Teaching English in Japan is Awesome and sometimes Hilarious. Gold!

Imagine that you get home every day to find that food has gone missing? This man, who incidentally lives in the same city as myself, had the sense to install a camera which revealed a woman who had been living in an unused closet in his house!

Heads! This 55kg chunk of plane, that apparently is a door for accessing the air conditioning gear, fell off a plane and landed in a field near Narita Airport, east of Tokyo. Oops. Nobody was hurt an the plane landed safely. Funny I didn’t hear about it in the news. I guess there needs to be a major landing drama for anyone to bother reporting it as major news.

From the SMH:

Some youngsters are spending hours at night on email with their friends. One fad is “the 30 minute rule,” in which a child who doesn’t respond to email within half an hour gets targeted and picked on by other schoolmates.

In Japan, people don’t use computers like we do, they do all their chatting on their mobiles via complex email messages. So where the computer has replaced the TV as the family addiction in other countries, it’s the mobile phone in Japan.

Just when you thought they couldn’t get any thinner…

You can also get a waterproof phone. Apparently this was a significant customer request.

Click on the images for the full article.

Finally people in the right places are starting to take notice of the world’s biggest polluter, livestock grown for meat consumption. I fear the industry will do its utmost to preserve itself, however, taking us down with them. They don’t realise that they aren’t going to have many customers to sell to in a few years.

According to the U.N. report, the livestock sector internationally generates 18 percent more greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, than the transport sector.

Furthermore, the livestock sector also damages the ecosystem, as it is a major contributor to land and water degradation. And the problem is expected to get worse. The U.N. noted that global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons in 1999 to 465 million tons by 2050.

The livestock sector now uses 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface. Most of the use consists of permanent pastures. But 33 percent of the global arable land is now used to produce livestock feed, the report said. One result is deforestation, as old-growth forests that absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to create new grazing areas.

In Latin America, some 70 percent of forests in the Amazon region have been turned over to grazing, the U.N. said.

The livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of carbon dioxide deriving from human-related activities and 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Most of this comes from manure.

The sector is also responsible for 37 percent of all human-induced methane, which is produced largely by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of all human-induced ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain, the report added.

Wired has an article on Hiroyuki Nishimura, the wildly infamous owner of 2channel, the no-holds-barred Japanese web BBS. Having been sued successfully many times by many people who have been flamed on the board, he doesn’t show up to court appearances any more and has never paid from any of the rulings against him. Doesn’t say much for the Japanese legal system then, does it? His latest hit, however, is a Youtube-like site where people can write comments over posted videos, which has become one Japans most visited sites.

A Japanese student of mine emailed me with an English question yesterday, asking:

“There’s no sense ( in, of ) carrying on that way.”
The answer is “in”. But, I couldn’t make sense this meaning clearly. Is it some kind of construction of a sentence?
“in …….way” means like “in that way”??? But, if so, how about “carry on”(=go on)???

It was interesting for me to think about how we use “in” and “on” in English beyond “I live in Japan” or “I’ll go there on the 5th”. Here is my reply:

“There’s no sense in (doing something).”

It means “in this situation” or “in these circumstances”. You’ll often see in buildings “In case of fire, do not use lifts” which is very abbreviated English. I suppose that “in” means “while this is the case/is happening” or something like that. Also “Just in case…” and probably many other examples.

“Carry on” means “keep going” or “(yes you may) go ahead”. Also there’s “keep on going” which means “don’t stop”. Whereas “in” encompasses not just a physical “inside” but gives us the imagination of being in a situation, “on” puts us “on stage” where something is currently the focus of our attention. For example, we “put on a record” or “put on a cd”. The latter came from the former, as you physically had to put the record on the player. We also have “It’s on TV”.

So in summary (ha!): “In” encompasses a situation. “On” refers to an event currently happening that is our focus.

