Bank: A Novel

From an interview with the author, David Bledin:

...The cream of the crop landed in management consulting, the skim in banking, then the rest in random corporate jobs, and the bottom-of-the-barrellers skulking off to teach English in Japan...

Available at Amazon.jp.

A high risk business

in which employees have few rights and nearly no guarantees. The eikaiwa chains are bad, but frankly the corporate-focused companies aren't a heck of a lot better. It all depends on the integrity, trustworthiness, and the loyalty of management. That can all go out the window when the economy and profits head south. Non-Japanese, in particular those who do not understand the few rights that employees have, are especially vulnerable. We have seen that even public/private schools and universities are little better. In my opinion and experience, there are less that half a dozen English language "teaching"/ "corporate training" related companies in the Tokyo area that are trustworthy at all. The rest are half-crooked or filled with the most incompetent management that one can imagine. I cannot think of a single eikaiwa chain that anyone with a choice should consider employment with. Not one, including the big B---unless they have recently changed.

Foreign and Japanese employees hired by Nova Corp.'s successor complained of unreasonable dismissals and pay cuts Saturday as they marked the half-year anniversary of the giant language school's collapse. Japan Times.

The lesson? DO NOT come to Japan to "teach" English as a foreign language unless you consider it a one year out-of-college lark. If you do, and want to remain in Japan, look for a decent job---preferably out of the field entirely or at least with one of the half-dozen or fewer decent companies and generally they require some sort of professional qualifications/experience. That is unless you are satisfied with lifelong under-achievement, glass ceilings, and career suicide.

NOVA files for bankruptcy protection

Probably no surprise to anyone who has been following this. Turns out that the company is much deeper in the hole than originally thought---43.9 billion yen. The president, Nozomu Saruhashi has sort of become unable to be located and was removed by the board last night. This is so big, that it has even made Japanese newspapers. I just saw it on the front page of one at a local Lawsons. Some of the best information on NOVA's problems is at Japan Economy News & Blog. It's sort of mixed news for employees as they will be out of a job, but will be able to get unemployment (or some type of assistance. I have read that the Australian government may have Australian nationals) in most cases as I understand it. Of course the students are out of luck. The government has stopped credit card charges to NOVA. I'll bet NOVA's eikaiwa sisters will be salivating over the news. GABA, Berlitz, etc.

A Quality Company in eikaiwa

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Why English teaching is considered a dead-end job in Japan

From a job site:

Language instructors generally need no skills other than being a native speaker of the language with a 4-year college degree. Working Holiday or Spouse visa eligibility can be substituted for the 4-year degree.

This is an unfortunate fact of life here. It isn't necessarily a loser's job, although many Japanese and foreigners consider it to be so, it is simply the best paying job open to the majority of native English speaking residents in Japan. Of course you could be a waiter or a bartender at less pay. Perhaps you can start your own non-teaching business. Forget the salaryman fantasy even if, like Tom Cruise, you become more-Japanese-than-the-Japanese. Best case---you get on with a foreign company as a local hire. Not easy and requires a lot of networking and a lot of luck.

The biggest waste of time and money in my life was the year that I returned to college to get a TESOL certification (one which could be used for teaching in the U.S.) before returning to Japan to what I knew was a ad career destroying move. I hardly use anything I learned, and if I actually tried, I would piss off many "students." A good CELTA certificate is more than one needs here. In fact, because it focuses on practical aspects more than SLA theory, it is probably more useful than what I got. As I have mentioned, even the simple rudimentary Berlitz basic instructor training is MORE than sufficient for the vast majority of jobs.

The skills you really need are:

• customer service (ass-kissing or groveling in some cases),
• entertaining skills (make it "fun"),
• the ability to tolerate people who make foolish/racist/sexist statements without getting losing your cool or openly challenging them. If someone looks you straight in the eye and says, "Japan is the ONLY country in the world with 4 distinct seasons," you MAY NOT laugh and call them a "retard."
  
• the ability to make people feel relaxed, to be nonthreatening,
• patience
• not take offense at subtle or not-so-subtle insults
• enjoy debating trivia (the British say "in main street" but Americans say "on main street." Which is correct, "that" or "which." You cannot openly say "I don't really give a flying f**k." You are teaching "communicative" English. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
• The ability to endure a dead-end job with no future and no real opportunities to advance or make more money. A job in which the standard salary has not increased since at least the 1980s.
  
• endure being seen as a baka gaijin , who although entertaining, can't really be taken seriously.
  
• teach attractive women without assuming that they want you to date them or have sex with them. They don't want that anymore than an American, British, Canadian woman would. You will have to check with a female instructor for any advice specific to teaching mostly Japanese men as a female.
• Ideally, you should be able not to take a student's physical appearance into account when teaching them, however I knew many who did at Berlitz and still seemed to be successful. Let's pretend it is valuable skill here.
  
