trinh24
Trinh in Nishiki
A personal blog for Trinh's time in Nishiki, Japan.
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On the concept of luck and my legacy in Japan:
When I came to Nishiki, my supervisor told me, "You were really lucky to come here, to Nishiki." Out of all the small rural towns in Japan, in Kumamoto, in Kuma-gun. And I really didn't believe her. As many other upset people feel when they uproot their lives to move somewhere unfamiliar, I couldn't see the so-called luck I had. Me moving into a foreign country struggling with things that could have easily been prevented was not luck. Being able to say "I guess it could get worse" is a privilege, but it obviously didn't feel like that in the moment. At that tumultuous time, I was a pessimistic person who wanted some validation that my new struggles were real and painful.
But I admitted to myself that didn't know how my year in Japan would shake out or what kind of challenges I would face. As I slowly moved through the first few months, I had both positive and negative experiences that I thought were very balanced. I knew that I was lucky to have someone help me with the endless paperwork and translate my language shortcomings, but also unlucky that my house wasn't clean and I had a hard time teaching at school. Yet I needed to persist, even when overtime, the challenges eventually got worse and worse.
But sometimes you can only count on chance and luck. As a JET or an ALT, I knew from the get-go that I was already giving up many of my freedoms. I came knowing that I didn't get a choice of where I would live, what car I could have, what town suited me, what scenery I liked, or the types of friends and communities I could have around me. I allowed myself to be frustrated with losing those freedoms, because I know they're important to my life. But there was also no use in crying and sobbing for weeks over spilt milk.
After many months of getting to know my town and my coworkers, I realized that many of the relationships I had here, my car, and my house were all hand-me-downs. They were all things that someone else had maybe poured lots of time into, or things that had gone unattended after someone left suddenly. I could see things like love and attention in many places. Students I talked to could remember past ALTs and asked for them to visit them in Nishiki, fondly. Other times, it was things like the storage room next to our office, littered with years of old materials that had been stuffed full into cardboard file cabinets that are so heavy they couldn't slide out. Year after year, no one had touched what had come before and simply piled more on top and slammed the cabinets shut. And now, as I forced the drawers with two hands, I needed to use my body weight to yank them open. Peering inside, there were old worksheets, dirty flashcards, broken toys, picture books, and attendance lists that were once so precious. It had been so many years, but the worksheets were still here being archived in the storage room. Someone had created them, used them, and then left them here because they didn't want to forget them. But seeing the worksheets crumpled and forced into their spot between the books, the care that went into writing and printing these sheets was not also stored in this drawer. The people who came after didn't care to reuse them, to sort them, or to learn from them. The original care had left, and now the papers had become feed for recycling when I found them. They lasted so long here, but only to feel thin and fragile now.
Over the past year, I slowly learned of all these hand-me-downs that were out of my control. They were put here by someone else. But nevertheless, I could feel that they were mine. I inherited them. I didn't choose to inherit them but they were given to me. I can close the drawer and pretend not to notice, but every so often, a student will call for another teacher and tell me that they still remember what has come before, even if I try not to listen.
And now, the positive to all of this is that I have the chance to overwrite or continue building upon these relationships and these old memories. I didn't get a choice in what landed in my lap, but it's with my own freedom that I can change it.
Many people here were surprised I was only staying for one year here because I haven't experienced everything I could. When I arrived, staying for a short time actually threw a wrench into their plans, and I knew for others and myself that it was hard to conceptualize welcoming, training, and building a relationship with someone who had already decided to leave just as they arrived.
I think it's a habit of mine to overbook and keep myself busy with unrealistic expectations of what I can accomplish in such a short time. But I wanted to somehow leave this place just a little bit nicer than how I'd gotten it. Even if it wasn't at a macro, school district level of improving the proficiency of every single student, I wanted to peacefully and happily leave people with good memories or resources. I wanted to do the 頑張る and put in the "work" of what I saw in the worksheets in the storage room. But this time I would archive it together with the care, the organization, and precision I felt was missing from the previous years. I saw the opportunity to upgrade so many things at the office, the schools, the storage room, in my apartment complex, with so little time. But I was (or still am) determined to make it something worthwhile.
Even if it wasn't for me or my own self-growth, I slowly found people I trusted and people who had helped me through the lonely and frightening parts of this corner of the world. And I wanted to leave them something.
On a certain rainy Wednesday in July, It had been 11 months since I came to Nishiki. I wasn't surprised by many things at this point, but the fatigue and burden I had put on myself that came with trying to change or grow a legacy was weighing down heavily on me and my co-ALT Will. We simply wanted everything to go well, which was a small yet surprisingly high bar to pass with all of our stressors and obstacles at work. Every event we planned felt like an uphill battle, being bombarded at a nursery school and running around the office for hours had us listless by the end of the day. As the afternoon melted away, we both agreed that it was days like this that made us realize why overtime was common in Japan. Things like overwhelming deadlines that get pushed up due to unfortunate domino effects, needing to rethink and debate logistics a million times, and knowing that the next day we'd have to do it all again and explain (or debate it) with other coworkers.
As rewarding as it is to work with students and children, Will and I think very carefully about the reputation and legacy we're attempting to create and build upon. I suppose both of us are very ambitious in the sense that we consider our work to be crucial stepping stones for future ALTs to have smoother transitions and relationships with the people in Nishiki. It's quite a self-righteous and virtuous goal to chase. The catch was that it involved us having to teach ourselves how it all worked.
It's not that we said yes to too many things, but I feel that it's particularly in these last few months where we're seeing the dividends of our year's work. We were falling into the rhythm of the new school year and fiscal year, and now the work that people were gracious and comfortable to entrust us with came at us all on that day.
