The Real JET Experience [Interview with Matt]

The following is an interview with former JET participant Matt, who is originally from Minnesota and currently is pursuing a Master’s degree in cultural psychology at the University of Alberta.

M: Matt (interviewee)

K: Karyn (interviewer)

Since Matt started the JET program many years ago, questions about the application process and interview process, as seen in other JET interviews, have been omitted.

K: When did you apply for the JET Programme?

M: I applied for JET in the fall of 2002, and started in the summer of 2003.

K: Where did you request to be placed for your contract? Why did you choose this location? Did you get this location?

M: I think I requested to be in a mid-sized town, but I didn’t request for a specific place. When I went, it was really, really random. Most people that requested for a place got the exact opposite. Like, people who wanted to be in a big city, ended up in an island with like, 12 people. So, I considered myself lucky. Even though I requested a town that was mid-sized, it was about 100,000 people. It felt more like a town in the US that is 20-30,000 people. There were fields next to my house and they had a rule where you could only have like, 50% fields and 50% residential. No movie theatres, no mall, no English at all. If you want to learn Japanese, I recommend asking for the extreme islands (Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido) because in those islands there are less English signs, less foreigners, and the people there expect you to speak Japanese. I ended up in Saijo, Ehime. 

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Mount Ishizuchi, Saijo, Ehime

K: What kind of applicants does JET seem to be looking for?

M: It seems like in the past they were looking for people who were more naive about Japan and who wanted to go for an adventure and a cultural experience. But now, it seems like they are looking for people who have a more serious interest in Japan. So, people who are studying Japanese, are pretty fluent or can speak well, and interact in the community. When I came in, everyone that was an ALT had no Japanese ability. That was just normal. In fact, it was strange to see someone who spoke Japanese. The CIRs were all pretty fluent though.  I think it’s because of the job market. There are more applicants, more people, and it’s really competitive. You really need a better resume to be accepted. It also seems that the people that go there now are more biased, so they act in a different way.

K: Describe the events of the days leading up to your departure. Do you have any advice for those about to pack up and leave home for a year?

M: For me, it was a fog. I didn’t really have a realization that I was going to Japan. They had a pre-conference to go to, and I visited my family, including some cousins. There was also a conference in Japan, but they were all useless. The only true thing that they said is that everyone’s experience would be different. Because of this, the advice they gave was pretty much useless. It might give a hint, but it could be completely different for everyone. When I got there, they wanted me to talk to students about my hometown, Minnesota. It was 38, 40 degrees, and they wanted me to teach a lesson right away. There were kids sleeping in their desks. That’s one experience that was definitely unique to me; I don’t think anyone else had that same type of experience on their first day.

Regarding the advice for those about to pack up and leave home, if you have any products like medicine, hairspray, etc, that you really think works the best, make sure you bring it, because you will never find the same thing in Japan. If you need drugs, it’s really hard to find because the side effects are all written in Kanji. Spices too. These are the things I wish I had packed. I had them shipped over later, but they came in food boats, so they took 3 months to come… so half of it spoiled. I think some of it was peanut butter… somehow it went bad. I remember getting a type of cleaner I wanted sent over, but it got sent back because it had something bad in it that wasn't accepted in Japan. Even if you have to pay an extra $100 for another suitcase, it’s a good idea to bring such things.

If you are tall and are a biker, it’s a great idea to buy a bike here, and actually ship it over on the plane, because you can’t buy big bikes in Japan at all.

K: When you learned where you would be going, were you able to look up information about this school?   

M: No. Actually, there were no English websites at the time for my schools. I did get info about my predecessor, but other than that it was hard to get a feel for it. It’s almost certain that a school’s website would be in Japanese, so unless you know a lot of Japanese, it’s pretty much useless to try to look up more information.

K: How was accommodation taken care of? Did you have any say in where you lived?

