Nationality: UK
Hometown: Manchester, England
Time in Japan: 18 years
What brought you to Japan originally? And how long did you originally intend to stay?
I was “underemployed” at home, working part-time jobs in the local college and in a mail-order distribution center. I’d been toying with the idea of going to teach in Japan for a couple of years and had applied for the JET program while at university, but I got turned down for that. Eventually I found a job with an eikaiwa that was willing to sponsor my visa, in a city called Fukuoka, which I’d never heard of, and I bought a one-way ticket, expecting to stay for two years.
AC: Sounds familiar. This was a common storyline for many foreigners when I came to Japan in the early ‘90s. Not so anymore.
How long did you end up living in Japan?
Eighteen years. By the end of my first year’s contract I had made several friends with much better jobs than mine and I decided to hold on until a job came up at one of their companies and then stick it out for another year with a better company. My next company was a pretty good one, I enjoyed it and got promoted a couple of times, I ended up staying there for 8 years.
While working there I applied for university work and was turned down because my eikaiwa experience wasn’t what they were looking for, so I moved to another eikaiwa that did more test-based courses. I also went back to university online to get an MA in English, after which I finally got a full-time university post.
AC: Online degrees, or distance-learning courses, really saved a lot of people’s bacon in the late ‘90s and early Noughties. I can easily name a dozen friends who got their MAs this way, many of whom now have proper careers, teaching at universities here. Had that not been an option, I wonder where they would all be today.
What did you do for work while you were there?
Pretty much all the possible variations on teaching English as a foreign language: kids, seniors, university, kindergarten, public schools, one-to-one tutoring for JHS and HS students . . .
What were the positive/negative aspects of your time in Japan?
Fukuoka was a fantastic place to live, I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have stayed as long if my initial posting had been to Tōkyō or out in the wilderness. I made great friends and enjoyed a good salary for not much professional stress.
However, being in the expat community in Japan meant mixing with many people who were very similar to me: white, English-speaking, highly-educated (in the Humanities), reasonably affluent, somewhat liberal 30-to-50-year-olds. Had I stayed in the UK for those eighteen years, I would have worked and mixed with a much more varied group of peers and I feel I may have missed out because of that. The visa requirements in Japan, coupled with Japanese prejudice against candidates who do not conform to their preferred image of foreign professionals mean that diversity is severely lacking.
A.C. This is one of the comments that really caused me to pause and think. Was it the same for me? At Kate’s farewell party, it’s true that most of the people there were other white Westerners doing pretty much the same thing she had been doing. I knew them or at least knew of them, but wasn’t really close to most. The people I am close to are for the most part outside of the system—and that may be one reason my career is sputtering today. I have failed to network with those people. But then, I never came to Japan to hang out all the time with people who looked and spoke like me.
Kate’s other point—Japanese prejudice against candidates who do not conform to their preferred image of foreign professionals—is worth repeating. The Japanese certainly do have a weakness for appearances, and people, including foreigners, can get locked into types merely because of how they look. An easy way, a friend once told me with disgust, to get hired by a Japanese university is to be a “professional Englishman”, that is to pretend to be the type of “English gentleman” that conforms to their fantasies about what they look and act like. Professors of English Literature here just gobble that shite up. I think the prejudice is another reason why so many foreign “professors” have a certain look: slim, nerdy, bald or balding, diffident to the point of being ineffectual. Japanese universities just can’t seem to get enough of these malleable gaijin.
How long had you been thinking of leaving Japan before you actually left?
Vaguely for about three years, seriously for eighteen months.
What motivated the move? Was it difficult for you to say good-bye?
Having decided that I wasn’t going to retire and live in Japan permanently, it was an easy decision to pick a date to work towards. I wanted to complete my contract and finish the school year without leaving any loose ends, and also plan ahead to close down my rented apartment and make sure everything was fully paid-up before I left.
Also, my parents are getting old and I wanted to be closer to them. Watching some of my friends and colleagues deal with family emergencies on the other side of the world, I came to the conclusion that it was time for me to make the decision and get on with planning my departure. The alternative was that eventually one of my parents would succumb to poor health and I would, in all likelihood, drop everything and go home. I didn’t want to leave under such circumstances, so I picked a finishing date and started to make concrete plans.
A big part of deciding to leave was the employment situation. All the universities want up-to-date CVs with recent peer-reviewed publications, advanced degrees, and several years’ experience. Yet, they were all offering limited-term contracts that would not be made permanent. Looking ahead, I worked out that that meant 8 years’ experience, 2 graduate degrees, and 6 published papers may or may not get me another entry-level lecturing post on the same 4-million-yen salary, at a university further away. And after that, 12 years’ experience and 9 papers, for yet another entry-level position. I decided I was not going to play that game, go home and get a real job that I could do for as long as I liked.
AC: I came to a similar conclusion myself. It’s just not worth it, especially after you’ve hit fifty and have kids.
It was hard to say goodbye to friends, but leaving my job was easy, and being back in my hometown is wonderful.
Did you return to your hometown or did you move somewhere else?
Hometown, I wanted to be close to my aging parents.
People often talk of “reverse culture shock”. How has the adjustment been for you?
No problem. I planned to return to the UK and I did it on my own terms. I had over a year to prepare for my return and it all went smoothly.
A.C. I have great respect for what Kate was able to do. Exceptionally well thought-out.
Do you miss your life in Japan? If yes, what do you miss? If no, why not?
I miss my friends. I miss some of my favorite hangouts, and I miss some of the shops. I miss being able to cycle everywhere and I miss having a full-time salary with 4 months’ holiday every year. I miss some of the restaurants because Japanese food is not big in Manchester, and I miss the reliable public transport.
I miss having a big, hot bath in the changing room at the gym.
However, I don’t miss teaching English, and I don’t miss being a foreigner in a place where it’s OK to point, comment loudly (because foreigners can’t understand anyway), and openly discriminate in the workplace.
AC: In an annual letter home to family and friends, I made a similar observation: I’m tired of being a gaijin. After two decades, it has gotten old.
What do you like about where you are living now?
The climate is great. Britain has a reputation for being cold, and it is certainly colder than Asia and much of Europe, but humidity is low, insects don’t survive the winter, “air-conditioning” means “opening the window”, and you can walk (or run!) for miles during the day without passing out from heat exhaustion.
I don’t have to shop at Costco because the supermarkets have everything I’m looking for, but in more reasonably-sized packs.
I don’t have to buy clothes online, I can go to any high street or mall and buy clothes for a last-minute interview/party/run. I can buy shoes!
I live in a brick house with insulated walls, double-glazing and central heating. The temperature inside is not the same as the temperature outside. I rarely hear my neighbors.
Where do you go from here?
Staying in the Manchester area, looking for an interesting job that is completely unrelated to teaching, hoping to buy a house in the not-too-distant future. My wanderlust has departed, I’m not interested in living abroad again.
AC: So much of what Kate shared really hit home, especially in light of how things would turn out for me at the university where I had been teaching full-time.
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