Job Discussion Forums

[menso35]

With the Japanese economy in a recession and staggering unemployment in the US and elsewhere, I am assuming it's pretty difficult for a person with very little experience to find a job in Japan at the moment? Does not being in Japan while looking for a job further diminish one's chances?

[JL]

I can already hear the "tap tap tap" of others at their keyboards, getting ready to tell you to give more background about yourself, if you expect any kind of answer that is helpful.

[tonyukohi]

I think it's definitely harder than when I first came here two years ago. I have some teaching experience and certification (though not an education degree). However, I wouldn't rule out someone with no experience - what I notice has been happening is that a lot of people are taking some intro-level jobs and the market salary has been dropping in response. Whether this is because there're a lot more people fleeing bad markets back home, or even experienced teachers here are finding it more difficult, I have no idea.

[Glenski]

[cafebleu]

I worked in both Japan and Korea - despite the fact that I hated the intrusiveness of people in the non city areas I lived in and resented their practice of levying a tax on me because I lived on the same block, as well as had some bad experiences of J employer dishonesty, I have to say the lifestyle is much more pleasant in Japan than in Korea.

The Immigrtion regulations for working in Japan are also far superior to the 'being owned by your employer' reality in Korea, the tight reins placed on foreigners for so many things including the right to send their own money to wherever they like and access their own money, and the abuse of employees in a no. of different ways which is unfortunately a normal part of life for some English teachers in Korea.

However, the money aspect is a different thing altogether. So is the relative ease of getting a job. I'd say do your homework on the best recruiters for Korean jobs (that's the norm - go through a recruiter for a Korean job) and sign up for the Korean job forum. Don't take personal offence at the negativity of some posters there - Korea does get you down in a way that Japan doesn't.

Korean society lacks so much civility and there is a kneejerk nationalism and xenophobia that is thankfully lacking in most Japanese aside from the morons who call themselves uyoku or the revisionst historians. It's no wonder many English teachers write jaundiced words against theirexperiences of Korean life.

However, if you want to get experience and money, start in Korea. Join the Korean board and find out what recruiters you can trust and make sure you understand the regulations for getting a teaching visa. Then after a couple of years or even one year (many people can't stand staying in Korea for more than 1 year) make your Japan move, having done more research.

[Glenski]

[Apsara]

People can be a bit nosy in some neighbourhoods in rural areas, Glenski, and the tax cafebleu was referring to might be the neighbourhood association (chonaikai or jichikai) fees- in some areas people are really insistent about these being paid.

[JL]

Oh yeah. The "chounaikaihi," neighborhood association fees. Anyway, I'd forgotten about that one. A long time ago, in the first neighborhood I used to live in, nobody ever bothered me with that. I only found out about it after I got married to my Japanese wife and we moved into a different neighborhood. Then we got the quarterly calls, and those irregular bulletins which circulate once or twice a month.
Myself, I wasn't particularly put off by the arrangement. I can't even remember what the fees were -1000 yen? At four times a year, hardly something that broke the bank. And it's just the housewives from the neighborhood, trying to make sure everyone is apprised of what's happening at the community/neighborhood level. Ultimately, I chalked this up to a "When in Rome..." type of deal. I'd say the NHK collector was more of an intrusion than the gals from the neighborhood ever were. That old boy would try and get me to pay the double-rate because he'd claim the satellite dish on my balcony was for BS programming. It was CS for SkyPerfect. Dishes for the two don't even point in the same direction. He once even tried to demand I let him come in and confirm it. Told him he'd worn out his welcome at my doorstep.

[Glenski]

Well, in my experience living in the country, people are never nosy. In fact, I've met only the kindest people who never stick their noses in others' business. Just how nosy have you seen people to be?

As for the neighborhood fees (not a tax), they amount to a paltry sum, barely a few hundred yen. Can't understand what the complaint is about.

[JL]

[cafebleu]

If Glenski lives in some perfect Japanese world where people (esp) neighbours are never nosey, never in the slightest bit intrusive towards the gaijin and charge 'a few hundred yen', then good luck to him.

