Being a Foreign Teacher in Japan: Part 3. Adjusting to a new city.
Happy Saturday friend! Yesterday was my lovely little fur baby’s birthday! Her name is Waffles and she turned two years old. She got to play all day with her best friends at day camp where they threw her a birthday party and gave her toys and treats to take home. She had so much fun that she was completely wiped out when we arrived home. I am happy that she had a wonderful time.
Last week, we talked about my experience during my training week and my struggle to bond with the other foreign teachers which ended with my arriving at the train platform of my new city with no one to greet me.
I had been told by the trainers that my new manager would be on the train platform waiting for me to show me to my company-provided apartment and to help me complete some paperwork and get a cell phone. So when I arrived and the entire platform cleared without anyone by myself still standing there with my luggage, my panic button was triggered pretty quickly. I had no other option but to wait. I had been in Japan for an entire week and for the first time, I was completely alone. I had no cell phone, and no idea where I was or how to navigate around yet. I had no other option but to wait.
Fortunately, I only ended up waiting about 20 minutes. My manager was running late and was in a total panic when a shorter-than-average woman with a bob and glasses came running down the stairs to meet me. One of her other errands had caused a delay in the schedule and since she couldn’t contact me, she was also equally panicked. I later learned that this is a near-constant state of being for this woman. She was promoted to manager because she was the best teacher available in the school when the previous one left and not because she had any leadership or managerial skills. This often led to her constant state of anxiety, panic, and serious disorganization. (Hence the 20-minute delay.) She showed me to my new apartment for the year and introduced me to the other foreign English teacher living in elsewhere the building.
My school was busy enough to warrant two teachers. When I was offered employment with AEON Amity, I was informed there would be another foreign teacher at the school I had been assigned. I was happy with that information because I was hoping that the other teacher would want to travel and see Japan together with me. I had been hoping for a friend through this very new experience. The other teacher, whom we shall call Ellie (Name changed to protect all involved) was a cheerful young woman maybe only a year or two older than myself. She was nearing the end of her contract with the company and had chosen not to continue with a second year. I was only going to have a few months of working together with Ellie before she would leave and another new teacher would come to replace her. She made it immediately clear to me that she had already done a lot of her traveling around Japan and was not interested in sightseeing together with me during weekends. I must admit, that I was extremely disappointed when she said that to me. I felt like I was immediately rejected just because my timing wasn’t right. It was a tough pill to swallow after hoping for a friend in this experience for many months prior.
I met the rest of the staff at the school on the first day of classes, and presented my American omiyage (We were required to bring treats and gifts from our home countries to give to the staff members at the school) and it turned out the previous teacher had been promoted to a dispatch teacher that goes to schools where the NET (Native English Teacher) cannot complete their contract and teach there until a new teacher comes to replace him. He got his start at my school and I had very large shoes to fill. No pressure. He spent the week transitioning he lessons over to me, showing me the ropes at the school and at the end of the week I had over completely with several notes from him of course.
Something to note that was contradictory about teaching: Japanese society expects teachers to discipline students and not parents to do it. Unless you are foreign. If you are a foreign teacher, you are absolutely not allowed to discipline at all under any circumstance. If a child is disruptive, it is your fault for not being entertaining enough. If you are lucky enough to have a competent manager who will support you, then they can help you establish healthy boundaries about what you can do if a classroom or student is difficult to manage. I did not have that. I just had to rely on the 1-week training I received and nothing more.
Golden week came up pretty quickly after that. For me it felt like it happened almost immediately that year and because I had just barely gotten settled, I did not have time to make any plans for sight seeing. One of the Japanese teachers who we shall call Susan (changing names again) had also started at the same time I had invited me to tour a Japanese garden and temple across the Seto-Ohashi bridge with her parents. I was super happy to join her and really thankful to be included in their day trip. This bridge connects Kyushu island to Shikoku island and is an impressive feat of engineering. Its one of the longest bridges in the world.
We stopped at a rest stop and got vendor food. I tried a bacon-wrapped fish stick. The flavor was good but the texture was new for me and very… different. Basically the fish gets pureed and turned into a stick shape and creates this really chewy texture that I found I wasn’t a fan of. I have since tried Asian-style fish sticks and I’m still not thrilled with the texture. So I think it’s just a me thing. But this was my first encounter with it.
From there we visited a beautiful mountaintop temple in Kagawa prefecture. The view is the absolute best because you can see the city and the ocean from the top. Everywhere you looked there was a beautiful view. One of the things I love about Japan is that places like mountaintops often have a public space like a temple or a park for people to be able to access. The land isn’t completely overrun by developers or millionaires trying to claim everything for themselves. Beautiful and accessible places are everywhere in Japan and you can tell people really value and appreciate these places. It’s one of the many things I loved when I was over there.
Our last big stop on this day trip was visiting the Ritsurin Garden, a traditional Japanese garden. The layout is really well done at this place and the path through the garden is spacious in a way where you don’t really have people ahead of you on the path obscuring your view of the garden. This place was also my first time seeing Koi fish and there were fish food sticks you could buy and break apart to feed them with. It really was a lovely day trip with Susan and her family. We ate at a restaurant before heading back and I tried corn soup for the first time that day too. I also learned you cannot make substitutions on set menu items, even if the restaurant has the item available on a different meal. (Slight culture shock but hey, I was new at this.) We had such a great day that I ended up falling asleep on the car ride back to Kurashiki. I thanked them as sincerely as I could for bringing me along with them.
I spent the rest of Golden Week exploring my new city and exploring Okayama since I was only a 20-minute train ride away. I hadn’t worked very long so I didn’t have much money to travel the way I wanted to. I also can’t quite remember if my manager had taken me to open a bank account and get a phone yet at this time either. Which of course you have to purchase yourself and purchase your internet package or wifi device. All were expenses I didn’t know to consider until I had to pay for them immediately.
After Golden Week had finished and work resumed, I tried to connect further with Susan at work since she had shown me so much kindness. I wasn’t sure if she was struggling to find her feet the same way I was or if she was really busy, but she seemed to give me the cold shoulder after that. She was always too busy or didn’t seem interested in talking to me much when we had a moment. I found out after the fact that the Japanese teachers working in my branch were given specific instructions to not become friends with the NETs. Susan had likely been scolded for that day trip and possibly threatened with job loss over it.
More about that next week.
-Kristen
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