[…] something that has concerned me is the notion of foreigners as Gaijin. Your reply has partly quelled my presumption of the Japanese people’s fear or disrespect against foreigners, however I still have mixed reactions concerned to this notion and wonder if the same sentiment about foreigners is unique to that particular place in Japan. Do the Japanese feel threatened by foreigners? Are Japanese girls attracted to foreigners? (Probably saw this question coming)
 
I’m currently studying for my year 12 HSC and at the stage of my life where I begin making decisions, my imagination is quite short.
[…]
At this stage of my life, a lot of people are telling me to do what I want, but in order to do this, i’m just trying to learn off others who have taken the path.

If you could briefly describe these aspects of Japanese life, it would be very valuable to me.

- Work schedule
- Leisure time
- Overall happiness factor compared to Syndey (Is it as laid back as Sydney?)

Thank you in advanced,
Have a nice day tomorrow

There are definitely many Japanese girls attracted to foreigners.  But are they really just wanting something different to a normal life?  Japanese men, after university, become salarymen, dedicated to their work, a tradition based on samurai culture, where you gave your life to your retaining lord.  If the boss finishes at 10pm, so do you.  If the boss goes drinking, so do you.  It burns the family.  I really need to insert here a book’s worth of knowledge, almost completely ignored in any modern society, about marriage and its spiritual meaning and how its spiritual depth is almost completely lacking.  A friend of mine thankfully did here .

That aside (the article linked will probably be more useful than anything you’ll ever read again in your life by a long stretch) Japanese people work 9-5, or as I said above, 9 until whenever they get to go home.  Foreigners get paid quite well for teaching English, so for example, it’s not impossible to work part-time for full-time pay. You go home when your classes finish too, so none of what Japanese salaried workers have to suffer.  Since many companies don’t want to have to pay for compulsory health insurance, they often only give teachers part-time hours, under the limit where it becomes compulsory to pay it.  This only after a number of companies were fined heavily for not paying it for their full-time foreign workers.

Leisure time - it’s the same as being a foreigner in any country, you do the same kinds of things, such as travel, go drinking or whatever you enjoy.

It’s not as laid back as Australia.  Japan is very rigid in its ways.  Everything has a place, and while foreigners making mistakes is tolerated, once you’re in a workplace, you’ll have to tolerate often totally insane decisions from managers, junior staff having no other attitude other than to do as instructed.  The upside is that there is less uncertainty (you know the trains will be on time, almost all the time).  I’m not going to say that Japan is better or worse than anywhere else, because the good and bad are different here.  Everything in the world is only how you see it or accept it.

I sympathise with your position at the end of yr 12.  Culture doesn’t really give us anything useful to decide our direction in life outside of study and work.  In my life, the only things that ever had anything other than a superficial meaning were helping others and self-realisation.  The latter goes against the world that wants to make one a prisoner to the superficial and material.  At your stage in life, I’d say don’t be afraid of your choices or of failure.  I highly doubt you’ll ever end up homeless or sleeping on the street, the rest is just experience.  What you learn from your experiences and the choices you make is more important. When you die, that’s literally all that you’ll take with you.

Hi.
I’m in Sydney right now and am interested in life in Japan. How different is it to Australia and what provoked you to live there? if you wouldn’t mind answer an aspiring year 12 student that would be cool.
And particularly, how is Fukuoka, a lot of my favourite singers are from there.
Steve.

G’day Steve,

What prompted me to live here was marrying a local.  I suppose Fukuoka is rather like the Perth of Japan - far from the other main cities (though not THAT far) and nicer to live in than Sydney (or Tokyo, for that matter).

It’s really hard to describe living in Japan - it only really hits you when you go back home and get reverse culture shock.   More so you learn a lot about what you take for granted and what’s normal.  Normal here is somewhat different.  

After living in Japan for the first time 10 years ago, I felt rather like I was living in a huge zoo, but unsure whether I was one of the animals or the Japanese people were.  Westerners are very rare here, rather as rarer than seeing African people in Sydney, so you get stared at and treated, well, rather like people going to a zoo treat animals in the sense that you are unusual and rare.  

