What you expect: Classrooms filled with studious children, enthusiasm for English, tag team efforts with Japanese teachers, effective curriculum from your amazing brain, and a job well done each day.

What you find upon arrival: Classrooms filled with the screams of not learning, little interest in English, Japanese teachers with their own agenda, and gangs of yankis (bad kids) roaming the halls, telling you to shine (die) every chance they get.

Congratulations! You got placed in a troubled school.

And so did I. Unlike my peers who had great stories about their students’ enthusiasm for life and learning, I had stories about broken windows and broken dreams. When I told people in my town where I worked, they usually said zannen (too bad). In my school, there were 900 students, 24 homerooms, and only five of those homerooms were dependably well-behaved.

There are three ways to go when you experience culture shock this severe.

1. You can become bitter and hate Japan.
2. You can pretend nothing is happening and Japan is still perfect.
3. You can deal with your experiences and grow.

Sadly, I saw option 1 and 2 happen a lot, and they usually happened when the person did nothing. Option 3 is the hardest and is only achieved when you start viewing your bad situation as an opportunity for personal growth.

Easier said than done, right? Incredibly right. Below I will elaborate on 5 practical tips you can use in your tough situation. I admit I am not an expert in Japanese relations or classroom teachonomics, so please compare what I say here with the advice of other people in these situations

But to my credit, I was placed in the biggest school in my town, which also happened to be the most horrible (what luck!). And to speak of the psychological effects, I spoke no Japanese in the beginning and had just come from my first experience in Japan as a teaching intern at Kasukabe Kyoei, which is a high level school filled with well-behaved geniuses.

All that to say, I returned to the U.S. feeling comfortable with my infamous school and loving Japan less as a magic lollipop kingdom and more like an old friend. I hope the tips I used will help you accomplish the same.

1. Re-Define Your Goals

As a brand new ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) I had a few simple objectives: to have meaningful interactions with my students, make them all English experts, and teach them about the wide, wide world (specifically America). Realistically, this is impossible even at a good school. The advantage of a troubled school is that it will crush these dreams for you early on, like so much egg salad sandwich under foot. This is a good thing. You get the opportunity to realistically redefine your goals.

After fruitlessly pursuing my goal of “real teaching” for several months, I learned an important lesson. You can’t teach if it’s not a learning environment. And my school was not that. It’s hard to keep children’s attention when a student is riding his bike on the roof (even I wanted to see that).

The change came when I asked each individual teacher what they needed me to do. I was trying to be a one size fits all ALT for each class and that didn’t work with 24 wildly different homerooms. The Japanese teachers who were my partners knew these classes better than I did, so I became what they needed for each class. This didn’t solve everything. Some teachers wanted me to do virtually nothing, which was not what I wanted. But other teachers wanted me to do puppet shows and make PowerPoint presentations featuring Mega Man. I focused my efforts on them.

This may not seem like a big deal, but I felt better when I was useful. For one teacher, I was literally a bodyguard, batting down papers thrown at her and escorting students back to their seats. It was exhausting, but felt good protecting a sweet old lady from maniacs.

The point is, give yourself a role regarding each teacher and name it, like a job title (For Matsuda-sensei, I am pronunciation manager; for Katayama-sensei, I am a bouncer, etc.). Even if you don’t like the particular role, it will feel better knowing you are being a useful part of the team and give you attainable, satisfying goals.

2. Draw Out Your Good Students

I had two first impressions of my school:

1. My school was insane.
2. All my students were bad.

The first impression remained largely true, but the second was not. In my first week I met four exceptional students, one who is currently attending Waseda University! They were my saving grace, but if I was going to survive, I needed to find more of them.

If I had to guess, I would say my school consisted of 100 yankis, 600 neutral students, and 200 good students (and about three sociopaths). But even with only 100 bad influences, it was enough to keep the insanity percolator at full boil.

But the fact remained, there were 200 good students in there somewhere. Drawing them out was the challenge. Calling on good students or talking to them outside of class worked only sometimes. I eventually noticed they could write English very well, but rarely spoke it and loved passing notes to each other.

Enter: Michael’s Mailbox System. I constructed a large cardboard mailbox and explained the system to each homeroom. The response was overwhelming. I began corresponding with at least 30-40 of the suspected 200 good students and that was enough for me. It gave me at least a few kids in each homeroom I could focus my attention on. This may be seen as playing favorites, but I saw it more as putting my efforts to good use.

Other ideas might be to join a club (good kids open up when not in a classroom environment) or start an English club (you’ll attract the kids who care enough to learn English in their free time).

3. Build Your Personal Confidence

I was pretty nervous about teaching from the get-go. To make matters worse, after my self-introduction speech to the students (during which I mumbled Japanese words I had yet to learn the meaning of) I fell off the stage.

I slipped off the top step and slid down the stairs to the gym floor in front of 1,000 people. That was my school’s first impression of me.

Thankfully, a few days before that, I was sitting at an izakaya with a fellow ALT teacher who was giving me advice. The main thing I remembered her telling me was “freak out the squares.” Basically, fight loud and crazy with loud and crazy.

My glorious hiney slide in front of the 1,000 people was immediately followed by my first lesson ever. Talk about nerve racking. I was only three words into it when a student yelled an obscenity at me and the class fell into uproarious laughter. This was it, I had to freak out the squares. And freak out I did. “My name is…MICHAEL!” I yelled, clicking to my first slide, thankfully a wacky picture of me. The class reacted to my energy. I had them. I was all big noises and big movements. I felt small, but I acted big. When a kid yelled out of turn, I made him my ally in craziness. All in all, it was a fantastic first class.