When my shift was finished, I took gathered my things from the office and walked downstairs to leave ahead of Will. Seeing the warm rain sprinkling down, I opened my umbrella and walked to my car quietly. As I approached it, another lady across from me got into her car, and I greeted her before opening the door to my passenger seat. I threw all of my things inside haphazardly and then finally closed my umbrella, luckily not needed because the sprinkles had come to a stop. I took the last of my energy and slammed the door shut to walk around to the other side when I heard a quick kerchak of the door lock.
I tried all four doors and the trunk, and of course nothing would budge. Of course it was on this day, and of course this would happen to me. I stood staring into the tinted windows of my car, with my phone and key locked inside. And after a minute, I saw Will walking towards me with the sad smile born from corporate fatigue. I returned the same smile.
As he lamented my situation, we relocated inside his car, which was parked right next to mine. I held my face in my hands and his phone rang, and we waited for our supervisor to call our car dealer.
"Of course this happens today of all days," I remember saying again out loud to him. I'm a believer in karma, and that whatever force that governed luck was doing it as a reaction to some other event in my life. Even after I had had enough of the day, the day had not had enough of me. It was luck that would do this. After a stressful work day, it was only fitting to get locked out of my car and feel even worse sitting with my friend in his car and taking up his time. I hid my face and wanted to cry because I knew that we were both tired and wanting the day to be over. If there is a fate or karma or luck in the world, there's that, plus me and my choices as a catalyst. The world slowly spinning on its axis plus me leaving my car keys deep inside my bag. With no luck to fish them out from the outside.
When our car dealer arrived from his busy schedule, I felt that I needed a deeper hiding hole to crawl into. Even though I was reassured that things were fine and that a representative from the car company could come to pick open the lock, I didn't feel any less tired and the process dragged on. As I listened to my car dealer, or rather my grandfather in spirit, talk to Will and I about locking mechanics, I thought if this was how it would feel like to still have grandparents. Will and I stood outside my car as he gave an anecdote about another lady he helped locked out of hers. I rotated between the same three reactions and shifted my weight from one leg to another. The grey sky showed no indication of time passing, like I was stuck in a video game cutscene or world that was choosing to move slower. Slowly, the rain began to fall on my glasses and we agreed to sit back in our cars.
I was being held hostage in the parking lot for longer and longer, and finally, our repairman came and we all crowded around outside to watch him use a stick to force the lock open from between the door and window. The rain hit my shoulder because Will's umbrella wasn't wide enough for both of us, and I again felt terrible for taking everyone's time. If I could've solved everything without mentioning it to a single soul, I would have. My original mission to make life and work easier for everyone who had helped me in Nishiki was slowly crumbling the longer I watched everyone stare at my car.
While the repairman struggled, my dealer/grandpa went into his car and came back to hand me an umbrella. I looked at the tacky print and hurriedly said thank you. It was a nice reverse or inverse umbrella that for sure was his wife's. When I puffed it open, it smelled like a grandmother.
In time, the other workers from the office finished their work days as well, and they drove past us, all crowded around the car.
"Ara, what's happened here?" One of our education advisors said, rolling down his window to look out at the absurdity of my fate. I sheepishly explained the situation. He smiled at how silly it was but reassured me it would be fine. When he wished us luck and drove off, another car drove in with my coworker and supervisor, back from an appointment.
"Ara? You're still here?" They rolled down the window and opened their mouths, gaping at the spectacle of my misfortune. Then, they parked and got out to help with the staring. I thought I was living out the rule of threes from children's storybooks. The next person to show up would surely have porridge that was not too hot nor cold or be a pig with a house made of bricks.
And sure enough, another secretary had, without me noticing, materialized on the other side of the crowd behind my car. "Oh, it's all fine now. You can go home, please!" But he ignored me and said he would stay to see if I needed his help. Everyone was insistent that they stay to watch the lock click open. I was stressed about the situation, but I wasn't trying to turn an anthill into a mountain.
At long last, the lock clicked open and they opened the door, setting off the piercing alarm. I scrambled for the key in my bag and turned it off, feeling the silence and relief.
I said thank you and good bye and thank you again and good bye again to everyone who had helped me. It had been a slow hour and a half since I had locked my car. Everyone slowly dispersed, and my dealer came back after seeing off the repairman. It turned out he was acquainted with his boss's boss, so he advised me that if a bill came for me in the mail to pay it. And if by some random chance there was no invoice at all... to not tell a soul and leave it at that.
I didn't know what to say other than thank you. After driving to come and help me for nothing in return, I was embarrassed and wanted to cry again.
What had I left for everyone who had come to help me today? I felt so lonely and confused coming to a new place alone with nothing, and wanted to strengthen the legacy I thought was weak from people before me. My goal was to help everyone who had paid me kindness this year, yet I was somehow leaving with more kindness and the urge to pay the debts I had accrued. But there was no real debt that anyone was expecting from me.
As I sat in my car by myself with the engine on, waiting for it to warm up and drive away, I knew that this was that blessed or cursed fate. That luck that my supervisor had told me I had. The reason why the car locked, and I spent an hour and a half here. That was the time it took for people to gather around me, to help me, and to support me. The time for me to have no choice but to be living in that moment where people were coming to me and saying that they cared. Because I needed to realize the kindness and love I was lucky to have, the universe and my stupidity banded together to make me sit down and show it to me. With no chance to look away or run away.
