Corona and Japan

 

Corona and Japan

    Hello, this is Lucas, and welcome to the podcast. Today, I want to talk about something that many of you outside Japan might be curious about, especially if you’re considering working here as I do, and that is how the coronavirus has affected Japan. In any discussion about life in Japan lately this is inevitably going to be an elephant in the room, and so I want to run you through what the last year has been like living here, as we approach the one year anniversary of life as we know it being turned upside down. The news may give you some idea about the broad details, but I’ll break it down in terms of what daily life has been like from the perspective of a teacher working in the public school system. Wherever you are I’m sure this is true to some extent, but it’s certainly been a bit surreal, like I’m living in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

    So to give you some background, one year ago I was looking for a new job, as I had just ended a contract at the Eikaiwa, or English conversation school, that I had been working at since 2018. Spectacular timing, I know. As I mentioned in my first podcast, I had moved here to Kitakyushu from Okinawa, mainly because I have friends in the area. For that reason, and also to avoid having to move again, I wanted to stay here, and so I found myself in the unenviable position of not only looking for a new job in the midst of an emerging pandemic, but doing so in one specific (and not very large) city. Needless to say, options were a little tight. In the end, I found a job at a private company that sources teachers for local school boards, and even though it was a step down for me in terms of salary, I took it. I had been seeing news coming from Canada, the US and Europe about economies grinding to a halt and millions of people out of work, so I basically counted myself lucky to have found anything at all.

    I should note, at this point, that when news of the virus came out, basically right as I was looking for work, I did consider just going back to Canada. There were several factors that ultimately influenced this decision. One was that at that time, no one knew just how crazy things were going to get. Between February and March, I had had some indications that this was more than just a minor bug localized to China: cases had been identified in Japan, and initially there was a hard lockdown, but that only lasted about a week. After that, the government and businesses implemented safety protocols, staying at home was made more or less voluntary, and even though non-essential businesses remained largely closed, one could have been forgiven for thinking that the situation was more or less under control.

    I should make it clear that the initial Japanese response was fairly decisive, compared to other countries. Japan, unlike in parts of the West, has no anti-intellectual subculture, no inherent distrust of science among any significant segment of the population, and…it shows. One thing I like about living here is that they care about results, they care about facts, and as such, they listen to their experts. The results of this have been a sharp contrast to what you’ve probably seen in the West: no protests, no conspiracy theories, and masks are basically ubiquitous. People wore them even before the pandemic if they had so much as a sniffle, it’s just considered a common courtesy to others to not spread germs all over the place. This contrast struck me early on, and I decided that if I was going to weather the pandemic anywhere, I was probably better off here. To date, it looks like that bet has paid off, because at the time of writing this, in Japan there have only been a total of 7530 COVID-related deaths, out of a population of 125,620,000, or about 0.006%. That rate is significantly lower than the US, at 0.15%, or Canada, at 0.057%. In terms of total cases, the number for Japan works out to about 0.34% of the population, which also puts the numbers from the US and Canada to shame, at 8.6% and 2.2% respectively.

    This low caseload in Japan has meant that while there are precautions we have to take, life has gone on with much less disruption than I have seen elsewhere on the news. I’ll walk you through what daily life has been like here, and let you compare that with what you’ve experienced.

    So when I started in this job, we did much of our initial training remotely, as remote work rolled out pretty quickly here, and has remained a big feature of the business world ever since. For my job, which is in public school, we’re still expected to actually go to school, but basically all my contact with my contracting company has been through email, Zoom, or messenger, and actually there has been a surge in the number of companies here that offer remote private lessons.

    In our training, we were told that because of the pandemic, schools would probably be closed for a few weeks, but that they would reopen as soon as it could be done safely. This indeed proved to be the case. We had a few weeks to prepare lessons and materials, and then I was back in a classroom. We had to wear masks of course, there was hand sanitizer everywhere, we were required to check and submit our temperature every day, plastic barriers now separate our desks in the staff room, and initially, classes were cut in half to allow for social distancing. Gradually, they did move back to full classes and a regular schedule, but the other measures have pretty much stayed in place. Social distancing is still enforced as much as possible, especially in assemblies of any kind, but that has begun to relax a little. This past year, with all that’s happened, I’m actually pretty amazed that students only lost about a month of school in Japan. I think that speaks volumes about what a little science and a little social consciousness can get you, as well as what the priorities here are.

    Outside of school, some businesses have taken a hit, but I have actually seen very few (if any) close. For a while, I’d say mostly in the spring and summer of last year, a lot of people stayed home and self-isolated (even though it wasn’t mandated), and restaurants were often pretty empty, but much less so now. Occasionally, as minor outbreaks of the virus occur, businesses have been obliged to close earlier, but this has been pretty rare. For the most part, everything is open, and people can come and go as they choose, doing more or less as they please. Everywhere you go, masks, sanitizer and social distancing factor in, but because people are so diligent and conscientious about these things, life goes on as normal otherwise. Even movie theatres are open, and I go out for ramen every weekend, where my favorite restaurant is reliably busy.

    Significantly, the one big change that remains in place is the fact that the borders are, for now, effectively sealed. As the pandemic ramped up last year, Japan, a country that has historically shut its borders at the drop of a hat, rather unsurprisingly…shut its borders. With a few minor exceptions, they have not reopened since. At the time of writing this, travel from almost every other country is suspended, based on a state of emergency that was declared in early February. This declaration, in response to the detection of a more virulent strain of corona within Japan, put on hold a partial, phased re-opening that had been in the works. Luckily I hadn’t planned to visit Canada this year, because that would be more or less impossible, and as far as I know, the hiring of new foreign teachers is pretty much a no-go for the upcoming academic year. However, it is worth noting that if things turn around and the borders do open by the summer, teachers may be allowed in at that time. This is significant, as some of you may know, because the biggest employer of foreign teachers in Japan, The JET Programme, usually brings over most of those teachers in August.

    The biggest factor that’s going to determine what happens in the next few months, as you might guess, is vaccination. Now, while the news from Japan regarding corona has been reasonably good so far, when it comes to vaccines, not so much. Never one to be rushed, Japan has taken its time to approve a vaccine, and to date only one (from Pfizer) has been given the nod. Because of this slow approval process, a supply chain has been subsequently slow to get set up, and therefore only as of mid-February have any shots started landing in arms. Right now, the very few doses available are going to doctors and nurses, but supply delays mean that any large-scale rollout here will probably be delayed until April. Securing enough shots for the entire population will probably take until June, or at least according to most estimates.

    So overall, things could be worse here. We did have our share of panic-buying initially, which surprised me a little, and I ended up getting dangerously low on toilet paper. Masks were also hard to come by for a while, but now the supply chains seem to have adjusted. While I’d prefer to get a vaccine sooner rather than later, as I work around hundreds of people every day, the delays there are the only real complaint I’d say I have at this point. Japan is nothing if not pragmatic, and really, that’s what is needed to get this situation under control. If you want to come, and they let you come, I would say go for it. To the rest of you, stay safe.

    If you haven’t yet, leave a comment about what you liked, what you’d like to see more of, any questions, I promise I’ll get to all of them. And if you can, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patreon supporters get early access to episodes, access to some exclusive episodes, and some livestreams and Q&As will certainly be in the mix too. I’ll catch you next time.

