Job Discussion Forums

[travelgoddess]

I have to know! I am hitting my 1/2 way point with my one year contract in Taiwan, and am looking at Japan as my next country. I know every place has its good and bad, and this 6 months has NOT been easy. But I just dont really feel inspired here in Taiwan like I have in some other foreign countries. I am wondering if Japan would be any different. Some of the things I am especially curious about are:

1. in Taiwan, well, we all know about the bad air pollution, right? Any diff in major cities in Japan?

2. The Taiwanese are soooooo proud of working all the time and ideas like hobbies and interests outside of work are generally considered weird. In Japan....

3. The food here is very oily and has many animal parts I would never usually eat. Can you give me an idea of the freshness of food that an English teacher can afford.

4. The traffic is crazy here. Scooters galore! And the city I live in, Tainan, has 2, maybe 3 sidewalks in the whole place. Due to these factors I rarely walk anywhere, ewwww, I miss walking! I know this sounds like a strange question, but in the major cities in Japan, are their sidewalks? Are they so crowded that its hard to stroll along comfortably?

5. Hiking: from the major cities, is hiking an option? is it costly, accessible by public transit? I am talking about dirt path hiking, not rock climbing and backpacking for days on end.

6. HOw about ENglish language bookstores, again, in the major cities. Or public libraries that have English language fiction. any level.

And anything else that sticks out as a major difference between the two countries. I am an old, old woman. haha. 32 and boring as hell. I like the outdoors, reading, movies and overanalyzing modern cultural habits. I dont care about the bar scene.

Thanks in advance,
Debra
[email protected]

Europe: http://justtraveling.blogspot.com
Taiwan: http://meintaiwan.blogspot.com

[Polina]

I taught English in Japan before going to Taiwan. When I left Japan, I felt like I was escaping from a tomb, or perhaps a robot production factory on Mars. It felt good. However, on hindsight I realised that even Japan has its good points - well, by comparison with Taiwan, anyway. I returned to Japan for a holiday at one point and noticed that the good points were real and not just nostalgic delusion. (Mind you, the best point was probably that I wasn't working or living there any more.)

The money: The economy went through a really bad spell, and I hear that the Japanese are not feeling optimistic. This can affect pay rates and also exchange rates significantly. However, I have also heard that the economy is on the up now, and since so many teachers left when things started to go downhill, they are once again in real need of English teachers and starting to pay decently again.

Pollution: When I went to Japan, I thought it was bad, but now after Taiwan, J-land seems very clean by comparison - air pollution especially. The rivers in Japan are however in a pretty sorry state, too, and tend to stink and be infested with carp and catfish. I feel so sorry for the egrets and other life in and near them. Rivers in cities are considered to be sewers for household waste, not ecosystems which important organisms inhabit.

Hobbies: This is varied. The average Jap salaryman is evern worse than the average Taiwanese workhorse, but at least they keep clean and dress better than in Taiwan, so you have to weigh things up. Their attitudes are more organisedly patriarchal, misogynistic, materialistic, and so even more disgusting in those respects, but at least Japanese people are usually polite, unlike the Taiwanese - to your face, anyway. Also, a lot of people you are teaching will probably not be salarymen, and these people are sometimes interesting - moreover, moreso than in Taiwan. For example, housewives often have hobbies, read, and enjoy chatting - they're only women afterall, so it doesn't matter, I guess - and tend to be much more interesting to talk to than the men. Also, some young people are becoming aware, which has partly arisen from dissatisfaction caused by the economic situation and by exposure to Western ideas, and are more interesting to talk to on average than their Taiwanese counterparts.

The food: Having lived in Taiwan, I now realize that Japanese food has its good points - however on average it is very expensive to eat out, at YEN 600 minimum for something half-decent. However, like everything in Japan, it is much much cleaner than in Taiwan - I was never sick to my stomach/intestines once in Japan!!!!! Usually they will give you a whole lot of rice with a few tidbits of other stuff on it for a comparatively large sum of money (compared to Taiwan), and a lot of the fast food is oily. You can get some reasonably good stuff for that price, too, however - like okonomiyaki. If you work near a 100-yen store and your work has a microwave, you can heat up a Y100 rice and a Y100 curry and eat that, or bring it to work - much cheaper, and more edible than most things in Taiwan. You can find cheaper options in Japan if you look - and the 100 yen store has almost everything you can imagine!