Granted, this technique did not always work, but it worked surprisingly well most of the time. Recently I found out the reason why.

In a 2012 TED talk, Amy Cuddy exposes a simple truth: our stress and confidence hormones inform how we act, but acting confident reverses the process and informs our chemicals. I didn’t feel powerful, but I acted it and eventually became it (boosting my testosterone and lowering my cortisol). Doing this over long periods actually changes your behavior and your success rate. It’s not “fake it till you make it”, but rather “fake it till you become it”. Amy Cuddy explains it much better than I can.

I now consider being trapped in that crazy school to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. Because I took that first shaky step of power that day, I spent two years becoming a better presenter, which still serves me today.

4. Find Compassion For The Yankis

Yankis were the bane of my existence for a good long while. I mentioned them earlier, but allow me to elaborate here: they are the punks of Japan. Tall orange hair, baggy clothes, and an attitude. They always struck me as silly and never physically dangerous, but they were emotionally degrading and obnoxious. They interrupted my classes, yelled obscenities at me, and wouldn’t leave! They didn’t attend class, yet stayed in the school. That still boggles my mind. If you’re going to skip class, go to the mall! In a nutshell, they were the bad kids.

I hate to admit this, but for a time, I hated the yankis. They targeted me for ridicule, which I deflected but ultimately internalized. My turning point came when I began reflecting on problem students I went to school with and what (probably) made them act out. I didn’t know a lot of details about the yankis, but over time it became apparent that these renegade miscreants didn’t have much to look forward to. Their loud shows of bravado were mostly covers for what they did or didn’t have going for them outside of school.

This made them seem a lot less threatening and a lot more pathetic. And I mean that to say, it gave me sympathy for them.

Sadly, I never found a solution to the yanki’s behavior problems. If 65 teachers couldn’t keep a lid on the situation, it’s unlikely I could have. However, my perspective shift gave me more compassion for them. If they were harassing a student or teacher, I would do my best to stop it. But when they weren’t behaving badly, I didn’t treat them any differently than the other students and I even tried talking to them. It worked a few times. While most remained hostile and insane fools, I found a few good-natured yankis that, for whatever reason, just had no drive to succeed. I still think of them from time to time and hope they have found good things.

5. Understand And Make Peace With The Japanese Way Of Doing School

This goal was the hardest for me to achieve. After my first year, I had formed my conclusion about the Japanese school system: it was wrong and bad and awful! And it didn’t work. And also I hated it. Furthermore, I had the answers to fix all of their problems. But for all my “genius” fixes, I was powerless to change the system.

My anger at the school system had a threefold balm:

1. Many of my creative heroes are products of the Japanese school system, as well as some very wonderful Japanese people who have become my friends. So something was working somehow.
2. The system needed change before I got there, but it wasn’t going to change just because I showed up with my ideas. Even if the schools decide to change based on ideas from Western schools, Japan has to come to that realization and change in its own way.
3. I didn’t attend a bad school in the U.S. but maybe some things that worked for me in my good school were not working for other kids in bad schools. Maybe some changes need to be enacted in my own country’s school system.

Frankly, these epiphanies came to me and took hold very slowly. You will have to wrestle with your grievances against Japanese school yourself and take time to make peace with them. No matter the conclusion you come to, however, you will become a more well-rounded person for spending the emotional energy to deal with these objections.

Here are few exercises you can do to help you wrestle:

• Write down the things you don’t like about the Japanese way of doing school. Acknowledge that these objections are not frivolous. They are your convictions and they matter! Put them away somewhere (a book, a drawer) as an act of setting these grievances aside. You are not destroying or dismissing these feelings you have. That’s why you are keeping them. But you are putting them away in favor of accepting the system for what it is, so your grievances won’t get in the way of your greater mission as an ambassador.
• Read some articles about problems in your own country’s school system. How many were in your blind spot? How many of the problems in Japanese schools may be blindspots to Japanese people?
• Read Koichi’s article on the school system! It outlines what the Japanese way of school is trying to achieve. It helps to know how the system is supposed to work, even if it’s not working in your school.

In The End…

Let me add as I close, that even though my school was crazy and disturbing, I did not feel I was in any physical danger. The tips I outlined are not meant to help you accept or ignore a dangerous situation. If you feel you might be in danger of any physical harm, and this goes for any time in your life, get help or get out of there!

This batch of advice is just to get you started. Read other articles and forum posts by people in these situations. Even if you implement my suggestions, it will take a lot of patience, practice, and soul searching before you figure out what works best for you and your circumstances. You will still have bad days (those never went away for me) but you will deal with them and learn from them much more effectively.

In the end, if you can avoid denial and bitterness, you will find yourself to be a stronger and more holistic person than when you started. It sounds weird to say, but I’m glad I was placed in my insane school. It forced me into situations that built my self-confidence and life skills, as well as brought me face to face with a not-so-easy side of Japan. I was made to wrestle with things that made Japan seem less magical and more like a country filled with human beings. And that is what you will want at the end of your time teaching English, to know that you lived and experienced real Japan.

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Anyone living in Japan can tell you that the words internationalization (国際化›) or globalization (グロバール化) are popular catchphrases now. Schools, companies and wider society are all caught up in this great wave called “Go Global”.

As a foreign student in Japan though, I can’t help but wonder – for a term that has gained such traction, no one has actually defined what  “internationalization” means. At first glance, it may seem like there are many credible attempts at increasing the international input in Japan but the inside story is far more mixed.

In essence, does my presence make my university make it a global institution? Does a good TOEFL score make someone a more global person? Do companies with many foreign employees automatically become global enterprises?