The Hobbyist

 

    The Hobbyist

    Hello again, and welcome. This is Luke, and welcome to my humble podcast. So, last time I talked a bit about my work (teaching English in Japan, in case you missed it) and therefore today I thought it appropriate to talk a bit about the things I do for fun. To put it mildly, I am a man of a thousand interests; I collect hobbies like some people collect coins or postage stamps. Actually, one of my hobbies is collecting coins. I want to talk about these things because they will undoubtedly factor into later podcasts, where I will go into each in more depth, and also because I want to talk about hobbies in general, and why they are important from both a social and psychological point of view. In the future, I want to discuss a lot of different things here, like travel, politics, society, culture and science, but the lifestyle/hobby section will probably take up a pretty big chunk of bandwidth. As they say, life is short, and so you should do the things you love while you’re here.

    So before I go any further let me read out a quick laundry list of my hobbies, and give you some idea of what I’d like to chat about going forward. I’ve mentioned my lifelong interest in martial arts before, and that’s been a major focus for me. All told, I’ve taken Judo, Aikido, Karate, Kung Fu, Kickboxing, and a little bit of Jiujitsu. My approach to the martial arts is that of a generalist, where I learn what I can when I can, and try to take the best of each, incorporating them into a style that works for me. I think I mentioned I took some yoga too, which sort of ties into the martial arts, as I was taking it in part to improve my flexibility. I also run on a weekly basis, something I started casually, maybe a few times a year, and then got more into when I lived in Okinawa. There, I actually entered (and finished) two half-marathons, but to be perfectly honest I don’t plan on doing that again. I understand why some people like the challenge, it’s good to test yourself, but I just run for general health reasons, and pushing it past 7 kilometers at a time feels like overkill. If you run so far that your nipples start bleeding, I think that’s a clear sign to stop and call it a day.

    Another health-related hobby of mine is cooking, something I’ve done with varying degrees of success since I was a kid. I try to cook (key word: “try”) as a means to regulate my diet, save money on restaurants, and of course, try new things. It’s a little difficult right now because the kitchen in my apartment is atrocious, but nonetheless I have a pretty decent repertoire of recipes, and am fairly good at improvising.

    Cooking segues well into another hobby: gardening. I like growing my own fruits and veggies from scratch, there’s just a certain poetic quality to that, I think. I always liked the idea of growing exotic foods too, things you can’t usually find in a grocery store. I think someday I’d love to have a side business where I use hydroponics to grow some of the many edible plants that we just don’t make use of in Western society.

    Also, since we’re on the subject of being outdoorsy, I enjoy both hiking and camping from time to time. Naturally, the ideal window for doing either is pretty short in Canada (a few weeks between winter and black fly season really), but I’ve done a fair share of both in Japan. One of my favourite places to camp as on the beaches of Miyazaki, where we split our time between bonfires and body-boarding.

    Writing, as you may have guessed, is another hobby. I write all of this material, I kept a blog, I write short stories, and someday I’d love to publish a book, but I’ll keep you guessing as to what that will be about. If I end up getting enough support via Patreon, I may take some time off to get that done, but it’s a tall order when you’re working a full time job.

    I also like art, having taken a full year of art school between high school and university. Right now my art is mainly limited to doodling and sketching anime characters for my students, but I like painting and sculpture too. I even learned how to weld so that I could try my hand at metal sculpture. If I had a studio I would totally get back into that, but as you might imagine, welding kits are not cheap.

    Under the category of “totally random hobbies”, I also know how to juggle, something I picked up during my first teaching tour in Japan, and know how to use “poi”. Poi, in case you are unaware, is probably best described as a style of performance art, native to the Maori people of New Zealand, where one swings tethered weights in rhythmic patterns around the body. While traveling in Thailand, I happened to see someone performing this, was immediately fascinated, and essentially demanded they teach me how to do it.

    I should also mention my quasi-hobbies, which I would classify as “interests” really, since they’re passive activities. I love comics, used to collect them when I was a teenager, and consequently I’ve seen just about every superhero-themed movie and TV show there is. I love MARVEL, am currently re-watching all the movies in timeline order as I write this, and my top 5 superheroes of all time are, in order: Wolverine, Deadpool, Iron Man, Spiderman, and Thor. DC is alright, but compared to MARVEL their writing has been a bit of a train wreck. I also like watching Youtube videos, as does 99.9% of my audience I imagine, but I especially love Sci-Show, Answers with Joe, Crash Course, Atlas Pro, PBS Eons, Caspian Report, and pretty much any other channel that produces interesting science, history, or political content. Not that cat videos don’t have their place, but I can really only justify watching sitting on my butt watching Youtube for hours if I’m learning something.

    Lastly, I have to mention the hobby that I’m guessing a lot of you share, and that’s gaming. I suppose I have to qualify that a bit by saying that I don’t just play video games, but also board games, mobile games (read: Pokemon Go), and card games, most notably Magic: The Gathering. So, basically all the games. Another thing I’d love to do eventually is open a game store, not just for buying and trading games, but with actual spaces to rent and play board games as well. I was thinking of starting a Kickstarter campaign for that, but it’ll no doubt have to wait until we can all gather safely in groups again. As far as video games are concerned, I’m both a console gamer and a PC gamer, proud owner of a PS4 and long-time World of Warcraft player. For the uninitiated, World of Warcraft (or WoW), is an MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role playing game. In fact, it was THE MMORPG back when it first came out way back in 2004, and still dominates a huge market share. At the moment, I play Classic WoW, helping to lead a group of players, or “guild”, on an Australian server called Remulos. It’s a great community, and to be honest I sort of dig being one of the only Canadians.

    So now let’s talk about hobbies in general, and let me open with a quote. I’m not 100% sure at this point if I heard this somewhere else or if this is one of my own, but if I’m plagiarizing please feel free to set me straight in the comments. Ready? Here it is: “If you want to be interesting to others, you have to be interested in things.” In other words, if all you do is work all day and watch TV all night when you get home, then I hate to break it to you, but…you’re boring. I suppose if you’re with an equally boring partner and you’re both content being boring together and raising boring little children, then ok, you do you. But, I personally don’t think this is the optimal lifestyle choice if you want to find (or keep) an interesting partner. Not only that, but if co-workers find you interesting, this will work out better for you than if they find you about as fun as watching paint dry. Hobbies are something of a social lubricant – a conversation starter, a way to bond with people, and a lot of them are cheaper than alcohol, another fallback social lubricant for a lot of people. Just speaking anecdotally, I can think of quite a few examples where I’ve made new friends and connected with new partners through a hobby. If you’re lonely, a problem that is no doubt reaching epidemic proportions right now (pardon the expression) I can think of no better way to meet new people than to join a club or group and explore an interest that you’ve been itching to explore for years. We are, after all, social creatures, and all this isolation is bad for our mental health. Even if you can only go online to take a class, that’s still going to provide you with some opportunities to meet people, and the importance of doing this cannot be overstated.

    Social networks, alongside family, are the foundation of a society, and the thing with platforms like Facebook is that often, the algorithms create an echo chamber, where one social circle never mixes with another, and you never even hear any opinions other than those you already agree with. This isolates you from society at large, in a way that’s not unlike being in a cult. When you join a hobby group however, you’re going to meet a much more random cross-section of people, and this is a healthy thing. Yes, you may meet some people whose beliefs and politics you don’t agree with, but the mere exposure to this will help keep you grounded. This sort of interaction reminds us that we are diverse in our backgrounds and beliefs, but that we can still share common interests. Finding that common ground, as a means to counteract the “Facebook Effect”, and to broaden our social perspective, is vitally important, I believe, in keeping our societies functional. And as I said, you may find a hot date in the process.

