Job Discussion Forums

[acornrevolution]

I, along with my wife, will be soon taking the big leap and applying to the big 4, as well as the smaller schools and organizations. From what I understand you can save way more money living in the rural areas or suburbs than in tokyo or the surrounding areas. I was wondering a few things:

-what is the cost of living difference between rural and suburbs?
-what is the likelihood of a couple being placed outside a city?
-what exactly are the rural, suburban, and urban areas?
-what are the martial arts opportunities like in the rural ares?
-any tips, comments, advice on rural teaching in japan?

Acorn

[JimDunlop2]

Hi! Welcome to the forum. We have a very helpful bunch of people here, but some of the veterans tend to get a little ornery when a question comes up that's already been discussed time and time again.

Do a quick search. Make sure you select the search for "ALL words" option and limit your search to the Japan forum. Some keywords to try: "urban, rural" , "city, rural" "inaka" ... I had some pretty good luck with these.

Here's one past thread on this very topic to get you started.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=31028

Oh yeah, and it's also usually good to resurrect an old thread rather than starting a brand new one whenever possible.

Cheers.

[Big John Stud]

[quote="acornrevolution"]I, along with my wife, will be soon taking the big leap and applying to the big 4, as well as the smaller schools and organizations. From what I understand you can save way more money living in the rural areas or suburbs than in tokyo or the surrounding areas. I was wondering a few things:

-what is the cost of living difference between rural and suburbs?
You will save a lot more money in the country side(rural). Specially since you are with your wife.
-what is the likelihood of a couple being placed outside a city?
Pretty good!
-what exactly are the rural, suburban, and urban areas?
I might not understand this question. Suburban is a city of most families. Rural is more country side. Urban is city.
-what are the martial arts opportunities like in the rural ares?
Depends on the place.
-any tips, comments, advice on rural teaching in japan?
What works for one person might not work for another. Also too many other factors to be able to give any advice like what company you will be working for, location and so on!

Acorn[/quote]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[acornrevolution]

[Gordon]

Your questions are impossible to answer as others have noted. How are we supposed to make a list of all the cities and towns? Basically from what I have found from living the past 5 years in rural Japan is this:

Greater potential to save as there is little you'd want to buy or do. Going to Tokyo is like being a kid in a candy shop.
Rent is cheaper. I pay about 60,000 yen for a house that would be 200,000 in much of Tokyo.
Food is cheaper as most of the vegies are locally grown.

If you plan on starting a family or bringing kids, I'd prefer a smaller city or a rural setting.

[Glenski]

I agree with Gordon in that you are asking too much to get a list of rural cities and towns. How would you define rural, anyway? 10,000 people? 100,000? In general rent may be cheaper in rural towns, but depending on what you actually want in an apartment, there may be no difference at all (my own situation). I have also found that food is not that much cheaper just because one is living near the farmers.

Just use common sense in thinking that Japan is no different than any other developed country -- rural situations will probably save you money. How much depends on you and on the situation you're in.

I think your biggest concern should be in both of you working. Work in a big city, and the likelihood of being "placed together" is higher. However, do you two want to work for the same company/school? Same branch? This is not the norm, and you should think about this. Going to the same branch, seeing the same office staff daily, having the same stories to tell when you get home, etc. can be pretty dull. Besides, not many employers want to take a risk on hiring couples. The couple may want to take days off at the same time, leaving the school short two, not one, person. There are schools that hire couples, but you will have to search quite a bit to find them.

Are both of you even qualified to get work visas?

[acornrevolution]

We were hoping just to get hired at schools in the same area, not necessarily at the same school.

And yes, we both have BAs, and we both meet the req. for the visa as far as I know.

Sorry, I wasn't asking for a giant list of all the cities and how they rank in terms of population. I guess I'll just browse Wikipedia and maps of Japan and look at what is big and what is small.



Thanks for the help!

[Gypsy Rose Kim]

Also remember that Tokyo and Osaka aren't the only cities in Japan. There are lots of smaller cities surrounding Tokyo alone. Depending on where you come from, these cities may be plenty big and exciting for you.

This reminds me, in a text book we used at a school I worked in years ago, it said that the population of Funabashi city in Chiba was bigger than the population of Sydney. I dunno if that's true, but it's interesting to think about.

[Apsara]

It depends how you define Sydney. What most people consider to be Sydney has more than 4 million people- obviously bigger than Funabashi. The administrative division called "City of Sydney" has only about 150,000 people, a fraction of the whole, so Funabashi could easily have more people than that, but there's not much point in comparing them really.

More impressive is that the population of greater Tokyo is 5 times that of the whole of New Zealand- no wonder the trains are so crowded...

[thermal]

I live in an extremely rural part of Japan (Arai). I am one of two gaijin in the town.

I think a lot of it depends on what you want out of your experience in Japan. Everyone I speak to around here has lived here their whole lives and loves it. It is a very tight nit community which can be touching to see but hard to penetrate and make friends. I have managed this somewhat, but don't have so many so it can get a bit lonely.

You will still find people who can speak English even in a small town, but they will be hard to find. It is not really their culture to speak to strangers and they will probably be self-conscious of their English. You should always be able to go to the nearest city and meet other gaijins though if you are so inclined.

I personally really want to improve my Japanese so it is great only having Japanese people around to speak to. It also feels like I am getting more of an authentic experience of Japan, being a part of and helping out the community.

In regards browsing Japan, I would recommend google earth. You can also use the placeopedia plugin to view the wikipedia entries inside the application itself.

[susurrus]

(ETA I see it was already mentioned but) Wikipedia is actually a pretty good source for information on different regions, prefectures, cities, towns, and villages within Japan. Even town pages that list nothing more than population and area usually have a link to the town's website. Most city and prefecture pages usually have more information (transportation, climate, institutions, history, culture, etc.) and links to relevant web sites (wikitravel.org, etc). Larger cities even have separate pages for different neighborhoods.

[sallycat]

i have had friends who had enourmous difficulty finding landlords willing to rent to gaijin in rural areas. i don't know how widespread this is.

cities in kyushu seem to be cheaper than cities in honshu.