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Interview with the Japan Editor

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Gwilym has been teaching English in Tokyo for over three years now, he's also been editing our Japan pages for a year or so. We thought it would be nice to track him down for some teaching advice and a chat about all things Japanese.

We appear to have caught him at various points on his way from Tokyo to Niigata for some snow-related high jinks. Oh the wonder of these new-fangled camera phones...

Interview with the Japan Editor

Name: Gwilym Cox, Japan editor
Age: 28
Occupation: English Tutor. Waseda University, Tokyo.

Konnichiwa Gwilym. You say you’ve always been fascinated by Japan - what in particular interested you about the country before you went there?
Konbanwa Sam (it’s evening time here). Japan appealed to me in a number of ways: the frequent images of Tokyo on British TV as a child, advanced technology, the mixture of old and new, the amusing/weird anecdotes about vending machine contents (most of which I have been told are myth), the diversity of landscape, its location and distance from Britain. Fairly token stuff. Prior to leaving England and actually doing some more comprehensive research on Nippon, I was fascinated by such aspects as Americanisation of food, fashion, sports, language (many words have been incorporated into Japanese daily speech, much to the chagrin of traditionalists), Japan’s job opportunities (excellent for the English-speaking graduate), economic condition (comparatively high salary for teaching English), language and safety (crime here is a small fraction of that at home).

Hey, why do so many Japanese folk dye their hair red? You’ve not become some sort of teenage role model have you?
Haha! One of the few areas in which I feel totally at home here. I sometimes wonder what the school bullies would think when confronted with such a sea of ginger.

I came here quietly expecting some kind of C3PO/Ewok scenario but instead found that the baseball cap was unnecessary in crowded trains. I harass friends about this quite often. One told me that Japanese think 'black hair is heavy' and that blond is simply too extreme. Much as it pains me to say it, ginger, therefore, is a compromise that has become popular. Others have told me that Japanese hair goes red when dyed blonde, but I dismissed this idea when I noticed the huge orange dye section in the chemist, next to the blonde one.

Gwilym takes this as a cue to send us snaps of any passing Japanese lass with tinted hair:

How did you go about getting a teaching job in Japan?
I did a CELTA course at Hammersmith College a few years back with a view to working my way around the globe. Having completed the course, I went to various agencies, attended lectures on teaching abroad, spoke to several teachers and decided that Japan was a good place to start. I was interviewed by Saxoncourt UK in London for a position at Shane English Schools Japan and was in here within three months.

Did you need any specific qualifications?
To qualify for a visa to work in a language school or as a JET, the only prerequisite is a degree and native English-speaking ability. Oh, and a lack of criminal record. My CELTA certificate allowed me to avoid some training and tiresome workshops, but was not essential to get a job here. It has helped me move into better employment since however, and did give me vital confidence and experience when I started teaching.

Was there a lot of paperwork to sort out? Visas etc?
The language school or organisation will sponsor you for a visa and so the paperwork is not at all arduous. I had to complete several forms, gather information/documents and take them to the Japanese Embassy in London to have the visa stamped in my passport.

Did you get any say in where you were teaching?
Yes, I was quite specific about this. I knew a few people here and had read up on the Tokyo area after listening to their advice and gripes. Language school chains generally get much of their business from built-up areas and are situated in the towns, cities and suburbs. I wanted to be in the Tokyo area and was placed about 20 minutes out of the city, which suited me fine. JET teachers, on the other hand, can be placed further afield and are sometimes given placements in distant, rural areas. JETs work as classroom language assistants in schools around Japan and are rarely given city-centre placements. With most teaching jobs over here you can specify an area and most people are given a job in reasonably close proximity to their choice.

How long have you been out there now?
Three years, three months and three days. Seriously.

Tell us a bit about your original job... what ages/levels were you teaching?
Ages four - 60. Not in the same class, fortunately. It was a conversation school and advertised to the effect that they could have Japanese folk speaking English confidently in a short space of time. I taught a diversity of classes everyday including pre-schoolers who ran around singing along to English nursery rhymes, businessmen preparing for trips abroad, high school students preparing for GCSE equivalents, high school English teachers and so on. It was a demanding job and took some getting used to but I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

Did you get paid? Was it enough to support yourself? Were there any other perks such as free flights, accommodation etc?
It was comfortable and enough to spend my first year out here enjoying what the country had to offer. The company set me up in an apartment and deducted the rent from my salary along with tax and other minor expenses. Flight was paid for by myself but organised by the company and slightly cheaper than travel agents at home. Perks were mostly material and provided by my predecessors: teachers vacating apartments and jobs before you are often an excellent source of TVs, stereos, sofas etc. When I arrived I introduced myself to my neighbour from Nottingham and found he was leaving the next day. I acquired enough stuff to make my empty apartment look vaguely welcoming and comfortable.