    Another reason for people to adopt a hobby is that they actually keep you young and healthy, in a number of ways. Studies have shown that people who spend time engaged in hobbies tend to have better psychological and physical functioning overall than those who don’t. Firstly, being engaged in an immersive activity tends to stimulate your brain and reduce stress, and this means that you tend to be “sharper” in general, and have better long-term cognitive outcomes as you age. Secondly, the simple act of doing something you enjoy actually helps alleviate depression. A number of studies have looked at this, and some doctors will even prescribe taking up a hobby to people with mild depressive symptoms, in lieu of anti-depressants. Finally, a physical hobby, whatever it may be, is a key ingredient in staying healthy in the long term. If you don’t use it, you lose it, and that’s why most health experts will tell you that something like 30 minutes of physical activity a day is a bare minimum for maintaining your health. Stretching, going for a walk – these are a good start, but if you can manage to find some kind of physical activity that actually interests you, then it won’t seem like work. I know a lot of people will say that they’re allergic to exercise, but even if nothing on Earth could drag you into a gym, there is still something out there for you. The trick, I think, is starting small and forming a habit out of being more active. A lot of us may have negative associations with sports, we may feel generally uncomfortable with our bodies, or feel like we don’t know where to start, but all of these hurdles can be overcome. Even if you have a physical handicap, there is always something you can do, and something is always better than nothing. If you feel like you need to consult a doctor, of course you should do so, but just remember that every day of our lives we are either growing weaker or growing stronger, and that decision is up to us.

    Finally, I just want to say, even though you may have heard it before, that you never know until you try. Explore a little. Say yes to everything. If you’re nervous, then feel the fear and do it anyway. Whatever it is, maybe you’ll suck, but so what? The fun is in getting better. The fun is in meeting new people. While I may not be American, I do believe that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are why we’re all here. Give yourself permission to pursue your happiness. Thank you for joining me, and I hope to see you all again next time.

So, You Want to Teach in Japan

     So, You Want to Teach in Japan

    Konnichiwa, I am Lucas, and welcome to my humble podcast. Today, inevitably, I have to talk a little more about what it is I do, and what I have been doing now for over ten years. As some of you know, I am a teacher of English in Japan, and over the course of my time here, I have worked in both public and private schools, taught all ages from kindergarten through to retirees, and done so in a number of different areas and contexts. I’ve also done a fair amount of editing for English publications, and even a little bit of voice acting. My intention here is to share that experience, talk about what I’ve learned, explain the pros and cons of teaching English here to people who are considering it, go through which employers are better to work for, and maybe dive into some other related topics.

    So, for now let’s just pretend that you’re a potential employer and I’m explaining my background in an interview. I did go through my work briefly in my introductory podcast, but I want you to see what the ins and outs of the job are like, especially if you are thinking of doing this yourself. It’s good to note though, and they’ll tell you this often when you start teaching here: EVERY SITUATION IS DIFFERENT. Sometimes shockingly different. More on that later.

    Originally, I applied to the JET Programme, which is administered by the government of Japan, a few years after university. JET, in case you’re wondering, stands for Japan Exchange and Teaching, and its aims are to both place native English speakers in the public school system to assist the Japanese English teachers, and to promote cultural exchange between Japan and English speaking countries. At the time I applied, I had been working in a call center, wanted to see more of the world, and had always had a fascination with Japan, probably due to my lifelong obsession with the martial arts. I had taken judo in elementary school, aikido in high school and karate in university, and through them had developed quite a keen interest in Japan’s unique culture and history. So, you can imagine how delighted I was when I passed the interview process for JET and was told I was soon to be teaching in Beppu city, Oita prefecture, in lovely eastern Kyushu.

    In Beppu, I was employed by the prefecture, or “Ken”, as are most JETs. The Ken is the regional government, like the provinces in Canada or the states in the US, and it makes the decision about the hiring process for teachers. They also pay your salary. Some teachers are contracted by the regional Board of Education, usually those who teach in elementary schools, but it varies from region to region. In my case, the Ken decided to place me in a regional senior high school, which was my base school. Once a week, I was sent out to teach at a local junior high school, and once a month I went to teach at a special needs school. To be clear, this is not a typical arrangement, and other teachers had vastly different timetables.

    Overall, the job itself was a bit tough at first, because I only had a little teaching experience like occasionally teaching martial arts, and a co-op placement I did in high school as an assistant in an elementary school class. Generally they know to expect this though, as most new teachers are the same. After a while, I learned what the students needed to learn, what their ability levels were, what techniques worked well in class, and became good enough at my job that they seemed happy to renew my contract when the time came. I think the biggest assets that anyone can bring to the job, or at least the ones that helped me most, are open-mindedness, a willingness to improve, and flexibility. In making that initial adjustment to a new culture I may have had it easier than a lot of people, because I knew a lot about the culture to begin with. If you’re open-minded and flexible however, this can really help to get you through any rough spots you may encounter. And, as with any profession, a willingness to improve, especially one you demonstrate consistently, will make people in your work environment not only like you more, but want to help you succeed. You will absolutely need the support of those around you in this place, especially if your Japanese is limited, so giving back where you can and being a team player is hugely important.

    I stayed in Beppu for two years, but then was transferred to Oita city nearby in year three when teaching positions were reshuffled. During this time, my biggest priority was learning Japanese, because I had come with virtually none. This is not uncommon, but it doesn’t make life easy. I took the introductory Japanese course offered through the JET Programme, and basically became competent enough to read things phonetically and use basic expressions. I also made a lot of new friends through the JET community, many of which I keep in touch with to this day. The JET community is good at helping with social networking, and I tried my best to be engaged with the community where I could, taking part in charity activities and helping to organize social events.

    After three years, I began to get a little homesick, and decided to go back to Canada. Originally, my intention was to establish a career in the government. The timing, however, didn’t end up working out in my favor. I went back to Canada in 2008, when the Great Recession was pretty much in full swing. For those of you who don’t remember, after the housing bubble burst in the US, it had knock-on ramifications for economies all over the developed world, and even though Canada wasn’t hit as hard as some countries, there wasn’t a lot of hiring going on. I had to improvise and take what was available, and it turned out that short-term contracts were pretty much the only work around. Over the next few years, I did manage to get a lot of experience in government, but through contract work only, meaning that building a career was more or less out of the question. I moved from Kingston to Toronto to Ottawa, working in Human Resources, Administration and Social Services, but the lack of any job security was frankly exhausting. I finally decided after a few years that I had been better off in Japan, and so, in 2012, I reapplied to JET.

    To make a long story short, I got accepted again, but this time, I was assigned to go to Okinawa. It was basically like winning the lottery. Okinawa had been my first choice of placements, and having never had the chance to visit it the first time around, I was thrilled to be going. I was hired by the Board of Education on Miyakojima, a small island just east of Taiwan, and taught at six Junior High Schools. This time around, I was a little more experienced, and far from being a struggle, I felt I was truly in my element. I built on my knowledge to create a repertoire of strategies for teaching, and a collection of activities that would motivate students to learn while helping them to consolidate their knowledge. Over the course of the next five years, I refined my ideas, built on my experience, and tried to become the best teacher Miyakojima had ever seen. I tutored students for contests, homestays and tests, judged competitions, did a little voice acting, and met a lot of wonderful people. I also used my spare time to study Japanese, getting to a more intermediate level, and to gain as much volunteer experience as I could. I joined the local JET newsletter as Assistant Editor and moved up to Managing Editor, I represented the Okinawa chapter of Stonewall Japan, and was Block Leader for Miyakojima JET participants. The experience in team-building that came from this was invaluable, and has served me well ever since. I even tried some more unconventional lessons, like English cooking classes, and English Kung-Fu classes, to name a few. Coincidentally, I was also placed at a “future school”, where the Ministry of Education was testing a program to give tablets to every student and use touch-screen computers in class. In my experience it was very successful, and I guess the Ministry agreed, because this program is now being rolled out nationwide.

