@Bbvoncrumb: I understand what you’re saying, though I gotta be honest, it’s incredibly disappointing to see that it’s like that. As much as I love Japan, I personally think that way of thinking is inexcusable for such a developed country.

But I realise there’s now’t much I can change about that. Japan is apparently still obsessed with that infantile notion that foreigners are somehow incapable of functioning in Japan. That’s really quite sad. Really, all I wanted was to spend my life like anyone else in Japan.

I honestly had absolutely no problem with doing the average salaryman thing and staying in a company for several years like you said. I actually quite like that way of working and was looking forward to it, it’s one of the things that attracted me to Japan. But I guess it won’t really be an option for me because I’m not “Japanese” enough. I’m not sure what I have to do to prove to them that I just want to live a normal Japanese life despite my foreign face.

I’m 24 years old, I’m still “young”, but I’m not getting any younger. I don’t want to waste my time learning to go teach English, that’s just not what I want to do with my (hypothetical) life in Japan. But if that’s seriously all that’s going to be available to me no matter how hard I try just because of my heritage, then I guess I should just forget about this fool’s errand. Sod learning Japanese, sod all this effort for nothing, and I had better learn to like Western life. In the meantime, I really hope Japan grows up a bit.

@kanjiman8: I completely understand and agree with your point, mate. Admittedly, when I wrote that I was a little upset and venting. I understand that it is their country to run as they see fit and they have no requirement to placate foreigners instead of their own people.

Truth told, learning Japanese was never a hobby for me. It was always a means to an end (that end being living in Japan). To me it was much more than just understanding anime, or going on holiday, or bragging rights; it was the tool by which I would change my life. If that goal is gone, then I honestly have no use for learning it any more.

I became upset because I always tried to fool myself into thinking I could do it. Putting forth a lot of time, effort, and money towards a goal and having reality punch me in the face is a really bad feeling. My reaction was immature I admit, but I’m just frustrated a bit because this always seems to happen to me.

Gigatron:
@kanjiman8: I completely understand and agree with your point, mate. Admittedly, when I wrote that I was a little upset and venting. I understand that it is their country to run as they see fit and they have no requirement to placate foreigners instead of their own people.

Truth told, learning Japanese was never a hobby for me. It was always a means to an end (that end being living in Japan). To me it was much more than just understanding anime, or going on holiday, or bragging rights; it was the tool by which I would change my life. If that goal is gone, then I honestly have no use for learning it any more.

I became upset because I always tried to fool myself into thinking I could do it. Putting forth a lot of time, effort, and money towards a goal and having reality punch me in the face is a really bad feeling. My reaction was immature I admit, but I’m just frustrated a bit because this always seems to happen to me.

Stop crying, get a job teaching english, get a regular working visa and get the job you want.

period.

@ Gigatron
Seriously, don’t give up. It will only batter your confidence and self esteem in other aspects of life. It sounds like you put too much hope on Japan and living and working there. Life isn’t easy. Like anyone else, I have my up days and my down days too. We all have to climb the ladder to get to where we want to be. If you really want something bad enough and you have the right commitment, motivation and dedication then there’s nothing stopping you acheiveing what you want. That might sound like a cheesey cliche but it’s true. That right there separates the ones who talk/dream about something to the ones that actually do it.

Listen to what Kiai and other people like him have gone through to get to where they want to be.

@ Kiai
It sounds like your having a great time over there. What you said about learning Japanese is true too. I first got interested in learning it five years ago when I was 19. It’s only til a few months ago I finally knuckled down and stopped putting it off. I feel I’ve lost five years of studying. Your a credit to have on the forum and an inspiration.

@Gigatron

To get a job in a country that doesn’t speak English you really need to know the language, sure there are exceptions, but for a normal job in Japan, you need to speak Japanese, the interview will be in Japanese, the forms to fill out, etc. will be in Japanese. And they’ll expect you to speak Japanese.

I lived in France for some years working for a American company in France, I worked entirely in English, it was an exception, but there were no other jobs for me when I left the company in France because I was lousy at French.

