Welcome to Black Tokyo!
The ”year-crossing temp worker village” was launched in Hibiya Park on Wednesday in front of the Imperial Hotel, one of the country’s most luxurious hotels, to provide free food and shelter for homeless people including laid-off temporary workers who have been forced to leave accommodation provided by their employers.
A temporary tent village set up at a central Tokyo park has drawn more than 300 people without jobs or homes since it was set up on New Year’s eve by volunteers for the New Year holiday period, …

Nearly 5,000 public school teachers took a leave of absence in the 2007 academic year because of depression or other mental disorders. If these teachers are constantly stressed out and don’t have anyone to take it out on, the Sakebi no Tsufu could come in handy. This “shouting vase” from Japan is able to reduce stress if a person holds it up to the mouth and clearly articulates (a.k.a. yell as loud as you can) his/her troubles. The pot, which is made of thermoplastic, is able to turn yells into whispers through its …

I am sure that many of you are aware of the “haken-giri,” or temporary worker cutbacks in Japan (and elsewhere). A majority of Japan’s temporary workers live in company dormitories and without a job, forcing them to leave their home. Temporary workers that do not speak Japanese will find their prospects for re-employment very difficult.
Another group of people with struggling employment prospects are the older, middle-aged generation. A quarter of Japan’s temporary workers are over 45-years-old. Not only do they have children and aged parents to support, but their re-employment prospects are …

It’s that time again! Those planning on taking the JLPT test or interesting in improving your Japanese should check out PlaySay. Click on the BT PlaySay link to test it out! PlaySay can be downloaded to ANY MP3 device. The picture above and below show PlaySay on an iPod. (Pix credit to Japan Newbie)

PlaySay is a great resource for preparing for the Japanese Language ProficiencyTest (nihongo n?ryoku shiken?), or JLPT, which is a standardized test to evaluate and certify the language proficiency of non-native Japanese speakers. It is held once every year, on the first Sunday of December. The JLPT has …

After the “Obama is a Monkey in Japan?” thread, I had to relate this story of an experience I had on the subway this past week:

I was sitting talking with a female friend in an otherwise almost empty train-car on my way to Tokyo. On the other side of the train, some seats down, sat an old man - grinning maniacally. I know the look: It’s the “I’ve-been-practising-English-all-this-time-and-never-had-the-opportunity-to-speak-to-a-real-live-gaijin-and-now-I’ve-got-one-trapped-on-a-train!” look, so I fully expected him to attempt to have a conversation with me sometime before the ride was over.

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Japanese universities look abroad in hopes of upping their sagging enrollments

Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from.

Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty. Classes are taught both in English and Japanese. TOMOKO OTAKE PHOTOS

Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers. She says she seriously considered applying …

According to statistics released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, one out of every seven Japanese children under 17 lives in poverty.
Poverty has long been known to adversely effect children’s health and education, but there also are concerns now that growing up in poverty tends to lock children into a cycle of poverty that leaves them economically disadvantaged all their lives.
A 20-year-old woman, who works for a private organization in the Kanto region, recalled that until she entered a foster home in her later years of primary school, …

I learned two new terms today, “Japinos and Japayuki.” Thank goodness that I will never use them! Here is a follow-up to a few stories that I previously blogged on abandoned families in Japan…
Some 70,000 Filipinos live in Japan, most working as entertainers. An estimated 50,000 (some groups put the number as high as 100,000) Japanese-Filipino children — known as “Japinos” — live in the Philippines, often abandoned or orphaned by their fathers after liaisons with Filipino women, who in most cases worked as entertainers in Japan, said Akira Oka, head …

Part 16: Safe?! No I am not!
5-minutes before the beginning of the class and I am still unable to find one of the teachers. I had assumed that she was in homeroom, the bathroom or late but i could be mistaken. I decide to wait in the class. I double check my printed schedule and find the class (making sure to walk by all the other classes in case she’s in one of them), but she is not there. The science teacher is there…and he doesn’t speak English.
After enlisting the …

Part 15: One of the more annoying situations that the foreign English teacher can find himself in is being stuck between a disorganized company and an even less organized school.
I rotate between schools, with the end effect being that I have the schedule for the next school sent to me before I’m scheduled to go there. This (for obvious reasons) is to provide me with enough time to plan my lessons before I get to the school..
Sounds great doesn’t it? Flawless in it’s simplicity…
In actuality this seldom happens.
In the past …

OSAKA — With job signs stuck to their vans’ windshields and sliding side doors left open in expectation, the recruiters were sizing up the potential hires at Japan’s largest day labor market here recently.

Kazuyasu Ikeda, 64, had good jobs during Japan’s economic boom but now works sporadically.

By 4:30 a.m., thousands of aging day laborers had spilled out of the neighborhood’s flophouses and homeless shelters, or risen from its parks and streets, to form a potential work force of mostly graying men.
A sign on one blue van, barely legible in the twilight, …

Part 14: The new semester is in full swing and naturally it almost seems like taking a vacation was a bad idea; now I have to slowly work myself back up to the level of intensity and tolerance that I was at prior to my vacation. 