The Background

Right Outside the United Nations University in Tokyo

Let’s start at the background first. The current wave of  internationalization started a few years ago and has been first and foremost driven by economic reasons.

While Japanese car makers have still been doing relatively well, electronics makers have been doing very poorly. Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and Fujitsu have all been facing losses in recent years. The problem is even clearer when contrasted to the successes of Apple, Google and other silicon valley enterprises in the US and Samsung in Korea. After all, while Japanese phones used to be considered as the best – now the the best selling phone in Japan is the iPhone.

Other economic reasons include increasing moves towards free trade (like for example the Trans-Pacific Partnership) which Japan is negotiating about. In addition, a shrinking population has increased the need to increase overseas business for many Japanese firms.

Outside economics, Prime Minister Abe has also stated that it is his aim to put at least 10 Japanese universities in the global top 100 rankings by the end of the decade. The lack of international faculty and a sizable international student body hampers this. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are also another reason for the sense of urgency in internationalization.

So What’s Being Done?

Mikitani Hiroshi, CEO of Rakuten

Japan as a country has realized (belatedly) that a long reliance on a large domestic market, the homogeneity in the workforce and poor language skills have been reasons for stagnation and poor competitiveness. It is because of this that many Japanese firms are increasing their attempts at hiring non-Japanese employees.

Some parts of the business world have also been expanding their operations overseas – and I don’t mean just shifting manufacturing to where it is cheaper. Rakuten’s buying of Viber, Softbank acquiring Sprint Corporation and LIXIL acquiring multiple overseas companies are all examples for a recent trend where Japanese companies purchase foreign ones.

Rakuten in particular deserves special attention because they have made their company language English. As Japan Times reported, even internal meetings are to be held in English. Both praise and criticism have been directed at it though – Honda’s (yes the car maker’s) president once called the plan “stupid”.

Universities have also come under pressure to develop  global leaders and “internationally capable manpower”. Many have for example, made taking the TOEFL (an English proficiency tests) compulsory for all enrolled students – even to the extent that my American friend studying in Nagoya had to take it.

Some universities have also implemented degree programs in English to increase the international study body. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has also been supporting these programs with their Global 30 program.

Similarly, there have been increasing attempts to increase the number of Japanese students going abroad for their studies – which is at the moment far fewer than the number that South Korea and China send. Including for example, this video produced by AKB48 in conjunction with the MEXT to encourage people to go overseas to study. (My school makes an appearance too!)

In addition, MEXT also announced that they would be revamping the much criticized English education system in Japan – because if you can’t communicate with the world, you can’t possibly internationalize. Proposed measures include reforming the English syllabus, lowering the age at which students start having English classes and even implementing the TOEFL as a component of university entrance examinations.

But Is It Enough?

But first my own definition. As I said before, while everybody is talking about “globalization” and “internationalization”, no one has actually defined it properly. By “internationalization” here I mean gaining the ability to operate – and compete – on an international stage. It also means being actively engaged in the world, and accepting of the wider world as opposed to looking inwards. Regardless of the actual definition of what internationalization is etc., it’s often more clear what it is not.

Back to the question. The efforts above are pointing in the correct direction and I don’t mean to say otherwise. Increasing the numbers of foreigners in Japanese companies and schools is certainly important because without foreigners there can be no foreign input.

However, a lot more needs to be done and there are deeper issues that have to be resolved. Consider Japan’s immigration system for example. Japan remains one of the hardest countries around to gain permanent citizenship for without marriage to a Japanese person. One acquaintance of mine has been living in Japan for more than 10 years and did his professorship in a Japanese university. He was denied permanent residency last year.

Many companies may also be open to hiring foreigners but utilizing them after they enter the company is an entirely different question. After all, the one thing that I keep hearing from other foreigners working in Japan is that they are treated “like Japanese who just speak another language”.

This may sound good but it is not. For one, this means that many Japanese companies expect compliance to Japanese hierarchy and unquestioning top-down company culture even towards their foreign employees. And if you can’t question and voice your opinions, what internationalization can there be?

What About Schools Then?

Cherry Blossoms at the International Christian University in Tokyo

Schools (I am more familiar with this subject) present an entirely different set of problems. For one, there are some schools which offer “English courses” – taught by Japanese professors with an inadequate command of English. Being able to read and write papers in English does not automatically qualify someone to teach in it.

Furthermore, foreign student integration is an issue. Now, this does not apply to all schools – some are quite successful in integrating the foreign and local student bodies. Furthermore, if the student is studying in Japanese this isn’t that big a problem.

However, it is not uncommon for foreign students to be living in entirely separate dormitories from Japanese students. The classes that foreign students take may be entirely closed to Japanese students. Alternatively, even if they are open to enrollment by Japanese students, the fact that they are in English puts off most Japanese students such that only a small, select bunch participate in them.

What this leads to is foreign students living in a virtually separate world from their Japanese classmates. This does not just tend to socially isolate foreign students and alienate them, but this also adds zilch to the “internationalization” of the education of Japanese students.

There Is A Lot More To Be Done

Narita Airport

This topic is far more complex than can be summarized in a single article and there are many factors mixed and scrambled around here. For example, there are problems in the systems (eg. the permanent residency system and school class systems), the numbers of foreigners (even Tokyo has only 3% foreign population) and deeper cultural problems (eg. Japanese company culture).

It seems to me that Japanese attempts to internationalize by bringing in more foreigners, enforcing standards of English etc. are simply fulfilling the prerequisites of internationalization. This does not necessarily mean internationalization itself. Because yes, without foreigners, there can be no foreign input. And without a degree of English, global communication is often difficult.