The care that I believed was lost from previous ALTs maybe wasn't in that drawer anymore. But it was sprinkled across this town, somewhat imperfect but still here, and I had grown it further. I was lucky that I inherited the people in this town who still cared for foreigners and strangers amongst them. I was lucky that everyone wanted to ask if I was okay and make sure it was so, even if I didn't say anything. It was both that luck I inherited and the effort I had poured into this place for 11 months, working together.
The last things for me to do are to continue writing thousands of words in advice I wish I had, using my strengths to help my co-teachers, and introducing my new friends to each other so they're not lonely after I leave. I can't control what's going to happen to the town or to me when I leave, but I trust that all the work I tried so hard to improve will settle into all the cracks and crevices of this town and sparkle.
Maybe I am lucky after all.
I cried on the drive home, thinking about how I did my best. I worked hard. The Trinh who wanted to make sure that the future was safe and comfortable had already accomplished that goal.
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ALT English Boards for Junior High School
Here’s a guide on how I conceptualize and create my English boards for the junior high school I work at!
1. Come up with a theme
This can be something simple and seasonal or very specific. I focused on holidays a lot, but I wish I had more time and leeway in my classes to teach the kids more about Lunar New Year, which is a holiday I miss celebrating and that they aren’t familiar with! Other good ideas would be less popular holidays that aren’t talked about in Japan like Hanukkah, Ramadan, or MLK day. If you can’t think of anything, you can incorporate the school events like a prediction for the sports festival weather, messages to teachers, or even messages from teachers to students. Don’t be afraid to do a non-seasonal theme for December if you’ve had enough of Christmas or don’t feel passionate about it.
My students tend to be very lazy when they read the board, so I don’t bother teaching grammar or anything about English on the board (unless that was part of the theme). They only look at it from far away for a short time, so I need to make things large and focused on one activity. Teaching a culture is also more interesting than grammar or spelling. English in the classroom is already boring enough for them.
2. Plan the assets
On my boards I put:
The name of the month
A paragraph or so of English explaining the theme, split into individual sentences
An activity that involves the students reading and touching the board in some way. Things that work well for the JHS level are polls where they vote for 2+ options, sticky note prompts to write or draw something, or freebies where they can grab notes or cards you made for them. My co-ALT also had Halloween masquerade masks that they left by their board for the kids to try on, and that seemed like a great idea too if you have a big budget to splurge at the 100 yen store every month.
Polls are by far the best thing I’ve tried so far on my boards!
Themed pictures and stock images to decorate
Some other JETs or ALTs I noticed put whole calendar sheets on their boards and have a word/song/etc of the month corner, but those take up too much space for me. (If you had a giant amount of space then go crazy.) If there’s too much clutter or I haven’t outlined the activities to be punchy and bold enough, my students won’t be interested.
3. Create the assets in Canva.com + Hand-draw assets
I use Canva to create my typed and printed materials for my boards. If you like another site then use that. For my style, it’s good to mix both hand-written/drawn and typed/printed materials so that the boards look cute and friendly but also legible and clean. I recommend rotating your document to landscape to fit more printed text on one sheet. If you want to use things for multiple boards or again the next year, you can laminate stuff too.
The assets I choose to be printed are:
- English sentences (because I have bad handwriting). Please choose a font that has handwritten lowercase “a”s and “g”s. Comic sans MS is actually perfect for this. (If you want to print Japanese text, type in Japanese into the search bar to find cute rounded fonts that are compatible with Japanese characters)
- Pictures and images (Canva has a good selection of graphics and stock photos.)
The handmade assets are:
- the letters for the month (usually too wide or big to comfortably print on A4 sizes without wasting a ton of paper) made on construction paper
- the Japanese text (written under my printed English). I choose to write the Japanese because I know how to and it occasionally impresses other teachers. It also forces my students to walk up close to the board if they want to rely on the Japanese.
4. Assemble the board!
For my boards, I put the month at the top, the English text to one side, and the activity to the other. I separate the English text into smaller sentences and caption with Japanese. This helps when maybe your 3rd years know the grammar but 1st years don’t.
Having distinct sections helps the board flow better. Drawing a line with a marker connecting all of the sentences in the order they should be read in helps. Also, visually distinguishing important sentences or words with underlines, borders, and colors can also help.
For activities, use a clear action verb so the students know what the activity is. I recommend saying: “Let’s vote!”, “Let’s write!”, “Let’s make Valentine’s Day cards!”, etc.
5. Show it off!
When you’re done, you can hang it up and be the first to participate in the activity! Asking the other JTEs, faculty and staff, or your favorite students to participate next can help avoid an empty, sad void. Walking out during lunch break and after school to stand by the board to explain it also works to lure the students over.
At the end of the day, this is my personal style of English boards. I’ve thought about making more unique, stylistic ones for every month like my predecessor, but this simple formula works for me and the current students. Be sure to adapt boards to suit the English level of students and try only translating a few words if they can read well.
I’m really proud of my October and March boards; they got a ton of participation, and I feel like they were fun. :) Some other months were kind of boring or just straight up ugly, so you can guess what those are. If I could go back and fix them, I’d make them nicer since the I think the board’s visual aesthetic is really important. There’s plenty of time for desk-warming as an ALT so use that time to plan for the months in advance!
Here are some of my boards!
(Graduation theme! All the students ended up writing notes to their friends. Not a single teacher thanked, even though I tried to convince them they should write to teachers. The “learning new things with my friends” option also has too many votes since the boys stuck extra on that one. I stopped them from trying to make a sticker smiley face.)
(Halloween theme! The students drew the ghosts themselves! The English text lifts up with the flap to reveal Japanese translations underneath. My students don’t like touching the board unless they really need to, so I don’t think they used them. Maybe the flaps would work better at eye level for small elementary-school students.)
