This man left the US for what he thought would be a six-month trip to Japan. 32 years later, he’s still there

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN

(CNN) — When he traveled to Japan for a “short term” work assignment back in 1992, Dave Prucha, from California, would never have predicted that he’d still be there 32 years later.

The former university professor, who had never visited the East Asian country before then, says he thought he’d stay for six months or a year at the most.

“I didn’t know anything about Japan,” Prucha tells CNN Travel via Zoom. “I looked at this being a stint for me to take some time off and earn some money at the same time.”

Life-changing decision

However, Prucha has gone on to build a home, get married, have three children, and launch an American craft beer company in the more than three decades since then.

“Even after 32 years, I still feel like, ‘Wow, I really like living here,’” he says. “It’s so much fun.”

Prucha’s interest in Japan began when he studied International Business at San Francisco State University (SFSU) during the early nineties and learned more about the destination.

“Japan was a major rival economy of the US at the time, and I knew little about it,” he says. “I wanted to find out more about the country and people. “

After a chance meeting with a teacher based in Japan while he was working at a hotel, Prucha was offered a temporary role at a high school in Tokyo in December 1991, and jumped at the opportunity.

He left San Francisco and set off for Japan the following year, bringing very little with him.

“I really didn’t have too much of anything,” says Prucha, who was 28 at the time. “I wasn’t attached to many materialistic things.

“So I came to Japan pretty much with no baggage, and that was helpful. But I had an open mind, and I think I was young enough.”

Reflecting on his first impressions of the country, Prucha says he was immediately struck by how “cohesive” the society was and the amount of “attention to detail,” particularly in Tokyo.

“The society was focused on harmony and cohesiveness, and everybody seemed to know exactly what to do,” he says. “Waiting for trains, they knew where to stand in line.

“They had very similar mannerisms and were very well mannered and polite. The streets were super clean. People seem to know their jobs.

“I couldn’t stop observing just how amazing and different it was when I first got here.”

Prucha says he loved Japan “from the get-go,” and felt that the country “would be a good fit” for him.

“I’ve always admired that level of synchronicity and harmony in any society,” he adds. “People coming together, working together as a group to kind of get things done.”

Harmonious society

Back then, Prucha knew little Japanese besides the greeting “Konnichiwa” but he was confident that he’d be able to learn the language.

“I had a little notebook with me, and I thought I could try to pick up the language,” he adds. “It was a lot more difficult than I expected.”

While he had “interpreters” at work, Prucha notes that his limited understanding of Japanese was “a huge hindrance to moving around” in the beginning.

“Without some Japanese ability, this country is still kind of a hard nugget to crack for a lot of people,” he admits.

Prucha was struck by the cultural differences between Japan and the US, explaining that the politeness of the Japanese meant that it sometimes took him a while to realize when he was doing something wrong.

“Japanese people are so polite that it goes against their grain to look at someone and kind of step in and tell them directly, ‘This is how we do it here,’” he explains.

Prucha recalls waiting for a taxi for a long time during his earliest days in the country, and noticing that no drivers were stopping for him.

He eventually discovered that there was a huge taxi line near him that he’d “completely missed.”

“There were all these Japanese people looking at me like, ‘This foreigner is not going to get very far,’” he recounts.

Prucha says he quickly understood that “you have to really stop” and take the time “to learn how things are done in Japan if you want to basically survive here.”

“Japan is steeped in culture and tradition, customs and habits. It’s just endless,” he adds.

The country is famous for having something of a “workaholic” culture, and Prucha says this has suited him just fine.

“I’ll get a comment like, ‘Well Dave, you’re just like (the) Japanese. You work a lot,’” he says.

Culture and tradition

“And I say, ‘Well, Americans work a lot too…’ That was just something that I took as a grain of salt. I don’t mind work at all…”

When his work contract was extended, Prucha was able to spend more time in Japan, and began to feel more and more at home.

“After five or six years, I wanted to stay here basically forever,” he says. “I was totally enthralled with Japan, and I think I’ve never really turned that page and thought (that) I want to live somewhere else.”

While Prucha found Japan to be “super expensive” when he first arrived, he points out that, as his salary was also high, “everything balanced out.”

“And I found I could save and use that savings for building my company,” he says.

After getting his driver’s license, Prucha bought a motorcycle and spent some time traveling around the country.

“I started feeling like I could go anywhere in Japan, and I did,” he says. “I traveled all over the country, camping and stuff.

“So once I got my handle on being able to communicate in Japanese and order food at restaurants – it took a good year to get to that level – I started feeling like, ‘Yeah, I’m starting to get comfortable.’”