But there are deeper problems such as homogeneity which need to be addressed too. To me at least, how global Japan will become will largely rest on efforts to tackle the deeper problems and not just those on the surface.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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All-Girls Schools

When we went to Japan for our 10 week study abroad, we were paired up with students from an all-girls college. Related to this all-girls college was an all-girls middle school and high school. We visited an elementary school as well, but students of both gender attended that one. But at only one of these schools did the students go gaga for me and some of my classmates.

Can you guess which one? I had no idea it would happen before it did – but let’s go through the schools I visited, I’ll tell you about each one, and eventually we’ll get to the place where all the magic happened.

All-Girls College

The first school we went to was the all-girls college, because that was the school that all our language partners came from, and we spent a lot of time there, not visiting the other schools until later in the program. As a college aged boy, I was pretty excited about being at an all-girls college almost every day for the next ten weeks.

However, it wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary. There weren’t girls fawning over us at every turn, vying for our attention, or throwing themselves at us. It was just like being at any other college really, except there were no guys (besides faculty) there.

While at the college, we helped out with the English classes, helped our language partners with their English homework, conducted English study tables, and made friends with as many people as possible. It was a really great experience, but I didn’t feel like a famous American superstar. Not yet, anyway.

Mixed Elementary School

The first school we visited after the all-girls college was a nice little elementary school with both girl and boy students. Now, I’m the youngest person in my family, so I’m not used to dealing with little kids. These little Japanese kids were hilarious though. They all spoke way too fast for me to understand properly, so the day of visiting the elementary school involved more than a decent amount of smiling and nodding.

We played some games, ate a school lunch, ran around outside at recess, and answered some of their questions about America. Most of their questions were simple and ordinary little kid things like “How many friends do you have?” or “What’s your favorite fruit?”.

The kids also seemed to love saying “OH MY GOD” for whatever reason. Confusing, but hilarious.

A bit of the question and answer time was actually pretty awkward though. We were split up into rotating groups, and in these groups a lot of the kids were asking about World War II and the atomic bombs and what we knew about what happened to their country and the reasons behind it and the aftermath.

I asked my friends if they could remember any more about these questions than I did, but the consensus was that the kids were mostly interested in how that period of time was taught to kids in America and how their version of history differed from what we were taught.

Since the kids were so young, we couldn’t use English to explain the already touchy and difficult subject with them, so trying to articulate our thoughts on this subject was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. Who would have thought the kids would be so interested in asking us about that? I was all prepared for questions about American cartoons and toys – geez.

It seems everyone in our group pretty much just gave generalizations about the subject and kind of just awkwardly waited for the teacher to have us move on to the next topic and rotate to safety. I think the awkward stress experienced during this time has prevented us all from remembering it very well. Sorry.

Anyway, no kids really went crazy for us at the elementary school. I did have one kid who became strangely attached to me and kept wanting to give me hugs, but that was it. Nothing too out of the ordinary – kids like to hug things. The best is yet to come.

All-Girls Middle School

The middle school wasn’t all that exciting either, unfortunately. So much so that I don’t even remember it all that well. Some of the girls got excited about our one red-headed friend and kept calling him “Ron”, like from Harry Potter, but that was about it. They also got kind of excited about one of the girls, but I think they just thought she looked like an anime character.

If you have red hair in Japan, you are Ron Weasley.

We got put into rotating groups again and talked with the girls in English. They were supposed to talk to us and ask us questions in English and then present what they learned about us (in English again) to the rest of the class.

I mostly got asked whether or not I had a girlfriend and what qualities I looked for in a woman. It was pretty hilarious.

All-Girls High School

Oh. My. God. I’m famous. I was completely and totally unprepared for this. Word that there were a handful of Americans in the building got around this school fast. I mean, really fast. Before I knew it there were girls peeking their heads out from classrooms trying to make eye contact. If I did so much as look at them, acknowledge them, or God forbid, wave at them – they would instantly go into a smiling and giggling hysteria and disappear back into their classroom.

They tried to keep us out of the hallways between classes for fear of us getting mauled by these teenage Japanese girls, but it inevitably happened a few times. I had girls handing me notecards with their names, phone numbers, and email addresses on them – asking me to please contact them

When we were walking around outside the school being shown the tennis courts, I heard some shouting from one of the upper floors of a building behind me. Looking up, I saw a handful of girls leaning out the window and heard them shouting something. They were shouting “JOHN! JOHN! JOHN!”. What? How do they know my name? Well, guess I better smile and wave at them. *Cue endless fit of giggles*

At one point I actually got separated from the group of Americans and they were afraid I’d been kidnapped by my admirers. I was dawdling around in one of the classrooms after we were done distracting the students with our presence because a couple girls were talking to me and asking me for my contact information. Somehow I got left behind, and together with a blushing and giggling group of girls, we searched for my classmates.

Eventually we found them, but not before I had a solid 5-10 minutes of girls bombarding me with questions about what kind of girls I like, if I had a girlfriend, and just wanting to know anything and everything about me. To some, this might sound like an ego boost, or like I was just living it up over there, but at the time it was just really, really weird. I didn’t know how I felt about it. At points it was neat and felt pretty cool, but at other times it made me think of how weird things must get for people who are actually famous.

This is where I experienced my first tea ceremony, mentioned in this previous post here.

And then the icing on the cake was when we left the school and were sent on our way back to our dorm. The students left at the same time we did, and maybe 10-20 of them had to take the same way back that we did, so we had a gigantic group of girls following us on our way back home.

