A Letter to a Friend
This is a letter to a friend that I wrote this morning. The bolded statements are his questions. It would really apply to anyone who is looking to apply to the JET Program, so have a look and enjoy!
Yo buddy, sorry I haven’t gotten up with you yet; I’ve been extremely busy here and really just kind of forgot to try and contact you via Skype. Anyway, I’ll start answering your questions one at a time. A warning: I’m a verbose person, so this is going to be long as HELL.
The first thing I want to say though, is the JET motto: Every Situation Is Different (ESID). These are just MY experiences on JET, and every person’s is completely different. You might end up in the middle of Shinjuku (the business district of Tokyo) with a completely subsidized apartment where the Board of Education pays for hookers and blow to be delivered to your room free of charge, or you could end up on some shitty island a thousand miles away with four cows and three humans and pay $500 a month in rent. ESID.
1. How much Japanese did you know before you got there? Would it be a big deal if I got there not really knowing any Japanese?
I got here not knowing ANY Japanese, essentially. I could read hiragana and some katakana, but knew virtually no kanji, and couldn’t speak for shit. Having zero Japanese experience isn’t even an obstacle — it’s a learning opportunity. I got placed in what is perhaps the most difficult placement for a JET that doesn’t know Japanese, so it was sink or swim for me. Really, that’s the best way, because it forces you to learn the language. You’ll do just fine not speaking the language, as the Japanese are quite literally the friendliest and most accomodating people on Earth.
I DO, however, recommend learning hiragana and katakana, but at LEAST katakana before coming. It is the syllable alphabet for “loan words”, a.k.a. English with a crippling Japanese accent. With katakana, you’ll be able to order off of menus, and get drinks with some practice, all without knowing any Japanese. It’s like a puzzle. Want some french fries? Look for フライドーポテトス (fu-ra-i-do-po-te-to-su). Want a coke? Look for コーラ (ko-ra). It’s all quite fascinating, actually.
2. Did you end up in a city or a more rural area when you got there? What are the pluses and minuses of both?
I live in a rural area. Wait, scratch that, I live in an EXTREMELY rural area. I’m on the island of Oshima, which is full of old people and high school students. There’s only about 8500 people here, and 60% of them are over 65 years old.
This can be extremely trying, especially for someone as social as I am. There is virtually nobody in my town that is my age, and when you factor in the language barrier as well, it becomes excruciatingly difficult to communicate and connect with people. If you get placed somewhere with no other gaijin (foriegners), you’ll be fine for the first three or four months, as everything is new and exciting, but after that you’ll be extremely lonely for a while, your best friend will be a bottle of Suntory Whiskey, and you’ll hate Japan with all of your heart and soul. But that’s only for a few months. It’s called Culture Shock, and it DOES go away. I had it like a motherfucker.
On the other hand, rural placements do have a lot of perks. For example, you probably won’t have a killer two-hour train ride for a commute. Your house/apt will be bigger and you’ll pay a fraction of what your city counterparts will pay (I pay $135 a month in rent. My friends in Musashimurayama-shi on the mainland pay $600, and their places are literally about a third the size of mine). You’ll also be forced to learn Japanese, because there probably won’t be other foreigners around to speak English to (this is a trap that many foreingers fall into. I know people that have lived here for ten years and only speak to other foreigners — they can’t even order a beer in Japanese.)
City placements will keep you stimulated, social, and sane, but they will also make you broke, and your life will be a lot more complicated. You’ll probably ride the train to work eaaaaaarly in the morning, and you’ll probably fall into the trap of only being friends with foreigners.
If you want a challenge and really want to experience JAPAN and learn Japanese, I’d say go for a rural placement. If you want to party with a bunch of foreigners and have an active nightlife and stuff, I’d say go with a city.
Remember though, ESID.
3. Do you mainly teach grammar? Is it fun to teach?
I NEVER teach grammar. All of my classes are Oral Communication classes, and that will probably be the same for you too. Here’s a warning: you will more than likely be used as a human tape recorder and no more. I get a lot of freedom in my classes to do what I want, but most people do not. I’ve heard that it’s extremely difficult for people who are REAL teachers in America (you) to adapt to this style of “teaching”. ESID.
4. What are your students like?
Remember all those stereotypes of Japanese students being hyper-studious and well-behaved? Reverse them. Most of them are little godless heathens that would like nothing more than to see you spontaneously combust. There is literally NO discipline system. You can’t suspend a kid, you can’t give a kid detention. Hell, you can’t even send them to the principal’s office since it’s a federal offence if you remove the kid from the classroom. They can be complete fucks with impunity. This leads to the strange fact that corporal punishment is tolerated here to an extent, especially in rural communities. You would NEVER instigate it, however, but your JTE (Japanese teacher of English) might. Just a warning.
If you make your material interesting, and you connect with the kids, however, you will really earn their attention and it will pay off. Japanese students are like cats — you really have to earn their love, and if you don’t, they won’t listen to you at all. On the other hand, many of them are incredibly motivated and really want to learn. Those are the reason that you teach, and it’s awesomely rewarding when your kids start making sentences.
