What is it with Hamamatsu?

[rooboy]

Ran into an old aquaintance who spent time in Hamamatsu.

Seems that gaijin who run schools there have 'issues', theres a bloke on this forum who said something about not good memories of working in Hamamatsu, and there's the Bible thumper who got served on gaijinpot when I looked a while ago for trying to screw gaijin when he wanted to get rid of his little 'Engrish cafe.

He had an Engrish school called Zoe's cafe, tried to flog it for 50million won, reckoned new students were fucking coming all the time but had a list of under 70. From a thread there it seems the fucker lied (spose it's okay lying to non Christians). Supposedly he sold it to another Christian.

Anybody know a Bible thumper running Zoe's Cafe in Hamamatsu? And what's up iwth the Kevin English Schools that used to be up there. I cant understand whey anybody would wanna live in fucking Hamamatsu in the first place, not that desperate.

[Samurai_Jerk]

50million won

Wrong country dumbass. Now fuck off back to your hagwon dungeon.

[rooboy]

Don't get your jocks in a twist bitch.

I've mentioned Korea before here, got mates who work there, was looking at the exchange rate shortly before I posted here. Geez, is your life so fucking bad?

Most vets here are cool, your name says it all.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Don't get your jocks in a twist bitch.

I've mentioned Korea before here, got mates who work there, was looking at the exchange rate shortly before I posted here. Geez, is your life so fucking bad?

Most vets here are cool, your name says it all.

If you weren't generally such a piece of shit, maybe I wouldn't have reacted like that.

[rooboy]

Yeah, right:lol: What a sensitive little jellyroll you are.

You can always tell on forums when posters aint happy with other things by their overreaction.

if this board makes you feel so important, go right ahead matey.

[Coligny]

Admit that you seems to have some issues...

And your issues also seems to have issues of their own...

[Yokohammer]

I'l just duck in between the barbs flying around this thread to leave a quick memo:

I've never lived there, but I have been going to Hamamatsu on business for the past 30 years or so. I was just there last week, in fact. Boy has it changed.

Back in the days before Act City and all the other shiny new stuff was built it was a really friendly little city. But then came The Great Brazilian Nissei Influx, and things changed rapidly. Hamamatsu was, and still is to some degree, home to innumerable factories that made parts for the auto industry and others. For reasons that someone better informed than myself might be able to elucidate, when the J-govt. made it easy for Nissei to enter the country and work, Hamamatsu became a focal point, and Brazilian Nissei flocked to the area to take manual labor jobs. The Brazilian population really is huge, and if you wander around the city for more than 30 minutes or so you'll almost certainly hear Portuguese being spoken. (They have some great churrasco restaurants too ... there's even a Banco de Brasil!).

As expected, this resulted in a bit of a culture clash. On the one hand the new immigrants were a bit unruly for the locals, and on the other the locals tended to treat them as outcasts, which made them bitter and even more unruly. Of course there are the usual prejudiced accusations that the Brazilians are now responsible for all the crime in the city. To this day many of the locals really don't like the Brazilian Nissei, and make no attempt to hide the fact. And since foreigners don't usually walk around with their nationality or origin stamped on their foreheads, many of the locals simply assume that anyone who looks foreign ... whether it's white or black or non-Japanese Asian ... is one of "them."

End result: not a very friendly place for foreigners any more.

[TennoChinko]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Yokohammer again.

Great post and explanation. Thanks!

[rooboy]

Great post and explanation. Thanks!

Me too, Yokohammer. Great post man.

I didn't know so many Braziian/Portugese descendants of Japanese lived there. I reckonn that'd make having an eikaiwa even more difficult cause if you're gonna get em coming to your school, you have to factor in that their disposable income's going to be less than that of the Japanese.

And the area sounds like a candidate for terminal decline faster than you can say rust.

I saw on gaijinpot and recently letsjapan the ref to the dropkick who wanted 50 grand for his mickey mouse school in Hamamatsu. It's a fcuking interesting thread on gaijinpot in the Small Businesses forum. The pot posters seemed reasonable and pointed out that figures were being fudged and the wanker hid the fact that the school was for evangelising as much as eikaiwa.

Thanks again Yokohammer!:cool:

[Greji]

Of course there are the usual prejudiced accusations that the Brazilians are now responsible for all the crime in the city.

Hammer, you have to realize when you don't have Roppongi and Nigerians available, you gotta turn to the closest at hand.....

[Greji]

Admit that you seems to have some issues...

[SIZE="3"]WAXED?[/SIZE]

[sublight]

I may be the one your thinking of as the "bloke on this forum who said something about not good memories of working in Hamamatsu" since I did just that a little while ago.

To clarify: I was too chicken to go to Japan with no job lined up, so I went with a tiny school in Hamamatsu that was willing to hire me from overseas. the fact that it was Hamamatsu was coincidence, I was sending applications to places all around the country. As I soon learned, schools that are willing to risk culture shock bailouts and hire someone sight unseen from overseas are usually doing so because nobody local will work with them (NOVA was doing the same thing, but even as a clueless kid just out of school 15 years ago, something just didn't seem right about them).

While the school had a bad reputation in town, for me is wasn't actually that bad. The owner was a sukebe old fart who'd been an interpreter during the occupation and was probably Greji's original sensei in the art of nampa way back when. His son was 40-something wanker who wasn't useful for much beyond being the boss's son. Together, their main interest was trying to bed all the female teachers (which is what burned all the local bridges). They also ran the 'overtime plan that guarantees nobody gets overtime' scam, but in general, they were nice to me: I drank, I was into picking up girls, I'd listen to their BS with rolling my eyes too obviously, and I got along well with the managers of the companies where I'd teach, so I was ok in their eyes.

After my contract ended, I went to another school in Hamamatsu. My relationship with them was rockier, but that was mainly because of me a) banging the secretary, who turned out to be a complete psycho, and b) deciding that eikaiwa wasn't a career and finding a job in Tokyo that started before my contract with them had ended. Altogether, I don't think my bad experiences had as much to do with Hamamatsu as with eikaiwa in general (although when I spent a year in Tokyo doing it, things went much smoother).

The city itself, however, was great. Fantastic beach, friendly community (for me, at least), lots of wide open spaces, and plenty of cute girls. The downside was that the only job options for non-Brazilian foreigners were either teaching English or marrying a Japanese citizen and opening a restaurant. There was also a distinct lack of gaijin goods (books mainly) but that was before the Internet and Citibank. If I could get a decent job there, I'd be thrilled to move back, although my wife (one of the 'cute girls' mentioned earlier) would probably prefer to stay in Tokyo.

[sublight]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Yokohammer again.

I don't necessarily agree that it's foreigner unfriendly (although it's been a long time since I lived there), but good explanation.

[Coligny]

WAXED?

Yeah, hurts a bit but last much longer than shaving...

Do you like gladiators movies ?