Personal Statement On Why I Want To Live And Work In Japan

Japan is a unique society with no equal in the world. It’s isolated geography, breathtaking mountains, eclectic cities, and island status offers an unparalleled experience to the body and soul. Since I had started learning about yoga approximately eight years ago, I became increasingly interested in Shinto and Buddhist monasteries and the ancient techniques that they employ. On an academic and a spiritual level, no other country can provide me with the depth and breadth of learning experience that can be had in Japan.
I am a renaissance person by nature and enjoy to be actively engaged in multiple projects at any given time. Presently, I work as an independent consultant and entrepreneur. I have recently been consulting to the hotel industry, where I regularly consult large corporate clients on improvements of inefficiencies and cost analysis. I also consult in the poultry processing market with regards to cost controls and revenue efficiencies. Finally, I am the owner of a small café in North Goa.
Prior to this, my experience has been in the stock market in India. I have also worked as a consultant in Silicon Valley, and taught economics and finance to undergraduate students while I was earning my MBA in Austrialia. By the time I was thirty years old I had worked on three continents and visited over twenty countries. I learned a lot from each of these experiences and I have always made it a point to learn as much as I could about the various cultures of the world and to respect the differences in cultures we may have. I also have substantial institutional finance experience in various roles and positions. In my role as a Senior Investment Analyst at Americorp Capital I was responsible for buy-side analytics and was involved in rigorous modeling. Furthermore, I worked as a consultant in Mumbai to Angel Broking Pvt. Ltd, Dewan Housing Finance, ltd, and Oza financial where I developed equity research departments, developed business plans in conjunction with firms such as Ernst & Young, and assisted with fund raising and preparation of revenue models. In my roles as an Equity Analyst for both SBI Capital and VLS finance where my function was to track mid-cap stocks and in general multitask to aid general business development. Finally, during my time at the University of Melbourne in Australia I was a Resident Economic Advisor providing tutorials in Business Finance, Micro & Macro –economics for undergraduate students. While I was in Melbourne I also worked as an Assistant Equity Analyst for ANZ securities where I helped create various databases to further the corporations business ventures and I also conducted research on various theoretical correlations between stock prices, exchange rates, and commodity prices.
I would like to be able to teach the Japanese people about my culture and also about my experiences in the various fields I have worked in, while at the same time learning about the Japanese culture and way of life. For example, I would be in a good position to teach business English in Japan since my experiences in the English speaking business world have been very varied. I would also be happy to work with school aged children teaching them conversational English, or even University Students as a teaching assistant for business courses and finance classes.
While I would be teaching the Japanese people about my areas of expertise, I would also seek to learn as much as I can about Japan and its unique culture and geography. Sitting on the western edge of the ring of fire and possessing many active volcanoes, I would like to learn about volcanology and the various ingenious methods that the Japanese people have developed over the centuries to reduce the severity of mother nature’s fury. Furthermore, there are other geologic phenomena that I would be interested in learning about from earthquakes to the tsunami. In the face of all these threats, the Japanese have always resorted to their minds to devise methods early detection and protection. I would greatly enjoy being able to learn from a people with such excellent mental plasticity to respond to such challenges.
As previously mentioned, I have become more interested and involved with yoga and meditation techniques practiced in the world. Japan has developed the Hatsurei-Ho, a part of Reiki, which I have found to be beneficial to my well being. In the time I would spend in Japan, one of my main goals would be to have a long term stay at one of the many monasteries learning the ancient techniques of meditation and harnessing my spirituality. Living in Japan would allow me to first make inroads into learning the language and truly being able to appreciate the tutelage I would receive at one of the monasteries. Given my wide range of interests, I am still uncertain as to which specific school I would be interested in. However, I feel strongly compelled to learn Japanese language and culture while teaching from my vast experience, and to afterwards learn the ancient traditions from a monastery I have researched and examined. At the same time as I am learning in Japan, I would also be providing a unique service to the people of Japan. I would be able to teach various things about cultural sensitivities that I have learned having lived and traveled to so many diverse countries. Furthermore, with my excellent level of English knowledge and insider business knowledge I would be able to teach the Japanese people many of the fundamentals that have taken me so long to learn. Together, we’d have a symbiotic relationship, teaching each other about our strengths.