Japanese students will be EXTREMELY frustrating in the beginning, since they almost never answer questions in class. They are sheep that only do things once other people start doing them. If you ask a student a question, silence is an absolutely acceptable answer in this culture. They’re not being disrespectful, but it sure as hell feels like it. Some of my classes have a lot of energy and are quite fun, but some won’t even answer “How are you?”
You’ll want to reach out and smack little Yuki when she’s concentrating into her mirror like a surgeon fixing her split ends in class, and you’ll want to strangle Takeshi when he’s talking on his cell phone, but those urges will die down somewhat as time goes on and you get used to it.
5. What about bullshit and red tape? (there always is some)
Japan is absolutely notorious for its bureaucracy. There is so much red tape in Japan that sometimes you’ll want to strangle yourself. You won’t have to deal with a lot of it, as your school takes care of everything from insurance to your visa stuff, but you’ll get frustrated a lot. Japanese people do NOT like to bend rules. If something goes wrong, it’s on the person that authorized it, and that can have very serious social and economic consequences to that person. In order to understand this way of thinking, you need to have a deep understanding of Japanese culture and thinking, which I couldn’t hope to explain here.
We do, however, posess amongst our many special-gaijin-powers (such as the ability to become an instant celebrity wherever we go, or the ability to date a girl that is waaaaay out of your league), the extremely useful and important “Gaijin Smash”. Basically, it’s the ability to smash our way through Japanese society and bureaucracy with no regard to Japanese cultural norms or customs. You won’t lose much face by doing it (even though a Japanese person would likely be ostracized), and you’ll get results. You just have to be aggressive. Be the short-skirt-long-jacket girl — use a machette to cut through red tape. You’ll learn that it’s MUCH better to ask forgiveness than permission here.
6. Where did you live when you first got there? Where do you live now?
I’ve been living in the same apartment ever since I moved to Japan. I’m an islander, mon!
7. How much cash should I have at hand to get started out there?
I recommend about $2,000. There’s a small chance that you’ll have to pay something called “key money”, which is 100% Japanese and is basically legalized extortion on the part of the landlord. You pay two month’s rent as a sort of non-refundable deposit to thank the landlord for letting you move in, on top of a month’s rent for the security deposit. You’ll also have to have enough cash to make it through the first month of your stay in Japan. You may have no furniture, refridgerator, air conditioner (a MUST if you live in the south), or water heater. Your startup costs can easily reach $3,000 or more. On the other hand, you might have an apartment that was already fully furnished by your predecessors.
HUGE ESID here. My place was fully furnished, I had no key money or deposit, I was given a car, and when I arrived they handed me an envelope with $1,500 worth of yen in CASH. For absolutely no reason. ESID ESID ESID ESID.
8. Tips about the application process?
We’ll talk more about this later — your references and Statement of Purpose are the most important parts. Basically, the ability to complete the INSANELY COMPLICATED application without error is your first part. They want to see if you can cope with living in Japanese society. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and you’ll be fine.
Don’t write Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto in your placement requests. You won’t get them. Make sure in your SOP you focus on how adaptable you are. Make sure you answer all of the three criteria in the SOP in their ENTIRETY, and DON’T go over the limit on it. Get GOOD references from people and professors that know you well. The deadline is VERY SOON, so I would ask for them TODAY. It takes a lot of work to write a good letter of reccomendation, and you’ll need two. If you already have them, good for you, if you don’t, you might be a little screwed as the deadline is in a couple of weeks.
9. **Most Importantly** You know me, man. Would I like it there? Would I learn some cool shit?
Regardless of what happens, it’ll be the adventure of a lifetime. You’ll stumble, you’ll fall, you’ll make a complete ass out of yourself so many times that you’ll be desensitized to it. You’ll meet hundreds of new and awesome people, be exposed to shit you’d never expect, eat shit you’d never eat, and basically turn your world upside-down. You’ll hate it, you’ll love it, and you’ll never want to leave, even though you’ll always want to leave. It’s a riot learning a new culture and a language, and you’ll be more frustrated than you ever have in your life, but you’ll also come out way better as a person because of it.
ESID, but I can sure as hell tell you that you’re going to come out a much better, more risillient, and more adaptable of a person. You’ll also see your own homeland and language in a much different way. I’m coming home for Christmas this year, and I’m frankly terrified of what I’m gonig to discover there. Maybe home is here in Japan now. I can’t imagine having to lock my door again, or watch my back at night, or not being able to leave my wallet out on the table at a restaurant when I go to the bathroom.
One of the major downsides of living in a foreign country is that you’ll never again be completely content wherever you are, and that’s a serious thing to consider. Your heart will be forever divided and part of you will want to go wherever you’ve lived in the past. I want to return to America so badly, but I know that as soon as I get back, I’m going to go through culture shock again, and I’m going to want to be back in Japan.
Anyway, I hope I answered some of your questions. Do it man, it’s only a yearlong commitment that you can stretch longer if you want. You have your whole life to live in America, you might as well spend a few years somewhere else first. Jump in, buckle up, and get your airsick bag ready, because you’re going to be in for one hell of a ride.
We should really talk on the phone soon; I think it’ll be easier to convey some of this stuff and I can help you with the ludicrously complicated application process.
Later,
Tyler