    As my time in Miyako drew to a close, I decided that I wanted to continue working as a teacher. I enjoyed the work, and frankly, I had become very good at it. My relationships with my students and fellow teachers were not only great but very rewarding, and Japan had become like my second home. So, with this in mind, I began applying to similar work. As it turned out, I found a position in Kitakyushu, with an English conversation school, or Eikaiwa.

    Private teaching was quite a different experience from JET, to say the least. Most notably, it was more demanding, as small language schools have a tighter budget, and depend on teaching as many classes as they can to maximize their income. I didn’t mind this, as I like keeping busy, but for some people it might be a bit much. With JET, you would often have large chunks of free time, because you are not the main teacher, but an assistant who helps as they are needed. With an Eikaiwa, you are the main teacher in many cases, and so you have to prepare, teach, mark assignments, and maintain discipline. The salaries are comparable, but for the work you have to do, Eikaiwa teachers should really earn more, and often don’t.

    In addition, in a public school, you have a boss (the principal, and ultimately, the prefecture), but they really don’t have much to do with you. You’re just another part of the “English team”, and you’re more or less left alone to do your job. In an Eikaiwa, you basically work with your boss every day. If you get a nice boss this can be fine, but if you are unlucky and get a boss that likes to micro-manage, for example, this can be a lot of stress. The hours are also…quite different. As conversation schools conduct the majority of their lessons after regular schools finish, you generally start in the afternoon with planning, teach younger kids when they finish around 3-5, and then the older kids between 5 and 10. I often got home around 11 at night. If you’re a night owl like I am this can work out, but if you like a 9-5 job, this option is not for you. Ultimately, it was a combination of these factors that lead me to leave the Eikaiwa after about a year and a half.

    After the Eikaiwa, I was looking to stay in Kitakyushu, but options were a bit limited, as it turned out. This was because over the last few years, Fukuoka has become dominated by the “dispatch” model, along with some other places in Japan. Allow me to explain. Boards of Education, who typically handle the selection and hiring process for teachers, sometimes don’t like the responsibility that comes with hiring and looking out for foreign teachers. Dispatch companies act as intermediaries, hiring and managing a roster of foreign teachers, who they then hire out to BOEs. On the surface, this may sound ok, but after working for a dispatch company, let me be clear: it is not.

    For lack of better options, I gave one of these companies a try last year, and here is what I’ve learned. For starters, private companies care about their bottom line first, and dispatch companies will place this above the welfare of the teachers they hire. To begin with, the money the company makes comes from what the BOE would, in other circumstances, pay directly to the teacher. There is no consideration given to how this might affect the quality of life for the teachers, they are simply expected to live on less while the company takes up to 30% of what would otherwise be the teacher’s salary. Further, because the teachers in a dispatch company are not considered “full time employees” but rather “contract employees”, it means that you only get paid for the days you work, and are given no sick days, no paid vacation, nothing. You also don’t get help with social insurance costs, which your employer would otherwise supplement. This entire business model, based on my experience, seems like a way to exploit teachers, expecting them to do the same work as JETs, but giving them as little as possible back in return. In case it was unclear, avoid this type of work at all costs.

    Aside from public schools, conversation schools and dispatch companies, there are other places and other ways to teach in Japan, such as in private schools. I did work in a private school while at the conversation school, although not directly, as the Eikeiwa had basically contracted me out. My experience was generally good, although since I wasn’t working for them directly, I can’t really say much about salary and benefits. What I know from general research is that because students (or rather their parents) pay a premium to attend private schools, they can afford to pay their teachers reasonably well, and offer competitive benefits. Because of this, they are generally considered the best type of employers for foreign teachers outside of the JET Programme, and sometimes they can even be better. One friend in Okinawa has been working at his private school for ten years, only has to work 4 days a week, makes very good money, and gets lots of vacation time. I’m sure he works hard, but I think I speak for many teachers when I say hard work is not a problem when an employer compensates us fairly and appreciates our experience.

    Finally, an option open to those with a Master’s degree is teaching at a university. As my degree is a BA in Psychology I have not done this myself, but know several friends who have. As you might imagine, universities will pay the most, and have competitive benefits. The downsides are that full-time employment can be difficult to find, and may take a long time to achieve. As for tenure, don’t hold your breath. It takes years. Also, these positions will often require you to be fairly fluent in Japanese, so that you can explain complex concepts to students. If you can get it though, it’s basically the holy grail of teaching gigs.

    In general, I’d say that teaching here in Japan has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. The last few years have been rough, due in part to the pandemic, but in a way the pandemic is working in our favor. Due to the fact that Japan isn’t letting many new foreign teachers in, the shortage of available teachers within the country means that schools are increasingly having a hard time filling these jobs, and as such are willing to offer slightly more. When I say slightly though, I do mean slightly. The trend over the last decade in teacher salaries has been steadily downward, and the pandemic has only mitigated that trend a little. Right now, the average pay for teachers is about 250,000\ a month, which is about 3000$ Canadian or 2400$ US. You’ll see some offers of 300,000\, mostly at private schools, but the average hasn’t budged much over the last year from what I have seen. Only recently have I seen offers creeping up toward the 280,000\ range, but some schools are apparently trying to take advantage of desperate teachers stuck here and looking for work, because I have seen some offers as laughably low as 150,000\ for full time work. I’m pretty sure convenience store workers make more. Also, as with the dispatch companies, many employers will try to cut corners on benefits, so this is very important to pay attention to. Social security and health care deductions can take a huge bite out of your paycheck, and if an employer doesn’t supplement these payments, it makes a big difference. Foreign workers should send a clear message by not accepting work with employers that insist on short-changing them, so that these practices are stamped out. They push the burden onto naïve foreign workers, taking advantage of the fact that they don’t fully understand the Japanese tax codes, labour laws, or labour market.

    In my opinion, for foreigners looking to work overseas, Japan is still an excellent option. Standards of living are high, the people are lovely, crime is basically a non-issue, and importantly their health care system is excellent. Also, the kids are a joy to teach, which is why I do this. That being said, it’s imperative for teachers to understand that companies will not look after your interests the way that privately funded or government-run institutions will. The profit motive, as far as I’m concerned, has no place in education, as it often causes corners to be cut and quality to decrease. The JET Programme, for that reason, is the gold standard, and I cannot recommend it enough. My experiences there definitely enriched my life.

    Even now, if you want to see the world, there are options. For me, the value of doing so still outweighs the risks and burdens that the pandemic has imposed, and vaccines are on the way. Living and working abroad changes you for the better in some fundamental ways, I truly believe that, just as I believe that the world will always need more people with a broader world view.

    If you are considering this sort of work, I hope this helped you to make a more informed decision, and I wish you the best of luck. Stay safe, of course, but never lose your sense of adventure.

Top Travels

 

Top Travels

Hey hey, this is Lucas, and welcome to the podcast. To be honest, picking a topic wasn’t easy, because I have a long, long list of ideas to cover. I think I’m just going to have to move in some sort of logical progression, while at the same time staying reasonably topical.

That being said, as someone who has tried his best to get out and see as much of the world as he can, a rundown of some of those countries seems like a good transition from my little self-introduction. Most people love travel, or even if they can’t find a way to travel (especially now), they love the idea of travel, and of discovering other cultures and places. That old chestnut about travel being broadening is totally true, and it’s something that I would recommend to anyone. Somewhere out there, there is a country just begging for you to go and fall in madly love with it. At the very least, you’ll learn some fascinating little things about a new and interesting culture that you’d probably never learn from seeing it on YouTube or on TV. There really is something to be said for firsthand experience, and hopefully sharing some of mine can give you a better idea of where you might want to go when the world returns to some semblance of normalcy.

