Job Discussion Forums

[Leigh31]

Deleted

[sethness]

From what I've read in other threads in this section, only 80 of the bazillion English teachers in Ho Chi Min City are carrying valid visas...everyone else is pretending to be a permanent tourist, I guess.

So, I doubt that your "criminal past" will be a problem, unless you apply for a visa.

But... I have much the same question, myself (I was in a pretrial holding center for 4 months, last year, for removing an illegal+hazardous poster on a public utility pole in my neighborhood... talk about swatting a fly with a sledgehammer!)...so I'm looking forward to seeing what replies your post attracts.

[larryB]

Everyone has visas. A small number of teachers have work permits. This requires a police check from your home country to get one. Most have not bothered. I doubt anyone knows yet what the real result would be if you have a criminal record, but there will probably be plenty willing to tell you something they heard in a bar.

[saint57]

[sethness]

Well, the police, translator and prosecutor all decided to take the nastiest of all possible options, hence my 4 months awaiting trial.

In my neighborhood, I was continually annoyed at how businesses were abusing the community by putting up ever-larger illegal signs (stickers, usually, but sometimes 10kg billboards loosely tied to the utility poles) for free, rather than buying radio ads or newspaper ads or using community bulletin boards. I feel it's parasitic, it makes the neighborhood look like crap (ever try to peel one of those sticker-sings off?) and in the case of a 10kg sign, a strong wind could clonk'em onto a pedestrian or into traffic.

So at noon on my birthday, I took one down, took it a block away, cracked it in half so it couldn't be reused and the user would reconsider whether this "free" way of advertising were really "free", and walked away. I got arrested while sitting in a restaurant, about 30 minutes afterward.

The cops decided I must be a bad guy with secrets or unseen motives, rather than just a community activist. They did a lot of crappy things that wouldn't be legal in America:

1) questioniong without a lawyer present, when I asked for a lawyer
2) no recording equipment in the room
3) denying me permission to get heart-medicines from home (I was a day overdue, and stressing out).

Japan's legal system requires that a suspect face a judge and prosecutor within 48 hours after arrest, to determine if it's worth holding onto the suspect. I hadn't seen a lawyer yet, so I kept my mouth shut... and the prosecutor decided on that basis to break my huevos. (I was also unapologetic about breaking the sign.)

So... it went to trial. I'm a foreigner, so they decided I was a flight risk, so they locked me up. I lost my job, of course, and 4 months' pay.

A one-month summer vacation for the court system made the thing drag on, as did the (@#*$&(@#& court-appointed defense attorney, who was so lazy and obtuse that she made me lose another month in jail while she insisted that the court, not her office, pay for a translator.

Frankly, I was so fed up with Japan's *koff-koff* legal system after that experience, that I wanted to get out of Japan ASAP. Then I got a very lucrative job on the other side of the country...which brings this story up to date.

It's not ALL bad news, though-- all but one of the guards were really decent people, and I had a lot of time to study. If I hadn't been paying for an empty apartment and losing wages, I might have viewed it as a vacation.

Sadly, the maker of the sign is still purveying his parasitic posters all over the neighborhood, as much as 7km from his business.
The prosecutor also probably feels like he did "a good thing".

Sh*t, all they had to do was tell me "breaking the sign is illegal because it's not technically "abandoned" property, and taking it down is only allowed if you're under the supervision of a gov't volunteer club". Grrrrrrr.

[saint57]

Have you learned that ethical imperialism doesn't pay?

[sethness]

Nope. This isn't ethical imperialism.
This isn't a question of forcing my culture or values on the larger community.

It's coomunity opposition to "graphitti", except that the offender is an adult suit-wearing jerk with an ad, instead of a teenager with spraypaint. The motive is similar, as is the need for community intervention to make the activity stop.

I said "stop". My only mistake was in not knowing that the accepted method of saying "stop" was to join a government group that removes those signs.

As for the offender... he's a selfish parasite, degrading the community so he can make a faster buck. Let's not pretend he has ethics that could somehow justify placing a heavy, loosely-tied sign with "embalming service" written at the top and his company's phone number written at the bottom.
That's a child that won't learn until he's spanked, and needs the community's guidance to steer him back toward non-destructive ways of advertising his service.

The tragedy is, that within a few yards of that illegal, unsafe sign were plenty of examples of legal, safe, paid-for signs, made from steel and attached to utility poles with strong metal bands. How will the GOOD companies who paid for those legal, safe signs feel, if the scofflaws are permitted to continue fouling the community?

If I were a sociologist studying the community, I wouldn't try to get involved. But I'm not-- I'm an active member of the community where I live, and I care when it's shat upon by a selfish businessowner who can't be bothered to pay a few more dollars for a legal, safe, clean sign. And I'm quite sure that I'm not the only person in that community who's saying "No" to that type of abuse.

[ecalpemos]

It is not your place to rock up in another country and culture and start taking down signs at your own whim. I am not saying that the businessman was right to do what he did but have you ever tried to run your own business? Dont just judge him as an unfeeling suit, I run a business in another country from my own and its hard, a damn sight harder than teaching(I do that too!). Arrogance often causes problems.

[sethness]

Just saying "business is hard" is no excuse.
There are cheap legal and community-supportive ways to advertise... like newspaper, tv and radio ads if you have the money.
If you don't have the money, there are community bulletin boards, internet sites, signboards on your own or friends' property, and word-of-mouth. There's NO legitimate reason why a businessman shoudl feel he "has to" use advertising that's a burden on the community.

When a businessman sees putting up illegal, unsafe, unsightly signboards on PUBLIC property as acceptable behavior, then they're clearly out of line. They're being irresponsible, assuming none of the costs and making the community responsible for cleaning up the ads afterward.

Crapping on the community and leaving the stuff for the community to clean up--man, that's as irresponsible as letting your dog leave its "calling card" in a public bus.

Just because I'm a foreigner, you shouldn't presume that I'm automatically wrong, arrogant, or defying local culture.
I'm supporting my neighborhood, and interested in seeing it kept safe and clean. Don't imagine I'm the bad guy in this-- I'm not.

I'll rummage around a bit, and show you some of the aftereffects of the worst offenders, the local real estate brokers. They leave public sidewalks looking like dumps. Those real-estate guys feed off of the community, make huge profits, and ADVERTISE by putting up parasitic ads on public utility poles... never cleaning up after themselves, and leaving behind tape and ripped paper. Those guys in particular could simply band together and put out "apartment/homes for rent/sale" free magazines, but instead they defile the very neighborhoods from which they derive their income.
That's sick.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

This thread needs to get back on topic to insure its continued existence.

[sethness]

True, we did go waaay off point. Sorry 'bout that.

I think the original question's been pretty well answered, though:

1) It's commonplace to work on a tourist visa instead of a genuine working-visa
2) with a working visa, yes, there's a police background check

I wish someone could shed a little more light on how bad a rap-sheet can be before it makes problems for the applicant.

[White_Elephant]

Last time I checked, it took about two months to get a thorough police background check from the FBI in the USA. That seems like a long time.

What if you have a misdemeanor like "disturbing the peace" on there?