Job Discussion Forums

[isukifabs]

Hi, I used to teach in Shanghai and sometimes I'd wake up and think to myself "Man, I should have gone to Japan or Korea." Well now I'm back in the states and bored out of my mind so I want to get back in the game and I'm eyeing Japan. I've been reading on this forum for the last 10 months or so and I know how you all love it when someone says "I want to teach in Japan. Can anyone give me advice?" So I'm going to try a different approach. Below is a list of all the good things I can think of about China accompanied by the bad things. I'm asking you to compare these aspects of life/work in China with what you feel about Japan. Here goes:

The good about China:
1) It's cheap...travel, food , everyday needs, custom suits, foot massages, gym memberships, etc

2) It's easy to make foreign friends

3) Never asked to work on the weekends

4) The nightlife is awesome�no shut down times, the music is mostly good, cheap drinks, no dress codes, no cutting you off after you�ve drank too much, no open container laws, etc

5) The subways are efficient and cheap. The taxis are insanely cheap�it can be like having your own chauffer.

6) The apartments for teachers can be large�like a 2-3 bedroom to yourself with at least 1 balcony

7) At night I never felt like I was in a bad part of town, always felt safe

8) There�s a lot of intramural activities for foreigners like soccer, flag football, dodge ball, ultimate Frisbee, etc

9) 3-4 weeks of vacation per year

The bad about China:
1) The way people act in public (snot rockets, spitting, chain smoking, pushing, cutting in line, public urination/ defecation etc.)

2) The people in charge (the bosses) are less than reputable�they�ll conveniently �forget� to pay your transportation allowance, they don�t help you in any way with school related problems, they don�t let you choose where you want to live, if you have a problem they blame it on someone else, they fail to tell you about rules, customs, etc. They tell you whatever you want to hear to come over to China and then when you get there�everything changes.

3) In the schools the kids don�t care about English�they either don�t talk or talk too much in Chinese. Try telling the Chinese teachers about problem students and they won�t care.

4) When you get there, you just get thrown into the mix and no one helps you adjust by showing you where anything is, giving you a lesson plan, etc

5) Too much pollution. No or limited outdoor activities. Pretty much limited to hiking. No skiing/ snowboarding (except on artificial snow). No swimming in lakes/ rivers.

6) A lot of the foreigners are�how do I put this�not cool. It�s like they were dorks in their own country and they escaped to China where they hoped no one would know any better. I know everyone is different but some of these people were textbook d. bags.

7) Everything is as difficult as possible from mailing a package to buying clothes to trying to buy Heinekin from the waitress wearing a Carlsberg shirt to ordering a big mac with no cheese

8) It�s crowded everywhere and everyone gets the same vacation days per year and 1.3 billion people are on the move at the same time

9) The state run TV stations and newspapers gets old�too much propaganda. Only pro-china news and anti Taiwan and Japan news.

10) If you have over a size 10US/36UK foot�you�d better bring an extra pair of shoes because it�s difficult finding large shoes.

11) Really the only livable cities are the big ones as the uneven distribution of wealth doesn�t trickle down to the smaller cities. So unless you like making 400USD/ month while essentially camping�you�d better live in a metropolis.

12) The girls don�t shave their armpits or go to the dentist/ othodontist�well to be fair, some do.

So there you have it. Please let me know if any of these things ring a bell of if they are virtually unheard of in Japan. For the record, I was hired from overseas and I taught in the Shanghai public school system. Obviously, opinions will vary but this was my experience. Thanks for looking.

[Glenski]

[isukifabs]

Thanks for the reply Glenski. Nobody else can comment on this? Maybe I made it too long and the readers lost interest. Has anyone taught in both China and Japan that can add some insight? To answer Glenski's last questions to me: "So, are you planning to get hired from abroad again, or will you come here to job hunt?" I don't know yet...it sounds like to get hired from abroad you have to get stuck working for a language center that tells you where to live, how may hours to work, where to work, and they pay you a minimal salary. I've read several negative things about these places. But it would be nice to arrive in Japan with everything set up for you. Going there and looking for a job sounds too risky and I probably won't have the recommended $4000-$6000USD laying around to bring to support myself. What would you all rather do? Maybe I'll put that question in another thread. Thanks.

[Glenski]

[cafebleu]

Isukifabs - I worked in Japan and Korea, and am familiar with China as my husband is Chinese and I have lived in the People's Republic (as well as Hong Kong and other countries in Asia).

There is the distinct possibility you might regret going to Japan because of the lack of genuinely decent paying jobs there - a situation that's getting worse because the trend even when I left a few years back was towards part time work and well away from reasonable starting jobs with reasonable pay.

The market from what I hear is oversupplied with English teachers. Salaries have been stagnant now for about 20 years except for those with the jobs that pay well such as university jobs. However, those opportunities have diminished steadily over the past decade and many Japanese universities have entrenched discriminatory practices against foreigners with little job security as the main feature of the work.

Housing - pretty piss poor overall. Married people with Japanese spouses will do better and live in 'mansions' which are really apartments by western countries' standards (I used to laugh hearing the Japanese talk about their 'condominium' because they really don't know what that type of housing is) but your average Japanese housing is bad. Small places for big prices although that can change if you don't live in Tokyo or Osaka.

A common building material in Japan is plasterboard. Fantastic if you love being scorched in summer, dripping wet with humidity, and frozen in winter. The 'mansions' are much better and made of better materials but then again - what wouldn't be compared to the shockingly inadequate state of much Japanese housing?

In the countryside you can find houses to rent and the countryside population in much of Japan is declining and getting old. However, you can still expect in many cases to pay ridiculous upfront fees in hangover practices from the feudal past - irrespective of how many empty houses there are in the countryside. And you still have the sad plasterboard as a common building material.

As for public manners - yes China is dirty and yes Korea is too. The Japanese don't hack up in public apart from a few dirty old men, the Koreans resemble the Chinese with their dirtiness although generally Korea looks clean compared to China.

Despite the wonderful East Asian custom that the Japanese and Koreans share of usually not acknowledging others unless you've been introduced which means you can be an absolute pig to somebody and drive at them when they're legitimately using a pedestrian crossing, queue jump, and talk down or behave like an ignoramus to people in 'lower' positions, generally the Japanese have better public manners than the Chinese and the Koreans.

Many Japanese will hold a door open for you if you're coming out of a shop with your hands full - something that seems too hard for the Koreans to grasp. Carrying heavy things in Japan will mean normal people will move out of your way - in Korea, the older people in particular, will walk at you in a stunning display of lack of human decency.