Of the 195 sovereign states that currently exist, I feel that having only seen 11 of them in person I have a lot of work to do, but once I have the time and the money, more travel is definitely on my agenda. I’ve seen a fairly good chunk of Japan, having lived here for about a decade, but I may set Japan aside and give it its own episode, so that I can truly do it justice. Let’s just do this in chronological order otherwise.

The first foreign country I ever visited, as you might imagine, was the good old US of A. My house is about 45 minutes by car from the US border, so not only did my family go shopping there once in a while, but Kingston also gets a lot of tourists and weekend partiers up from the south as well. Being a university town, Kingston has a pretty decent night life, and possibly more importantly, we have a lower drinking age than New York does (19 compared to 21), so for that reason we have a lot of young military recruits come up from Fort Drum. Let’s just say, in my experience, they held their liquor about as well as you might expect a lot of guys between 19 and 21 would. All that aside though, when my family went to the US, all I can remember is thinking about is how similar it was to Canada. The road signs looked sort of weird, the shops and brands were a bit different, but other than that, upstate New York barely seemed like another country.

Florida, on the other hand…wow. We went to Disney World when I was about 12, and that place did strike me as though the culture was somehow…different. It’s hard to put my finger on now. It was 30 years ago, mind you. Based on what I’ve heard Florida has become about 1000% weirder in that time, but even then it was a bit of a shock. I think the heat and a bug I picked up somewhere along the way may have colored my experience a bit though. My memories now are a blurry mix of fireworks at Epcot on New Year’s Eve, breakfast at IHOP, a lot of signs for alligator farms (like, why would you even farm alligators?), and a pervading nausea. It’s quite possible the heat and humidity in Florida just messes with Canadians, because I felt equally queasy when I first set foot in Okinawa.

One thing that did stick with me from that trip and subsequent trips I made to upstate New York throughout high school though, was that yes, there is definitely a “politeness gap”. I mean, not all Canadians are polite, and not all Americans are rude, but…I just have this one memory of brushing past some guy in a restaurant in Albany, saying “Excuse me”, and the response, I kid you not, was a very aggressive “Yeah, whatever”. Alrighty then. My experiences of Americans living abroad though have been almost universally awesome. It’s like night and day. It just demonstrates how different the culture is from area to area in the US, and how you really can’t judge the US (or any country, for that matter) unless you get a really broad sample. Overall I love the country, wish them the best, and hope that I can see more of it someday, but the weirdness of the Trump era has made me put off those plans until America learns how to make peace with itself.

Moving on, once I had made my way to Japan in 2005, I actually got roped almost immediately into joining several other teachers on a trip to Thailand over the winter holidays. I hadn’t planned on going to Thailand, but they had booked a whole package tour, someone had subsequently dropped out, and I figured…why not? To this day, I am incredibly glad I went. Thailand is stunning in its natural beauty, filled with diverse and friendly people, and has a cuisine that just doesn’t even compare with anything else in the world: spicy, savory, complex, and incredibly varied.

We started in Bankok, as many do, and were lucky enough to have a wonderful guide named Noot as well as six other people in our tour group, all of whom were lovely, with the exception of one miserable older British man who we generally ignored. During the days, Noot showed us all of the standard sights – The Grand Palace, Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, a boat tour of the Chao Phraya River – while at night we were free to explore on our own. Some people poo-poo tour groups, but this worked very well for us. We saw the things we wanted to see, some sights that we would never have known were there, and still had time to explore.

From Bankok, we took a night train down the isthmus of Thailand to Khao Sok National Park, a completely surreal place to someone like myself, who had hardly ever traveled before. Soaring, ancient-looking limestone cliffs cloaked in thick jungle, jutting out of a steaming tropical lake; this is where we stayed for three days, on floating bamboo raft-houses. Our meals were expertly prepared, and there were daily excursions to explore caves, the nearby town, and to ride elephants through a rubber plantation. Every day revealed more of this unique culture, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we were all just drinking it up. It was here I actually learned how to use poi (P-O-I), which, if you are unfamiliar, is a type of performance art, popular in Thailand. The name refers both to the art, and to the tethered weights that one rhythmically swings around their body. In a way, it was actually good training for certain weapons I later studied while taking Kung Fu.

After the raft-houses, we moved on from the park to the nearby town, where we stayed in huts in the jungle. There, I vividly recall riding inner tubes along a gorgeous stretch of river, insulated by thick jungle on either side. A number of us also had traditional tattoos done by a local artist, something that in retrospect sounds sort of crazy, but I don’t regret doing at all. Later, we moved further down the isthmus and stayed in a beach resort in Krabi, where we had a breathtaking tour of the Andaman Sea by yacht, and spent a full day and night camping on one of the local islands. There, we went snorkeling, sang songs by a campfire, ate fish freshly caught that afternoon, and gaped at the enormous monitor lizards that happened to live there. That day was definitely a highlight.

This was followed by an overnight stay at a rubber plantation, where the owner took us out to watch a Muay Thai tournament. As a martial artist this was easily another one my favorite experiences, and I was just stunned by the raw skill and discipline of each of those fighters, some of them as young as ten. Later, we had gotten back to our huts on the plantation and had just settled in for the night when we were suddenly startled awake and shaken out of bed by music booming out of the nearby jungle. Of course, with sleep utterly out of the question, we got up and went to check it out. As it turned out, someone was putting on a rave. I didn’t know jungle raves were a thing, but they totally are. It was about as epic and surreal as one might expect, but after dancing for a few hours, I was so tired my brain basically shut down, and I don’t remember much else.

This is just a brief overview of some of the things we saw, and I loved it so much I ended up going back to Thailand again a few years later. I did a few of the same things for the sake of nostalgia, explored a few new spots, but to keep it reasonably brief I’ll just say that it’s hard not to have fun in that country. Thailand most definitely left a little bit of itself in my soul, along with that little bit of ink on my ankle.

The next country I ticked off my bucket list was Korea, because while I had been working in Oita, my cousin Brian had been working in Busan, also as an English teacher. This is definitely a common theme in my family; my sister did it too. Anyway, I took the train to Fukuoka, and from there actually made my way by hovercraft to Busan. A hovercraft over a choppy ocean is about as bumpy as you might expect, but it was definitely a cool way to travel. It costs 32,000 yen for a round trip, which is about 300 dollars, takes about 3 hours, and if the weather is nice you do get some cool views.

My experience of Busan was overall quite good. I started off having dinner with my cousin, sampling some of the local cuisine and nightlife. The cuisine didn’t win me over quite the way it did in Thailand, but it was colorful, unique and well-prepared. I’m not huge on kimchi, but until I went to Korea I had no idea the number of varieties there were. Even I, a lifelong opponent of all things pickled, ended up enjoying a few of them.

Korea is of course a modern country, but one that celebrates its roots. Ancient temples mingle with modern skyscrapers, gaming centers juxtapose with tranquil gardens, and I found it to be home to a people that seek to balance working hard with having fun. Koreans may not want to admit this, but they do have at least this in common with the Japanese. Also great sushi and a lot of karaoke bars. I admit, I may not remember a ton about Korea because they have a definite drinking culture there, and I certainly partook. Fun fact, they actually drink more per capita in Korea than in any other Asian country. Still, I did not meet anyone there who could drink a Canadian under the table.