We were asked many times where we were staying, but we never actually told them where our dorm was. Partially just to give them a hard time, but partially because I think all of us were a little paranoid having these “raving fangirls” actually knowing where we sleep at night.

I talked with some of my friends again for their opinion on that wacky experience, and also their experiences with schools at times other than when we all visited together. Here’s what they had to say.

The girls at the high school went nuts and were screaming John’s name from like the 6th floor while we were walking through the courtyard. It was crazy.

Unsurprisingly the all-girls high school went nuts for older foreign boys and were noticeably less excited to meet the foreign girls.

Looking at my experiences from the past couple of years, I think it depends a lot on the schools that you go to. If you go to a very rural school with very shy kids (like one of my schools) students try to avoid you at all costs because they are terrified that you are going to try and talk to them in English. If you go to a school with a lot of outgoing students (like one of my other schools) you feel like a rock star.

Students screaming your name in the hallways, everyone wanting to talk to you and give you a high five whenever they see you, not only at school, but everywhere. I even had a girl came up to me last week and say ‘先生、駅の前に見たよ！’ (Teacher! I saw you at the train station before!). I then said to her ‘Oh really?! When??’ To which she replied ‘あの〜。一年前かなぁ〜!’ (Umm~ Like a year ago~!) And I just stared at her as she ran off giggling with her group of friends. I mean, who holds on to that kind of memory for a year?

But yeah, the never ending ‘カッコイイ!!’s (cool) and ‘イケメン!!’s (cool, good looking guy) never get old either.

Rock Star Status

So if you want to feel like a rock star, visit a Japanese high school. I dunno how you would go about doing this unless it was part of a school trip or something – you can’t exactly just waltz into a school without looking like a trespasser or a pervert, but if you have the opportunity to visit a Japanese high school, definitely do not pass it up. It is an experience.

One thing I did really wonder though was why it was really only the high school girls that flipped their lids. Why didn’t the college girls or the middle school girls react in the same way? Were they just better at keeping their excitement in check, or were they just not as excited as the high schoolers for whatever reason? Maybe this is the age when boys become “interesting,” but by the time they reach college they’re over it? Perhaps it will forever remain a mystery.

I’ve heard of other stories from other people as well with similar experiences too, so I don’t think it was just us. What about you? Have you heard of or experienced this yourself? What about any girls out there visiting all-boys high schools?

The Reasons

The famous red gates (赤門) of the University of Tokyo

Now, going overseas for college or for an exchange is widely considered to be a good thing – for your resume, for your worldly knowledge, or even for your plain and simple enjoyment.

The question then is: “why Japan?” Obviously if you’re doing a Japanese Studies major or have a very strong interest in Japanese stuff like many of the writers on this blog, the reasons are obvious. But for those who are wavering between Japan or another country, or those still a bit unsure, here are some reasons for your consideration.

1. It really isn’t that expensive

Lots of people probably have heard that Japan is ridiculously expensive – pointing out the many “Most Expensive Cities in the World to Live In” in which Tokyo and Osaka often rank near the top.

The first thing to note is that such surveys often measure the cost of a working expat. Thus the cost of renting an apartment and a car is often factored in. Obviously, as a student you probably aren’t aiming to own your own car in Japan and if you’re in a hostel the rent is significantly lowered. Plus, if you’re from North America or Western Europe, you’ll find the typical 500 yen meals fairly cheap. Think about eating out every meal for about 5 US dollars/3 pounds/4 euros. And there’s no tipping too. Nonetheless things (and especially fruits!) may look expensive if you’re not from the above areas though.

If you’re thinking of spending your whole college life in Japan, tuition is also relatively cheap. For example (the information below is from the official websites), the University of Tokyo’s annual tuition fee is ￥585,800 or about 5,400 US dollars. Private universities tend to be a bit more expensive with Waseda’s School of International Liberal Studies’ school fees near ￥1,500,000 or near 15,000 US dollars a year. While this may be expensive for someone who comes from a country with no tuition fees, it certainly does not reach say, US college fees.

In addition (and which will be covered in a later article), scholarships for both exchange students and full time students are quite common in Japan. Many foreign students in Japan under them have a large part (if not all) of their living expenses etc. covered.

2. You will (be forced to) learn a different language

But can’t you learn the language without going to Japan? Well, yes, somewhat, but there’s a whole new depth to things when you have to live in a different language. For example, very few textbooks are going to teach you what an onion is in Japanese – tamanegi. And certainly none of them are going to tell you what the kanji (玉葱) are. But going to a supermarket in Japan and puzzling over what the things are is in itself a very big opportunity to learn Japanese.

Basically, no one is going to look at you and say “oh this person is at so-and-so level of Japanese and so let’s make the kanji easier for him.” – the level of immersion quite simply is different.

No guarantees though – some people come and don’t put in the effort to learn so it’s no surprise that they go back with a poor grasp of the language, stopping at somewhere between “konnichiwa” and “sayonara.”

3. You (probably) won’t need to study hard

This does depend on the university. But generally, if there’s one thing that Japanese universities are not known for, it is academic vigor. So, if you come to Japan hoping for deep discussions with the Japanese students about Japanese philosophy or some probing into the problems of Japanese society with great academic depth you will most likely be disappointed.

This is because firstly, the Japanese students don’t really take college that seriously. After all – as someone once told me before, in Japan “college is the spring break of life.” (more on this in a later article) In addition, if you’re here on an exchange program or a degree course in English, well, let’s just say that much of the teaching staff doing the courses aren’t really fluent in English.

