It's been an amazing two years but it's finally time for me to say goodbye. I'm taking off tomorrow and the notion of leaving you has been as been as surreal as coming.
From stepping off the plane to learning how to navigate your transit lines; from teaching English to your engineers to teaching breakdancing to the your children; from visiting your sites to showing visitors around your cities; from surviving inaka to surviving the earthquake.
You've taught me more about the world and also about myself. I can't thank you enough for what you've done. April 6th 2009 through March 25th, 2011 marks a life-changing journey that I'll never forget.
When I accepted the job as an English teacher in Japan, I thought of our contracts as projects with two stakeholders: ALT's/(Foreign) English teachers and students. Over the course of my 2 years, I learned that not only are there more, but that we also have different priorities, stakes and interests:
ALT's/Foreign English Teachers - We come for a variety reasons but to summarize, we're mostly here to teach the youth and explore another culture.
Students - While they don't directly have a say in things, students are the cornerstone of the these contracts. Possibly unbeknownst to them, their stake is in improving their English communication and learning about diversity.
Japanese English Teachers - JTE's interest is to effectively utilize foreign English teachers to ensure that students can pass the English portion of tests that transition them into the next chapter of their lives. For high school, this might mean the English portion of a student's university, technical school or workforce entrance exam. In junior high school, it means passing the English portion of their high school entrance exams. For elementary school, though there's no test, it means setting the baseline that that junior high school education starts from.
School Staff (Japanese teachers of other subjects, administrative staff, maintenance staff) - For them, it's less academic, and more along the lines of being cultural ambassadors and professionals. Their interest is in making sure that we foreigners get a good impression of Japanese people.
School Heads (Vice Principals, Principals) - Making sure that the school runs smoothly even with the addition of a foreigner who may or may not know anything about Japanese culture and work environments.
Board of Education (B.O.E.) - Making sure that all schools under their jurisdiction run smoothly, while providing enough Foreign English Teachers to adequately serve each school throughout the year.
English Teacher-providing Organizations/Companies - Though they serve the public through their hiring, training and staffing of ALT's/Foreign English Teachers, these organizations--with the exception of the government-sponsored JET program--are businesses, and with that in mind, their number one concern is money (as it should be).
Parents - While not always as visible as the others, parents want to make sure that their children are getting a quality and well-rounded education from the schools, the teachers and even us ALT's/Foreign English Teachers.
Just like in project management, ALT contracts also come with their own stakeholder balancing act. Though there's overlap, it'd be impossible for such a diverse set of interests to not also occasionally bump and collide. It was easy to get wrapped up in my own priorities or focus on just one or 2 other stakeholders. But with so many connected parts, and because I came into contact with all of them on a regular basis, it was important to rememeber that each one had their own vested interest in it all.
If you're not careful, teaching English in a foreign country like Japan can warp your sense of power and identity.
One moment, you're a God amongst men, wowing and dazzling the masses with your heavenly English skills, but the next, you're actualizing your uselessness by asking a second grade elementary school student to repeat his instructions on how to use the coffee machine because you can't read simple Kanji.
The best bet for anyone not staying here for an exceedingly long time is to understand your role, play your part, but recognize the temporary nature of it and not take it to heart.
Here's a clip from my battle at Mukujinken 2on2 Jam in Shinjuku last Friday. It was my first time entering a competition in Japan...
...but hopefully it won't be the last.
There were some ridicuously-dope bboys and bgirls there and it's always cool to see how traditional Japanese culture blends with breaking culture. I uploaded some more clips, including the final battle, here.
A little over 1.5 years ago, I was directly affected by the Great Recession. Then, about 3 weeks after receiving the dreaded pink slip, I accepted a job offer to teach English in Japan.