So after I moved back from Japan, I was working in Ottawa for a while, and during that time I took a trip to Europe. I had wanted to see Europe for myself for the longest time, because my mother had gone backpacking across Europe after university, and she really made it sound like the experience of a lifetime. One of my best friends from Ottawa. Marc, wanted to go as well, and so we just decided to throw together a budget backpacking tour. We planned everything out pretty meticulously, so that we got the most bang for our buck. We used a homestay network called “SERVAS”, which I highly recommend, in order to avoid paying for hotels. Basically how it works is that you join the network, they interview you, determine you’re not a psycho, and then give you lists of people who are willing to host in each city you plan to visit. Then, you just contact some of them, and if they are open to hosting during the time you’re passing through, you’re set. We didn’t score homestays in every place we visited, but we did in Rome, Paris and London. We also got Euro-Rail passes to get around, which is pretty much the best option for anyone traveling around Europe on a budget. We set off in early August of 2011, if I remember correctly.

The first country on our itinerary was Italy. We flew into Rome, and were met by our host family. They were a family of four with a nice place in downtown Rome, and some of the most gracious hosts ever. The idea with SERVAS is different from Air B&B in that you are expected to socialize with the hosts while you stay in their home as a means of cultural exchange, and this actually made it better. Their daughter in particular was eager to give us tips on where to go and what to do, and with her help we really enjoyed the city. On our own we saw the typical sights like the Coliseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Forum, Trajan’s Column, the Vatican, and strolled along the Tiber. Later, we came back to their flat and they cooked us a wonderful dinner, after which we chatted and split a bottle of wine.

The second day was actually off-script. Marc and I had planned an itinerary, but the family we were staying with actually made us an offer we couldn’t refuse: they wanted to take us to their private cottage on the outskirts of Rome, on the edge of a picturesque lake, where a local festival was taking place. Of course we ditched our plans and agreed in a heartbeat. We drove out in the afternoon, along the way taking in the spectacular countryside (complete with ancient aqueducts!), and arrived after about an hour at Lago di Bracciano. (Apologies for any butchering of the Italian name.) This is an ancient volcanic lake to the northwest of Rome, and their cottage, although modest, had a spectacular view overlooking it. We did a little walking tour of the area, and then they cooked us a lovely dinner of authentic Italian pasta. After that, they told us there were going to be fireworks, and that we were free to use their kayaks to go out onto the lake and view them from there. I really can’t adequately convey to you how awesome these people were. It was like we won the host family lottery.

The next day however, we had to sadly bid them adieu, or I suppose, “arrivederci”. We were moving on to Venice. I had been tempted to stop in Pisa along the way (to see the tower), but as it was a significant detour, we had decided against it. We set out on the train, and it seemed like it hardly took any time at all. We were seated near some other travelers, a trio of very friendly girls in their twenties, who we chatted with most of the way, and before we knew it we were pulling into the Venice station. There, we had reserved a room in a hostel instead of a homestay, and as soon as we settled in we were off again to explore the city.

Venice, I should be clear, is uniquely beautiful. There is no other city even remotely like it. Walking around it is a feast for the senses, with classical architecture everywhere, shops full of handcrafted goods, a variety of incredible cuisine ranging from gelato to fresh seafood, and the ever-present smell of the sea. On some days, I’ve heard that the smell from the canals can be a little less than pleasant due to them doing double duty as Venice’s sewer system, but the tides had done their duty while we were there, apparently.

As you might expect, we were quick to tour the must-see sights, like the Piazza San Marco, the Grand Canal, and the Rialto Bridge. We also took a short ride on a vaporetti, or water-bus, out to Murano, the island historically famous for its glass-making. While unfortunately we arrived during the Ferragosto holiday when most of the shops were closed, we were still able to wander the streets there, and take in some of the fantastic glass sculpture. We capped it off with drinks by the canal after one of the most stunning ocean sunsets I have ever witnessed. If it’s a little cliché to say that it was magical, then so be it.

After Venice we were on our way to Nice, in the French Riviera. Again we took the train, and this time the trip was even faster, with more spectacular views along the way. It’s really the best way to travel in Europe. We pulled into Nice in the afternoon, this time settling into a hotel rather than a hostel, and proceeded to just wander around for a while. My mother had been there many years before, and recommended the pebbly beaches, so we put our feet in the ocean, enjoyed the sunshine, and had lunch at a patio nearby. Marc convinced me to try some local olives, even though I hate olives, because you can’t fully experience the Mediterranean until you do, but it only served to verify that yes, I do indeed hate all olives, and to the very core of my being. The mussels, however, were delicious, and while we ate we were treated to a street performance of Brazilian capoeira, randomly.

While we were in Nice, we decided it was worth taking a side trip to Monaco, which is essentially right next door. There is a local train that takes you, and after a short ride we spent part of the next day just wandering around there. The city is obscenely wealthy, and it shows. Mega-yachts lined the harbor, top-end luxury cars drove the streets, and we had some definite trouble finding a restaurant that didn’t overcharge. Eventually we found one overlooking the sea, with a nice selection of local seafood. We took a brief peek inside the Monte Carlo Casino, but to be honest neither of us had much interest in gambling, and we were content to leave it at that. We spent the evening back in Nice, mostly just taking in the scenery rather than any specific tourist attractions.

From Nice, we were off to Paris. If we’d had more time in France, I would have loved to have seen the countryside and toured some little winery in the middle of nowhere, but you can’t do it all on one trip. Paris was a must-see, and we had been lucky enough to score a homestay with a man living right downtown. He worked in cosmology, which I thought was super-interesting. Not to be confused with cosmetology – he studied space, not make-up. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find him as gracious as our last hosts, and happy to give us a walking tour of the area. We were lucky enough to be able to see Notre Dame before it burned, along with the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, and Pont Royal. One thing I do regret missing is the Paris Catacombs, but there is just so much to see there that it completely slipped my mind as we were running around. We did, however, take a side trip to see the Palace of Versailles and its spectacular gardens, which was well worth the time.

In the evening, we decided to cook for our host, and even though for the life of me I can’t recall what I made, he seemed pleased with it. We spent some time on his rooftop patio sipping craft beer and gazing over the lights of the city, and then Marc and I went out to sample the night life. We went to a few bars, but I have to say, the welcome in Paris was a bit frostier than in some of the other places we visited. The attitude there seemed to be that tourists were to be tolerated but engaged with only if absolutely necessary. I understand it in a way, since they get (or got) about 38 million of them a year, but it didn’t help alleviate the image of Parisians as snooty and aloof. Overall though, Paris was as fantastic as people build it up to be.

Next, we had booked a night in Amsterdam, just a single night due to homestay and train scheduling. I sincerely wish we had had longer, because it turned out to be one of my favorite places. We booked a rather posh hotel at a bargain rate, right downtown, and basically just wandered around again initially, trying to get a feel for the city. Due to our time constraints, we didn’t want to really spend a lot of our precious time traveling back and forth between tourist traps, so we opted to see the canals, the Red Light District, the pot cafes, and sample the local cuisine. In retrospect I have no regrets, because my memories of Amsterdam are all warm, if slightly fuzzy. We enjoyed the warm summer night on a patio, munching on some chocolate-dipped waffle delight we discovered in a local bakery, sipping a local beer, and called it a day. The next time I go to Europe I will make time to see more of Amsterdam though, because the place was everything I had pictured and more. Also, the people are just ridiculously attractive. If I could date a country, it would totally be the Netherlands.

From there, the last leg of our tour was London. On the way, our train went through the famous “Chunnel”, which I had been sort of fascinated with since first hearing about it. Pretty cool, but the view sucks for about 40 minutes there, so bring a book. In London we had our last and most…interesting homestay. Having only briefly corresponded previously, we arrived to discover that our host, Maggie, was a very elderly lady, confined to a wheelchair. This wasn’t a problem with us of course, but it did make for some strange moments.

