Job Discussion Forums

[Lister100]

Tell you what, if somebody came into a bar and told me they were from Malta I would be pretty damn interested in what the have to say. That island has a fascinating and distinct culture.

Good point on which country was featured on most recently on tv. Really this topic doesn't matter that much and from a lot of the posts here I can see not everything has to. It is relevant though in that many people (not all) in my country have unrealistic expectations of how they will be treated here. Deflating the myths could help some people avoid costly decisions. This website gets a lot veteran teachers and potential teachers. The people that don't make it overseas aren't likely to bask in their failure by writing about it afterwards.

Teaching overseas isn't right for everyone and people that come here thinking they will be treated like a rock stars and loved everywhere they go are in for a rude awakening. Japanese people may behave differently with different people, but rest assured that I am not writing from the perspective of a fat, old, bald, pimply, middle aged man's position. I'm a good looking 25 year old that wears a clean pressed shirt and a tie to work everyday. Clean shaven with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. I have no tattoos, no piercings, don't smoke and no funny hair dyes. In short, I have nothing that should prejudice Japanese people against me other than my lack of Japanese language, which is common to most new teachers.

With regards to Canada, Canadians are interested in Canada. What makes Canada interesting, what makes any country interesting? If you're into nature its one of the best countries around, its not frozen all the time either. There's also winter sports, Native Americans, French Canada, the tallest tower and God knows what else.True, I wouldn't expect to walk into a bar in a foreign country and have someone say tell me everything about Canada, but I was never talking about bars.

I'm talking about schools where students fork out a lot of money to learn a language that is spoken in a handful of countries. If someone is going to the trouble of learning English in Japan (especially if their older) it is not unreasonable to believe that they're planning to see or are interested in English speaking countries. So the question is where does your country rank with these people? Somebody that has no interest in travel is not the kind of person I would want to be talking to anyway. There shouldn't be any mistaking that we're in the culture business as well as the language business. Even though business and work are big reasons for learning English, they are not the only reasons.

Oh, and one more thing. I'm not offended when Japanese people aren't interested in Canada, maybe disappointed, but not offended (I don't know where you got the screw you from but it would be a laugh to see someone do that). If anything I'm fascinated by which countries they are interested in seeing.

[ricefigaro]

For what it's worth, I just got back from the World Expo in Aichi Prefecture: The line for the Canadian pavillion was much much longer than the line for the American pavillion.

Side Note: I think the American pavillion was the only other pavillion that had it's own metal detector system. Sad.