But on the other hand, generally speaking you’ll have enough time to travel or do whatever you want. So if you’re looking to have a relaxed time or if you subscribe to the mentality that “the real learning happens outside the classroom”, this can be an opportunity in itself.

4. But you will learn nonetheless

And I don’t mean just the language.

This is because Japan as a society is just really different. Even to other Asians, it is just really different.

It is precisely because it is so different that you may oddly learn more about your home country after coming to Japan – for the simple reason that living in Japan will offer you a basis for comparison by which you can judge your home country.

And of course, you’ll learn about Japan first-hand. No matter how much someone reads this blog or any other website on Japan, the fact is that we can only provide a limited view of Japan colored by our respective biases. Nothing beats, and nothing can beat, experiencing Japan first hand with its ups-and-downs.

You’ll also probably learn more about yourself. If you’ve never lived alone before you’ll have to learn. If you have never lived in another country before you’ll experience the culture shock and learn to question all the assumptions that you had about life. Like, how you would think that ATMs, being machines, do not need rest (they apparently do in Japan).

5. Better to do it while you’re a student

I’ll be honest here. Japan isn’t for everyone. Every year lots of foreigners come to Japan to work not knowing a single thing about Japan and expecting paradise. If they like it – then all’s well, but for a significant proportion of people it ends up being an entirely different experience.

The good thing about coming as a college student is that because it is “the spring break of life”, you have time to observe, listen to stories from people currently working in Japan, and then make a decision on whether or not staying in Japan for the long term is for you.

You certainly wouldn’t want to be in the situation which many foreigners working in Japan find themselves in. More precisely, one where you come to Japan having a distorted view of it, find out that it isn’t what you expected and then are faced with the dilemma of enduring or going home and having to do the job search all over again.

And to end off…

Perhaps one big reason for why you should come to Japan is that Japan needs you. At the moment the whole of Japan is captivated by this idea of “internationalization” (国際化). In short, having largely not been that accepting of foreign input, many Japanese companies and perhaps Japan’s society as a whole have been coming under intense pressure from foreign competition.

Japan is thus starting to realize that it needs to accept more diversity and allow for a wider range of viewpoints. Due to this, Japan is facing the challenge of bringing in more foreigners as employees, researchers and of course as students.

How effective Japan’s attempts at “internationalization” are is up for debate, but what is also true is that in the universities right now, there are too few international students for there to be any effective “internationalization”.

Obviously the problem is deeper than that – the culture of homogeneity needs to be addressed too – but Japan still needs you here to give it some international stimulation. So, I hope that this article has given you some information to think over – and who knows? Maybe I’ll see you studying around in Japan soon!

Update:
Hey people, I think I’ve been a bit unclear and misleading with the title. Basically, while I do indeed hope that some people will come for the full four years for college, this article also applies to people who are thinking of study-abroad programs. The next article will tackle directly the idea of Japan’s universities being spring breaks of life so I hope to address that too.

Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals such as achieving good marks or passing the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. Many Japanese students feel relentless pressure to get ahead of the 受験戦争 (Juken-sensou), also known as the “entrance examination war,” so many kids attend a full day at school and then a few additional hours of cram school in the evening before doing a couple more hours of study at home so they can get to bed right around midnight. That’s a pretty heavy load for a child, isn’t it?

KUMON

Look at how sad that Kumon logo face looks…

My first cram school was 公文 (KUMON), which is a math and reading cram school. I forget exactly when I started it, but I’m going to say it was around my third grade of elementary school. Following that, I moved on to another cram school when I began junior high school. Unlike usual cram schools, KUMON is intended to supplement rather than replace school lessons, so students work individually and progress through the program at their own pace, advancing to the next level when they have mastered of the previous level.

The system was pretty well suited for me since I prefer studying at my own pace and the sheets that we worked on were kind of like a fun puzzle for me to complete. When I was a university student, I even worked at KUMON as an assistant teacher, so I’ve spent a lot of time at Kumon schools. It’s now even present worldwide, and I was even able to find a couple in the Canadian city close to the town that I’m currently living in. So maybe you’ve seen it before even in your own home country?

For The Entrance Examinations

Despite all this Kumon time, I found myself wanting to go to a different cram school when I reached junior high school. I needed something that would specialize in high school entrance examinations. In order to go to the new cram school, I had to take a train every evening, so my parents at first didn’t want to enroll me there. However, I begged them because many of my friends were there. Wanting to hang out with my friends was not the only reason, though. I also didn’t want to find myself academically lagging behind my friends. Keep your friends close and your high school entrance examination enemies closer, eh?

Although the new cram school was much more competitive, and everyone could see how well you did on the mock examinations by looking at a board with all the student’s names on it, I honestly didn’t dislike the school. As I mentioned earlier, the school was a couple of stations away from my town so I had to take the train which was sometimes a bit troublesome, but it also allowed me to make new friends from different schools. The teachers were great, too. I enjoyed that school a lot and was glad that I made the move. When I became a high school student, I once again changed cram schools to focus on the upcoming university entrance exam. At this point it wasn’t that big of a change, so I enjoyed the new school as well.

Special Events

As for special events, both KUMON and the cram school I attended during junior high school had a “New Year’s Eve All-Night Studying Event” (年越し徹夜勉強会/toshikoshi-testuya-benkyoukai). The teachers encouraged us not to fall asleep and to keep studying until morning. There were even a few games to help stimulate and relax students as well. It was a lot of fun to stay up late with my friends, but everyone reaches a wall and you would get sleepy at some point and find it nearly impossible to keep studying. Granted, it wasn’t an effective way to study at all, but it did teach us some discipline.