Deciding that he wanted to live in the Japanese countryside, Prucha bought a “super cheap” plot of land, which included an old farmhouse, in rural Japan’s Yamanashi Prefecture.

While he’d initially planned to renovate the farmhouse, Prucha ended up tearing it down and building his own house “by hand.”

“Locals taught me how to grow rice, use tractors and rice-cultivating machines, and grow vegetables,” he adds.

Prucha went on to meet his now wife, who is originally from China, and the couple tied the knot five years ago. They now have three young children together.

Although their kids were all born in Japan, they don’t have Japanese citizenship.

“Two foreigners having children who are born here – the children must become citizens of (one of) those countries,” Prucha explains, pointing out that he and his wife have permanent residence visas, and their children are all US citizens.

However, the couple are entitled to some of the same benefits available to Japanese parents, such as no longer having to renew their visa or residence status, and the freedom to access most public services, such as healthcare and pension systems.

“The government right now is worried about the lack of children in younger generations,” Prucha explains, referring to Japan’s decreasing population of younger children – the estimated number of children under the age of 15 in the country fell to its lowest ever level this year, according to annual data. 

“So there are some benefits that we are getting as well.”

Career change

After he became a father, Prucha, who had worked within education for decades, began to reevaluate his life, and ultimately decided to pursue his dream of making American craft beer in Japan.

“I’ve always loved craft beer,” he says. “And when I saw Japan was starting to take baby steps towards embracing craft beer. I was very excited about it.”

Prucha, who is a licensed farmer, had already begun growing hops – one of the core ingredients of beer – on his land in the area of Obina, developing at least four hop yards.

He began to seriously consider launching a microbrewery, and searched for a suitable space nearby.

Japan’s countryside is now filled with “ghost” houses, or “akiya”, as younger people leave rural areas in pursuit of jobs in the city, and the Yamanashi Prefecture happens to have a huge amount of vacant homes.

After looking around, Prucha discovered that there was a vacant building suitable and spent two years transforming the property into a craft microbrewery.

Although he initially had overseas brewers helping him, Prucha began to study brewing himself, completing internships at other breweries, and studying online. He received his license to brew around two years ago.

“Once we got the license and we started making beer, it was like, ‘It’s coming together,’” he says, explaining that he makes American craft beer using mainly Japanese ingredients.

Prucha went on to put it “all on tap” in a former noodle shop, which he converted into an “all wood” ale house.

He’s since made over 50 beers using his brewing system.

“We’re starting to get some good leeway, “ he says. “And we’re starting to sell in the big cities, because people recognize that the taste that I’ve managed to develop and create here is pretty much a mirror of what American craft beer stands for.”

According to Prucha, the entire project took around six years in total.

“I haven’t taken a day off in these last six years, but I wouldn’t trade my new life for anything else,” he adds.

Now 61, Prucha is very excited about the future of Obina Brewery and says he enjoys being a part of something that showcases the best of what the area he’s so fond of has to offer.

“I know it sounds overused, but it really is never too late to change your life,” he says. “I may be 61 years old, but I expect to be cranking out awesome brews for quite some time to come.”

Community focus

While he loves his life in Japan, Prucha admits that there are some things about the US that he still craves.

“I do miss the large open spaces,” he says. “And the fact that people can just go far away and see things. And speak your mind pretty openly without feeling like you’re going to pee off some people.”

Prucha feels that one of the biggest differences between Japan and the US, is that people in the latter are encouraged to “be an individual.”

“American culture is kind of like, you stand up for yourself. You’re an individual. Your opinions are going to differ. You’re going to want to make that known.

“And so it’s a constant, almost like a battle, to carve out your niche in society. Whereas here, they’re taught from a young age (that) in Japan, this is the way we do it.

“So when people get older, they just know what to do and how to act to live life here. So having been here 32 years, I’m pretty well versed in what to do.”

After over three decades in Japan, Prucha, who returned to visit the US earlier this year for his mother’s 90th birthday, says he no longer views himself “so much as a foreigner.”

“I feel like I’m just part of society trying to help things and helping my community grow and helping our city,” he says.

“We now consider this like our hometown. Definitely (for) my children, it’s their hometown. They were born here, and their first language is Japanese.”

While he stresses that he very much appreciates the US, and hopes to be able to bring his children over to visit yearly at some stage, he’s a big fan of the “co-operative” and “non-conflict oriented” culture of Japan, and feels that it’s made him a better person.

“I suppose I love Japan the most because they have created a society that works well together, and in my opinion tries its best to bring about a fair and comfortable standard of living for its people,” he says.

“And I love that our neighbors adore our kids, and even though they are in their 70s, they help us out a lot by babysitting or cooking dishes and bringing them over for us.”

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