M: I think it’s pretty common, at least in my area, that only a few of the apartment buildings want to take foreigners. Most people get their predecessor’s place and their stuff. For me, it was a new apartment. I paid $460CAD/mo, but the BOE (Board of Education) paid about $260 of it. I’ve heard about people having really bad apartments, (like, black mould and other things hazardous to your health), and even fighting those in charge, they still didn't want to move them. So, they would have to pay a lot of money for that move, and the key money, you don't get it back either. So if I were to move, it would have cost me maybe $1000 or $2000. For me, I didn't have AC, and it was 40 degrees out. There was no human way to sleep in that. So I stayed in my neighbour’s apartment until I got AC (my neighbour was my ALT). The BOE gave me an AC that they found, but it didn't even work. It cost me $100 /mo for AC for ONE ROOM. It was a pretty bad AC.

K: What were the first few days in Japan like?

M: I actually had about a month before I had to work. I had no responsibilities at all. One of my coworkers, an ALT, told me what I would be teaching. We also biked to all the schools. I had 16-20, so my first year I basically spent it all doing an introduction to all the schools. Most of my time in this first month was spent working on moving in. I had to buy all my stuff but had to use a bike to carry it, so I would make like, 5 trips just to get enough dishes in my house.

I also met teachers, but they didn’t really help me prepare. I hadn’t brought pictures, money, or any things from where I was from, so I had to buy a printer to print things out to show to the kids for the introductions.

In the first month I had so much free time so I tried to get involved in the community. I joined a soccer team from a school I hadn’t met before, so I met a lot of my future students in the summer. This was really great because it helped make my classes a lot better. I literally taught 2500 students. 

K: How were the first days on the job? What were the other staff members like? How different was it walking into a Japanese classroom for the first time?

M: Well for me it was kinda strange. So, my first two days was an elementary school, and they were really good schools, but I learned on the job that you should never trust technology, ‘cause I spent 30 minutes out of the 40 minute class getting a projector to work. And none of the teachers knew how to work it, so during this time all the kids were going crazy.  

The third day I went to a Jr. high that was famous for the kids being violent. All the teachers hated that schools. There were fire alarms pulled 4-5 times a week, people screaming in the middle of classes, people running down the halls, holes being punched in walls… Because of this school, I took on a persona of being a badass. That was an interesting school.

The week after, I went to a country school, where all of the students were really, really sweet. So, I noticed that while all experiences are different, even all the schools are different.

In all the schools I tried to get active in their sports, so that helped students respect me and behave well in class. Even the bad school became one of my best schools. At first, it’s intimidating at times. Students can get away with a lot more in classes, because they can’t get kicked out of classes. Even if they are standing up walking around, screaming in class, hitting the desks of other students, I’ve had teachers do nothing. I had a rule, if you have 4 classes, you’ll have 2 that are really good, one that is really, really bad, and one that is kinda moderate. That rule fit in all grades, all schools, any level. That pattern just seemed to work.

K: What were the culture shocks you experienced?

M: The language at first. I thought I spoke Japanese more than I did. I found that I couldn’t understand anything because they spoke so fast, they had a dialect, and there was no English anywhere. I remember that in the first month I didn't want to leave my town, because the subway station had everything in kanji that I couldn’t read, so I didn't know where to go. Even if you start to know how to make sentences, they drop pronouns, they drop subjects, and sometimes their words, like “nomu” (drink), don't always mean the same thing. Like, I had a cup of coffee on my desk that was empty, and my boss (the vice principle of the school) came in and asked me “nonde masu ka” and I said yes, because I had drank a coffee. Turns out this means “Have you been drinking?”, referring to alcohol. I guess my face was a bit red because the coffee was hot, and he thought I had drank before coming to work.

Also ,“hai” does not always mean yes. It means, “I heard you”. A nod also does not mean yes, but “I heard you”.

Another thing was that when you go out drinking, everything that you do when you were drinking is forgiven. For example, you can completely complain to your boss when drunk, but not if you’re not.

Another thing is that changing things in the system take so long because everything is so set and firm. You have to wait for the person responsible for you to get transferred, ‘cause that new person will be the one who will listen to you about suggestions and complaints. When my new person came, I was able to make it so that 50% of my time was to be spent in elementary schools. This worked because normally there is a lot of time when I would sit in classes as kids did all this hard work writing, etc. I should be doing something productive during this time, like going to an elementary school and actually interact with the students there.

