Yesterday, I was at the McDonald’s in front of Taipei Main, waiting for my class to start.
When I sat down, I noticed this old Taiwanese guy sitting next to me. He was scribbling English words in his notebook.
I take out my book(an English book) and start reading. Then I take a little nap. Upon waking up, the old dude starts talking to me. He asks me if the vocab in my book is hard or easy. I just tell him that English is my native language. Then he goes on and on about how he’s some high level English teacher and that he has taught all over the world.
He starts ranting and raving about how all the English teachers in Taiwan are so shitty. Then he starts ranting about how Taiwan has lost its place in the world and how shameful Taiwan is now. This guy is just going on and on rambling like a mad man.
I was about to book it and get the hell outta there. But then he says “let me tell you a secret”. He proceeds to tell me that someone like me can go to Tokyo and make 300,000-400,000nt a month teaching English because: 1) my skin color(I am pretty pale), 2) I am a native English speaker, and 3) I am “優秀”. He says that a lot of the Japanese companies are looking for in-house English teachers. I ask him wouldn’t they prefer a white person, like in Taiwan. He says no because the Japanese hate Americans due to the dropping of the A-bombs. He also said that this was only possible in Tokyo cause Tokyo is rich.
By no means am I believing what this crazy old guy said but I am just curious as to the merits of his story. Does anyone have any knowledge of the English teaching situation in Japan?
Over a million yen per month for ESL? Sure! No problem!
Your mad old guy at least isn’t as mad as my neighbourhood mad old man, who is convinced there are fairies living at the bottom of his garden.
I used to hear stories like that a lot when I taught in South Korea, about how much some foreigners were making in South Korea teaching English. It was usually a story about someone some friend of theirs knew, so most of them were exagerated. I did get paid 100 dollars an hour (US) for one job I had, so if I had been able to do that for 40 hours a week, then yes, my pay would have been great. But it was just a private lesson for two hours a week.
You do make more in Japan, but then the cost of living is far higher. Unless someone can tell you that he or she personally made that kind of money, though, and is willing to introduce you to some company offering that kind of cash, I wouldn’t pay much attention to these urban myths.
‘‘By no means am I believing what this crazy old guy said but I am just curious as to the merits of his story’’.
This is a contradiction in terms my friend.
[quote=“Dougster”]’‘By no means am I believing what this crazy old guy said but I am just curious as to the merits of his story’’.
This is a contradiction in terms my friend.[/quote]
Not really: “I don’t take what he says on faith, but I am interested to check out his assertions.”
The crazy old guy may be right, for 1986. I had a professor who had just come back from a five year stint in Japan teaching English at that time. She left when the market started drying up around 1990.
I can’t speak to the market for teaching EFL, but from my own experience, this is a load of crap. When I lived there, I was practically treated as a celebrity. Granted, that was many years ago, but I still have close friends from that time, and always feel welcome when I go back to visit.
I never taught in Japan, but I studied there for a while. I never met anyone who hated Americans. People were very friendly, indeed, and would go way out of their way sometimes if they thought I needed help with something.
There are usually lots of jobs listed for Japan on Daves or other sites specifically for Japan (or used to be, I haven’t checked in a long time and there was the whole tsunami/nuclear thing), most jobs starting at 250,000 yen. That salary, like those here, hasn’t changed in more than 10 years.
I guess because of the tsunami/nuclear disasters there may be some money to be made there now, but that would only be because of teacher flight in large enough numbers.
There are some real nutters out there. That’s for sure! :loco:
I met a real crazy old foreign guy here that claimed he’d roped some hot young local chick into marriage and had produced a healthy and sane little boy. He claimed to played the uke, and assured me that he was able to hold down a job. :roflmao: No Way!
He was a little hard to understand due to his Scottish accent and general lack of coherence. I guess back home he’d have been locked up long ago when he stopped making sense (assuming at one stage he did).
Anyone else ever run into this fruitcake? He’s out there . . . WAY out there!
I doubt they’d let this wacko loonybird in to a McDonald’s. That’s the good thing about Mickey Dees; they’ve got standards. They should send him to Berkeley. He’d fit right in with Polka Dot Man, and Random Number Guy.
He’s out there . . . WAY out there!