Thisisgettingsilly's Blog

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

May 9, 2010 at 8:38 am (Uncategorized)

A few years ago in 2007, I grew bored of Melbourne. The city that I loved, the city that I made my home at the tender age of 17 to escape regional Victoria wasn’t doing it for me anymore. My passion for this cool and creative city was waning. So I did what anyone with no qualifications and very little money would do. I packed up my life and moved to Japan to teach English.

Many Australians go to Japan in the hope of making some serious yen and coming back with a deposit for a spiffy new house in Caroline Gardens Water Spring Lakes Manor. I had similar dreams. Dreams that were crushed by the collapse of Japan’s gigantic English school, Nova.

As with thousands of lazy and disorganised westerners before me, I chose the easiest route to Japan by securing a teaching job with the country’s largest eikaiwa (English conversation school), Nova. At Nova, you are hired from your home country, they arrange your flights, organise an apartment, place you in a school in an area of your choice (sort of) and even pick you up from the airport. How cool is that? I wouldn’t have to do anything. Friends who moved to Japan years before had to look for a job and an apartment upon arrival. Suckers! This can be difficult in Japan, especially with limited language skills. Not to mention the mistrust from many Japanese of those sketchy gaijin (foreigners).

Nova was easy and convenient. And unbeknownst to me, it was also dying a slow death. A mere six weeks after I landed in Tokyo, Nova was dead. The largest English school in the country, one of the largest companies in Japan had declared itself bankrupt.  All 7,000 teachers and 2,000 Japanese staff had gone unpaid for at least two months. The dodgy CEO kept sending faxes advising that our pay was coming but due to some “temporary cash-flow issues” it would be late. But the pay never came. How awkward?

I had little money when I arrived, foolishly assuming that I would be paid by my trusted employer. I had no language skills because I was too lazy and poor to get Japanese lessons before I left, and now I had no job. Oh and the leaseholder on the apartment I was living in was Nova and they hadn’t paid the rent in months. So I was about to be evicted. Good times!

What the hell was I supposed to do? I couldn’t go back to Australia after six weeks with my tail between my legs. I had quit my job of four years in Melbourne, left my house and had a really big going away party that I cried at. I absolutely could not go back home. Many newly unemployed teachers either sheepishly went back to their home country or shipped off to China. They were desperate for English teachers in the lead up to the Olympic Games. I had friends in Korea. I could move to Seoul and walk into a great teaching job where I would probably make a lot more money.

The problem was I had no interest in China or Korea. Bizarrely, just as my life began to fall apart, I started to fall in love with Tokyo. What a magnificently insane city. The food, the people, the history, the awesome nightlife and the beer! Good God the Suntory Premium Malts beer.

At the same time I was experiencing the highest of highs, I was also riddled with anxiety about how I could afford to stay in Tokyo, the third most expensive city on the planet. I was meeting amazing people, exploring Tokyo and living a new life.

As Nova was crumbling, many foreign staff continued working naively believing that we might eventually get paid. We would front up to class, teach English, lie to the students by telling them Nova would survive and hide our financial trauma. The final straw came when I had a nasty panic attack in front of a class of eight students. I lost it and ran out of the room in a hysterical state. That was it. I needed to forget about Nova and sort myself out.

By now I was in love with Tokyo and knew that I had to do something, anything to stay there. My family were pressuring me to come home. “This is crazy” my father yelled down the phone line. “When are you going to realise this didn’t work out and you need to come home?” But I couldn’t. This mind-boggling mess of a city had stolen my heart. The packed trains, not understanding a word anyone says, having no idea what I was eating and being treated like a, well a foreigner. I loved it all. I had to stay.

I arranged for my father to sell my car back home in Oz. In an unexpected twist the sale was made to my wonderful Nan. She insisted that she needed a car at the time, but I still think she just felt sorry for me. Bless her cotton socks. The money from the car sale meant I could survive for a little while longer.  

But I still needed a job. I couldn’t become a host (kind of like an escort but without the sex) as I was too old and not twinky enough to succeed in Tokyo’s fickle gay scene. And of course I may feel a little like a prostitute. I was too tall and hairy to be a geisha. So I stuck with what I knew and after a few financially embarrassing months, I finally got another teaching job. It was at a more prestigious school that oddly didn’t pay as well as Nova. I didn’t care as I long as I could stay in Japan.

My time in Tokyo was brief. I was there for nine months all up. But it was nothing short of extraordinary. The initial culture shock, my horrendous timing with Nova’s collapse and my financial ruin were obvious challenges. But everything else I experienced was magic. Being the only white guy at a weird indie bar in super cool Shimo-kitazawa, getting lost on public transport, hanging out in Harajuku with the cos-play kids, lying naked in an outdoor onsen (Japanese bath house) on the top of a mountain in Kyoto in the middle of winter, pretending to be Bill Murray to my friend Miranda’s Scarlett Johansson in a rooftop bar in Shinjuku. It was like my own Lost in Translation, but better.

I loathed Melbourne when I returned. Shocking public transport, rubbish on the streets, poor customer service and everyone seemed so white. Nothing here was as good as it was in Tokyo. I loved Tokyo. But then I remembered how I would often describe Melbourne to my new Tokyo mates as the greatest city on the planet. Inevitably us gaijin would get together and get a little misty-eyed talking about our home towns. I LOVED Melbourne. The food, the people, and the beer! Good God the Carlton Draught! It soon became clear that I had two loves of my life. And I still do.