I don't speak Japanese

[irishpacker]

I'm heading to Japan in October for hopefully a full year and I'm currently searching for employment/a place to base myself. Besides the obvious "teaching english" job opportunities, what sort of employment can I expect to get a Native English speaker with no Japanese (yet anyway!)

Cheers for any tips/advice!

Conor, from Ireland

[wuchan]

I'm heading to Japan in October for hopefully a full year and I'm currently searching for employment/a place to base myself. Besides the obvious "teaching english" job opportunities, what sort of employment can I expect to get a Native English speaker with no Japanese (yet anyway!)

Cheers for any tips/advice!

Conor, from Ireland

Unless you have tons of experience and a good education you will most likely end up teaching engrish.

[kurohinge1]

. . . Besides the obvious "teaching english" job opportunities, what sort of employment can I expect to get a Native English speaker with no Japanese . . .

Home storage?



Just kidding.

A good attitude should help you in whatever you do. Keyword searches and research are also a good start.

Good luck, Conor.

[irishpacker]

Unless you have tons of experience and a good education you will most likely end up teaching engrish.

Well I'm just out of Uni' (very well known one) with a solid 2.1 degree, just taking the year out to do some exploring and hide out the recession! Although I don't really see how the degree can help considering the language barrier initially anyways.

Some people have suggested Irish/English/Auzzie bars in Tokyo and Osaka. Would it be unreasonable to assume that these bars are Gaijin only places? therefore being a worthwhile avenue to go down in the job hunt?

Cheers for the replies by the way!

[Samurai_Jerk]

Some people have suggested Irish/English/Auzzie bars in Tokyo and Osaka.

That is what I was going to suggest as your only alternative to teaching the Engrish. If you're coming on a working holiday visa, I think that technically you're not supposed to work in a bar though (not that it ever seems to stop anyone from doing so). Keep in mind that teaching English part-time will pay double or triple per hour what bar tending does.

[Doctor Stop]

Remember that Japan is also in a recession.

[FG Lurker]

I'm heading to Japan in October for hopefully a full year and I'm currently searching for employment/a place to base myself. Besides the obvious "teaching english" job opportunities, what sort of employment can I expect to get a Native English speaker with no Japanese (yet anyway!)

There are exceptions to every rule but if you are only going to be staying here for a year, have no existing business contacts in Japan, and don't speak Japanese, you are going to be best off teaching English.

The best thing to do is to have a job lined up with one of the larger schools/companies before you arrive. This will give you a bit of training to help you find your feet and then you can start to look for part time work if you wish. English conversation isn't rocket science but everything has a learning curve to it and having some help at the start makes life a lot easier.

If you can't line up any work at all before you come then you need to have enough money to live while you hunt for work. As a young single guy living in shared accommodation you can live sparingly on 150,000/month but 200,000/month is going to make life a bit more comfortable. Although I ignored this advice myself twice it is best to have two months' living expenses in hand when you arrive.

If you have a job when you arrive your new employer will decide where in Japan you will go. If you are going to look for work after you arrive then a large city is going to present the most opportunity. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya are really your choices to start with.

Good luck with it all!

[Iraira]

I've said this before. If you are really interested in finding a long term career position in Japan, which requires some sense of fluency in the language, then you need to study the language associated in that field. Sure, it's nice to be able to say, "I just dropped a log that had me backed up to my duodenum" or "My dick is so small I can't see it with an electron microscope", but unless you are interviewing for a biotech position, those terms aren't going to have a sway on the person interviewing you.
Again, learn the language associated in the field you wish to enter. Make sure the field can be logically connected to your field of study in college. If you can communicate the shit they want you to be able to communicate, they won't mind if you constantly confuse "mokori" with "mokarimaka". They'll probably get a good laugh out of it...embarassingly, I speak from experience.

[FG Lurker]

if you constantly confuse "mokori" with "mokarimaka". They'll probably get a good laugh out of it...embarassingly, I speak from experience.

I'm guessing you mean mokkori? Damn, that would be worth a laugh!

[irishpacker]

Just on the topic of teaching the "engrish", I'm getting a lot of offers for teaching/assistant jobs from the likes of Interac etc, but they are all out in the back arse of no-where in the country side. Whilst I wouldn't mind doing this, I fear that I'd be the only foreigner in the village, and with my complete lack of Japanese at the moment I can only assume that would be a recipe for disaster and boredom?

[FG Lurker]

Whilst I wouldn't mind doing this, I fear that I'd be the only foreigner in the village, and with my complete lack of Japanese at the moment I can only assume that would be a recipe for disaster and boredom?

It totally depends on where you end up and what your objectives are for your time in Japan.

Sometimes you get a great posting and the people are friendly and you have a constant stream of things to do. Other people report total boredom heading towards insanity.

If you want to be immersed in Japan and want to learn Japanese then it is a good way to help that along. If you want to hang out in a big city and spend a lot of time drinking/partying with other gaijin then you aren't going to like any posting more than about an hour away from a large urban center.

[wuchan]

If you want to be respected for your "skills" (being a recent grad and having none, "engrish" is all you got) the country jobs may be rewarding. If you want to party with disease infested asian chicks, you may want to take a less respected (treated like shit with shitty hours) job in a major city with a flooded gaijin job market. Japan is not paradise, but it can be fun if you view it from the right angle.

[nottu]