Job Discussion Forums

[AgentMulderUK]

I am currently in Japan but I like to plan ahead for my next stint. I was thinking Vietnam, but the more I read about Thailand the better is sounds.
Or is it Greener Grass Syndrome?

I would very much like to hear from those that worked in Japan but then came to Thailand to work. I am interested in the contrasts, both good and bad.

After this stint, my next will be my last. Time to settle.

I am 39 now with BA,TESOL, 3 years experience I worry that age discrimination might be a factor in Thailand, as it often is in Japan.


I like a fairly quiet life, rather then the endless rat race of Tokyo. Yeah I know,what a donkey for coming to Tokyo then, but I had my reasons. 'Had 'being the operative word.

I don' have a strong need for material things and can live quite humbly, though I find the internet to be compulsory. I am not a beach bum or anything like that. I like clean but I don't need shiny.

I want to go to teach for real, not pee about. I have spent a lot of my life doing tha already.

I have no particular interest in night life. Done all that it to extreme when I was in in my 20's.

Would need to make some small savings for my future, but not exessively so.


So:

Fair chance of finding decent employment?(based on my limited information)?
Fair chance of being able to settle somewhere and stay there for several years?


Sorry for the rather general nature of this post.I have been searching the forums for information, but it's hard to be specific about so general a plan.

Thank you all in advance. Even the smallest insight from yourselves is appreciated.

[kidefl]

I lived and worked (on the sly) for only two months in Japan. I like the Japanese much better than the Thais. They're better educated, much more progressive but not as friendly. I guess poor people are always friendlier. Thailand is a lot, a lot, a lot cheaper.

Best I can do for you is to compare Spain with Mexico, France and Turkey, Singapore with Indonesia.

[ontoit]

Japan offers the greatest potential income if you know what you are doing, and the yen stands firm against the other major currencies on most days of the week.

Culture and environment are relative, with no clear winners after you factor in the low end against the good stuff that comes as a package deal anywhere you stay more than a couple of months.

Deep down, if your personal life is in order, the rest slips right into place. If your world is in order, the good life is always where you are. If it's not, any place you end up will get ugly in pretty quick order.

[alexcase]

I did it the other way round, but with 5 years and countries in between, so I feel the person in those two countries is hardly the same. With that and the fact that my personal life is much better and therefore colouring my impressions positively here in Japan, here are some ideas anyway:

Advantages of Thailand compared to Japan

- Cheaper and easier to splash out on meals and stays in nice hotels, taxis etc.
- Cheaper flights and closer to other countries
- Never cold
- Easier and cheaper to get involved in physical stuff like trekking and diving
- If you are feeling lazy, you can just book yourself on backpacker tours
- Beaches
- Eating outdoors
- Young kids' classes even cuter and better behaved than Japanese ones
- Street food
- Cheap fruit and veg on every street corner
- Very authentic food from back home and other countries tourists come from in expat bars and restaurants
- Cheap drinks
- Pirate copies, and that keeping the price of music etc down
- Good range of cheap books in backpacker areas
- More likelihood of friends visiting
- Learning to read is simpler
- More exotic weather, vegetation and animals
- Feels more like an adventure
- Motorcycle taxis
- Spicy food
- More likely to get IELTS teaching practice, plus maybe other exams like Cambridge Young Learners (in Japan, it's TOEIC or nothing)
- Some schools were happy to sign you for short contracts

Disadvantages of Thailand compared to Japan
- Likely to have less in common with your students or other local people you meet, unless they have lived abroad
- The difficulty of finding night life not connected to the sex industry
- Naff discos
- Few museums and galleries, often neglected and rarely changing exhibitions (I hear this is improving)
- Most books being novels by Thais about riding water buffalo when they were a kid or expats who married an ex bargirl
- Not much interesting news coverage of the country
- Difficulties of tonal language (although useful if you want to learn another tonal language like Chinese at some time)
- More people refusing to believe you can speak the local language and therefore not even listening when you speak than in Japan (in Tokyo it's quite rare)
- Chances of being ripped off, and so maybe becoming overly sensitive to it and even paranoid
- Ice in beer
- The headaches I always got from drinking the cheap water in half see through bottle
- Even more shy teenagers, with a more pronounced tendency to choose a group spokesman

The advantages of Japan compared to Thailand
- Easier to get good Thai food in Tokyo than good Japanese food in Bangkok
- More interesting books than about any other country
- Skiing
- If you teach Business English in Europe afterwards, they'll be fascinated by your tales of doing business in Japan
- If you teach in London, good practice for the twice yearly influx of Japanese students
- Great pop culture to impress people with when you go home, e.g. manga, anime
- Shopping, e.g. second hand CDs
- Almost never getting hassled or having to talk to strangers, at least in big cities
- Amazing technology, available at least 6 months before the rest of the world

The disadvantages of Japan compared to Thailand
- In big cities, the possibility of going for days without talking to even a shop assistant
- The amount of money you need to set yourself up or live off if you quit your job
- Learning kanji (although also useful if you want to learn Chinese)
- Obsession with safety

I don't know if I've run out of ideas or just energy, but that seem to be all that is coming for now

TEFLtastic blog- "All the truth that's fit to teach"- www.tefl.net/alexcase

[pastis]

Sounds like you wouldn't think much of Bangkok... I mean you'd probably dig it for a week or two like any tourist, but actually living there for an extended time can be pretty horrible unless you've got a good paying job (imo). It's really dirty compared to Tokyo, both in terms of air pollution and trash on the streets (sickly bad smells abound). The heat can really get to you (always trapped indoors with the aircon on, not so able to take nice strolls around the city) unless you especially like that kind of climate. Bangkok is also very money hungry and you will invariably find yourself getting ripped off and taken advantage of until you learn the game and at least some rudimentary Thai. Actually, I feel much more comfortable dealing with Japanese people than Thais for a variety of reasons...

The countryside might be better for you, but the problem is money. With few exceptions, there is next to no money pretty well anywhere outside of Bangkok. You could theoretically land some cushy gig in a resort town or island like Phuket and get paid decently, but it's not so easy. If you teach in Isan it might be an adventure (personally I think it would be awful, I doubt I'd last 2 days there), but you won't make anything and you'll have to go without most of the creature comforts you're used to in Tokyo.

Chiang Mai was my favorite place to visit in Thailand, but I've never lived there. I think it's quite a bit better than Bangkok in terms of quality of life, and still a decent size.

Basically, assuming you end up in BKK, unless you somehow land a job at an international school and can make at least ~50k baht/month (a bit under $2000), it's not going to be great. An average salary for other teaching jobs would be more around half that much (~30k) - enough to get by and live a bit better than the average Thai, but still not much and no savings. Also bear in mind that Bangkok is quite a bit more expensive than you probably expect. If you live like a lower class Thai person (I would think impossible) it's pretty cheap, but as a Westerner you're gonna pay more, and many of your Western creature comforts (ie. staying in a nice apartment downtown near the bts, eating at a Western restaurant or buying imported products) can be nearly the same price as back home or more. Still cheaper than Tokyo though.

Having worked in both Tokyo and Bangkok, my personal opinion is that Japan is for 'real' life, and Thailand is for vacations. In fact I preferred Japan to Thailand a great deal. But hey, that's just me.