(Thanksgiving theme! I should have made this interactive or made the students write something.)
(Valentine’s theme! I wish I had better cards, I didn’t like the gift tag templates on Canva and should’ve made my own. A section to show off cards students wrote would’ve been good too.)
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6 months in the deep end: Teaching and ALT work halfway through the JET Program
It’s been a little over 6 months since I moved to Japan on the JET Program and started my life in Nishiki. Here’s a recap of my observations and thoughts on being an ALT as someone with no prior teaching experience.
I have a lot to say about my work as an ALT. The past few months have really thrown me into multiple deep ends. It’s been learn-as-you-go teaching for junior high, elementary, and nursery/kindergarten English. It’s learning how to build relationships that encourage English conversation or positive attitudes towards globalization. It’s learning how to act as a proper teacher when I myself still look and feel like a student.
While I mainly work at a junior high school, I interact often with other students and camps and workshops that our board of education hosts. Initially, it was very confusing to balance the expectations that each school or event has on ALTs. Regardless of what I expect for myself as a teacher with imposter syndrome, the teachers and educators around me will ask me to do different things for classes and events based on their relationship with ALTs in the past and their knowledge of ESL education.
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At the junior high school, my main struggle is establishing my presence as an ALT in the classroom. All JTEs there have different teaching styles, but none of them incorporate what JET’s goal of team teaching is. I originally was very disappointed that I wouldn’t get the chance to learn how to team teach because my JTEs didn’t have the time to learn how to do it. But overtime, I’ve learned that busy teachers with no time find it easier to lesson plan on their own, and I need to discern what I’m capable of adding to a lesson depending on the content and JTE’s teaching style.
I enjoy tagging along with teachers who are flexible and recognize the importance of an ALT or native English speaker in their class because they will welcome me to stand quietly beside them. I haven’t been formally included in the lesson plan or asked to direct any activities, but they still know how to utilize me by asking me occasionally for pronunciations and real-life examples of English in context. In those classes, I can T2 or act as a support teacher and chat with and tutor students one-on-one to get to know them better. I'm not leading the lesson, but I can still build rapport with the students by regularly attending their classes.
A best case scenario would be if a JTE was excited to collaborate (work as a team, aka do team teaching) and let an ALT know when exactly they needed assistance planning activities or review sessions and what the content was. (As opposed to not giving ALTs any information on the past and current curriculum and telling them to improvise activities the day or week of.) The benefits of having students practice their listening and speaking abilities are essential to learning a language.
Other teachers don’t even attempt to understand team teaching and cannot figure out for the life of them how to incorporate even an English speaker (much less an ALT) into their class. Regardless of how proficient a JTE is in English, an ALT gives students the opportunity to really challenge their abilities and provide more English immersion. ALTs may not have formal experience, but slowly guiding and giving meaningful feedback to ALTs can help students gain the confidence and grit they need to attempt English. If an ALT is given enough time to plan activities and feedback to include the right content for a class, it takes the load off of JTEs by having them only focus on classroom management. Additionally, the students benefit from English immersion by connecting their speaking/listening knowledge to reading/writing knowledge, which they are tested on the most. Students need genuine experience utilizing their English in real life, and an ALT is the best place to do that.
It’s only now that I’m starting to get the hang of telling JTEs and teachers when I am able to contribute and when I am not. I’m a newbie, but I know when I can do something on my own and when I’m being set up for failure because I’m missing the guidance I need. Introducing a new activity or game with help from the JTE because students need translations: yes. Working up to a level where the students can understand more and more English-only instructions because the students are familiar with challenging themselves and actually using their English: yes. Fumbling through a lesson and receiving no assistance or feedback from a JTE, even after the students clearly didn’t benefit because they weren’t confident enough to process my English: no.
The mess of teaching at the junior high taught me how to set boundaries at nursery schools too. Nurseries and kindergartens are the only place I am asked to be T1 for 30 minutes to an hour, and I’m glad I know how to set time limits for myself to preserve my energy. Toddlers were not made to sit through over 30 minutes of any lecture at all, and standing at the front of a room can only do so much good before it’s better to transition to something else.
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Many Japanese teachers and members of the board of education request that I only speak English with the students and not use any Japanese at all in our interactions. The reason this method is effective is because students will know that they need to pay attention to the English. There’s no Japanese translation coming. It forces them to use English and make mistakes because the ALT makes it known that Japanese is not an option at all. If you want to have a conversation, it’s an English-only zone.
However, there are drawbacks to only speaking English with students. Students who are afraid to make mistakes have no way to be convinced that they should attempt to speak English. Especially if the student thinks an ALT is unapproachable. If they get to know ALTs in their classrooms and see them as a regular teacher, they’re more likely to attempt conversation.
I think the wall of English-only conversations and lessons is an extremely high one when their JTEs before have not instilled the skills and confidence students need to want to attempt talking to ALTs. And forget speaking, students need confidence in their skills to listen to English. In classes taught by a JTE who rarely speaks English in class and does not encourage students to express themselves in English, it makes total sense that they don’t even know how to backchannel or listen to English presentations. When they are very suddenly confronted with English-only presentations, they don’t know when to raise their hands and ask questions, or even how to ask questions in English when they’re confused. It sounds counterintuitive, but using both English and Japanese is the best way for me (personally) to convince my students that they already know and understand lots of English in our conversation if they focus.
