Job Discussion Forums

[SEndrigo]

Hey Sherri,

I wholeheartedly agree with you, on all things except the food....well I do happen to like English food quite a bit, and though I don't think it's as good as Japanese food...

I must admit the UK has much better curry restaurants than Japan !

I also agree with you about Tokyo....it's really ugly but there are some nice parts to the city....for me it's not really the ugliness that stands out, but the dull, drab, meaningless zombie-like look you see on people's faces.

For all of their achievements financially, economically, and technologically, the Japanese still haven't found a way to be happy...sure the UK is stressful and expensive as well, but I've found that people there tend to be on the whole a lot happier, and have more time to dedicate to hobbies and other such things.

[nomadder]

It's hard to find the right balance sometimes. Maybe I feel the same as Jizzo and I need to get Japan out of my system. On the other hand the job I left was the main good thing and it's not available till maybe '07 so would I feel the same in another job?

I feel in limbo though. Not wanting to put down roots in my home country yet finding poor prospects in Japan. It has sort of dried up especially for those out of the country now. Those 3 year visas have screwed things up I guess among other things.

I need more money though as I feel the best(only?) opportunity for me at home is to open my own business.

Could I handle Korea?

[chelsea]

Its so nice to hear from all of you who have had similar experiences. When I left Japan, I felt so ready to go. I had been working 6 days a week and just needed a break, plus I wanted to start grad school. I just felt like it was time to go home and "regroup".

Now I feel confused about everything. Do I want to start working on a career in the US? Am I ready to get an MA TESOL and make a career out of teaching english? Would it be better to get certified as a public school teacher and get a job at an international school instead? Or maybe I should go back to work for another private school in Japan and take more time to think things through. Its so hard to pinpoint anything right now, because I feel like my brain got overwhelmed and stopped working when I got off the plane in SFO.

[stretch]

Why did I leave then if I loved it so much??
Well, family for me. My wifes mother at the time became terminally ill back in Canada so we went home at the end of the contract. While her mother fought it out here we had 2 children quickly.
Now the dust has settled and we've almost come back a couple of times. I've been recruited to come back but my employer here always tried to make it hard to leave by dangling the preverbial carrot in front of me. I researched a lot of the idea of coming back but with 2 little ones it made the difference. I didn't want to send them to international school but rather the public school system...anyway I could go on for pages about all the elements that kept me here...but I won't bore you with my life.
My initial plan however was to stay 5 years. But you have to play the cards your dealt. If I never came to Japan now that would be something I would really regret!

[nomadder]

Chelsea maybe you should have switched jobs rather than leave Japan. 6 days a week is too much.

Actually now I think about it I was glad to be out of Japan for many months after. I didn't miss it for at least 6 months but then again I stayed 3 years.

Sometimes I wonder if one just needs a certain amount of time there in order to move on or are we just being overly nostalgic and forgetting the problems and difficulties? Maybe it's harder to take on responsiblities and forge a path in our own countries so we feel the need to escape.

[SEndrigo]

Hey Nomadder,

What do you mean by "those three year visas have screwed things up" ?

I suppose at some point, you'll have to make a decision and settle down somewhere...drifting around doesn't seem to be a solution, I've noticed....

[Jizzo T. Clown]

I agree that it's easier to remember the positive things and to forget the reasons you wanted to leave in the first place...but then there's the problem of "Hey, there was a reason I wanted to leave America and go abroad, so why do I keep coming back?"