K: Were there any cultural differences (customs, etc) that you wish you had been aware of before?

M: Well I’m a cultural psychologist so…. Probably most people would say different things, but most of the things that happened to me occurred when I was more integrated in the culture. Most people who go to Japan are really young and liberal, so they’re mostly accepting of cultural things, but it’s when you deal with real issues that is most shocking. For me, I really realized that the culture was different, when I was in my third or fourth year. I was super independent, in an interdependent society. In the first three years, I was independent but I tried to do things in the Japanese way, and they loved me, and everything was alright. But in my fourth year, I was sick of working ‘til 7pm, because I did clubs afterschool, taught some really strong kendo clubs, and because of that I would be hanging out with my coworkers from 5-7pm. If I hadn’t put the effort into putting that time in, I wouldn’t have had connected with them. So, in my fourth year, I was unable to connect with them in the same way. You only get paid for 35hours a week, but the real expectation is 50-60. I recommend picking a few days a week to stay late so that you can build a proper connection with your coworkers.  It’s not a question, really. If you want to be respected by the school, you need to volunteer to put in the extra time for clubs, etc. It’s because of this concept of interdependence.

Japanese teachers are in title, sensei, the equivalent of doctors. And they get the respect equivalent to this. So, the standards are very high for them. Only 10% of those studying in school become real teachers. They are not getting paid a lot, but they put a lot in, so they deserve a lot of respect for their efforts. It doesn't mean that you have to do that though, but if you want to truly experience the culture, you should.

K: Would you recommend that students try to immerse themselves in the culture before departing for Japan? Or at least have some experience with the culture?

M: I think it’s useful to read up on some stuff, but I don’t think it’s helpful in reality, because you can never really understand it until you’ve actually been in Japan for a while. Even after five years you could think you understand the culture, but then you’ll see something that throws you off completely. Even after ten or twenty years, this still happens.

K: Describe a typical day in the classroom.

M: A typical day would be getting in at 7:42 am and 33 seconds. I come in, drop all my stuff off in a desk shared between all the ALTs. I steal the office lady’s desk as my own, because somehow she is of lower status than me, and so she ends up standing all day. And she offers a snack and tea. I then say to myself, “okay, I am early. I hate the morning meetings”. I look at the board in the room, and I know what all the words mean. Before I knew what it meant, I would have classes cancelled for the whole day.  I look at the day and say, “okay I don't wanna do the morning meeting”, so instead I go out and greet the students, make a joke, shake their hands randomly. And if they are ignoring me, I stand right in front of them and say “HI” and they say “hi..”. I don't particularly like it it, but I am out of the morning meeting, I’m out in the sun, and the teachers give me respect for it.  At about 8:05 the bell rings “pin pon pin pon pon”, and then I go back towards my desk, pick up my stuff, and head up to the teachers office. There’s a teachers’ office for each grade so I get the guest desk, or the mean-guy’s desk who’s never there. I sit there and have 20-30min before classes start, so I go to the hallway and just sit down in a chair and usually the class REPs walk by, and they all say “hi”, give me a high five, or talk to me. Technically they are not allowed to talk during that period, but I do that anyways because I’m an ALT and can break all the rules. So at 8:30 a teacher would come back and come to my desk and give me my day’s schedule. Some of them asked me to make something for class in 15min, and I would be like, “NO.”. If it’s a ridiculous request, you have to be assertive, and they’ll get the point. I often told them to tell me the day before if they want me to make something.

So then I’d walk to class; all the kids are goofing off, the bad kids role their eyes, and the good kids are shaking in heir desks with excitement, and get up to shake my hand. And then about 5 minutes in, the class starts. The first thing the teachers do is for the first 30 seconds make the students close their eyes and be quiet, which focuses the class. It makes the class go way better. They’ve done studies on it, and it’s true, it works. Then usually we’d start a on a book and they’d have me read a chapter from it. All the sentences are just stupid and ridiculous. I can’t even produce them off the top of my head. And then the students would repeat after me. And then I’d do the same on very simple, random words. Then the teachers would translate everything in Japanese, so the whole effort of studying English was gone. Then we usually do some sort of activity. The cool thing is that usually a teacher would have me do an activity in every class. So I would have some game related to a grammar point, or a conversation thing, that we’d do for 20-30 minutes and the class would be done.

