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To become a foreman
Towards obtaining qualifications
I'm studying really hard!
2026.01.30
Working abroad is a major challenge in life. What experiences have Specified Skilled Worker gone through to get to where they are today? What dreams do they have for the future? We introduce the careers of these challengers.
NicknameBINH (33 years old)
Specified Skills start date: December 16, 2020
Length of stay: 11th year
Origin: Vietnam
Interview conducted on August 27, 2025
Encouraged by my farming parents
I was born and raised in Bac Giang Province (now Bac Ninh Province) in Vietnam. My family runs a lychee farm, and when I was little, I used to help out during harvest season. When I told my parents, who knew nothing about the construction industry, that I wanted to go to Japan to work, they encouraged me, saying, "You're still young, so go and do your best."
In 2014, at the age of 22, I came to Japan. I traveled by bus from Nagoya Airport to Nagano Prefecture and lived in a dormitory for a month. That's when I experienced snow for the first time.
Learn tools with a list of pictures.
I started by organizing the plywood sheets at the company. I had to group together sheets of the same specifications, but since they were all different types and dimensions, it was surprisingly difficult. Later, I started going to the work sites to help with preparations, but I was still unsure of the names of the tools and sometimes got confused. So, I looked at the list with pictures that the company provided every day and gradually memorized them.
Despite being cautioned by my seniors, I learned the art of "construction."
I started working on the "construction" process under the guidance of my seniors. The precision of this work greatly affects the final finish of the building, so it's essential to maintain strict horizontal and vertical alignment. However, I was still inexperienced back then and didn't do it well, so my seniors often corrected me. I think it took about six months before I could do it on my own.
How to read blueprints, learned from veteran craftsmen
My work now involves reading blueprints more often. At first, the symbols and the meaning of heights were difficult, and it took me a while to learn how to read them. However, I gradually deepened my understanding by being taught by veteran Japanese craftsmen. There were times when I broke out in a cold sweat because I almost made a mistake with the dimensions when marking out the lines, but those experiences have made me more conscious of accuracy.
He fell in love at first sight with a woman who had also come to Japan and was working at a manufacturing plant. They started dating in 2017, and their first date was at Tokyo Skytree. Two years later, in 2019, they happily got married.
I studied in Japanese, obtained my license, and now I spend my days driving my colleagues to the worksite.
I obtained my driver's license soon after starting work as Specified Skills. At the driving school, all the textbooks were in Japanese, and I struggled with the written exam, which was full of kanji characters. However, I studied on my own and passed on my third attempt. I was so happy when I finally got my license. I then started driving the company car to the work sites.
Transitioning to Specified Skilled Worker (ii).
I'm currently studying for qualifications with the goal of becoming a foreman.
I've been increasingly sent to other companies' construction sites to help out, and I'm often entrusted with working in teams composed entirely of Vietnamese people. Currently, I'm aiming to become a foreman and am studying to obtain a Class 2 Architectural Construction Management Engineer qualification. For the sake of my wife and our two children, aged 3 and 1, who live with me in Japan, I definitely want to pass the exam next year.
A message from Japanese language instructor, HIJONG
Yoshimi Construction holds Japanese language study sessions on the first and third Sundays of each month, and BINH attends every single one without fail. It's rare to find a student as open-minded and quick to learn as him. He constantly strives to live in Japan, asking for advice on how to memorize kanji, and even consulting us about tax returns and family procedures. I am also truly impressed by his honesty and sense of responsibility, having maintained a perfect attendance record of over 10 years. He is a trustworthy person.
