Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

It is a long weekend here in Japan, when those who have turned 20 celebrate their coming of age. They get dressed up in kimonos and hakamas and enjoy having reached the age where it is legal to go drinking. Many people return to their home villages and towns for this event.

For us though it is an extension of New Years, and this weekend we are back up at Mt. Fuji, enjoying some relaxing time with friends. They built a sauna, Finnish style, and yesterday we tried it out. It was my first time to go to a sauna, and quite a surprise it was too. Water is poured on hot coals and the steam sure raises sweat! I think I prefer going to the hot springs though – it was a little painful in the sauna.

I haven’t posted here for a while. We have had some problems with our internet connection. Our building is being changed over to cable and our ISP thought the implementation was complete so they switched our account over, however NTT hadn’t finished installing the system – so no internet! It seems to be sorted out and hopefully we will have cable soon.

Back teaching at the moment too, Monday to Friday with early morning starts, finishing late in the evening. I am quite enjoying it, although it does lack a bit of challenge because I have been teaching for so long. I have contracts through to the end of the financial year, after that maybe a change is in order. Other than that, I am working on a couple of websites which is something I really enjoy. Will post some more about them when they are up.

Lets enjoy 2008 – the year of the mouse! 今年も宜しくお願いいたします！

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William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer opens with the famous lines ” The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. ” Inspired by a visit to Tokyo it is easy to see how that line could have come about. Tonight certainly the sky is that colour, and none other.

That is the view from our apartment. Very William Gibson. Very Tokyo. The road is the Capital Expressway, and the flow of traffic here never ceases to amaze me.

It has been a busy week. I spent the last couple of days up the coast teaching at a Junior High School, doing a seminar on New Zealand culture. It went well, and was a productive experience. It must be 6 years since I taught kids of that age, so it brought back some pleasant memories of Akita. One of the highlights for me was making poi’s with the kids, and then taking them all outside to poi on the lawn to the succulent sounds of Rhombus.

Rhombus are playing in Roppongi again on the 18th which promises to be a really rocking evening. Choice!

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Just saw an interesting notice on facebook. It appears that mainland China based English school chain English First is offering relocation assistance and free flights over for the hordes of ex-Nova instructors who were finally put out of their misery on Friday with the filing of bankruptcy in the Osaka District Court by the embroiled chain.

Here is what they posted on facebook:

EF English First would like to offer free flights and relocation assistance to all former NOVA teachers who are qualified to work in China for a year.

You can check out applications at the English First website here: English First Registrations

I looked into working for them a couple of years ago before we went to China. From my understanding there is a little more flexibility within their system than Nova has. They have branches throughout China, including even Urumiqi in Xinjiang. There a lots of other options besides English First, but I think it is very good that company to extend a helping hand at this time. In the end I went with a much smaller school: Circle English in Korla as I preferred what the owner had to say during the hiring process (hiring being a two process after all). I am very glad I went with Circle English as it was a fascinating experience.

Of course you wont earn anywhere near as much in China as in Japan, however cost of living is much much lower so the effective standard of living is much better. Imagine if you were earning 3 times the average salaryman wage here in Japan!

UPDATE (29/10): English First have a posting on the Tokyo section of Craigslist with more detailed information about what they have to offer: Interesting Job Opportunities for Nova Instructors from English First on Craigslist Tokyo.

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The pink rabbit English School chain Nova is in the news again, this time with two stories – one about their failure to supply teachers to public schools in Osaka, and the second about the resignation of 4 of their senior executives. I have posted about the demise of Nova before, and it seems the ship is sinking slower than a Texan can form a decent sentence.

The first story, Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus, reveals how Nova has been unable to meet its’ contractual obligations to the Osaka Board of Education.

The Japanese Ministry of Education initially worked with CLAIR (the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) to set up the JET Programme which gave a great number of boards of education throughout Japan the opportunity to hire foreign assistant language teachers (ALT’s) for their students.