[may be going]

i, like everyone else on this thread, experienced the same as you all multiple times. first time coming back from europe, second from samoa, thrid and fourth from korea.

each time i had to get out of australia and go away again coz i felt as you all have felt.

the reason i listed the countries above was not to catalogue my travels, but to show that you could have been anywhere and the reverse culture shock will still get you.

i thought about it a lot and it's caused by the fact that after all your time away, and all your travels and experiences, upon your return you are so different but your home is still the same. when i looked around my hometown, my friends were doing the same things, the streets were the same, the tv was the same and the day to day goings on were the same.

that's not a bad thing at all - i love my hometown - but the fact is that you're not the same. the person you were before you left is gone. you are totally different and it's hard to return to a place that doesn't meet the changes you've made.

so then you get the urge to go again coz you can't handle things. but in a sense you exacerbate things coz you're getting more life experiences, changing more and more, while you're hometown remains the same as always.

you will always be different. your friends may never relate to you the way you want them to. don't fight it or get angry about it. for me, the best way to overcome it all was to enjoy the things i loved about my hometown and embrace them, but also to remain connected to elements of your life overseas.

if that's by teaching ESL, or by joining some kind of club, or just finding some way to connect yourself with japan or wherever it may be, then try it for a time. i found it helped immensely. i could enjoy the things i loved about my friends and family and home, and when i felt i just wasn't connecting with them i had my students and other friends from korea.

you will never be the person you were before you left so it will always be difficult to see your home the way you did before you left.

[abufletcher]

What you're describing has little to do with Japan or culture per se. It's a pure and simple case of "expat withdrawl." You'd likely feel this same way after returning from any foreign posting. While you're an expat you are automatically "special" just for walking down the street or sitting on a train. You can revel in things like the shape of mailboxes. Back home you're just one more face in the crowd. That's hard for one's ego to take.

So far I've lived in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Mexico, and Japan -- and traveled in more than 30 other countries along the way. And each time I come "home" (Southern Cal) for a month or more I can't help feeling the need to get overseas again.

[cafebleu]

Nomadder - I think it`s nostalgia for a period of one`s life and as such it becomes better in recollection than it was at the time. I left Japan not so long ago, come back to visit friends as my new country is so much cheaper and I and my husband can both save much more money, and each time find that Japan is uglier, more mundane, and leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction.

The people don`t - as in those Japanese who truly were and are my and my husband`s friends. They are the reason I and he come back to visit, plus the fact that we feel and are relatively rich now in the sense of being able to live comfortably and save money compared to when we were living in Japan.

On wages now that are technically lower but enjoying a lifestyle that is better and much, much cheaper. Sorry for my not naming the country I`m living in now. One of my friends left Japan two months ago and she said she realises that her nostalgia for Japan is based on the fact that she lived in a kind of bubble. She lived on a different island in Japan from me.

She said it could be very isolating but she was also insulated from what went on around her to some extent - she enjoyed living in her own world for 3 years but in the end she needed to get out more, deal with people more. She said it was difficult to make friends in Japan (drinking friends who were foreigners aside) so she followed her own interests. Finally, however, she found she had become too isolated - she had enjoyed it for a while but as a person who is a very good communicator it was just too narrow a lifestyle in the end.

I can look back on some good times in Japan but then reality sets in. In my new country I don`t have to deal with the insecurities of the Japanese `superiority complex` which is really inverted feelings of insecurity. My new country has colour and a real sense of life buzzing around - something which vanished fairly quickly in Japan after my post-arrival wonder had subsided after my first year spent in Japan. I find the sense of emptiness about Japanese life and society to intensify when I visit my friends here - that`s not saying anything about them, only about the society here.

I find Japan to be a bleak place now - yes, the UK isn`t perfect, yes I am sure to live as opposed to travel in the US can be very limiting in terms of mobility (Japan`s transportation system is too expensive but it`s very good), yes western societies have their downsides too. But it`s more the sense of stagnation here and the unwillingness of the Japanese in general (note I say in general) to do anything about it.

I also find that despite people saying things about Korea for example (once I read that a poster somewhere said the Koreans were opinionated busybodies), I find the Japanese to be preoccupied with not a warm engagement with people which is partly what the Korean busybody syndrome comes down to, but a desire to control. They are very controlling people in general and I am glad I don`t come under their petty classifications and manipulative desire to control foreigners to compensate for their own manipulative and obsessive social structures.

