Job Discussion Forums

[mrichardson]

I have a friend who is working at Yokoto AF and has a 2 bdrm home in Fussa-shi. I thought I might come and teach for a year but would be bringing my 4 yr old. The companies that hire are saying they discourage dependents. Would it be possible some other way? Could I make any real money doing private tutoring, take him along to avoid high daycare expense, etc.? How would the Visa be handled? Any advice would be appreciated.

[Glenski]

What does your friend at Yokota have to do with this situation? That seems to be key here. Is he/she Japanese or American?


If you are on your own here with a child, you are going to find it very hard to get by. Government daycare is cheaper than private daycare, but there is usually a long line waiting to get into government daycare (which takes most of its kids only in April). We pay about 30,000 yen (roughly US$300) per month for private daycare that is only 4 half-days a week and does not include any lunch. Plus, any daycare you use will likely not have English-speaking staff.

You haven't described your educational background, so I will assume you have at least a bachelor's degree. Without it, you cannot get a work visa here. And, if you are also American, you might as well not even consider working here because you aren't eligible for a working holiday visa like Canadians, Brits, Aussies, and New Zealanders.

So, if you have the degree, you are probably only able to get a job at an eikaiwa (conversation school), and even with declining wages these days, you might get lucky and make 250,000 yen/hour. With some skimping, you might be able to get by with the two of you. However, your hours would be prohibitive. Eikaiwas usually operate from noon to 9pm, which makes it impossible to have a daycare take care of your child. You might even have a schedule that does not include 2 consecutive days off (like Sunday and Tuesday).

Are you suggesting taking a child with you to a private tutoring lesson? I wouldn't even consider it. Highly unprofessional, and terribly disruptive.

[mrichardson]

Well I could stay with my friend which means I wouldn't need to make as much money or come with as much for key deposits etc.

I am an amercian with a Bachelor's degree but yes, without an employer I am worried about the visa situation.

To avoid high daycare cost and yes, typically non- english speaking, I thought I might tutor younger children and then they could converse with someone their own age. If this is not plausible, then with the money I save on rent, I could maybe just tutor part-time.

[abufletcher]

While I suppose anything's possible and I don't really know anything about you or the relationship with your "friend" this does not sound like a good situation for either you or your child. Ever see the movie Hideous Kinky? If not, maybe you should.


[/i]

[mrichardson]

Best friend for 15 years, same sex, platonic...not worried about that. She is an attorney withe the AF. My dependent is my nephew that I have been legal guardian to since he was 4 months old. I am mainly worried about supporting us (my nephew and I)financially and legally. I thought families would have some insight on living and working in Japan. Thanks for taking the time to respond. P.s. What is the movie about?

[taikibansei]

[Gordon]

I have a 4 yr old and 10 month old and would NEVER have considered coming to Japan without someone to look after them.
You can't take a child to a private lesson. The student is paying a lot of money to have you teach them, not to play with another child. My daughter speaks better English than any of my uni students, but no one wants to learn from her (and that would not be fair to my daughter either).
You really need to reconsider.

[Glenski]

I wouldn't count on staying with a close friend for a whole year. Besides the enormous issue of daycare, don't you think you should feel obligated to pay something for rent and utilities and groceries? It sounds to me like you expect your friend to pay nearly everything for you and your child, and that's very unreasonable.

Taikibansei has described your visa situation, and you really need to hear a bit more. Come as a tourist and you can stay only 90 days at a time. Yes, you can renew it but you run into a few problems.

1. Renewing it means leaving the country for at least 24 hours. The closest places are Korea or Guam or Taiwan. Consider the cost of airfare and lodging and food for those 24 hours.

2. Don't expect customs to take lightly someone who flits in and out of the country on tourist status every 90 days. To customs, this smells like a person who is dodging the law by teaching illegally. So, unless you have a work visa, I wouldn't recommend this route to stay in the country.

Private lessons take a while to accumulate, even with the Internet services available today that allow you to post your profile and let students choose you. Getting enough to live on, even with shared apartment expenses, will take 4-6 months from a cold start, in my opinion. What's more, unless you are someone who is a natural teacher, I am of the opinion that you won't keep more than half of them for a month at a time. Students in private lessons are very fickle and their relationships with private tutors is unstable. Let me set a few scenarios for you in the form of rhetorical questions, just so you can see a few of the things you might face.

A. Two or more students want to study with you together, but they are of vastly different ability/level. How can you teach them? What do you say to them if you want their business and they don't want to split up? (Read a thread dedicated to this on this forum to see how nearly impossible it is.)

B. You need to offer lessons at about 3000-4000 yen/hour per student. How are you going to handle cases when an individual really wants to study with you but offers only 1500 yen? This happens a lot.

C. How are you going to handle cancellations? No class can mean no money unless you get them to pay in advance.

D. What sort of teaching materials are you going to use? Some students just want to keep their ears and tongues in tone, while others need a lot of grammatical assistance and practice.

E. What happens if a class of kids gets unruly? I've had friends who taught youngsters that ripped up his teaching materials, emptied his backpack onto the floor, and generally threw a fit. Others were so young that they simply fought with each other (siblings) all while mommy sat in the background and smiled sweetly and expected you to take care of the situation, even though you don't know enough Japanese.

F. Then there are the simple logistic questions of where to teach how much to charge (including photocopy fees and transportation), and people who simply cancel at the drop of a hat. Do you have a business plan for that?

[PAULH]

Just to add my two cents on the visa issue. recently immigration has been clamping down on the visa runs to Korea and it would look highly suspicious if you went to Korea and came back the next day. You would need to show how you have supported yourself for three months with no income and how you would support yourself if they let you back in with another tourist visa.

Another poster was recently detained at somewhere like Fuku-oka and then put on a plane back to the US as he had too many tourist visas in his passport. He was not able to prove he would not be working.

Ditto about the other posts- you will need a work visa to stay here and teaching privates is what many of us do part time in addition to ful time jobs. By the sounds of it you dont have the experience or Japanese skills to set up a business working from home simply teaching out of someones living room. You have to be able to contact and negotiate with customers (no bilingual secretary to help you and kids parents wont be able to speak English).

To get private students you generally need to spend a lot of time doing flyers and networking with locals, getting referrals and you would be competing with the military wives with too much time on their hands. Privates dont fall out of the sky and usually want to pay as little as possible. I wouldnt rely on teaching kids to support yourself in a foreign country with a dependent.

[rai]

[king kakipi]

[Sherri]

I lived in Tokyo for 14 years and returned to the US with a 3-year old and a 1-year old. I found trying to raise them in Japan to be exhausting and difficult and I had my husband to help me! Think for example of the nightmare in store for you when you try traveling on a rush hour train with your child. It is awful.

I have heard of a couple of moms who got jobs with a preschool teaching English and they were allowed to bring their same-age child with them to the school. That would probably be your best situation if you could wangle it. It would still be quite an adjustment for your child.

Why don't you try a visit first and see how you like it? Also check out the tokyowithkids.com website, there is lots of kid-related stuff there.

Best
Sherri

[Glenski]

[canuck]

[earthmonkey]