At the beginning of the program, these instructors were often the first westerners to live in the town or village and the program provided many Japanese people with the chance to speak with a foreigner for the first time.

Generally the program was a success, and it is still in action today, however “market forces” in recent times have meant that a reasonable number of boards of education have outsourced the hiring of ALT’s to third parties at a lower cost. In most cases this is without problem, however there have been cases of unscrupulous companies and questionable business practices leaving the students in the lurch.

Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus

OSAKA — Scandal-hit major English school operator NOVA failed to dispatch English teachers to local public schools after many teachers quit or took leave because they didn’t get paid, officials said.

By Monday, NOVA had cancelled its planned dispatch of English teachers to five municipal elementary schools and five municipal junior high schools at least once.

The education board is now considering canceling its contract with NOVA.

You can read the rest of the story here (Mainichi).

The second story is more straight-forward with 4 of Nova’s senior executives walking the plank after being unable to reach Nova President Sahashi (å…ƒSaruhashi):

Labor body hopes to grill Nova chief on pay missteps

OSAKA (Kyodo) An Osaka labor standards watchdog wants to question the president of scandal-hit English-language school chain Nova Corp. over delayed wage payments, but meanwhile four executives of the firm have resigned because they can’t get ahold of their boss, Nova said Wednesday.

The Osaka Central Labor Standards Supervision Office has quizzed foreign teachers and other Nova employees about the delays, and wants to hear from President Nozomu Sahashi, suspecting a violation of the Labor Standards Law.

A union representing Nova’s foreign teachers said the firm has failed to pay wages to some 2,000 Japanese employees since July and to about 4,000 foreign teachers since September, and wages that were supposed to have been paid on Oct. 15 are on indefinite hold.

You can read the rest of the story here (Japantimes).

One hopes for the sake of both the students and the staff that this matter is cleaned up in the not too distant future.

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Nova is Japan’s largest private English school company with hundreds of branches throughout Japan. This makes it both the target of a great deal of criticism, mostly earned, as well as a useful barometer for the current situation regarding language teaching in Japan.

Hit by scandals repeatedly, Nova has recently been punished by the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for dubious business practices which involved misleading advertising and unfair treatment of their customers.

In a Mainichi article today they are criticized for this, as well as for the way that instead of focusing on improving the English ability of their customers (which surely should be their core business goal) they have focused on expansion at the expense of all else, with understandable resulting cash flow problems. The article – Business pundit: ‘Blame it on the boss of NOVA’ is well worth a read.

Questioning why Japanese people seem unable to learn English, and why companies such as Nova fail to deliver in most cases is something I feel that
MEXT : The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology needs to seriously investigate.

Of course most Japanese people willl continue their love affair with Nova: the rabbit is just too cute not too!

(Nova Usagi picture is from this site: Grassroot Design which has a useful Nova FAQ page).
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Nice story on firefly’s blog (the site is gone!) about how he was fired on his second lesson teaching English in Japan. The blogger is an Australian living in Japan who initially traveled to the land of the rising sun to learn some martial arts. After being in Tokyo for a little while he realised that he had come to like Japan and decided that he wanted to live here. Funds running a little low he had to find a job. Now finding a job in Japan is pretty easy, but not if you dont have a visa, a degree, Japanese language skills, contacts or any experience. Not impossible – England’s hapless cricket team have it worse – but requiring a fair amount of leg work.

Here is the post: Fired on my second lesson of teaching English.

Update (30/01/2007) Part two has been posted - Applying to 115 companies to try to get a job.

Just as amusing and interesting. The show rolls on!

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Found this neat little tool that allows you to look up words from the definition.

So I put in small furry mouse catcher as a kind of test. And look at the results – pretty cool eh!

A search for “New Zealand flower arrangement” came up with Mike Moore which was amusing. A more normal search for “Japanese flower arrangement” gave us ikebana – the correct result.

The reverse dictionary site is at onlook.com. Perfect if you just can’t remember “that” word. And we all know how often that happens.

Good too if you are learning English and want to increase your word power.

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