I know you’re probably sarcastically thinking “Right on! That sounds like a fantastic way to spend New Years Eve!” However, after saying that, studying all night together actually made us feel as though we achieved something great and it was a real confidence booster. The New Year’s sunrise, known as 初日の出 (hatsuhinode) was quite memorable, too. Everyone made the same New Years resolution: study hard to achieve good marks on the entrance exam.

The Interview With Juku-experienced People

Now, you may think I’m a bit of an oddball because I actually liked juku (cram school), but I’m not the only one. I interviewed some people who attended cram schools when they were younger and I found that every single one of these girls really enjoyed going, at least in retrospect.

Rina (pen-name), who is 19-year-old female, went to cram schools while she was in elementary and junior high school. Although she had to go there every day, except on Sundays and summer vacations, she said she liked it. 

塾は好きでした。他の人と楽しく勉強できて行くのが好きだし楽しかったから。勇気づけるための言葉とか目標とかをいつも言ってくれたり、壁に紙がはってあったり、先生が面白いから毎日塾に行きたがってた！
I liked my cram schools. It was enjoyable to study with my friends. Teachers also gave us many quotes, posted phrases on the wall and set goals for us, all with the purpose of encouraging us.  I found it fun and funny so I wanted to go to the cram school every day.

Paeja (pen-name), who is 28-year-old female, also liked her cram school. She went to her cram schools during all of her elementary, junior, and high school years. Her cram school also had a New Years Eve camp-in for working on a collection of past entrance exams from many choice schools.

他校の友達としりあえたし、塾の先生が好きだったから塾は好きでした。
I liked my cram schools because I was able to get to know students from other schools and I also liked the cram school teachers.

I also asked her why she liked the teachers. She answered they were nice and funny and she gave me a couple examples of why she thought so.

・夏期講習の最終日に友達が家出をしたが、塾の先生が親身に面倒をみてくれていた。
・同じ塾に通っていた兄が通塾を拒否し無断欠席を繰り返したら、塾の先生と学年主任が夜中にアポ無しで家庭訪問に来た。
・地理の授業で地図の特産物マークを「ワカメちゃん」「綿花ちゃん」と擬人化する先生がいた。
・On the last day of the summer program, one of my friends ran away from home. The cram school teachers were genuinely worried about her and looked after her after she was found.
・My brother went to the same cram school I did, but he rejected the idea of cram school and was repeatedly truant. His teacher and the head teacher of his grade worried about him and unexpectedly visited our home at night after the cram school closed.
・In a geography class, I had a teacher who always personified the principal product of each country’s district like ‘Wakame-chan (Seaweed-chan)’ or ‘Menka-chan (Cotton-chan)’. I found it funny and it helped me memorize them.

Surprisingly, she confessed to liking the cram school teachers so much that she even fell in love with one of them. She ran into him 10 years down the line and they actually dated for a while. She also told me that it’s fairly common for a student to develop a crush on a cram school teacher. She had a friend who had a crush on a teacher while going there, too. She remembers that she dreamt up an imaginary love story between her friend and the teacher and wrote the short story out for her, but it was discovered by the teacher somehow and both of them felt monstrously embarrassed.

Yukari (pen-name), who is 28-year-old female, also liked her cram school, though she had a rather bitter experience there.  The teacher scolded her for having a secret Christmas party in the self-study room with her friends. As you might presume, she had a lot of friends there and that was the reason that she liked the cram school so much. She also worked at a cram school when she was a university student. She often looks back on that period in her life and remembers how busy her days were. 

３年間進学塾で中学理科を教えていました。塾の講師は自分のプライベートな時間はほとんど取れなくて塾内でのコミュニティが全てという感じになっていました。
そのため、昼ドラのようなドロドロした恋愛模様がそこら中でありました。”
I taught junior high school level science at a cram school for three years. Being a teacher at a cram school means being very busy. I barely had any private time and  neither did the other teachers. Our whole lives existed within the cram school. Therefore, there were actually a lot of complicated, soap opera-esque relationships among the cram school staff.

However, there are of course some people who don’t like cram schools and 8-chilis (pen-name) is one of them. He didn’t like cram school because you are bound to a lot of things. He once attended a winter session when he was in junior high school, but he thought he could do it by himself because a cram school is just a tool and not necessary.

稲田塾憲法249条: Article 294 of the Inada-Juku Constitution

Although he succeeded in doing well on his high school entrance exam, he failed the entrance exam for university which resulted in him becoming a 浪人(rounin). Rounin means a masterless samurai, or a jobless person / high-school graduate who has failed to enter a university and is waiting for another chance to obtain a place. While he was a “rounin,” he finally went to a cram school because he felt that he needed to regiment his studying and also thought it would have been fruitless to continue studying by himself for one year without seeking any assistance. After doing so, he successfully rewrote the entrance examination and was accepted to Kyoto University a.k.a Kyoudai, which is the second oldest Japanese university and one of the highest ranked universities in economics in all of Asia. It is also one of Japan’s Seven National Universities. However, he told me that he still didn’t regret his decision of not going to cram school when he was younger.

たらればで、もし塾いってたらどうなってたかなーとは考えたけど、行ってても落ちてたと思うわ。
ちゃんと受かった人って志望校も目的意識もはっきりしてたけど、俺にはそれがなかったから何回やっても結果はだめやったと思うねん┐(￣ヘ￣）┌
そんな状況でよく浪人して受かったな～と思ってるぐらい(笑)
He continued, “Of course I imagined the “what if” stories, but I probably still would have failed the exam, even if I did go to a cram school. The people who did move on to university had a clear goal in their minds, but I had no such goals. I figure that even if I could go back to that time and try the exam again, I would fail it. So I kind of impressed myself when ended up passing the exam after one year of being a rounin”, he chuckles.

