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Originally Posted by ~sylf~
I forgot to mention to you all that I'm in the science area, and anyone who's anyone in scientific academia NEEDS to know good English to publish in respectable journals. Therefore, work will probably be largely conducted in English. I only need to know enough Japanese to survive there, what level would that be? I only know basic hiragana/katakana and a few kanji now, but I certainly intend to improve that.
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What kind of work are you planning on doing? Teaching at a university or research based? I know that to teach at a university most reputible schools require you to have a Masters degree. Also, pretty much any place is going to look more favourable on a candidate with a good command of written and spoken Japanese. It's not difficult to hire a translator and you'd be surprised how many people in academia speak little to no English.
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Erm, I didn't mean I'd stomp on everyone as soon as I step off the plane. -- I meant that comment as in, I want to go there to actually work and learn, not to be looked down on as someone's lackey just because I'm female and should be married off at home like a good housewife. So I was asking about the attitudes there, which you seem to think are good. I'm banking on the hopes that the science industry there should have enough international workers to realise that not all people in the world think like that.
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It's good to see you're going in with the right attitude. even if everything is peaches at first there will eventually come a point where Japan will seem backwards for whatever reason and it will piss you off. That's the point really where you need to remind yourself that you're in Japan, not your home country, and find a way to deal with it. Some people deal with it better than others but it sounds like you'll be just fine.
Good luck!