Got any tips (eg lesson tips) for people teaching English in Japan?
Schools and colleges usually work to their own syllabus and expect you to follow it closely. When I first arrived, I supplemented classes with ‘getting to know you’ ice-breakers and checked the BBC Learning English site’s teacher advice section quite often.

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There are hundreds of websites written by teachers for teachers, which provide ideas, exercises and entire lesson plans. A web search will bring you specific or general ideas by the bucketload.
English speaking practice is a relatively new thing in state schools here and the authorities have started to introduce it as a mandatory course throughout the whole school system. Until now, students have studied English grammar from 13-18 and have only learned to read and write: in most cases they cannot speak or understand the spoken language. With this in mind, the best advice I can give is to create a friendly learning environment and select activities/exercises where the students have an opportunity to use the language themselves and do not spend too much time listening to the teacher and worrying about making errors.

Where are you working now? How’s that going?
I work at Waseda University in the centre of Tokyo, a few stops from the skyscrapers of Shinjuku. It is a good teaching job with excellent working conditions.

I take from that answer you think the boss could read this? (Hello Gwilym's boss, you're looking great today!) Do you get long holidays in which to travel around the country?
Definitely one of the perks! As in England, students get obscenely large holidays, often out of peak travelling time and once my administrative duties are dealt with I can enjoy Japan as a tourist.

Have you travelled around much in Japan?
Yes, I didn’t leave Japan for the first 18 months and spent all holiday time getting out of the Tokyo area. I have travelled pretty extensively from the north of the main island, Honshu, to the temperate climes of Okinawa’s beautiful islands in the south.

What are your favourite three places in Japan?
Hmm. Friends will disagree but...

1. Shikine-Jima in the August Bon-holiday period. The third island in a series of (mostly inactive) volcanoes south of Tokyo in the Pacific. On the horizon you can see Miyake-Jima erupting and the sea is beautifully clear. It is an overnight ferry journey from the capital’s port but feels like a million miles away. The festival season sees the Japanese at their most relaxed and I retain wonderful memories of the sun setting. Bizarrely, the residents here have a Tokyo postcode.

2. The Shinsaibashi area of Osaka for a Saturday night out. Lairy.

3. Mount Bandai, Fukushima. A mountain surrounded by Goshikinuma (Five Colour Lakes). A lovely place to hike and look at the lakes, which resemble a great big easel with five different colours. Something to do with the minerals in the water apparently.

A lot of people are put off from travelling in Japan as it’s very expensive. As someone who’s spent a lot of time in the country, do you have any tips to help people travel/live cheaply in Japan?
I have learned to live here without needless expense and have found that money can be saved in key areas: transport, accommodation, food/drink and technology-shopping (not buying everything you see).

Buying a Japan Rail Pass before leaving the UK is a good idea if you intend to travel widely whilst you are here. If not, always enquire about discount tickets and travel cards on train lines. Many ticket machines have an English option. These often represent excellent value and can last for a day, week or month. Alternatively buses, but long distance bus journeys can be uncomfortable. Eating in local, traditional-looking restaurants is often very cheap and many have priced-wax mock ups of their dishes outside. Most stations have a nearby street with reasonably-priced restaurants, izakayas (Japanese pubs) and cafes all competing with one another. Look for the steady flow of people leaving the station.

Accommodation is the major area of expense and for the budget traveller youth hostels represent the best value. The Japan Hospitality Youth Hostel Group have places in many major cities around the country for as little as 2,200 yen per night (about £10, sorry Sam, no pound sign on keyboard). Capseru-hoteru (Capsule hotels) are reasonably cheap and easy to get into in city centres but I have a bit of an aversion. Avoid Western-style business hotels. If you want to go shopping for stuff unavailable at home, look around because prices can differ from shop to shop. Often, department store prices can be beaten in smaller shops.

About how much do you think it would cost a budget traveller to get by for a day in Japan?
Varies depending on where you wish to visit, what you wish to do, how much you wish to buy etc. If you have a Japan Rail Pass before arriving, you are staying in youth hostels, eating in old-style local restaurants, not spending money on consumer goods and not spending too much time in city-centres you could get away with living off about £25 a day approximately.

Is it cheaper for you to fly off to Vietnam, Bali or China or something and do your travelling there. What are the transport links like? Is it fairly simple and affordable to spend a few weeks out of the country out of term time?
Definitely an advantage to being based here. The three times to avoid are Golden Week (end of April/start of May), Obon festival (height of summer) and Christmas/New Year. Ticket prices are hiked up for these periods and sometimes difficult to obtain but any other time of year it is a perfectly viable and cheap option to fly to other places in Asia. I flew to Bali and back for the equivalent of £300 last year and I am currently shopping for a ticket to Vietnam for March. I have been quoted similar prices. Many of the big travel agents here have bilingual staff and companies offer special deals to fill flights at short notice. Several big-city ports here have ferries going abroad. Osaka, for example, has cheap but long ferry journeys to Shanghai.