Then I’d get a break for about an hour, eat and study or read, then in the next class do the exact same thing. I’d have about 2.5 hours of my own break/studying, and 4 classes. I also had a lunch break, and in my school we’d eat with the students, so I would walk down with the students and get a kyushoku, a giant bin of food, and then the teacher would serve it all and share it. There’s usually soup, rice, deserts, bread, etc. You prepare it all. The rule was for me to not talk at all when dishing it all out, and wait until everyone in the class has it, and then we all say “itadakemasu”, and then we have lunch. In the bad classes, the students aren’t allowed to talk at lunch, so they’d always give me the evil eyes. In some classes, they let you sit where you want, but in others it’s assigned. So we’d talk in trivial English for 30 minutes and eat. At the end, you put all the dishes and containers up front and take it all back down to the lunchroom.

If you cant eat a lot of food, tell them beforehand, and if you have an allergy, tell the principle, and tell the English teacher. Because they will force you to eat all the food, even if you are deathly allergic. In the classes that allow kids to not eat, you can really see it. There is a lot of anemia in Japan, especially because girls will not eat. When I have been sick, I’ve just told them before hand that I was sick, and it would be okay. 


After lunch there is a recess and as long as the weather is nice out, some or all people play games outside. There’s music outside, art, games, etc. For me, I’d play sports sometimes, or go listen to music, play games, or talk to people in class. Or sometimes I’d just read a book. If it’s summer, all your clothes will be so wet because you played basketball for 15 minutes. Literally that’s what it looks like, and all the students will be like “Matttt did you jump in the swimming pool??”.

After that is cleaning time, so for 15-20 minutes they play music and no one is allowed to speak and all the students have to clean the hallways, the toilets, pick weeds, etc. They clean everything. And then I go back to my last classes.

Then it would be about 4pm and the bell would ring, and I’d go back to my office, and the students would have a homeroom meeting. I would actually go to the homeroom meeting, sit in on a random class, to listen to their Japanese and learn some of the culture. Then students would start to head off to club, and after about 15 minutes I’d head off to kendou, where I was a teacher. In the last hour or two of that I would just beat up on them and make them cry, especially the girls. They didn't cry because I was hurting them, but because they tried their best and couldn't get a point. They went to state and got 8^th place the first year, then 4^th and then 2^nd. Even now I visit them and we are just great friends. Then I’d go home at about 6 or 7pm, and I’d be done for the day. Once it’s 3:30-4pm, you can go home. You don’t have to stay. Some days would be short days, and I’d leave at 1pm. Or some days I’d stay as late as 9pm.

K: Describe a special, or eventful day in the classroom or at the school (example, a festival day).
M: Okay, I’ll talk about the jr. high sports festival. The month before the students had been practicing these events all the time. All the students practice as a class, and they get points for their performance. They do group events, as well as individual events. The higher grades also do special events. For example, in jr. high they did something called mukade. They would fall and there would be blood everywhere, and some of what I would call fatal injuries would be like a broken leg. The other one was kibasen, where they put hats on and people on shoulders, and have a battle to take off the hats. This is usually the star event for elementary school.

In the morning, they have all the parents in tents and all the students are lined up military style and they march in, and they get graded on this march, so they practice it for like, 6 months now but they still can’t do it perfect.  So then they come in and all line up and the principle does a greeting speech and then the festival starts. So for the morning they would do a bunch of random events, like obstacle course, sprinting… a lot of the individual events. There’s a pole event where the kids line up and they have to pass a pole under them all, and then over them all. They train for this too, but sometimes people trip and fall, or get the pole in the face. There’s also a scavenger hunt which ends in students jumping in a beanbag over the finish line. There are a lot of changes between the events because all grades are different, so sometimes I have to help organize stuff. There’s also cheer squads too.

