Hello and welcome to my sub stack! I hope that this will be an efficient way to update the masses (haha) on my time in Japan. I am here working as an English teacher on the Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Program in a suburb of Osaka, Japan. I will be here for a year (or more...).
I arrived in Tokyo on July 30th along with 80 other JETS coming from NYC. We had a 3-day orientation in Tokyo with over 800 (!!) JETS from the US, Philippines, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Jamaica. American JETS made up the majority. Orientation was, for the most part, a grueling experience. We sat in a huge lecture hall for most of the day and the seminars were not the most engaging. Jet lag made things even more difficult, and everyday around 3pm, you could see plenty of heads dozing off in the rows ahead. The highlight of these few days were the evenings, when I would venture out of into Tokyo to see my host family and friends from when I studied in Tokyo in 2015-16. My sister Hallie also coincidentally was in Tokyo for work so we hung out every evening. It was very comforting to have her around during a very chaotic few days.
After 3 days in Tokyo, we were moved to our placements. Moving 800+ JETS and their years-worth of luggage across the country is a mass-scale, carefully orchestrated production that was somehow flawlessly executed. The Japanese are effecient. By 8 am, we had been moved from our hotel, shuffled through Tokyo station, and boarded the Osaka bound shinkansen (bullet train). There are over 30 Osaka Prefecture JETs, enough to take up a whole shinkansen car. Once we arrived in Osaka, most JETs were met by a representative from their specific town. A large number of JETs went to Yao city, Sakai city, and Minoh city, all suburb cities of Osaka, which left only 8 of us who were not met by a specific city representative. Instead, 8 of us are ‘Prefectural JETs,’ hired by the Osaka City Board of Education rather than a specific city on the outskirts of the prefecture (there are actaully about 30 prefectural JETs, and the rest arrived in the second JET arrival group). Prefectural JETs are the only ALTs (Assistant Langauge Teachers) at our schools and in most cases the only ones in our towns. After a brief orientation at an office building nearby the train station, we were met by our school supervisors. My supervisors are super friendly. One is a middle aged woman who wears very funky, flowy clothes as if she's just come back from a trip to Thailand. The other is a younger man who is probably around 30 and told me that he lived in Southern California for a bit until he got in trouble for trying to work while on a tourist Visa. He’s a funny guy. They drove me to the high school where I’ll be teaching which is in Neyagawa, about a 35 minute drive north of downtown Osaka along the Yodo River. Upon arrival, I met the school Principal and was shown my desk in the teachers room where I introduced myself to my new colleagues. Two of the younger teachers took me on a tour of campus. So far I am very excited by the number of young teachers at the school. Of the English teachers who I will work with, several of them are 23-28 years old.
On Friday evening, the English teachers took me out to dinner and 飲み会 (nomikai = drinking party/gathering) in Osaka. There were 10 of us, all either current or past teachers at the school. A common thing in Japanese restaurants is 飲み放題 - all you can drink. We went to one of these restaurants and everyone had at least 8 glasses of sparkling wine. Some of the older teachers were nearly stumbling out of the restaurant. After dinner, I was invited to the ‘second party’ by a smaller group (mostly just the young teachers who weren’t drunk at that point) to keep drinking at another bar. It is not uncommon in Japan to go out drinking with coworkers, and this gives teachers room to casually hang out outside of the structured work environment. I was really glad to start getting to know the teachers who are closer in age to me, especially because during the work day everyone is busy so there’s not much time for socialization.
One of the strong assets of the JET program is that in most cases, you have a predecessor in your exact role at your school. It’s very common for incoming JETs to take over the housing, furniture, car, or bike of their predecessor. Unfortunately, however, Osaka has not had JETs working in the prefecture for 10+ years. It is unclear why this is the case, but they’ve been hiring English teachers through a different program for a while. Because this is the first year of reincorporating JETs into schools, I do not have a predecessor and am having to find housing on my own. The Board of Education recommended a few real estate companies to JETs to secure housing before arrival. I originally thought I would go this route, but the company that was recommended charges a high fee as they predominantly work with foreigners and can upcharge us for their English services. The fees were honestly pretty crazy, so I decided to wait until I arrived in Japan to look for housing. I am currently staying at an AirBnB in the area. It has been a nice way to transition to my life here; the AirBnb host often cooks dinner for all of us guests and it’s a good little community. There’s another American, a Brit, a girl from Germany and a guy from Poland. We hang out in the evenings when we can, but we are all on pretty different schedules. This past weekend, I went to look at 4 apartments with a Japanese realtor. I applied for an apartment yesterday and am waiting to hear on the next steps assuming I get approved. Hopefully by the next time you hear from me I will be living there!
I thought it would be good to explain why I'm in Osaka specifically. Every year, incoming JETs request 3 prefectures of Japan and either rural or urban for their placement. The higher ups are notorious for placing people in the opposite location of their requests. I requested 3 prefectures fairly randomly - Gifu, Okayama, and Ishikawa - and felt pretty open to be placed anywhere. I was ecstatic to hear I would be going to Osaka Prefecture. Compared to Tokyo, Osaka is known for being creative, lively, and carefree, and I am already feeling that sentiment reflected in the fashion and attitude of people who I've met both at work and elsewhere. Everyone has been extremely kind and willing to go out of their way to help me, whether this be with checking out at the grocery store (be warned, this is actually a multi-step process!) or figuring out why my bike (which my school is kindly letting me borrow for now) won’t move (I could not figure out how to unlock it). Osaka is also very conveniently located, being 1 hour from Nara, Kyoto, Kobe, the beach, and the mountains.
I think that is my major update for now…
I’m not exactly sure how I want to use this mail list and to be honest I don’t really even know how to use Sub Stack (would love confirmation that someone received this email at all haha). I’m sure I’ll do an update every month or so, and maybe some posts about cultural differences, travel, observations, small research projects, or more academic style writing because I miss that too. Please let me know if there is specific topic you'd like to know about and I'll see what I can do.
I’m very thankful to be here and am excited to share more!
Xoxo
Miranda
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