Hi, my name is Paulo. I came from Brazil to Japan back in 2001.

Before I came to Japan, I studied in Norway since my second year in high school and went back to Brazil for college. I went to the University of Sao Paulo and enrolled in Economics but I was not really sure about what I really wanted to do for my future. I liked history and during high school I studied Japanese and Chinese history as a major subject. One day, I found the Japanese scholarship program hosted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and thought it was a great opportunity to study Japanese history in Japan. I dropped out of the University of Sao Paulo and decided to come to Japan. I went to a Japanese language school for a year then I entered Tohoku University. I could choose any major for the scholarship program so I chose Japanese history as my major. I tried to use and expose myself to Japanese language as much as I could while learning Japanese history that I almost started to hate kanji. I could not think of going to a graduate school in Japan because I studied Japanese so much and felt tired of it. However, I still wanted to use my Japanese language skill for my career so I decided to stay and start my career in Japan. I started working at a start-up company after graduating from Tohoku University and my job was related to the environment. More specifically, my occupation was related to carbon offset and I started to have particular interests in this field. I felt like I finally found something I really wanted to do but I strongly felt my lack of knowledge for this particular field. I decided to go back to university to study the environment and got a master's and doctor’s degree in Environmental Studies. After finishing the doctor’s program, I started working at EX Research Institute where I can work on solving environmental issues. 

Communicate in Japanese as much as possible

I majored in Japanese history during my college years in Japan and I was required to study a wide range of Japanese language skills for this particular major. I studied not only modern Japanese reading and writing but also technical language skills like ancient Japanese writing and ancient Chinese literature.

Participating in an internship was one of the graduation requirements for the master’s program so  my professor introduced me to the opportunities to intern either at a company, government’s agency or embassy. I chose to intern at the embassy of Sweden for 3 weeks. The Swedish government was conducting a research about other countries’ approaches to global warming outside of the United Nation’s framework at the time so I researched the Japanese government’s attitude toward this issue during this internship. 

Continue Learning

When I got into Tohoku University as an undergraduate student, I was already 22 years old so it was obvious that I had more life experiences compared to the other students. I always tried to remember my original resolution as a student and maintained my always-learning attitude during the college years. I also tried my best to adapt to the Japanese culture and stopped considering myself as a foreigner. I spoke in Japanese to my friends and my colleagues at my part time job as much as I could to learn casual conversational expressions in Japanese. 

What you wish you have done during college and why? 

I realized the differences between Japanese culture in the working field and in college when I actually started working in Japan. I wish I had had more real working experiences during college years so I could get used to the Japanese working culture. I think this advice applies especially to the international students from Western countries because the Western culture is a lot more different from Japanese culture compared to the other cultures in Asian countries. It might be harder for international students from Western countries to get used to the Japanese culture when there is such a huge cultural gap. I think having real working experiences in the Japanese society during college years will help international students greatly to adapt to the unique Japanese working culture.

Where do you want to build your career？

I think the first important step when you think about your own career is identifying in which country and in what language you want to build your career. Depending on your expertise, if you want to build your career in Japan, Japanese language skill is indispensable; the same can be said for other non-English speaking countries. There are a lot of global companies in Japan and you might be able to use English at work, however, Japanese language skill is still crucial in order to build a successful career in Japan. Just knowing English in itself is not necessarily a special strength. I think the essential ability is to be able to think from a global perspective as well as having a sophisticated Japanese language skill at the same time.

Be the bridge between Japan and the world

I believe that not only Japanese language ability but also the ability to understand the country itself is essential in order to build a successful career in Japan. This is because I think the role of international students in Japan is to be the bridge between Japan and the world. International students surely understand their own countries’ culture so if they acquire a deep understanding of Japanese culture, they will have the ability to be the connection between their home country and Japan. For example, in translation, if the translator only specializes in the languages, the translation becomes too literal and the readers will not be able to understand the subtle differences in meanings. On the other hand, if the translator is someone who understands the languages and cultures as well, the person will be able to express the meanings accurately and make a connection between two languages. I think it is important for international students to be aware that they have the potential to be the bridge between Japan and the world so you can start from learning Japanese culture as the first step

Ability to Analyze Information

I think it is beneficial to learn how to interact with information and this advice applies to everyone. We all have quicker access to information and also can get a larger amount of information compared to the past because of the development of the internet. We can even get information unintentionally on a daily basis without even trying to collect it. Everyone genuinely thinks that it is important to take in as much information as possible, however, this can make one drown in information. I think taking in too much information is as bad as lack of information so the ability to analyze and filter information based on your necessity is very important. In other words, it is the ability to choose information to take in and to decide the way to analyze the information.

I believe this ability is useful in the working field as well. You will encounter a variety of people from different backgrounds at work and of course, everyone has different values, knowledge and perspectives. When you work with different people, you have to think about how and why you work with them and also what kind of information you provide about work. You need to be able to analyze the new working partners and to organize the necessary information to provide before you actually communicate with them in order to successfully work with a variety of people.

I am in charge of two kinds of major tasks. The first one is researching the current environmental situation for countries around the world and the second one is supporting specialists during projects. For the research task, I conduct research to figure out what kind of environmental issues each country is facing and create solution plans. Then we proceed to start a project based on the research and actually go to the project sites to support specialists. For instance, I am involved in a project in Mozambique, a country located in Southern Africa, where part of a final waste disposal site collapsed; we first analyzed the situation from desk-work, and now we are actually implementing improvements on the actual site. I have also conducted research on global plastic waste issues. As such, as an International Environmental Consultant, I sometimes work in the office and sometimes actually work at the project sites.

Solving Environmental Issues Will Make Our Life Better

What I value while working at EX Research Institute is that being aware of the fact that what I do is actually helping people who are affected by environmental issues. I am grateful that I am taking a part in solving environmental problems and helping other people. 

Improving My Expertise 

I research and write about different kinds of environmental issues so working at EX Research Institute deepens my understanding of those problems. When I was working on the plastic waste issue, I speculated about the negative effects and approaches we can take to solve this issue. I can develop my own profession at EX Research Institute and I would like to continue gaining expertise to solve various environmental issues. 

Flexible Working Style

I have been working remote since the outbreak of COVID-19 but we can usually work from home regardless of the situation as well. I personally like to work from home when I especially want to focus so I sometimes request it to the company. We can also decide the time to go to the office so I would say our company has a flexible working style. We often work with government agencies and people working outside of Japan so the working hours are not always 9 AM to 6 PM and also we sometimes have to work overtime when a deadline is coming up. We always need to manage projects by ourselves so we have to be flexible with time and manage timetables for work. 

Never Give Up

When working, I rarely make crucial mistakes but sometimes make small ones. I work with the Japanese government and local governments so I have to write in polite and accurate Japanese at work. As a Japanese foreign speaker, I try to make sure that my non-native Japanese does not negatively impact the quality of my work. Nevertheless, there are times when nuances are different, or certain expressions are not quite accurate. Everybody makes mistakes, but the important thing is to always use these mistakes as a chance to improve oneself. 

My Future

I am not sure if this is part of Brazilian characteristics but I am not good at planning for the future. One thing I know for sure is that I want to be a professional who can approach environmental issues from a financial perspective because financial approach is one of the keys to environmental improvement. There will be new environmental problems in the world and there are still many problems that are not yet solved. I will continue to work on finding solutions to the problems and to take actions.