When I came to my current school, I was not charismatic or confident enough to instantly start pushing (it feels more like pulling) students to speak to me in English, and it took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to present myself to my students as a friendly person outside the classroom. Should I mimic my senior ALT’s speaking style? Does acting as intense as them make sense when I’m truthfully not that kind of person? Mixing Japanese with English was useful to make me more relatable because I was learning a new language too, and I could talk about something other than my students’ least favorite subject. Being relatable is important with my Japanese coworkers as well, since many Japanese adults have the prenotion that you need to be loud and intense when talking with foreigners.
Interacting with foreigners and speaking English are two separate hurdles that are often combined but I think can be separate when ALTs speak Japanese with their students. I hope that in the future the nurseries I teach at will recognize these hurdles for toddlers as well. There’s plenty for toddlers to learn when interacting with foreigners that gets overlooked by their schools’ desire for them to start learning English early for academic’s sake.
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When I go into junior high classrooms and only act as a tape recorder or support teacher, it still helps the students get used to a foreigner in their class. I notice that students who don’t see me as often are reluctant to talk because I’m not seen as a teacher or useful asset. ALTs are what brings English as a language to life for Japanese students. English becomes attainable and friendly, not just a confusing mess.
I hope I can keep talking to my students in English because it helps them sort out the mess of grammar rules they’ve learned in their heads. If we want to only focus on test proficiency, I’ll make the case for ALTs and English immersion any day. A student who can say “good morning” has a much better chance of recognizing it in the test’s audio recording and also writing it in the free response section.
It was difficult for me to establish boundaries when I first started teaching because I didn’t know what I was doing or what I could do. Some teachers are dismissive after they see you don’t have experience, while others want me to do more but they don’t know what of since they’re also inexperienced. Some teachers set me free on a group of toddlers and ask me to please entertain them somehow using English without any other requests. Everyone’s view of ESL and English teaching is different, and not all teachers appreciate ALTs for what they are.
Going into a new school in the spring, I’ll learn a lot as my first time at an elementary school. I hope the office culture will be different and that I can show teachers that I know how to communicate with them and propose ideas. I may not know everything about teaching English, but I know the attitude I need to have now.
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A personal experience with fear in the Japanese workplace (and patriarchy)
(Dec 7, 2022)
In my first few months working at a Japanese school, the most prominent emotion that still follows me out of work and makes me anxious at night is fear. Although I still struggle with this, I want to write down what my initial impressions were with sexual harassment or misconduct in Japan, so it may help someone else like me in the future. There was no one to advise me on what to be cautious about in the Japanese workplace and how to adjust to this new, specific culture as a woman or feminine person.
Before I came to Japan, I was already consuming lots of Japanese pop culture and media. One fear I had in the back of my mind was sexual harassment because I saw so many articles and anecdotes of women being catcalled, stalked, and harassed. So, I mentally prepared myself for the the fact that these things could happen to me. However, I knew I would live in the countryside, so I tried to push the idea of crowded subways and walking around alone at night out of my head. All things considered, the countryside and where I live is extremely safe. People leave their cars running while they run into stores and send their 6-year-olds to school alone.
Despite steeling myself for sexual harassment, I still ran headfirst into “the patriarchy” in the workplace. The patriarchy, or more broadly my experiences with men, those with more power, or those with more seniority, really came as a shock to me because I never worried about it in the US. As an American, I’m viewed by both others and myself race-first. If someone made a comment about me, it was probably about my Asian looks, so I used my Vietnamese-American identity as the biggest lens to understand who I was in my culture. I’m still learning what it means to be an “easy target” for comments and discrimination not related to my race, but instead as a young feminine-presenting person. As I want to write about here, I feel differently about being young and fem in Japan compared to the US. Especially because of how I’m treated in the workplace.
Through various workplace experiences here in Japan, I’ve developed a fear for interacting with coworkers who may not even have a history of sexual misconduct. For a long time I couldn’t place this feeling because nothing physical had really happened to me, and I didn’t have anything to compare it to. But I was definitely reacting to something. This wasn’t the overt harassment that is reported in the news. Rather, it was me noticing and becoming uncomfortable – even fearful– of how men and authority figures around me display their power and make others feel small at work.
I can think of many moments where I worried if I was going to be safe at work here around men. One of the first ones was listening to a co-ALT of mine talk about how I would be working with a teacher who made sexually inappropriate comments directly to them. My co-ALT did not report any of it, but said it only happened after having no issues for many months. I also heard stories of past ALTs being harassed by people who still work here and are kind to me. It made me realize that even if I felt comfortable with my coworkers now, something I couldn’t prevent could happen to me later as I worked in Japan. I couldn’t trust my coworkers to be respectful.
When I went to my first school’s drinking party, I had my own experience with what I had previously heard about. While many teachers were invited to the dinner and bar, only men showed up. No women came except me. It didn’t occur to me that I could ask the women at work if they were going because I thought at least one would be there. It was an uncomfortable night where I was put under a spotlight and objectified. During the dinner, the only English teacher there purposefully stared silently observing me when I was flustered and asked for help translating Japanese. After complimenting a different teacher’s terrible English, he then joked in Japanese, “Ah it feels great to be complimented by women in their 20′s.” And it was at that moment I knew. This was how men in Japan viewed women. At the very least, this was the culture at my school and town that I was going to have to navigate for the next year. These teachers who would say nothing to me or be polite at school, but outside of the bounds of work, they would suggest I should be the one to sing karaoke to cheer up male coworkers. Even after I outright said I didn’t want to and there were plenty of other men who wanted to sing.
