A Year in Japan - Background

March 2002 onwards

When I started my extensive overland trip to Asia, it had always been my intention to try and get a teaching job in Japan. Japan has always been that elusive country with a strange alien culture but financially out of the question for a hum drum backpacker. The only way that I would get to experience the country would be to work there and teaching English is one of the few opportunities that westerners have.

In preparation, I had completed a part time TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification over the year before I left. You can also do it full time for 5 weeks in an intensive course at double the cost. During the trip I also did some short term voluntary teaching work in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and China

However. By the time I reached China after 20 months of non-stop travel, I was starting to feel road weary and was also running out of money; at least not enough to take Japan by storm. I had also been living out of a backpack for nearly two years and you can`t teach English in Japan in a t-shirt and shorts (I wish!). I decided to have a month in China/Tibet and a final month in Nepal and come back to the UK to replenish the funds

My parents generously allowed me to hole up at their home rent free for the next 5 months while I got myself organised. Two months IT work before Xmas secured the funds I needed and from New Year 2002, I started to send my CV out at every opportunity. My initial strategy was to try and find a job from the UK, but if I didn`t, I was prepared to fly out there and start visiting the schools personally.

Dave`s ESL Cafe is the most popular Teaching English site on the internet. English Schools from all over the world advertise their vacancies here and you can freely post your resume on the site - what you are looking for and where. I stuck a short advert in looking for work in Japan and had lots of replies; from Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese recruitment agencies. Only one school called Bernard replied from Japan, saying that they might have a vacancy. So I sent off my paperwork (cv, introduction letter, copies of degrees, photo). I had also started to apply for every Japanese school vacancy that I saw. I got an email from Bernard School telling me that they were interested but that the vacancy had been filled. I should stay in touch.

Much of the teaching work that is offered is monopolized by a few International Language schools. If you are a recent University graduate, broke, good looking, slim and naive of living in an alien culture, they`ll take you without a teaching qualification. If you are 41, not slim, self financed, experienced in living in foreign cultures and worldly wise, they don`t want to know. Half their teaching job is selling courses to the Japanese students

Nevertheless, after applying to all of these, one organisation, GEOS gave me a shot. 3 days in London (they paid for no accommodation or meals). I went through the brainwashing sessions where selling was not mentioned. (www.eslcafe.com has entire sections on people`s comments about working for organisations like this). As the oldest candidate, I passed every test near the top, I completed the teaching lesson successfully (using their technique), I filled in all the forms and questionnaires. Half of the 24 candidates had walked out during the weekend. Nevertheless, I was rejected by letter (not the promised phonecall). So why was this? I suspect because they knew that I knew the selling angle involved (which I was happy with - if it would get me out there), that I could afford to tell them to stuff it if I didn`t like it and would still retain the work visa, and that I was a little more experienced with work practises than a recent graduate and would tell them to shove 10 hours a week unpaid overtime.

By now, it was early February and I had been applying via email to every available Japanese teaching job and noone ever replied. I decided to open up my target area to South Korea, Taiwan and China. I was literally bombarded by teaching offers in South Korea. But I was determined to hold out for Japan until April when I`d have to go somewhere

Regardless of the job hunt, I had a scuba diving week booked in late February in Egypt with my family and had booked a flight to Bucharest to go backpacking with a mate around Romanian and Moldova in Mid March

After the GEOS rejection, I emailed my contact at Bernard Schools and told her of my failure to get any response from Japan. She emailed me back telling me that they might need a teacher pretty soon.

Two days after returning from Egypt, I received an email telling me that there was a vacancy if I could get out to Japan by 16th March. It would mean scrapping the Romanian trip and losing the tickets but after nearly 3 months of trying, I decided that this was probably my best and only offer. I even paid for my mate`s non refundable Romanian flight to ensure I made the deadline.

I received a phone call the next day from Japan from one of the teachers who had been there for 3 years and he answered all my questions about the move. We spent 30 minutes on the phone and he gave me the lowdown. I booked my flight the same day for a week`s time on Wednesday March 13th. You can get a 90 day holiday visa automatically when you arrive in Japan as long as you have a return ticket. It takes a few weeks to process the work visa. The idea is that you start teaching and when the work visa is ready, the school pays for you to pick it up in Seoul, South Korea so you can enter Japan with the work visa. My return flight to London would be scrapped. As you can see I have dumped the costs of flights right left and centre

This will be a bold move for me. Essentially, I am prepared to sacrifice 12 years in the IT industry to try something that I have no experience of. I am ready for the challenge and the potential that Japan offers me. As with the time I moved to the US in 1978, Australia in 1984, New Zealand in 1985, I don`t know anyone personally who has done it before. Now everyone visits those countries for their holidays. I don`t have any friends who have visited Japan so I hope this will set off another trend. Since the World Cup is also being partly held here in June, I will be also be able to experience that.

I will be updating the homepage on a monthly basis with any comical teaching experiences, my attempts at living in a Japanese culture and any trips that I make around the country.