My cousin asked me a few questions on Facebook so I thought I'd start a post here. If you have any questions about Japan, me, Starcraft, Pokemon, Democrats, JET, wedding plans, bento boxes, Ichiro, baseball, coming to visit, teaching or whatever, feel free to ask me anything either on Facebook or in the comments here and I'll answer them.
What is the night life like?
Well, that's a really difficult question to answer. I guess it's about the same as the US. It is what you make of it. My idea of a great time is going out to eat at a nice restaurant or have an and then walking around town to one of the 5 dessert shops in Noheji and getting some absolutely crazy dessert that I'd never be able to find in the States.
I guess the typical US night life of going out to a bar with friends is probably a lot more popular in big cities. In my small town of Noheji, there are plenty of snack bars (place where old men go). Japan's got kind of a darker side to it that I probably shouldn't go in too much to, but lets suffice it to say that women really don't go out much. Rural Japan is pretty conservative.
What age are your students?
In Japan they go to elementary school for 6 years, junior high for 3 and high school for 3. I teach first year high schoolers, or the equivalent of 10th graders for the most part (8 times per week) Then once or twice a week I'll teach 11th or 12th graders. So the 10th graders are 15ish, 11th graders 16ish and 12th graders 17ish.
Do they already speak English, and if not, how do you begin to teach them?
Yea they're good. Starting this year, every student in Japan needs to take an English class. Most elementary and middle schools were already teaching English, so by the time they get to me, they're pretty good at sputtering out things. I'm at a low level high school though, so my students aren't the best. If you go to an academic high school, those students will speak better English than my 9th graders did last year in the US.
Also, what is the time difference from here to there?
Since daylight savings time ended, I am 15 hours ahead of Central Standard time.
Where do you stay?
One great thing about being a teacher in Japan is that the government subsidizes my rent. I thought Japan only had 1 room apartments that were a thousand bucks a month. I have a huge apartment (relatively speaking) in Noheji at a great location (like a 5 minute walk to the train station, a 5 minute walk to the ocean, and a 5 minute bike ride to school.) And it costs me about 300 bucks a month.
How you ended up in Japan and what your life is like there.
Well theres a long story and a short story, I'll start with the short story and if you want me to elaborate on the super long JET application process, I will, but it was quite a bit of work and lots of waiting. To make a long story short, I applied for an awesome program called JET (they hook you up with an apartment, cheap rent, good pay, no taxes, give you lots of support, etc) and was lucky enough to get selected.
My life here is, I guess, pretty normal. When I thought of Japan I always pictured super crowded cities and high tech and what not, but thats not my experience at all. JET places its people in rural areas to teach English, so I'm in a small town of about 12,000 people. It's so amazing, I can't go more than 10 minutes in a store in Noheji (my town) without running into someone who is like "Tomasu-sensei!! Konnichiwa!! Picture ok?" All my students are super nice and energetic and awesome. Other than that though, my days usually go something like this:
1)Wake up around 6ish, eat/workout/shower/waste time on the internet
2)Get to school around 730ish, teachers meeting at 8. Teach a class or two.
3)School ends at about 330 (or I should say, cleaning begins at 3:20, there are no janitors in Japan, the kids clean the school for 10 minutes at the end of each day.
4) More often than not, I go to badminton or basketball club until about 6:30
5) Get home cook dinner, either play starcraft, talk to heather, study japanese.
6) Repeat
Thank you Tom, from Denise! Thanks for the link! I can search this page for more info...
ReplyDeleteThis was a great picture of how the Japan experience is going for you! You live so close to the ocean!
You can imagine I have more questions, but I am not a reporter, just interested in other cultures...LOL I will wait with more questions for now, till I read more of this page/site about your experience.
Ava (my 5yr old daughter)loves NiHao KaiLan, a cartoon on NickJunior. It begins teaching children a few Japanese words, like grandpa, and how to count to three...anyhow, our cultures are obviously blending, as the global economy expands. I think Japanese a tough language. And thier culture a proud one, with etiquettes we do not entertain...as in, they are very polite and respect is a high value. Also, not to ramble on, but my Dad's company (auto parts mfg.) has been bought out by a Japanese outfit. He has traveled there as well.
I got to go , making cookies this am.
Take care, and thanks again!!!!
Oh man that is awesome! I wish I learned a little before I came here, you are definitely correct in that it is a tough language. I have been studying a lot and I still don't know how to say "3 bowls of ramen please." Every time you count objects, you need to add a counter, it's really complicated. I usually just say "ramen...3...please" and they get the idea. The respect thing is definitely hit-or-miss. For the most part, they are very respectful, but just yesterday one of my teachers called on a student to answer a question and he just went off and was like "why do you always call on me? I hate you." But you're obviously going to have a few bad apples, and for the most part, they're very nice.
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