Teaching English in Japan

Japan is a country of harmony and contradiction, where the ancient and the ultra-modern sit side by side. With such a unique culture, living and working in Japan allows for a memorable experience. It provides plenty of opportunities for travel, from the high-tech city of Tokyo to the old capital of Kyoto, to experience the ancient rituals of Shinto and Buddhist religions, as well as participating in tea ceremonies. Culturally, there are many opportunities to learn martial arts, music, and calligraphy or participate in the spring and summer festivals. Hot springs also offer a perfect way to unwind from the demands of your teaching week.

Each season in Japan also brings with it a vast array of food and specialty dishes, such as soba noodles in soup, or sitting under the spring cherry blossoms enjoying an outside barbeque.

Japan, however, is not for the faint-hearted. Many TEFL teachers experience major culture shock, due to the fact that the cultural rules are often the opposite of what the foreigner has ever experienced before. This new environment, coupled with the fact that the language is so unfamiliar, due to the non-Roman Alphabet, means that you need to work that much harder to understand what is going on around you. You will also have to accept that you will not be accepted in the same way as a Japanese person. This does not mean that you won’t have any Japanese friends, but you will be treated as someone who is outside of the cultural rules.

Japan is an incredible country steeped in history. It’s made up of 6,852 separate islands and the name Japan translates to “Sun Origin”, or “Nihon” in Japanese. It is something that has been deeply ingrained in Japanese culture as the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Japan is a country with so many “weird and wonderful” things from a Western perspective. Examples include it  being home to the shortest escalator in the world with just 5 steps: with a height of just 83 cm or 32.8 inches, the escalator is found in a supermarket store in Kawasaki.

Another example of the weird and wonderful is the vending machine culture across the country. You will find a vending machine pretty much on every corner across Japan, totaling over 5.5 million. The contents vary from beer, wine, hot food, coffee, light bulbs, eggs, clothes, and even fishing bait.

On the note of fish, the Japanese consume more fish than any other country, with an estimated consumption of 17 million tonnes of fish per year! Incredibly more than 20% of Japanese protein is obtained through fish.

The popular food chain McDonald’s is also a hit across Japan, with more than 3,000 restaurants. This means Japan has the largest amount of McDonald’s restaurants in the world behind the United States.