Don’t get disheartened because it is hard, anything worth doing is hard, one of the things you learn as you grow up is very little meets your expectations, but you learn to manage your expectations, maybe your view of Japan wasn’t entirely realistic, I doubt many people’s are, but that doesn’t mean real Japan is any less interesting or exciting, or worthy of study.

Now what people say here may well be true, but it doesn’t mean its not possible to get a job in Japan, its just hard, and yes there it is again, another hard thing but if its worth doing its hard.

A lot of people look for an easy way to do something, if there is not one they give up. The people who really change the world, become great individuals, achieve their dreams, are those who work hard, its not that they are gifted or intelligent or geniuses only they don’t give up.

In life there are lots of let downs, and disappointments, but don’t let them stop you, sure they may make you feel sad or down, but just get past them and carry on. Heres a truth people who work hard and get stuff done, they get these things too disappointments, sadness, depression etc. but you force yourself past it and carry on.

Here’s a story about a girl called Ichigo, when she was young cartoons used to have morals and stories and meanings, and you would learn things from them, like the eye of Thundara is always right, and never take drugs. Anyway when Ichigo grew up she decided that there were lessons everywhere you could learn lessons from anything, especially cartoons, well some cartoons anyway.

Anyway there was this time Ichigo was feeling really bad her boyfriend had broken up with her and she felt wretched and angry and sad and disappointed etc. etc. And as she no longer had a boyfriend who used her to do everything and never gave anything back to her ever she had some spare time on her hands. So she caught up with her Anime watching.

She watched Aria, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Aria, I recommend you do, its totally rad, whilst she watched this series, she was always feeling tense, something bad was going to happen, she never felt so incredibly tense as when watching Aria.

But in Aria nothing bad ever happens, its a really NICE anime, like super nice fluffy snuggly, and Ichigo realised that she was always expecting bad things to happen, every time Akari did something stupid, she expected her to be raped to stabbed or killed or something bad but it never happened.

Ichigo had a mindset of bad things, of negativity, so much so that she couldn’t watch this Anime without being incredibly negative. But watching Aria soothed her soul she realised that not everything will turn out bad, not all things are awful, and ultimately if you look at life expecting bad things you’ll see bad things.

So Ichigo became a better person because she came to understand herself better as a person, Aria taught her that life is seen through your own senses, but also through your own thoughts, the way you see and think, you create a filter for life, and if your filter is lousy your life is lousy, so you need to adjust your filter, so instead of searching for bad things to happen, maybe search for good things instead. Don’t ignore the fact bad things might happen but don’t let it be your go to reaction. Smile more, think of things that make you happy, and smile.

Once when Ichigo was feeling down, walking along a street and a cute boy smiled at her, she must of looked terrible, frowning and miserable, hunched over walking, but he smiled at her, and it lifted her day, a single smile, changed the way she felt. So she decided to smile more.

So Gigatron, don’t give up, just because things don’t work out the way you want, sure it always happens like this for you, it always happens like this for everyone, but the difference is how you react, take the beating and keep going, its like that manga I once read and gave to a friend, you’re a small kid, being trained by your master and the big strong russian-american sailor wants to fight you and he’s so big and strong and he’s called DICK STEINER. but you keep fighting and keep getting the crap beaten out of you, but then you realise you can use his strength against him, and then you beat him and then your sensei praises you and everything is ok.

When I get down, after feeling sorry for myself for a bit, I just get more determined, and try harder, somewhere somehow, I will find the hidden technique to beat DICK STEINER. And you can do it to.

Its time to not just learn Japanese, but learn about yourself and transform yourself into the person you want to be, its tough, you may not have much material to work with, but you can do it, we believe in you.

@KiaiFighter Sounds like you’ve really liked your experience teaching at an eikawa. I hear a lot of mixed messages about working for eikawas because, apparently, some can be brutal. Do you have any advice or strong opinions one way or the other?

I keep looking into different options to get to Japan to teach English, but it’s been kind of confusing to navigate. From what a friend of mine who’s teaching public school right now through Interac says, a lot of the kaishas don’t pay well enough to guarantee I’ll be able to cover all the expenses I’ll have and still save a bit on top. Apparently Interac is good.