She had a passion for jazz as it turned out, was actually still quite active in organizing live jazz performances. She had even helped organize one on our very first night there. So, for dinner she insisted that we all go out to the restaurant where the performance was taking place. Sounded great, we thought. We all went out together, no doubt appearing to all like two young men and their grandmother out for a night on the town. Now Maggie was pretty independent, which I respected, but perhaps a bit more so than was actually warranted. She insisted on making her own way in her wheelchair as we strolled along behind her, but it was raining, and there were some hills along the way. At one point, Maggie started gaining a bit of momentum on one of those hills, and if Marc and I hadn’t had some quick reflexes, ol’ Maggie would have gone shooting down that alleyway and out into four lanes of London traffic. After that, we thankfully made it to the restaurant without further incident.

It turned out, the performance was spectacular, and the food was surprisingly amazing. I say “surprisingly” for two reasons, the first of course being the generally held opinion that British cuisine is terrible. The second being that Maggie insisted I try the haggis. Now, to those of you who are unfamiliar, haggis is traditionally made from the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, minced with onion, oatmeal, spices, etc., and cooked inside the sheep’s stomach. As you might imagine, I was not leaping at the chance to try this, but after she insisted that I order it, she also insisted on paying for everything, so there wasn’t really any excuse I could give. Despite my misgivings though, I actually found myself liking it, and everything else about that evening. We got prime seats, and Maggie was delightful company.

The following day we did the typical tourist thing, making the rounds of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, The London Eye, and Piccadilly Circus, among others. We also made time for a trip out to Stonehenge (something I insisted on), and I’m thrilled to have had a chance to see it. The weather wasn’t ideal (typical of the UK, ha-ha), but standing in a place of such immense history, that I had read so much about, was really a satisfying experience. Stonehenge, if you don’t know, is in Wiltshire, about a two hour bus ride to the west of London, so it was a bit far, but in my opinion not to be missed. Long story slightly less long, we flew out the next day, and that was it for Europe. Great trip overall, made all the more excellent by Marc, who was great company.

Fast forward to few years later, and I was back living in Japan, this time in Okinawa. Another friend from Canada was visiting, and after I had shown him the sights in Okinawa we decided to take a little side trip to Taiwan, since Miyakojima, where I had been living, sits basically right next to it. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect, because my research had been minimal. When I travel sometimes I like it that way, because it gives you a lot of room to just explore and discover things.

What surprised me most was how multicultural it was – signs in English, Chinese, Japanese, Western chain restaurants mixed in with authentic Thai, traditional Chinese, and all around I could hear all of the above languages being spoken. People were quite friendly too, and I ended up enjoying it a lot. We saw Taipei 101 (the tallest building in the world from 2004 to 2009), the National Palace Museum, Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Ximending (or the “Harajuku of Taipei”), the Taipei Zoo, and a few other points of interest. I regret missing out on the famous night markets, but overall I liked it so much I’d definitely go back and see them then.

Since then, I’ve mostly just alternated between visiting Canada and traveling within Japan. Visiting friends, exploring local points of interest, and dealing with the move here to Fukuoka has taken up a lot of my time. I do have a bucket list once life returns to something resembling normalcy, however. At the top of that list is another trip across Europe, this time to include Portugal, Spain, the French countryside, The Netherlands part II, Germany, and Denmark, probably in that order. Following that, I’ve got my eye on New Zealand, mostly because I’m a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and Vietnam, largely because my sister taught there and had good things to say, but also because their food is amazing.

This one ended up being a bit longer than I intended, sorry for that, but there were a lot of good times and good stories in each destination. Of all these, what would I recommend the most you ask? Well, I suppose it has to be Thailand. It was after all the only country so nice I visited it twice, unless you count Japan or the US of course. Yeah, there are some tourist traps, but once you find your way around, there’s something for everyone, and so much fun to be had. Plus, the exchange rates are not to be scoffed at – I had a lobster dinner for the price of a bowl of ramen in Japan.

In the end I hope this helped inspire you to travel, even though right now it’s basically an ordeal to do so. That will change soon enough. In part it was also meant to remind us that there is a great big world out there, even though sometimes we may feel trapped in our own little corner of it. As I see it, we’re not just members of a family, a community, or a country, but global citizens; human beings with a lot in common. Half of the thrill of travel comes from diving into the unfamiliar, but the other half is from discovering that even in the most unfamiliar of places, you can find shared values and new friends.

Stay awesome everybody.

 

Foreword:

Wow, it certainly has been a hot minute since I posted on here! What can I say, I've been busy. Life happens. But, I did start a podcast, so there's that. I decided I might as well link the transcripts here, for a few reasons, but mainly because I teach English, and this could be one hell of an English teaching resource. I may post translations in Japanese later for my students! Stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by, too! 

HellotoLucas: A Bio (brief history, education, career, interests, goals with the podcast, life                                             goals, yadda yadda.)

…and away we go! So of course, when kicking off any podcast, it’s basically obligatory to give a bit of a self-introduction, unless you happen to be famous, and I very much am not. I suppose you could say I’m big in Japan, but mostly in the sense that I’m just taller than everyone here. I have been doing a very public-facing job for most of my adult life, namely teaching English in Japan, and I have done a lot of blogging which I will link to somewhere, but until now I generally have tried to maintain my privacy for the most part. This has a lot to do with the nature of the world in which we’re currently living, where we have become data points for major tech companies to mine for personal information. Right now though, the creative urge, and the urge to connect with people around meaningful issues is more of a powerful motivator for me.

To those of you who have never heard of me, (most of you), my name is Lucas, but you guys can call me Luke. I don’t actually have a preference. Fun fact: my mother was pregnant with me when my parents saw the first Star Wars, and after seeing it they sort of said to themselves: “Huh…Luke…George Lucas…I like that.” So my name is inspired by science-fiction, which is perfect, because I totally am too. Appropriately enough, I am a huge Star Wars fan, and have studied a number of martial arts, so I could maybe even hold my own in a light saber duel. I studied Psychology too, so who knows, maybe I have a few Jedi mind tricks up my sleeve. This is the podcast you’ve been looking for.

I’m Canadian, and perhaps typical of your average Canadian in that I am fond of poutine, crepes with maple syrup, and have, several times, almost collided with moose while driving. Atypically, I know nothing about hockey, and I think winter sucks…winter sports, snow, going outside in winter…pretty much the whole thing. I’m from Kingston, Ontario, which (fun fact) was the original capital of Canada, way back in the 1840s. It’s a beautiful city, known for classic limestone architecture, a picturesque waterfront, a good night life, and…prisons. Many, many prisons. Both myself and several family members have worked in them from time to time over the years, and it was not entirely uncommon when we were growing up to hear that there were some escaped convicts hiding out somewhere around town. At least that made it easier for adults to teach kids about “stranger danger”. Aside from that it’s a university town, popular with tourists, and pretty close to the Thousand Islands, a spectacularly beautiful area that you should totally visit, or at least Google.

I’ve also lived in Ottawa, where I did my degree at Ottawa U, and in Toronto, so basically the Southern Ontario Trifecta, where something like 80% of the population lives. In brief, Ottawa was great in the summer, but the winter was like living in a deep freeze. I think the winters in Ottawa finally pushed me to say “You know, I have to get out of this country for a while, because I’m tired of living in a place where the air hurts my face.” Toronto was interesting because there was more to do, but it was just…a lot. The traffic, the noise, the crowds, the cost of living, the pollution…Toronto made me realize that I’m perfectly happy with any smaller town, so long as it can sustain a good pizzeria and a sushi place. And preferably a circle of people to play board games with. The people in both Ottawa and Toronto though, were A-plus, absolutely fantastic, the best people, great people on both sides. I made some amazing friends that I was sad to leave behind when I came to Japan.