JL - I'm talking about an experience that's not uncommon if you're a foreigner in some areas where attitudes are the kind that your neighbours will openly refer to you as 'gaijin' even while they're telling you to pay up for the children's trip to somewhere or a funeral for somebody who lives some blocks away. Charming.

My neighbourhood fee was nothing like a few hundred yen. It was around 1,400 per month and obviously as a foreigner woman who worked full time and didn't have children etc, I did resent it.

If there had been some genuine courtesy shown, especially as I was paying that amount while my neighbours with working sons and daughters paid the same money per household, I wouldn't have minded so much. Glenski's perfect Japan does not exist in many areas of Japan, especially in semi rural Kyushu where I was.

I had the wonderful experiences of being interrupted during class times (I lived near my school) by an intrusive woman who for some reason didn't extend to me the courtesy of collecting the money in my own home which was near hers. Came in during a class, and said 'Nissen yen'. Of course I told her nicely, 'Please do not do this while I am working', and my students who did not live in the immediate area thought this was incredibly rude of her.

As I mentioned, local expenditures included letting kids from the neighbourhood go on a trip up to Kyoto, various outings for the too free non working Japanese neighbourhood women whose kids were grown up. There was also the matter of forking over an extra 2,000 yen for a family whose grandfather had died but he didn't live on my block.

All this was extracted in an intrusive way, with no regard for my need for privacy or understanding of the fact that as somebody who received nothing from this except for the kanban telling me of the latest freeloading activity, naturally I wasn't going to be delighted as being addressed or called gaijin continually.

I'm not the only person who resents these fees. Obviously up in Hokkaido it is never never land where the natives are always kind, respect your privacy and charge you a few hundred yen. Lucky Glenski.

[Nabby Adams]

It must be never never land in Osaka too. I have never had any of these "fees" asked for. I have also never experienced even the slightest intrusiveness.

[Glenski]

[JL]

Well, I will say that while it's not the typical experience which Cafeblue describes, it's hardly hard to imagine either. In the last neighborhood in which I lived, I was treated as an intruder, just for moving into the area. We had some pretty bad experiences in the beginning, though after people got used to us and realized we hadn't ruined the neighborhood, things worked out fine. Later on, though, we did still have this following episode which I will share:
Once a year, the elementary school my daughter attented would hold an emergency evacuation drill. In a country prone to earthquakes and fires, not a bad idea. The way the drill worked, the school office would alert the various PTA captains of each neighborhood. From there, the chain of phones calls, with one family alerting the next in pre-determined order, would commence. Then parents would rush to school and evacuate their children. Well, when my daughter entered the first grade at the school, nobody in the PTA or in the neighborhood ever bothered to tell us about any of this. We WERE on the roll list provided by the school to the neighborhood captain. Be she decided on her own to leave us out, because I was a "gaijin" (even as my wife is Japanese), and figured it wasn't necessary. It was when the school's office called me that afternoon to pick up my daughter -well after everyone else had done so- that I first even heard about this drill, and what everybody was doing that day. I picked up my daughter. Then I went to my next door neighbor to ask what was going on. She further filled me about the drill and told me who the neighborhood captain was. But she also told me not to worry about it. To wit, she said "Oh, if there ever was a real emergency, you'd know something was going on."
Bull-f#*&@ing-shi!t, I would!

To make a long story short, I raised hell, and the principal of the school called everyone involved in for a meeting. Still, the responsible person, and her cohorts on the PTA, didn't seem to think they were in the wrong, inconsiderate, or otherwise had risked any danger to my child, had a there been a real need for evacuation. The principal, much to his credit, sided with me and admonished the PTA ladies.

I wouldn't say that Cafebleu's experience is the norm. But nor would I say mine was. Yet it happened, and these things do happen. I hate to have to say the follow negative thing about *some* Japanese people, but there are those who don't fully appreciate foreigners as equals, or as people requiring the same considerations as a fellow Japanese. Not a phenomenon unique to Japan. But Japan happens to be the society this particular forum is concerned with.

[flyer]