Well, where to begin? I’m 23 and living in Miyagi-ken, Japan under the JET program and I’m teaching kids of various ages. Really, this is just another JETlog. I really don’t know who reads this stuff. Anyways, it may seem that I really despise everyone around me, when that’s really not the case, I’m just a prick and I know it and I show it and there’s nothing more to it than that. This is my first time in Japan so a lot of the stuff that happens to me is real and I’m very new to it, so please don’t be offended by my reactions. Not that I’d care if you got offended.
I come from your standard suburban neighborhood in the US, so I’m as generic as they come. Why did I come to Japan? To be quite frank with you, I was misled by stereotypes. The same stereotypes you probably harbor. Things like Japan is technologically advanced, is filled with uber geniuses, and everyone speaks English and has as much an interest in us as we do them. Not only that but they’re a comical group full of little quirks that we can point at and say, “hey, that’s so weird! Japan is so weird, but cool, because it’s weird!” (like this wonderful site http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2GY8C_2sY ) Also, you may also think of Samurais running around with swords and doing things for honor and long hair and saving damsels and stuff like that. The stereotypes go on and on and on.
Well, I had my stereotypes, one being the whole technology thing (which is severely wrong…a better place would be the US or Europe) and I had an interest in Anime and Video Games and crap like that. Then there were the personal reasons that I don’t want to get into right now…because they’re just that, personal. I did also have an interest in learning languages, so that’s basically why I’m here in a nutshell. Oh yeah, and I wanted to give the teaching thing a shot, but after a little while of teaching I know that I never want to teach junior high kids again. I even said this when I was a junior high student: “Man, it must suck to teach junior high kids, they are the worst, most hormonal bunch!” That fact still stands in Japan. Whereever you go, you can’t escape the fact that kids will go through puberty and become really irritating and say really stupid things.
What did I leave behind? I pretty decent consulting job that gave me the ability to travel to different places, completely reimbursable, plus I kinda made my own hours in a way, (which ended up with me staying really late a lot of days…which sucked). I gave up going to the gym everyday, which I miss. I tried going to the gym here, but it’s ridiculously small and there’s only one set of free weights. I left family and friends. But most of all, I left the food behind, the glorious, sumptuous food. I’m not going to sugar coat it, the food sucks here. Yes, occasionally you’ll find a place that has “decent” food, but for the most part, the food lacks flavor and I end up cooking for myself in order to have something tasty. I also buy a lot of imported food (from the US, no less) to keep me going.
I don’t regret my decision. Not one bit. I’m having a great time here, hell, I’m in Japan! Not everyone gets to live in a foreign country. Sure, there’s tourism, but you never get a haircut when you’re traveling; you’ll probably go to a restaurant every day and would never know how to navigate Japanese Supermarkets, (an art in itself); and you’ll only be exposed to only a subset of the culture, when there’s just so much depth here, (and to every other country) that can’t be experienced in a week. Only after several months can you really begin to understand how things really work. Yeah, the kids are annoying, but they’re funny and it’s fun hanging around them, you’re almost reminded of the same naivety that you once had…the same hopes and dreams…until they were basically shattered by reality; I can’t wait for that to happen to them too.