Going a bit esoteric here, we create personalities in ourselves to deal with different situations.  I found myself with two personalities - one trying to be as Japanese as possible, and the other wanting to be as non-Japanese as possible.   Living here, as opposed to coming here for a year on a student exchange or working holiday, unless you have a profession with a degree or other qualifications, means abandoning your life in your home country, as teaching English, the most common job for Westerners here, has absolutely zero value when seeking employment back home, unless it was as a qualified English teacher, which most are not.

Not surprisingly, expat foreigners often go to bars and drink a lot.  Few are married, though in Fukuoka many I’ve met are, as it’s an unusual destination, so their reasons for coming here are usually, like mine, because their wives are from here.

As a foreigner, also, you are popular, so you make a lot of great friends.  They find something different in their lives being friends with you, and you in them.  Teachers (sensei) also have a more significant meaning in Japanese, carrying an automatic authority and respect, so being one is a great ego boost, which, after time, leaves many seriously jaded about their lives.  For the Japanese people you teach, you are on a pedestal, yet unqualified English teaching has the lowest cred of all amongst other Westerners (though it’s not said, we all feel it).  Teaching for one of the big 5 (now 4 after Nova went bust) English teaching schools would be akin to being a toilet cleaner.

Much of this comes about as many people who failed at building a career back home end up living in Asian countries teaching English for years, unable to go back, as at home they have absolutely nothing (except maybe family and school friends).

So what’s living here like?  

Imagine that, despite any pollution, everything is neat and tidy; buses and trains are on time (well, ok, maybe not buses always) and there are few places you would ever feel unsafe.  Everything has its place in Japanese society, which makes it predictable on the one hand (the guy installing my phone line turned up dead on time) but stifling on the other (people don’t speak out about things they should in many cases).

The country is (like anywhere) full of contradictions.  Japanese people go out of their way to appreciate the beauty of nature, such as the Hanami festival once a year, when the Cherry Blossoms (Sakura) bloom, yet the country has been so seriously concreted over, with huge power lines running over mountains and highways everywhere.  Tokyo is horribly polluted. Arriving in my apartment, I wiped down the screen window with a cloth, which was turned solid black as if i’d dipped it in tar. When I lived in Tokyo and went out to a nearby mountain for a bit of a hike and some fresh(er) air, whenever I saw someone smoking I wanted to smack them.

Many cultural norms for us are in reverse: Helping someone puts an obligation on them to repay you, so helping someone can actually be unhelpful.  People don’t hold doors open for strangers, for example.  The downside is that it’s rare for people to help mother’s with babies, elderly people etc, except in extreme situations.  You pay when you get off a bus, not on.  At your train destination, there are Fare Adjustment machines in front of the gates for you to update your ticket if you bought one of insufficient value.  Pointing out someone’s wrongdoing is unusual.  When driving, people here rarely beep if someone is doing something idiotic, which is very often.

Whereas we have a culture of not showing anything private, such as wandering around in your back garden in your underwear when your neighbours might accidentally see you, in Japan it’s the other way around, with the obligation not to look.  I can see across to other apartments from mine and it’s not unusual for some old man to be out on his balcony in his underwear watering the plants or whatever.  Quite a few toilets don’t shield the urinals from view from the entrance.  Drunk salarymen often take a piss anywhere they like up against a wall late in the evening.

Commenting about someone’s physical condition is not considered rude like it is in a Western country.

Baths have a very special place here.  You wash yourself thoroughly before getting in one.  A family will share the same bath water, so you’d better be clean and fish out any hairs you left behind afterwards!

If someone has a problem with you, they wont tell you directly, but tell someone to tell you depending on the situation.  If I make a joke in an English class and the student didn’t like it, they’d tell the Japanese staff who’d tell me or tell one of the senior teachers who’d tell me about it.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for the moment, off the top of my head.