As I write this, I’m in Japan teaching English for the second time, and I’m currently in my tenth year of doing so, if you can believe that. The first time was from 2005-2008, and then I came back again in 2013 after going home and working in Canada for a few years. I have bounced around a bit here, starting in Oita prefecture in a little town called Beppu, then moving to Oita city, then to Okinawa for 5 years, on a small island called Miyakojima. Okinawa was 100% as awesome as you might expect it to be, and I would go back in a hot minute. See what I did there? Hot? Yeah, Okinawa is like living on the sun. At the moment, however, I’m in Fukuoka prefecture, pretty close to where it all began so many years ago in Beppu. Initially I did this through the JET Programme, run by the government of Japan, which places foreign teachers in public schools, and taught mostly junior and senior high school students, with some special needs classes thrown in there. Japanese kids, I have to say, are awesome, wonderful to teach, and completely adorable. If I ever someday decide to adopt I would totally adopt one. They’re like little anime characters.

Some people might wonder why I do what I do. The short answer is, I like doing it, and sorry to be immodest, but I’m really good at it. It’s not really a “career” in the traditional sense, but it’s a decent living, and having tried other things, it’s the best match for my skill set I’ve come across so far. I like children, I like English, I like teaching, I love to travel, and this job allows me to tick all of those boxes. Also, there are relatively few other jobs where you get applause when you enter a room, so there’s that. I also get a chance to meet an amazing collection of people from around the world, and I am convinced that this has enriched my life immensely. I now have friends in the UK, Ireland, America, South Africa, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, the UAE, Spain, Portugal, and of course, all over Japan. I get posts on my Facebook feed in at least five languages. Mind you I can’t read most of them, but it is cool.

In Canada, I did do my share of desk work as well. When I went back from 2008-2013, I worked as a contractor in a bunch of government jobs doing administrative stuff, human resources stuff, labour relations stuff, career counseling stuff, accounting stuff, volunteer coordination stuff, but ultimately, I got the itch to travel again. I also admittedly handicapped myself a bit by looking for work in Ottawa, where half the good jobs require French. My French could only be described as embarrassingly bad. If you don’t know, in Canada we study it in school for eight years, plus my father’s family is all French, and I even had a couple of French-speaking roommates in university, but it just never…rubbed…off. At this point my Japanese has far surpassed my French, and my Japanese is still probably what you’d call “intermediate”.

Anyway, my job search in Canada was also horrendously timed to coincide with the Great Recession, so I finally said “ENOUGH” and did what very few people do; I applied to JET a second time. Some people do reapply, but in my Tokyo orientation, they asked for a show of hands of second-time JETs, and in a room with maybe two thousand teachers, myself and about four other people raised their hands. The technical term for us, I believe, is “unicorns”. Typically, it’s a job overwhelmingly done by recent university graduates, and you’re capped at 5 years, after which you have to wait 5 years to apply again. I happened to be getting tired of the grind in Ottawa just as that reapplication window opened up, and long story short, a few months later, I was off to Okinawa.

I ended up staying the full five years in Okinawa because it was AWESOME, easily the best 5 years of my life post-university, and I’ll totally talk about it more eventually. When my time with JET was up, however, I wasn’t quite ready to leave. I looked for private work, but unfortunately nothing presented itself in Okinawa, so I had to come here to Fukuoka, where I’ve been teaching privately since. When I left Okinawa, I had been seeing someone for three years, which played a large part in my wanting to stay, but that ended last year, making my next steps sort of an open question.

To be totally honest, the private teaching has been a bit of a let-down. I came to Fukuoka to teach at an English conversation school, or Eikaiwa, but their teaching style just didn’t gel very well with mine. After so many years, I had a lot of ideas to bring to the table, but the owners were quite set in their own way of doing things. I get that they had a formula that worked, and I understand their reasoning for not wanting to change it, but very few of my ideas were ever really given any consideration. Ultimately it became unsatisfying, and we mutually decided it was best to part ways. After that, I was keen to stay in Fukuoka, so I got a job at what’s called a dispatch company, which hires out teachers to work in public schools. This was not my first choice, and let’s just say the compensation and benefits leave a lot to be desired. I feel like I’m better than ever at my job, but I’m getting paid less than before. Like, way less. If you’re curious about the job market for teachers in Japan and want to hear more about it, that’s another topic I’ll definitely be touching on down the road.

So, at the moment I‘m exploring my options. The podcast is one, and it may or may not gain popularity, but ultimately it’s a means to flex my creative muscles and to connect with more interesting new friends around the world. I would describe myself as someone with a lot of interests, and I need a medium through which to share them, especially now that we’re in full pandemic mode. As I mentioned, I kept a blog in Okinawa, and was lead editor for an Okinawa-wide JET newsletter, but it’s been a while, and I don’t want to get rusty, so here we are. Some of the things I’d love to explore here are psychology and sociology, which I studied in university, how they tie into politics and culture, which I follow closely, relationships, personal growth, the ex-pat experience, teaching, Japan in general, health and fitness (because in addition to the martial arts, I’m a runner and I do yoga), food (because who doesn’t like food, and cooking is a hobby of mine), gaming (of both the computer and board varieties), science, environmentalism, science fiction, futurism…and of course, I’m open to your ideas too, so please share them. I have opinions on just about everything, and I’m always up for a good debate. Eventually I’d love to get people on here to have an actual conversation with, and not just because the pandemic has made me long for human interaction, but because I believe that conversation is one of the most powerful tools we have in making our society better. To quote Sam Harris (who also has a podcast I would definitely recommend) we ultimately have the choice in society between conversation, or violence. I choose conversation.

Another reason I want to do this is that I find it really disturbing just how badly our information space has become cluttered by complete nonsense and idiocy lately. The best way I can think of to combat this is to create a forum where common sense is the foundation for any conversation, adding one more voice of reason to the chorus. While I’m open to new ideas and will gladly chat with people who don’t necessarily agree with me, the number of conspiracy theories gaining ground out there on the internet and even in mainstream media right now is like nothing I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. At a certain point, we have to be clear about what we know and what we don’t, or we start losing touch with reality. Yes, we went to the moon. No, the Earth is not flat. No, there are no Jewish space lasers. Yes, vaccines save lives and no, they do not cause autism. Enough with this stuff, please. It is utterly crucial to the future of our society that we get back to trusting science, and become more skeptical of Joe Schmo on the internet. Everyone is entitled their opinion, but if your opinion runs completely counter to what 95% of the experts in a field of study have to say, your opinion is very probably nonsense. Any meaningful conversation has to start with an understanding of the basic facts, and here, that is exactly where I plan to start, whatever topic is up for discussion.

So, my plan is to link this both in audio and in print on my website, with new podcasts on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. I’d also like to start making videos on Youtube eventually, although my experience in video production is pretty limited, and I’m hesitant to add to the ever-expanding pile of utterly unwatchable Youtube videos out there. It’s early days, so I’m still figuring all this out, but it will be interesting to see how I can improve at this as time goes on. I’m also keen to pick up editing and voice acting engagements, so feel free to contact me about that. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you get your questions, ideas, comments, anything. If you like the concept of the podcast and you’d like to hear more, I would sincerely love you if you helped out on my Patreon, everything helps. Until next time, stay awesome my friends.

Lucas

PS: here's the link to my Podcast:

https://www.patreon.com/Hellotolucas