At first, I didn’t know what my male coworkers could say or why to be worried about going alone to drinking parties. But after hearing the many experiences of women around me and seeing it for myself, I see the possibility that any coworker could do this. I’ve always been worried and afraid of being sexually harassed, and when it does happen its scary. I definitely wasn’t prepared for it in this form. There are guides on how to deal with the obvious forms of harassment, but not what to do about the constant fear that you might be harassed or the everyday treatment that’s just a little bit off. All of these small bits by themselves are nothing to write home about, but they compound into something bigger. There’s still a part of me that is mad at myself because I should’ve known better than to go to the party. But I didn’t know any better, and there was no way I could have.
Because I’m Japanese-passing and study Japanese, perhaps many teachers feel comfortable talking to and treating me like a Japanese woman. I know other foreigners and ALTs have been harassed, but I wonder if it would have been in this way if they looked the way I did. My identity as a foreigner is often overshadowed by my physical appearance as “Japanese” (which I don’t agree with but is somehow very convincing). So while I attempt to simply be own foreign myself, I am still perceived by Japanese people as a young Japanese woman.
Another mystery to me is how actual Japanese women deal with this. After a class I had early into teaching here, a female teacher told me that I should wear camisoles or dark dress shirts from now on because the boys in class were staring at what was under my shirt. Hearing from Japanese women that this culture prioritizes the sexual fantasies or desires of men over women’s privacy shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. I probably would have gotten dress-coded for the same thing in America, but it still scared me a lot. The same teacher has a difficult time controlling one of her classes because the boys only listen to male teachers (because of what she told me was their lack of maternal attention or 母性 from their own mothers, but I think it’s more than that). We both knew it would be best for the students’ learning that a male teacher be in the room to help them focus. But she said there was nothing she could do, even if their low grades reflected badly on her at the end of the year and she was let go. The principal and head teachers knew it wasn’t her fault that they were behind on curriculum, but they would not assign a support teacher or help the boys in a special needs classroom. The philosophy that something may be difficult and unfair, but you either 頑張る and pour tons of futile effort into making it work or 我慢 and suck it up and keep your head down.
I have many more examples and incidents related and unrelated to sexual harassment. At the drinking party from earlier there was a very nice teacher who came in halfway through and sat himself between me and a drunk teacher. However, there were still teachers who shouldn’t have made me uncomfortable in the first place. The way my coworkers treat me is also dependent on many many other factors like how little effort my school’s staff gives in order to welcome ALTs as part of the school community and support them as effective instructors. These are certainly some of the many factors that contribute to my emotions about work.
I still think sometimes that this all means nothing.
That there’s no reason for me to be afraid or “fearful” if this is all that’s happened. Even if I think these things are uncomfortable, it’s normal to not get along with coworkers. No one is stopping me from walking into the staff room with my chin up or telling me not to teach. But regardless, the feeling of fear and discomfort is real. The stories from other women I’ve heard are real. The invasive thought I have that the teacher who harassed my friend might harass me soon is real. And the way my students model and copy their teachers’ behaviors as they figure out what’s right and wrong in this world is real too. And maybe that does mean something.
Thank you to my dear friends for helping me sort out my thoughts and write this down.
The purpose of all this is just to tell every other 22-year-old girl coming to work in Japan to never go to a drinking party alone. Tell her to always coordinate her ride with other women so she knows they’re going too. To never wear shirts with text on the front because people will lean in and try to read it. To remember the self-defense tricks she sees on TikTok. Beg her to be safe and to never try to do this alone, in any country.
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Looking East-Asian in Japan + Reflexivity
After working at my assigned school for over a month now, I’ve gotten into the routine of knowing how the other JTEs (Japanese English teachers) and staff treat me. What their 建前 or work face looks like, who will always say good morning, and who will ignore me or is not interested at all in talking to me. Because I don’t have a co-ALT with me at this school, I just thought that the way people treated me was just normal. Of course until I compared stories with my co-ALT, Will. If you read this Will, bless you. Please link me your blog soon. At two different schools, the vibe of how we were welcomed from the beginning and taken care of as new hires was very different. A big factor was the schools themselves and the culture of the teachers room, where my school’s teachers always (seemed) overwhelmed with work. Weekly staff meetings are not translated for me, and I don’t know about bell schedule changes until I’ve walked into the classroom and the kids are still cleaning. On the other hand, Will’s school took more time to let him know every day when there were changes or events, even if he had nothing to do with it. The staff there obviously have different personalities and just enjoy taking more time to talk to ALTs.
However, the schools themselves aren’t the only part of this; we both look very different from each other. I apparently look like I could’ve been born and raised here even though I’m Vietnamese-American, while Will shocks everyone by being white and British. I speak N3 Japanese and Will is still learning. We may be the same age, but the way Japanese people view (especially young) women who are traditionally feminine is definitely not the same as they would view a blond-haired blue-eyed man. I think all of these things intertwined play a part, and there is no way to separate them. For example, I can’t for certain say that the sole reason xyz happened was because I speak Japanese, because no one looking at me doesn’t notice I’m a woman or that I’m young. Even if Japanese people don’t admit it, they see it (me as a young Japanese-presenting woman) and treat me a certain way. And the culture shock from it is one I didn’t expect.
In unpacking this, my focus has been observing the ways in which my identities interact with Japanese culture throughout the past 2 months. It's a continual process of constantly meeting new people who treat me a certain way, meeting more people who cement some of those judgements, and unlearning (or relearning?) how I want to present myself to others in this country.