The decision to leave friends, family and the only country I really knew surprised a lot of people. It seemed haste, like I was jumping headfirst into the unknown. And I guess I was to some extent. But for years I had dreamed of living abroad to get a better sense of the world at large. Before coming to Japan, my only real international exposure had been during a 2-week trip to Nigeria. It opened my eyes a little, but I still couldn't see 20/20. And no matter how much global news I read, I just couldn't really grasp the idea of life outside of the States.
So when the economic downturn handed me lemons, I jumped on it as an opportunity to make green-tea flavored lemonade.
The impact of my decision usually hits through contrasts and comparisons. Talking with people back home, Facebook stalking and following U.S. news all reflect a change in perspective. There's also no better way to learn how much you've assimilated than by having international visitors. It's amazing how quickly you can adjust to the unknown and how fast a previously familiar life can become sort of...foreign.
This is exactly what I was looking for.
Japan is giving me what Tim Ferris (among many others) refer to as a "real world degree". In a blog post about his Real-World MBA strategy, i.e., jumping into angel-investing instead of going to business school, he also throws out ideas for other real-world alternative degrees (e.g., a "Real World Masters in Creative Writing" and a "Real World Masters in Political Science"). By the time I leave this island nation, I will have something of a Real World degree in International Studies.
Gaining this kind of global knowledge is among one of the benefits of time spent outside of America. There's a trade-off, sure, but in return for my temporary life as an expat, I'm receiving real world education on international relations, cultural identity, government, sociology and a bunch of other related fields.
In light of the current attitudes and hate-rhetoric being spread in the U.S., I've come to appreciate the egalitarianism of the ALT industry. In the eyes of the Japanese ALT system, we're all the same.
On January 31st, 2009, I walked into a hotel in L.A. to interview for one of the many teaching positions that my organization was looking to fill in Japan. In the lobby there was also an ex-hedge fund guy from San Francisco, a recent architecture graduate from Portland, a Mississippi native who had previously taught in Japan for 3 years, and a few others. "Wow", I thought. "This is a pretty diverse group. And we're here to interview for the same type of job."
Two months later, I'm sitting in a conference room in Tokyo, training with about 50 other new teachers. We briefly go around the room to introduce ourselves and once again, I can't help but take note of the diversity. There were men and women from all around the world with an assortment of degrees and different levels of exposure to Japan. We represented different countries, religions and races. But we still had one thing in common: we had all been hired to do the same job.
The ALT system in Japan has created an industry unlike anything I've ever known. Nowhere else have I seen this sort of equality. It doesn't matter that I didn't know konnichiwa from oyasuminasai before coming here. In the eyes of the system, I'm exactly the same as the Aussie who speaks the language fluently. We both got hired and are now, in theory, interchangeable.
Today I met a b-boy who is going to be a new English teacher around my old stomping grounds in rural northern Japan.
What's interesting is the way he found me and how much social media played a part in it. He searched Youtube for Ninohe, the name of a city in the area, and found a video I had posted from a dance event hosted there last year. Upon seeing one of my related videos, he discovered that I also bboyed. Then he went to Bboyworld, one of the largest breaking web forums around, searched for the same user name from Youtube, found my profile, and contacted me from there.
From a 90's standpoint, this is the stuff we were warned about; be wary of putting too much information online and being found. But with the change in attitude that's come with the web's acceptance, this is exactly what we hope for.
Rural Japan, with it's declining population of which only a handful of whom speak English, can be a difficult area to settle into, let alone find other b-boys. But by using social media, he was able to find a shortcut: I'll be passing along the info of b-boys, b-girls and English speakers in the area.
What a reminder of the networking power of social media and the web.
And growing up in America, I thought that tipping was universally done (though not always liked), only to find out that it's practically unheard of in Japan. Try leaving a tip on a restaurant table and the wait-staff will chase you down to give you your money back.
These types of dualities are all over the place. They cause you question your beliefs and understanding, but in a good way. Derek Sivers put it best in this short TED clip: "Whatever ideas you may have or hear, the opposite may also be true".