I do know I’m qualified to teach, both in Japan and the US. Well, in the US I’m qualified only at the college level or as a tutor, but adjunct faculty positions kind of work out to minimum wage at best when you throw in all the work hours required outside the classroom. I think in a lot of cases it’s more like sub-minimum wage, and no benefits. it’s kinda sad when I make a lot more per hour as a concierge than I would actually using my degree.

@KiaiFighter, kanjiman8, クリス, and Andrew: First off I want to thank you all, for the sound advice, the uplifting words, the perspective, and the tough love. It really does mean quite a lot to read it all. Cheers, lads.

I want to also clear things up a bit, I most certainly do not expect that I should get hired in Japan with no knowledge of the language; even in the beginning I knew that was the case. The plan was always to get as close to fluent as possible before even setting foot in Japan, let alone apply for work. I have some prior experience with this, having worked very hard to attain native-level English so I could better integrate in the UK (and then the US). In fact I know that many expats that go to Japan eschew learning Japanese, and then become troublesome about it, I always hated that, and was determined to become the exception.

If I was an employer, say in the UK, and some bloke applied who clearly couldn’t speak English, I’d never even consider hiring him, and rightly so.

But, if an immigrant (let’s say, a Japanese person) who displayed a more than competent command of the language (that is, he’s maybe got a bit of an accent, but he’s clearly fluent or close enough to it), and I turned him down on the grounds that “You wouldn’t understand our culture” or “We’re only looking for white Europeans”, then I’d get some very dirty looks, also rightly so.

And that’s what I’m so afraid of. That after working hard to learn the very best Japanese I could, and demonstrating a desire to integrate culturally as best as possible, that I’d still get turned away for most jobs, simply because of my race. They’d be well within their rights to do so, with that I don’t disagree, but it’d be a hell of a kick in the rear just the same.

That being said, I will most certainly take your advice to heart, and do some thinking about what exactly it is I’m going to do.

Also I apologise to the OP for hijacking his thread. Sorry, mate.

@gigatron

One thing to consider is the saying “shame on the road can be written off.”

What the hell is that about?

Well say you go to another country and you do something stupid, you can just go home and hey it all happened somewhere else.

People do this all the time, when I lived in France people I worked with would avoid paying their parking tickets because they had UK number platers and the system didn’t work, they’d avoid paying tax when they moved back to england or somewhere, because they weren’t 100% or 50% or whatever devoted to their lives they could just go to France take what they wanted and leave what they didn’t.

Now this isn’t really fair to the people of France, or people who follow rules, its rude, and it causes all kinds of problems, and its something which causes tensions between natives and foreigners in many countries.

This is something that occurs in Japan, Gaijin go there with high expectations, get them dashed do something stupid, and ultimately they just go home and leave a mess to be cleared up. As a Gaijin, you will be painted with the same brush as those that have come before you and made a mess and caused problems, as such its an uphill battle to get people to look past their pre-conceptions to the real you.

That said its not all doom and gloom people have gone there without knowing Japanese, or having a plan and just muddled through and managed to get on with it.

Rule 1 is never listen to anything anyone says on the internet (unless its said by me; obviously) because they’re all gits and all wrong, and you go out there and prove them all wrong.

Maybe just maybe they are right sometimes, not on purpose, by accident of course, but hey, its science. you need to confirm that these laws still hold, every confirmation of the laws of existence is important incase you empirically find out they’re not true.

Now part of what makes getting a job in Japan hard is the above kind of prejudice, people have been burned before when some gaijin has cut and run when the going gets tough.

Also in japan, its tough to get a job anyway. As part of a persons natural patriotism they may want to help out their fellow countrymen, which is a pretty understandable sentiment.

Also dealing with gaijin can be tough, those pesky names, and funny ideas, even with good Japanese maybe there are communication problems, (e.g. one of you was brought up by coal, and has no idea of propriety)

I’d say these are the big things to look to work on to convince potential employers.

Learning Japanese is a good way to show you have committed, as well as learning the social and cultural things.

But you know its all well and good to do all this work, n stuff but you need to put it into action, get your hands dirty.

Oh and friends are useful too, its my experience that friends can really help you out in a bind, I’m no expert myself on them but they seem useful. Some Japanese friends could really come in useful, they might get you a job or recommend you to someone, saying this gaijin is an ok gaijin.