When I read the blogs of other/previous JETs, one thing that stuck out to me was the ways they all talked about themselves, or how they saw themselves within Japan. Sometimes, I feel like it's more about how Japanese people choose to see you. For me, I am Japanese-presenting full stop. Every Japanese person I've met who doesn't see me with other foreigners or know that I'm an English teacher without fail thinks I'm Japanese (not even Japanese American) because of my physical appearance and sometimes Japanese pronunciation. And even after I struggle speaking Japanese or I'm with other foreign-looking people, people still think there's a chance I'm just stuttering or I'm the token Japanese person. (One factor in all of this is that I’m ethnically Chinese, so I’m on the fair side compared to other Viet people.)
Overtime, I've realized that blending in is both a good and bad thing, like Austin's Tofugu article says. On one hand, I can feel normal walking through the grocery store and not like an exhibit. But when you just need help or want people to treat you like a foreigner because the Japanese expectations people put on you isn't doing it, I almost have to convince people I'm not Japanese. Perhaps the default for people is to not look too closely and just assume East-Asian presenting people are Japanese (defining Japanese is too large of a hurdle today).
Sometimes I feel like I’m making it harder for people to identify me by dressing with Japanese fashion trends. But at the same time, I want to appreciate and participate in Japanese fashion trends without needing to use my clothes as an instrument to convey foreignness. That’s never what it’s been about for me in my home country at least. And while it would be kind of me to give others a hint that I’m foreign, why has me simply existing in this country given me work to do? I think if Japanese-presenting foreigners want to be understood or seen in the ways they want to, it takes effort to go against the grain and put it in work to change people’s minds.
As I mentioned above, my Japanese competence (that is certainly not up to business levels or fluent enough to understand work meetings 100%) is something that my coworkers have interpreted in different ways. My JTEs interpret it as that they don’t need to check in with me or make sure I understand meetings in order to save themselves time. However, other staff will skip important flyers and announcements for me because they don’t know if I can read or write Japanese. I can’t know to ask my JTEs to clarify something I didn’t know existed. If I looked less Japanese, I wonder if I would still struggle with this issue. Thus, I think also it’s a juggling act of managing multiple people’s expectations of you.
In any case, Japanese people have lots of unspoken expectations that are hard to keep up with. Being relieved of participation in those strict routines would be nice because I just don’t know the routines sometimes. I’m lucky that I can pass off as both or emphasize my foreigner identity when I want to. It’s obviously a privilege to be able to pick and choose if I’m a foreigner or part of the mob depending on the situation. In moments where I’m confused it reminds me that I’m still a foreigner after all. Even if I don’t look the part. And sometimes, I really want to be a foreigner because being treated as a sort-of Japanese person is really difficult.
I’m still figuring this out. It’s not my fault that I’m mislabeled as Japanese, but should I expect Japanese people to assume I’m not if they never got a reason to think otherwise? No. I want to recognize that Japanese people will treat me how they feel they should: sometimes being allowed “in” as an intermediate Japanese speaker and East-Asian presenting person, but also strictly “out” as an American at the end of the day. I can’t pick and choose, I just see that there are many factors and identities that are salient at different times.
As an outsider somewhere, you need to balance respecting or interacting with a culture with your own comfort. In my opinion, phrasing a foreign exchange experience as a chance to help you discover yourself or explore your identity (as a main goal you have) puts a burden and expectation on Japan or any country to act upon you. However, foreigners are their own agents who are constantly reacting to different uncomfortable situations, which I think is where the growth happens. We must acknowledge reflexivity and be confident that we know what our race, ethnicity, native language, or nationality means to us. To me, it doesn’t make any sense to go somewhere else and task others to define those for us-- then be upset by what they choose.
In application, all of this theory lets me realize that I am not a “normal” foreigner. Because of my school or the way I look, many Japanese people are more comfortable talking to me or overlook our differences. I’m also not as flashy and interesting as my co-ALT who is called a prince. Therefore, we’ll both have different experiences even if we were teaching at the same school. I’m learning when I want to blend in or try to make others comfortable, but also how to show Japanese people that I’m different and make them think harder about it when I need support.
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Applying N3 Japanese to actual Japan!
When I came to Japan a two months ago, I had been studying Japanese for almost two years. I started off in a traditional classroom for one year, then did online learning and self study for the second year. After practicing with conversation partners and feeling confident in Japanese courses at my college, I'm around an N3 level. However, I had never studied abroad in Japan before coming to work and live here, so I had no full immersion experience.
Here's a list of advice on using Japanese in Japan that I would tell to other Japanese learners visiting for the first time! Things like what to look out for and what to brush up on. This could also be helpful for non-N3 speakers as well. :)
Transitive and intransitive verbs:
I was very sad to learn that I actually did need these in everyday life. Verbs like open: あく・あける or close: しまる・しめる or enter: はいる・いれる are just a few. Especially in the workplace, saying "Class starts at 10:00am/１０時に始まります" or calling a restaurant to ask "Are you open right now? / 今開いてますか" are simple things that I reach for a lot.
Having an offline Japanese dictionary
When your phone's data eventually fails you or you're in a building with terrible reception, having an offline dictionary is important. I use Akebi Japanese Dictionary for android, and it's amazing. It includes pitch accents, lets you make lists/flashcards really quickly, and is easy to use.
Daily vocabulary:
In class, I was used to learning very specific sets of vocabulary that went along with reading passages. But now that I'm here, I always struggle at the post office to remember the word for family name, town hall, or residence card. People at offices often give directions in jargon, so if you're trying to pay bills by yourself, using the word 支払う instead of 払う. When you feel lost, you can ask for further clarification using the simpler vocab that you already know if you can somewhat recognize words. For example, if you hear 掃討 （そうとう) but think it sounds like 掃除（そうじ）, try repeating 掃除 back to someone to check your understanding. It's very tempting to just nod despite not understanding a single word, and I do do that. However, when you're totally lost or need clarity, showing others the vocab that you can recognize is very helpful.
