her child safely. She adds at Nishi kasai, everything was accessible to her as she had even Indian type grocery shops at her door step. She had led pretty much the similar life that she would have led in India but in a different dimension. Life in Japan is dynamic, not only for an engineer or a worker but also for a Homemaker.

She lived in a UR Apartment, usually called the UR 賃貸(Chintai) in Japanese. The UR Apartments are corporations formed by the Japanese National Government. They are cheap and have more advantages over private apartments. She had been using a bicycle to travel short distances.

She also stressed on the importance of medical insurance without which the treatments could be unpredictably costly and praised the medical system of Japan. It just costs 30 percent of the total cost for the treatment. When it comes to food, she says at first it was very hard to get used to eat  Japanese foods. But later on she managed and says she likes some of the dishes that are similar to Indian cuisine. She had many Indians around her and felt very safe with her children. Her children were brought up in Japan at the initial stages and says she also has a good rapport with Japanese. On asking how she learnt Japanese, she says she was taught by a Native speaker who visits her at home. She recalls that when she learnt Japanese there was just 4 levels called L4 to L1. She recalls it was very hard to shift from L3 to L2 and thus, L2 was further bifurcated into two levels. She also recalls the Indian festivals that are being celebrated in Japan such as Pongal and Diwali. She also found some similarities between the obon festival in Japan and a festival celebrated down the south in Tamil Nadu. Later in 2016, after a decade of life in Japan, her family decided to move back to India. She concludes saying that she was not satisfied to move to India as she got used living in Japan.