How easy or hard have you found it to integrate yourself into Japanese society? Have you been made welcome? Made many friends? Got any tips for befriending Japanese people/avoiding cultural gaffes?
It has definitely become easier as I have learned more Japanese. Because the people are, at times, ridiculously polite it is rare that someone will point out that you have committed a heinous faux-pas or done something offensive. I did read up on customs and manners before coming and have managed to avoid riling anybody too badly. If you are planning on coming and travelling it is worth reading about what to do/not to do in hotels, restaurants etc.

Young people here are fairly relaxed about the idea of foreigners and I have made some very good friends and been made to feel very welcome. In the long term, however, I don’t think a westerner would ever be accepted as a Japanese in the same way a Japanese would be if they decided to move to England permanently.

Who’s your favourite sumo wrestler?
Akebono, a huge Hawaiian specimen. You might remember him from the days Channel 4 broadcast Sumo. He was the one who became Yokozuna (grand champ) simply because he was double the size of everybody else. He is no longer a Sumo wrestler and instead competes in K1, a brutal Ultimate-Fighting-Championships style competition. It is broadcast on primetime TV here and is very popular amongst people of all ages. He has yet to win a fight and gets constantly battered by people half his size. Everybody is desperate for him to win just once. The ring shakes when he hits the deck.

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Could he have had Giant Haystacks in a fight?
That’s an interesting conundrum. The sound of those two crashing together could perforate eardrums. A potential money-spinner: have your people call my people.

Unfortunately that was a hypothetical question Gwilym. Giant Haystacks is sadly no longer with us. Anyway, technology; what’s the coolest new gadget you’ve seen lately? Have they worked out how to send electric shocks down the phone to call centres yet?
The majority of new technology released at home comes out here first at a reduced-price. There are no major newies to report at the moment but the mobile phones here are amazing. They are cheap as chips and contain TV, 2meg cameras, pixel-perfect videos and the like.

The big deal with technology here is that they seem to embrace it and feel more comfortable with it than other places. Very few doors in Tokyo need to be opened manually, things turn themselves on and off, the transport system is incredibly efficient and modern etc. When I went back to England for Christmas, I kept waiting for doors to open for me, to the constant amusement of my friends.

No electric shocks at all? Not even little ones? Are you sure you’ve looked properly?
No. Definitely not, but one of my friends urinated on a plug socket in his sleep once. He said he wasn’t sure if he got a shock because he had imbibed so much wine. The next day he returned home to find that his father had put a shower cap over the socket in his room as a precautionary measure.

Oh well. So, how different is Japanese from Western culture? What are the most striking differences?
From a personal perspective: men going first still takes some getting used to. Trains, lifts, seats, places in queues etc feature no semblance of the ladies first thing. Being a Brit, I do the gentleman thing instinctively and receive smiles (women) or strange looks (men in the vicinity) from time to time. Others include: the ridiculous number of people in Tokyo and on its trains, food, the number of gingers, bowing and, of course, the language.

Who’s ‘big in Japan’ right now? I hope they weren’t too gutted about Busted. Those boys struck us as the sort to be big over there.
Yeah, you would have thought so wouldn’t you? Robbie Williams has failed to make a dent here too. Busted... hmm. Well I suppose that with the exception of Radiohead and Coldplay, plummy English boys aren’t all the rage. There is a Korean ‘scene’ here at the moment: the result of a popular romantic TV drama featuring a Korean guy. Suddenly cheesy Korean romantic dramas and films are all the rage and papers have reported that there has been a significant rise in the number of people taking Korean lessons. American culture remains top amongst western influences: hip-hop dress (outrageously baggy), Hollywood cinema and, as you would expect, the Backstreet Boys pulled in tens of thousands of punters for their gigs here last year.

Beckham (and to an extent, his missus) is perhaps more famous here than at home. Really. He endorses numerous things from fashion outlets to chocolate. There is a chocolate Beckham statue in Tokyo, which is taken around the country for people to photograph. Photos of Posh and Becks adorn billboards, train posters, magazine covers and they are seen as pillars of class and good taste. There is also a popular misconception that they are actually posh.

What do you think you will miss most about Japan when you return to the UK?
Blue skies in winter, warm Spring and Autumn, being reasonably tall, various food, friends, the ginger thing, men going first, constantly beautiful sunsets and the Pacific Ocean.

Do you miss anything from the UK?
Family, friends, good-quality cheese, BBC news and sarcasm.

What do you think the UK misses most about you?
I’d like you to answer that Sam.

No, tell you what, let's open it to the floor...
Click here >> if you're from the UK and want to tell us what you miss about our Japan Editor.

Click here >> for placements in Japan
Click here >> for gapyear.com's Japan info