If you think about the realities on the economic level, Nomadder - I really don`t know why you`d want to go back to Japan. Japan is heading for financial oblivion sooner rather than later. Yes, the system will keep going. It will keep going by grabbing you by the throat and you will be paying so much more in `pensions`, health insurance, local taxes, consumption tax etc that you are likely to be much better off staying away.

Add to that the fact that the near future in Japan is a demanding but non contributing elderly population increasing drastically, and it`s not a rosy prospect. Throw in the English teaching industry and its swift descent to the dispatch company as a norm, no job security, no decent pay per month, no bonuses etc, just part time work and a Japanese government that is going to pacify the xenophobia of many people in Japan and finger print you on coming and going, monitor you more closely and make you jump from hoops regarding visas and their governing rules.

All the while withholding legal rights from you, not even bothering to include foreign residents in their laws stating what they will do to assist Japanese citizens (note citizens) in the event of disasters such as earthquakes. Even as they demand that you pay up like a Japanese citizen and pay for a grim future you`re not likely to be involved in down the track - one lucky point.

Nomadder - stay away. I think you`re living off nostalgia rather than genuine prospects.

[juliebearjapan]

Dont read too much into this, it is not ment to be negative or positive, just a point of view so please dont jump!!
My reccomendation is to be careful about returning too quicky to the same or a similar job in japan. I left after 2 years here and was in the states for 6 months before I decided to come back to the same company I worked for. It has been a year and 3 months and I am counting the days till I leave. ( 3 weeks) it has been a rocky year for me, some of which I admit to being my fault but not all of the things that happened were me. Schools are different even in the same company and work situations are very different also. you never know what you are going to get. I loved my first school, but have hated every moment of the last year.
And now I am leaving feeling like the biggest regret I have made in a long time was returning to Japan at all. I know a lot of my situation was subjective, but just make your choices carefully because a good thing one place may not be the same another.

[abufletcher]

[nomadder]

Excellent thread! Thanks for the thoughts!

I have been thinking similar thoughts lately. Coming back again you don't even have the glitter of novelty to see you through for a while.

After last year in Latin America I realized how easy it was to practice(not to mention read) Spanish because the people were so much more relaxed. Of course it's more similar to English too but the main thing is you need to feel comfortable to practice. In Japan there's often such an undercurrent of nervousness at least when amongst the sober. It made things all the more difficult.

I thought that maybe the fates were trying to tell me not to go back as I've had so many almost offers this time around whereas before jobs just fell into my lap. With the worsening scene(part time work, low wages, poor conditions, etc.) there may not be enough perks to counterbalance the isolation and blandness of everyday life.

Maybe a visit or 2 would be enough or at least help me decide. I have been forgetting that my last job got worse in the second year. The more owners cut back the worse things will be for teachers.

[abufletcher]

For too many of the young EFL teachers in Japan, this is their first taste of foreign living and often their first time outside of the US. They tend to confuse the experience of living in Japan with the more generic experience of living beyond the borders of one's own culture.

As a long time and somewhat cynical expat with several countries under my belt (including living/working in 6 and traveling to at least 30 more) I see Japan as just one more place to work -- no more or less interesting than the countries that went before or the ones I hope are still to follow.

One should also be aware that there are deep historical reasons for the Western and particularly US fascination with Japan. Going back to the time of the (forceable) opening up of Japan by Admiral Perry you can find a string of media reports on the "uniqueness" of Japan and the Japanese. Add to this the romance of the post WWII occupation period and you've got the answer to why all my friends and family back in the US were excited when they heard I was moving to Japan but distinctly non-plussed about my life in Oman.

I'd recommend that you try someplace new in the world. You can always come back to Japan at some later stage in your EFL career.

[abufletcher]

BTW, where were you in Latin America? You might find a book called "No one home" intriguing reading. It's an interestingly written ethnographic profile of the Brazilian community in Japan but it has many insights for anyone who has lived in Japan and for that matter anyone who has battled to understand their own identity as a foreigner in a foreign culture.