Remember, he still ended up going to Kyoto University, so he was a smart guy after all, but we can’t be sure how a cram school may have benefited him on his first exam, if he had gone to one. Initially he told me that he disapproved of cram schools because he didn’t want to feel bound to it in order to succeed, however, after one year of being a “rounin,” that is the exact reason why he placed himself there. He utilized his time and motivation very well. Anyways, I’d say that becoming a cram school student is a very wise path to walk down, although it is often an arduous and uphill one. Whatever your reasons for going, rest assured they are probably good ones.

The Importance To Be Liked By Students

Granted, there may be some drama among the cram school staff, like Yukari mentioned, but there are many teachers beloved by their students and it is one of the main reasons why students continue to go back to cram school, as Rina and Paeja did.  I think it’s fair to say that most teachers would agree, to some extent, that being liked by students creates a better learning environment and eases the job of being an effective teacher.  However, there is a secondary truth to that, as well, which is that if teachers are not well liked or accepted among the students, they face the possibility of losing their jobs.

According to a research study conducted by Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about cram schools, of 2,071 parents who have one or more children attending a cram school, over 90% of them agreed that teaching methods are incredibly important, but they also believed the eagerness of the teachers and how intently they take care for their children is critical.

Additionally, another research study, conducted by the Japan Juku Association, administered a questionnaire to over 5,000 separate cram schools with the intent of discovering what criterion they hold as the most important in the evaluation of teachers. The results showed that 46.6% of employers consider teacher reputation among students as the main benchmark and it was the single most important criterion. Surprisingly, academic improvement was secondary to reputation with a score of (45.8%) and the third most important consideration when evaluating teacher performance was teacher reputation among the students’ parents (41.3%).

So it seems that the primary requirement for a teacher’s longevity in a cram school is that they are liked by the students.  This study may not be something that those teachers should read as it might add a whole new level of stress as they attempt to cross off yet another strenuous goal on their list of career accomplishments – acceptance.

I can just imagine all the elderly teachers wearing parachute pants walking into a classroom with a boom box blaring AC/DC or Run-D.M.C. planted firmly on their shoulder and saying “Ah yeah, this is my jam!” while passing out sticks of peppermint bubble gum and yoyos to a room of bewildered students. 

‘Hayashi Osamu’ Boom

47-year-old Osamu Hayashi is probably the most famous and successful teacher currently working in Japan. He teaches contemporary Japanese literature at a nationwide cram school called Toshin High School that mainly focuses on preparing students for university entrance exams. 

Toshin High School is known for its unique TV commercial series, which focuses on some of their most popular teachers and shows a few quick clips of their actual classes. Each teacher has their own distinct character and uses strong words to encourage their students. Hayashi is one of the teachers that appears on Toshin‘s commercial series, and his  signature phrase during class and on the commercial is: “Itsu yaru ka? Ima desho!“, meaning “When will you act? It should be right now!”

The message was originally intended for students planning on taking college entrance exams and, in fact, he was already famous among students even before making his way into the TV world. Yet, some business people recognized the phrase’s great potential and thought of how to use it. He started  appearing in a number of TV commercials and campaigns, and the phrase became a nationwide catchphrase, especially among the younger generation.

The phrase is now used in many places such as drinking parties or even business situations. For example, some people ask their colleagues, “If you don’t drink now, then when will you?” in order to make them answer, “Imadesho“.   Salesmen try to encourage their clients who are hesitating on signing a contract, “We have a great campaign rate at the moment and if you don’t sign up now, when will you sign up? It should be done right now!”

So what does the fad of Hayashi tell us about Japanese cram school education? After all, is cram school a business whose “product” quality is solely based on their number of admissions? If the reputation of a school is decided upon by children and their parents, and if advertising helps to develop a positive reputation for your school, then all the more power to you. Thanks to its commercials, Toshin High School is now famous for having “unique” teachers, though its mission is simply to help their students to pass the entrance exams for some of the top universities in Japan, including the University of Tokyo from which Hayashi himself graduated.

From my experience, I felt that my teachers were in it for more than just money. You could probably pick that up from Paeja’s comments, as well. Some teachers even visited a family for one student because they worried about her brother’s future. It may have been a part of their business’ protocol, but to me, it’s more than that. If things like this were done solely for business purposes, I don’t think that they would have bothered to take so much care of a runaway girl, either.

Now, what do you think of the Japanese cram school? Do you think that it’s too much work load for children? Or, have you had harder experiences in your country? As for the teachers, do you think that they are doing favors for themselves? Or, do you think that they are truly worried about children?

Bonus Wallpapers!

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It wasn’t what I was expecting. Students from this prestigious school were cosplaying at their graduation, walking up to the stage to accept their diplomas as Power Rangers and anime characters.

I don’t know if these people are otaku or just wanna have fun at the end of a very important part of their lives. I’ve looked into it a bit since we got back home and found more graduation cosplay from Kyodai, including Spider-Man conducting the Kyodai graduation band:

Hey, it’s the guy from the commercials!

Unsurprisingly, Kyodai isn’t the only school in Japan with some costumed graduates. The Kanazawa College of Art’s graduation ceremony this year was full of cool, weird, and interesting costumes from its graduates. It seems like there were more people in costume than not.

Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is a Kanazawa College of Art alumni, so there’s plenty of Nintendo cosplay to go around.

Leave this place, Kumamon! You have no power here!

What’s your favorite costume? Did you dress up at your graduation ceremony? Tell me in the comments!