Job Discussion Forums

[shuize]

[wolfman]

[alexrocks]

Wolfman, you ought to check out this thread if you haven't already:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=36404&highlight=positive

[PAULH]

From our very own sticky:




Here is a quote (author unknown) from a net forum a few years ago, but still holds true today. It offers a humorous look at the promise and reality of the eikaiwa experience:

For the vocationless graduate with a penchant for travel, the call of TEFL is strong. For the penniless member of the same breed, unable to afford an RSA certificate, beware! A teaching job in Japan is yours for the taking, if you? Be prepared to, well...SELL YOUR SOUL.

Perhaps some will feel this is going to far. It is certainly true that there are some plum jobs amongst the cherry blossoms. And yet, without having an insider? view of the Japanese job scene, it is very likely that you will end up mesmerized by the rampant, glossy, advertising of the giants - Nova, Geos, Berlitz and the American-focused Aeon. These companies are the corporate face of the English teaching market in Japan and prey upon those of us who casually flip through the Guardian Education supplement of a Tuesday. Jostling for our attention in the classifieds are numerous small ads promising great opportunities in Turkey and Russia. Forget them. Allow your eyes to drift towards the reassuringly oversized and sophisticated box that promises: An Amazing Cultural Experience? and international promotion and career opportunities? and best of all TEFL experience is an asset, but not essential?. Wooo hooo! Lets go! And so many do.

In such a way I was lulled into sending an application form to one of the Big four?. A couple of months later I found myself staggering towards a big sign in Narita International Airport - ?ave a nice time in Japan, but don? break the rules? it both welcomed and cautioned. The barely registered twinge of uneasiness I felt on reading this slogan was a sensation I was to become familiar with in the following weeks and months. No, actually I take that back. The twinge of uneasiness at the airport was like an orgasmic shudder when I compare it to what awaited me at my new job. If I say I was misled by the London recruiters about my new life and work in Japan, I don? think I?e quite covered the magnitude of the situation. The following parable gets closer to how it was:A recruiter of a big English-teaching company is hit by a bus and dies. She is met at the gates of heaven by St. Peter who says, owing to an administrative hitch, they are unsure where to place her - heaven or hell. Instead she is to be given the choice herself by spending a day in each and then deciding.

Arriving in hell for her Easter-day, she is met by the friendly faces of colleagues from her company, dressed exquisitely in designer casuals. They greet her warmly and show her around hell, which is a beautifully landscaped country club with golf courses and tennis courts. She has a fantastic day playing sports, dining on lobster and steaks, dancing and getting drunk with her friends. Everyone laughs at her jokes and she even gets to meet the devil himself, who is, dare she say it, kinda cute?. It is with great sadness that she leaves in the evening.

The following day she spends in Heaven. Here she hops from cloud to cloud, plays harps and generally hangs out with the angels. Again she enjoys herself very much. St. Peter asks her for a decision the next day. After great deliberation, she chooses hell over heaven. To hell you will spend eternity, St. Peter decrees.

When she arrives the country club and golf courses are gone. In their place is a filthy, desolate wasteland. Her friends are still there, but they are dressed in rags, picking up garbage and putting it in sacks. The Devil comes up and puts his arm around her. "I don't understand," she stammers, "yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time.

Now it's a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable. The Devil looked at her and smiled evily. "Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you're staff."

[kdynamic]

Hahahah wow Paul that was pretty intense. I wouldn't go that far... life if Japan is nice, for the msot part. Well I am not an English teacher and don't know anything first hand about life teaching in an Eikaiwai...

Anyway, wolfman, I am sorry I was a downer. I am, also young and for the most part, also idealistic. I have just been feeling very down on Japan lately because of the constant racism and xenophobia. It's really starting to wear on me for a variety of reasons. But if you think coming to Japan is for you, I saw go for it. Make the best of it, have a good time. If you keep your expectations somewhat realistic I think it might turn out great. I still chose to stay in Japan, after all, though I am getting the hell out of here as soon as my contract is up in 18 months. enough is enough. for now.

[PAULH]

[abufletcher]

[sallycat]

^^^the above bit about photographing japan could be taken as a parable for living in japan

[alexrocks]

[angrysoba]

[SEndrigo]

I find the overall negative tone of these posts to be amusing at best....coming to Japan can be a really great experience, but I think that it depends on each person to make it a good experience.

To the people complaining about the falling of salaries: deal with it. Right now I work 2 or 3 hours a day and make more than most people who work 8.

There are good jobs here if you come over, pay your dues for a year or so and in the meanwhile look around.

Japan may be rigid and hierarchical in some aspects, but there is plenty of money to be made here and good business opportunities if you are so inclined.

Quit whinging about racism and xenophobia, and deal with it. If someone doesn't like you because of where you're from, that's their problem and not yours.

Let's stop being melodramatic and instead try to help out these genuine people who are posting questions here, looking for sincere and helpful answers.

[abufletcher]

I used to use the Lonely Planet guides almost religiously! I could barely get on an airplane without one. But then somewhere between yogjakarta and Petropavlovsk I started to notice that I had somehow developed a nose for where the backpacker havens were going to be, I could almost just look at a city map and tell which funky backstreets housed the $5 a night guesthouses.

And then I started to realize that The LP guide just tell you where to sleep, eat, and visit once you arrive someplace and not why you might want to go there to begin with. Nowadays I'd rather just arrive and take my chances -- but then I'm also no longer playing the "I bet I can spend less than you" travel game.

As a photographer (in a previous stage of my life I worked as a photojournalist) I've always been partial to the Insight Guides for inspiration BEFORE I go.

There is still one LP guide sitting on my shelf though -- still unused: Iran.

BTW, this is WAY off-topic but has anyone else read Pico Iyer's Video Night in Katmandu?

[SEndrigo]

[abufletcher]

Actually all you need nowadays is a T-shirt reading "I'm not Danish!"

Back when I was working in Oman, I actually went into the Iranian Embassy (in the lobby of which they played and replayed tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini's funeral) and filled out an application for a journalist's visa citing as my sponsor the Mexican magazine I had been working for. The staff were all very friendly and helpful...but somehow the visa just never materialized. When I'd go up to Dubai I'd inevitably end up sharing a couple of glasses of sweet tea with the Iranian dhow crews docked on the Creek and they almost invariable offered to take me across to Bandar Abbas with them saying "no problem -- everyone like Americans. Just American government don't like."

When I was first gettng into EFL Iran was THE destination in the Middle East. EFL journals were full of English-Farsi constrastive studies and case studies from Tehran. But all that fell apart in 1979 (my senior year in college). I had taken Arabic because my university didn't offer a Farsi course. As I said, I just missed out on the India Overland thing. But then I did get to be called "Hey Joe" by old ladies in the markets of Saigon!

[kdynamic]