• able to pretend that a lazy, time-wasting student who would fail or be thrown out of a class in your country is a good student. (Most places will not let you evaluate a student as less than average which is usually called "good" here.)
  
• Understanding that just because someone is polite to you and laughs at your stupid jokes, or even says that they enjoyed your class, does not necessarily mean that they did enjoy it or like you.
• As a few Berlitz Instructional Supervisors told me: " Just make sure they have fun and "think" they have learned something." This is the bottom line, although it is not what would be considered teaching in the West. (If you are doing a company course---especially for foreign companies, their HR may hold you to much higher standards than Berlitz et al. Still, good luck on getting people to seriously study. Some will. Most won't.)
  
• Finally, for you own sanity and self-respect, the ability to find something outside of the job to provide meaning, challenge, and direction to your life. Find something to keep mentally and intellectually challenging. Stay physically active and fit. Otherwise you will become a fat idiot, although this will not in any way disqualify you from most teaching jobs. The idiot part may even help. So far, I have not become fat.
  

Memo to all students:

In order to assure the highest levels of quality work and productivity from students, it will be our policy to keep all students well taught through our program of SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TEACHING (S.H.I.T. ). We are trying to give our students more S.H.I.T. than any other school. If you feel that you do not receive your share of S.H.I.T. on the course, please see your lecturer. You will be immediately placed at the top of the S.H.I.T. list, and our lecturer are especially skilled at seeing that you get all the S.H.I.T. you can handle.

Students who don't know S.H.I.T. will be placed in DEPARTMENTAL EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION PROGRAMS ( D.E.E.P S.H.I.T. ). Those who fail to take D.E.E.P S.H.I.T. seriously will have to go to EDUCATIONAL ATTITUDE TRAINING ( E.A.T. S.H.I.T. ). Since our lecturers took S.H.I.T. before they graduated, they don't have to do S.H.I.T. anymore, as they are all full of S.H.I.T. already.

If you are full of S.H.I.T. , you may be interested in a job teaching others. We can add your name to our BASIC UNDERSTANDING LECTURE LIST (B.U.L.L. S.H.I.T. ). For students who are intending to pursue a career in management and consultancy, we will refer you to the department of MANAGERIAL OPERATIONAL RESEARCH EDUCATIONAL ( M.O.R.E. S.H.I.T.). This course emphasizes on how to manage M.O.R.E S.H.I.T. . If you have further questions, please direct them to our HEAD OF TEACHING SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING ( H.O.T. S.H.I.T. )

Thank you
BOSS IN GENERAL SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TEACHING
( B.I.G S.H.I.T.)

(I think I used to work at this place.)

From this site

Nihonjinron--the Myth of Japanese Uniqueness

Here is a link to an interesting article on this nonsense. http://www.debito.org/PALE/ (See Nihonjinron: Identity, Misconception and Controversy
by Brent Poole.)

Especially interesting is what happened to the author to stimulate his interest in the subject which he discusses at the end of the article. Good for him that he did not prostitute himself to play henna gaijin (weirdo outsider) on TV for a few bucks like many do here. (I have to admit guilt, because to some extent, that is what an English teacher does in Japan. Most especially the eikaiwa entertainers.)

Granted, most foreigners are aware of this myth. Unfortunately, many believe them to be true. Look at the success of the absurdly nonsensical Last Samurai movie. Whenever a Japanese (or baka gaijin) starts a sentence with, "Japan is the only country..." or "The Japanese are the only people who...," you can usually consider what follows to be pure horse manure.

For a good example of nihonronjin and its absurdity (with rebuttal) look at : On Language and Japanese Rational Thought Processes Guest Forum: Where there's no 'will' there's no way By Shin-ichi Terashima, University of the Ryukyus at :
http://www.debito.org/PALE/PALEautumn99.html#tomei

New School at Miyazakidai Station

Just saw a new school has opened at the station. There already is a NOVA scam eikaiwa school there, but with luck this school will be successful. There are many small, privately run language schools in Japan, many of which are owned and staffed by professionally trained teachers--real teachers who could teach in places other than Japan. The cirriculum, the teaching, the service as far as individual attention to students goes is usually much, much, better than the NOVA, Berlitz, GABA eikaiwa chain schools are willing to provide.

There has been an increase over the last several months in people looking to study English. So I suspect that the Japanese economy is really beginning to strengthen, at least until the Japanese government kills it by raising interest rates and taxes. I have had to stop accepting new students, and will be able to become mainly self-employed except for occasionally courses for JAL Academy and a few other very select companies. I hope to keep the part-time fake teaching job at Berlitz until the end of the year to get my vacation and holiday pay. However, I am so eager to start, and eager to drop that "job" that I don't know if I can hold out.

There is a market for people who will really work to learn a language--as is necessary--in Japan and who are not simply looking for a chance to observe and be entertained by a baka gaijin clown. At least I have been finding some. Granted, it is a small group. I will see how long it lasts.