Sidewalks: There are more sidewalks in Japan than Taiwan, and the traffic is much much much more polite, however there is still that ol' Asian complete lack of spatial awareness, so be careful. Japanese traffic looks like it runs by clockwork, and there are few scooters. The cities have wider sidewalks which are not covered in scooters, but in busy places are covered in restrained little people in formal attire - at least they are not stressful to look at or bump into like in Taiwan, where ones blood pressure rises every time yet another repulsive droopy-skinned old man in dirty old supermarket-sale-bought clothes with half his forefinger digging around in his nose comes within a metre of ones person.

Hiking: There are lots of places to hike, and I think they are prettier than in Taiwan. Depends which area you are in. Avoid huge cities, as they take a long time to travel out of and trains are very costly. You don't usually have to pay to hike, and many places are accessible from the trains.

Books: There are more, bigger and better English book bookstores in Japan, and there are much better English library book selections.

Anything else: The two countries are very different. I found that althought the common attitude in Japan is ruthlessly imperialist, and could imagine them behaving exactly the same again as during the Second World War, people who are aware of the faults in their culture are much more numerous than in Taiwan, and much more aware of issues in general, and also much more sincere as people than the Taiwanese. On average, the attitude towards women is worse than in Taiwan, but the aware people are again more aware than in Taiwan, and almost everyone in Japan is more polite than in Taiwan. Everything in Japan is clean, and they take pride in appearances - a complete opposite to Taiwan. The sightseeing places are more numerous and more beautiful than in Taiwan - but also more expensive. In fact, the biggest culture shock will probably be the enormous prices on just about everything, but this is manageable if you have a decent job. Also, you can find cheaper stores if you look hard. There are even second hand stores in some places. They tend to have high quality stuff. Telephone costs and transport times and costs are much bigger than in Taiwan, so this can limit your socialising.

You can message me if you need to ask anything else.

[nasigoreng]

I taught 2 years in Taiwan and I just started teaching in s.Korea. I was also considering Japan but in the end I chose S.K. because fo the following:

* Free round-trip airfare.
* Free accomodation (not as good as what i had in TW .... but Free!)
* Weekends off! No Saturdays (hard to get in TW).
* Easy to get a job. I was contacted by AEON, NOVA, and GEOS and they all expected me to fly out to San Francisco for an interview. Then I would have to wait weeks or months till I knew if I had a job. Then I would have to wait for the visa to be processed.

*As far as environment, I live in a medium-sized city and it's FIVE TIMES cleaner than Taiwan. Not a single betel nut stain anywhere!!! I've yet to even see a single scooter let alone a scooter carrying a family of five and shooting thick black clouds of death!!!

The area I live in is very clean and i go jogging around the park several times a week. So far so good.

cheers,

[nomadder]

I taught in Japan and will probably go back there. I researched Taiwan but the points mentioned above put me off. I guess you could say that Japan is more 1st world than Taiwan by the sounds of things.

Polina. I'd be interested to hear more about the negative attitude of Japanese men towards women. Seemed like there were somd cassanova types and the rest were just indifferent.

[Glenski]

1. in Taiwan, well, we all know about the bad air pollution, right? Any diff in major cities in Japan?

What major city in the world doesn't have pollution?

2. The Taiwanese are soooooo proud of working all the time and ideas like hobbies and interests outside of work are generally considered weird. In Japan....

People may not be "proud" of it, but they certainly do put in the long hours, even if they are doing nothing except waiting for the boss to go home. Hobbies and interests are rather mundane for most because of those long hours. People stick at something (like ballroom dancing) for a few years, then claim not to be good at it. Japanese modesty.

3. The food here is very oily and has many animal parts I would never usually eat. Can you give me an idea of the freshness of food that an English teacher can afford.

"Freshness"????? Supermarkets sell foods at the peak of their freshness. This is good because it tastes great that day. This is bad if you plan to keep it a while.

4. The traffic is crazy here. Scooters galore! And the city I live in, Tainan, has 2, maybe 3 sidewalks in the whole place. Due to these factors I rarely walk anywhere, ewwww, I miss walking! I know this sounds like a strange question, but in the major cities in Japan, are their sidewalks? Are they so crowded that its hard to stroll along comfortably?

Again, what major city doesn't have these problems? Yes, of course, there are sidewalks in Japan. Strolling along comfortably depends on where you go.

5. Hiking: from the major cities, is hiking an option? is it costly, accessible by public transit? I am talking about dirt path hiking, not rock climbing and backpacking for days on end.

Deep in the center of Tokyo, it will take you a few hours to reach true, pristine hiking areas. Read this web site for more info. www.outdoorjapan.com

6. HOw about ENglish language bookstores, again, in the major cities. Or public libraries that have English language fiction. any level.

Kinokuniya and Maruzen are huge chain bookstores with English sections. Of course, books and magazines cost twice what they do in the States... Some libraries have next to nothing in English. Some have tons of stuff.