Documentary Photography Project - Japanese in Canada
Japan and Canada have a reciprocal youth mobility agreement which allows Japanese citizens to apply for a Working Holiday Visa for up to 12 months [1]. Each citizen is allowed to participate in this program once. Some of my Japanese friends would stay for a year and go back to their country forever. When I visited a cafe in Kyoto during my trip to Japan, the barista told me she worked in a coffee shop in Vancouver for a year and now she is back in Kyoto. Thinking about the expense of living away from family is quite high, it makes me wonder if this interim one-year experience is rewarding (materialistically or intellectually) for her. This project aims to document the daily lives of Japanese workers in Canada and explore how this experience impacts their life.
References and inspirations from projects other photographers:
Peking Apartments by Xiaoliang Li -- A series of photographs of the living space of foreign fashion models in Beijing, China.
Citation:
[1]https://canadaemigrate.com/canadian-work-visa-for-japanese-citizens/