With that said, I’d like to discuss another aspect of teaching English in Japan - namely, some of the companies that hire the teachers. As most of you probably know, the wage case against NOVA and it’s obviously corrupt president, Nozomu Sahashi, was dropped. 

Kamen Hanya wrote: Sahashi deserves punishment to the …

Part 13: Guava Jelly writes: “Great stories everyone. I am truly enjoying this thread. I taught in a public jhs in rural japan several years ago (on Sado ga shima). 4 of the 5 schools I rotated through were amazing. The students were very sweet and respectful but one was horrific. 
The first day I got there the students weren’t impressed one bit that I was the shiny, happy, new foreign teacher. One girl chased a boy around the classroom with scissors. One little boy passed me in the hallway during …

 
 
 
 
 
Do they care about English?
Blokhar writes: Well I must say it is very interesting and a sigh of relief to hear stories that I myself experience.
I also work in a JHS. I have been doing this for 4 years. Its sucks but it gets the bills paid and enough to have fun with my family. 
Seriously, this country does not give a damn about English but they put up the biggest front. Make it an elective and see the results sky rocket. 
I don’t have so much time to write now, but …

My early feelings of disdain for the school were cemented when one of the Japanese teachers rushed out to meet me and then had me wait outside while the staff meeting was in progress. I took this to mean that the staff strictly adhered to the rules and that I would probably be stuck here until the time stated on my contract.
The interesting thing about being the foreign English teacher in a Japanese public school: they fully expect you to arrive quite early and stay late. Your contract clearly states …

My time at the previously mentioned school has come to an end and since then I have worked two weeks at another school. This school wasn’t bad; a bit dingy and rundown, but the students were by far the “genkiest” group of kids I have ever taught and the teachers quite dedicated.
The interesting part of working at this school wasn’t the actual school, but rather the walk to the school.
Everyday on my way to this chugakko I would walk by the grimiest, dirtiest, most ghetto-looking Japanese school I have every seen in my …

More on the Generic Eikaiwa. Man, talk about a racket. I actually feel sorry for the kids, parents, and especially, the native (Japanese) teachers. The junior high kids know that they’re getting into a scam and it takes a real intrepid hard-core teacher to cut through their cynicism. This is one of the reasons why the classes of the older kids (14 and 15 year olds) have only one or two pupils.
The older students were “raised” on Generic and these students are great to teach. I can tell these guys know that we, the …

Part 8: So I’m walking along the fence of the new school and see a lemon chuhi tallboy inside the fence. I think to myself, It can’t be that bad…can it?

The neighborhood is pretty nice and it’s unlikely that someone tossed the can in there. Hmmm!   
The school itself actually doesn’t turn out to be that bad; it’s not quite newly refurbished, but it’s not ancient either. The staff seems pretty nice as well but I’ve learned not to judge too much within the first week or two. The students are the usual …

Part 7: You know, the ichinensei (first-year students) aren’t so bad. Maybe this is due to them being right out of elementary school. The ninensei (second-year students) and especially the sannensei (third-year students) are another story, however.
CLASS ONE: THE SANNENSEI
Most of the sannensei are not all that bad. They mostly make fun of my English and talk while I talk. One boy in particular insisted on repeating -in a funny voice- the last word I said. What really irks me is that the Japanese teacher stands right next to him …

Part 6: Most of you have seen the numerous job advertisements for teaching English in Japan. Many of you know the story of the former eikaiwa (English conversation school) Nova’s business practices and ultimate downfall (I really want to mention another school that I believe will follow a similar path but that’s another story). Are you interested in the experiences of rookie or veteran ESL/EFL teachers in the Japanese classrooms?
I have received a couple of responses from posters at a Japanese blog regarding my Teaching English in Japan with Ato …

 
Part 5: Reading about Ato’s experiences made me remind myself that I’m getting p - a - i - d, PAID. Now mind you that I am thankful considering the state of the economy and all but I just had to spell it out. The bottom line is that I refuse to get stressed over what’s going on in my classroom. When suckers start working my nerves, (students and teachers alike) I just stare at the far wall and look over their heads. I’m looking forward to the evening, the pretty girl I’m going to see …

Part 4: Actually, I was thinking about it over lunch and I take it back; every Japanese teacher I work with is more or less cool (except for one who’s an a-hole by birth) it seems.
But I re-iterate my other words: there’s very little a foreign teacher can walk into a classroom and do to make the attitudes of most of the kids’ in the Japanese school system attitude any worse. 
Even though I’m not an entertainer, I once had a teacher ask me in front of the class to do …

Part 3: Due to all of this drama, I’ve been (quietly) asking around and I think the PTA may be at fault!
You see, I had a class of about 40 this morning and there were at least three conversations going on in which the students’ backs were turned to me and I had to shout to be heard above them; one was sleeping on the desk; many just didn’t make eye contact and completely ignore me when I asked them questions; one girl didn’t even have her books out - …