Keigo, other formalities:
Seniority and respect is the backbone of the Japanese workplace. It's important to always greet others with the right greeting depending on the time of day and whether they're also working, and to use desu-masu form whenever it's necessary. (So saying おはようございます specifically between 6-11am, お疲れ様です between 11-5pm for co-workers and こんにちは for guests at the office, and switching to お疲れ様でした whenever someone leaves work for the day... The list goes on.) Everyone has been very kind to me despite the fact that I mess up and sometimes switch to short form when I should be more polite. If you've been practicing informal speech with a conversation partner around your age, try to brush up on desu-masu and keigo! I don't use keigo at every opportunity, but it's a goal of mine to keep practicing it because it really impresses higher-ups.
Regional accents:
In the "countryside" of Kumamoto prefecture, people use Kuma-ben, or the Kumamoto dialect all the time, even kids. When you're doing a lot of listening, try to find out what the common expressions and phrases are in your local dialect so that you can immediately recognize them as so. For me, it's made things a lot easier because I mistook the -けん or -ばい suffixes or special い-adjective conjugations that Kuma-ben speakers use as complicated grammar points or vocab that I didn't know. So eliminating them as just bits of emphasis or the dialect helps you focus on understanding other parts of the conversation. And it's also fun to learn and use with other speakers. :)
Being humble
When you're with English speakers, be honest when you can't understand or read something. It's frustrating when you're close to understanding something, but remember to rely on native speakers and let them handle certain situations. In my opinion, stepping back when you know what's going on shows others that you realize that some instances are above your current cultural knowledge, or that adding in your identities makes things more sensitive.
Pop culture
Cultural knowledge has helped me more than any grammar point. Knowing pop culture to connect with what your students or coworkers or neighbors goes a really long way. I had no idea that the personality of the characters in Crayon Shin-chan were such a big part of Japanese kids' humor, or that the key to talking with my middle-aged coworkers at drinking parties was キムタク. Aside from the language barrier, Japanese people are very wary of people who present as "different". Even if you can't say some things perfectly, being excited about the same shows or singers shows them that you're interested in more than just speaking well.
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到着
After reading the blogs of previous JETs and having conversations with friends back home, I started this blog to let everyone know what and how I'm doing. I hope it's a nice diary and can help future JETs who can relate to me.
I arrived in Japan on the last day of July, 2022. I'd never been to Japan before because my study abroad opportunities got canceled in college, and I was very excited to move outside the country and visit the country for the first time.
The JET Program came highly recommended to me by my professors and other acquaintances as the best way to work in Japan and experience the culture after college. I was very intimidated by the program's somewhat prestigious aura and reputation as being the way to get here, but not for very long after arriving.
I was lucky to travel with my friend Lu who had also gotten accepted in the same year, and we departed out of Portland, over to Seattle, and finally went to orientation in Tokyo. The entire process was very confusing and anxiety-inducing, so having someone familiar with me was very comforting. I'm very grateful to Lu, and I hope they're doing well in Fukuoka. :)
On one hand, I noticed immediately after arriving in Japan that JET's Japanese staff really manifested that vibe I felt over Zoom. Demanding formality yet corporate, being complicated yet vague, and unforgiving yet asking for perfection. Even after only being here for two months I've grown to be very critical of how the program runs. But individually, everyone really tries their best, and that was evident by the wonderful people I've met in Kumamoto Prefecture. After listening to lots of presentations and meeting lots of new people in Tokyo, I went to my placement in Nishiki Town.
JET's favorite saying is ESID or "every situation is different", which is just a fancy way of shrugging off the crazy amount of variation between every placement. They could never possibly manage to get all of Japan's local or prefectural boards of education (BOE) to agree to treat their ALTs (teachers) or CIRs (teachers or office workers who learned more Japanese) the same way. Every BOE has their own feelings towards the JET program and expectations for how they want their JET to contribute to the education system in their town.
I'm lucky to be placed at a BOE with an amazing supervisor, and a senior ALT who has five years of knowledge about both Nishiki and how its schools work. However, there are definitely imperfections and kinks in the system that just haven't been worked out by the BOE or JET despite having done this rotation of foreigners moving in and out for years. I had a hard first two weeks of adjusting to living by alone, living in a new country, being in a completely different culture, and being without any close friends around me all for the first time. When things in my apartment didn't seem ready for me or I couldn't hit the ground running, I felt confused. The people were so kind and welcoming, but there were miscommunications or road blocks from various places that I didn't expect. An example that sums up my feelings well is when I was sent a detailed email to me weeks before I arrived about money, work, and living in Japan, but to the wrong email address. There was no follow up to make sure I received the email, and I could've prepared so much better for life in Nishiki if I had read it. I could see the great efforts people put into preparing for my arrival, but there was a dissonance because it didn't translate into a painless and comfortable transition for me. Thus, it was hard to feel at home when I was so overwhelmed by everything and there were so many mountains I needed to start climbing.
Before this, school has been the constant moratorium that preoccupied me and kept me from learning how to survive in the "real world". (Even now, I think the JET Program is still a moratorium that I am under, but it's not as comprehensive.) Of course many people who are older than me have already said, "well at least...". And what I've glimmered from that advice is that I want to practice showing gratitude to others and to myself. It's okay to be young and overwhelmed because I don't know anything yet. If I'm grateful for everyone helping me in my life and understand that I've already persevered so much, I can find more motivation to create a life for myself in Japan. Additionally, I just might find time to unpack the many thoughts of identity and belonging and purpose that Japan has challenged me with.
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