At about 12pm there’s a lunch break and all the teachers would go to a room and close the shades, pass out these school box lunches (really expensive good ones), and we start eating and mid way through, one teacher would pull out the beers. And afterwards we’d get nice ice-cream and then we’d open the shades and go all like “oh no, no beer here”. After lunch there would be a PTA event. All the students versus all the parents in tug-of-war. I would join any team that looked like they were losing. In another event, all the sports clubs would run around the track doing a club specific run, like in tennis, the members would run while dribbling the ball.

Then they do the class relay, and finally you’d get to the mukade. There was usually two lines of students, and then after two laps they’d usually have a girl line that would do one lap, and then the guys would go again. This is the most important event because it’s worth 100 points. Sometimes they’d fall, or sometimes there’d be students who couldn't do it no matter what, so I would join in and run alongside them and count with them to help them stay balanced. I would usually help out the weakest team. Then everyone waits for the final scores and they make the students march out again and then they give the scores, and all the students are crying. The third years wanted to win ‘cause it’s their last year, and the first years all tried so hard to win.

And then you think it’s all done and they say bye, and then all the students take down all the tents, like 40 of them, so after being out in the sun all day, they all have sun stroke and take all this stuff down, and take down all the decorations, clean up all the trash, and then at 5/6pm, 3 hours after it finished, they are done, and they are all sweaty and bloody. After that they go back, they all have a juice or something with their class. And then they all go home. The teachers come back and once they go to the office, there’s an after meeting for the event, and then the day is officially done, but its not really done because you’re a teacher. You have to go home, take a shower, and come back for the after party, which is 2-3hours long and involves lots of beer and a lot of good food. And if you have a lot of energy left, there’s usually a second after party, like with karaoke.  

K: What is the most significant thing you have learned so far in your experience as an ALT regarding teaching students? Any advice for future ALTs?

M: I guess the biggest thing I learned about teaching students is that you need to embrace the individuality of the classes.  It's a little bit different from here in that the students in the U.S. or Canada tend to be more personally individualistic, but in Japan the classes tend to take on this tendency.  That is, while kids still do have individuality, they aren't allowed to express it on the same scale here.  As the saying goes in Japan, "The peg that sticks out, gets pounded down." Instead, you tend to find that classes take on collective personalities.  Some loud, some quiet, some enjoying certain activities.  By catering to these tastes, in effect making slight deviations as to how you present the material, you can basically make all the classes you teach have fun, which is pretty much our job.  Also, I learned to be proactive in teaching Japan.  Some teachers are fine with you doing nothing, some want you to prepare stuff at the last second.  Now, I'm perfectly fine with not doing a lot of work, but hate doing nothing... if you talk to those teachers and ask to add something to class, usually they'll relent.  In addition, if you communicate that you need more than 15 minutes to prepare activities, they can learn to tell you about stuff ahead of time.

K: Did you find yourself bogged down with work, or relatively free to explore Japan outside the classroom? During your holidays, where did you go, or what did you do?

M: Well, I had quite a few different experiences.  Some schools were busy and some really, really idle.  I actually had chats with both of the types and was able to change my situation so I just had enough work to do in either situation.  Of course, when breaks came around I was much more free, and if I hadn't decided to coach the local Kendo teams I could have very well been traveling for several months a year, no problem.  Talking to other ALTs this seems pretty normal.  During holidays I still was able to travel to Hokkaido, Kyushu, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and all around Japan on a few long bike trips.  I recommend Hokkaido in the summer for its cool weather.  I would go almost every yeah and felt that it was the equivalent of 'escaping hell', after all, it was 35-40 and 70-85% humidity in my town for three months in the summer.

K: How long did you end up staying in Japan? How much of this time was under JET? ( did you get a contract? How?) 

M: I stayed 5 and a half years in Japan.  The 5 were under JET and the half living with friends and visiting later.  Originally I was only planning on 2 on JET, and in the end, I ended up staying 5.  Actually, in my fifth year I had considered continuing on in graduate school in Japan, but ended pulling out as I decided that I could get a better education in North America.  My plan is to go back as a researcher/guest lecturer, and it sounds like this is the right time to do it as schools in Japan are trying to become more 'international', forcing them to have more university lectures in big name schools in English.  I liked JET, but there is something very appealing having a real job, with real responsibility, and real raises.  That's something you have in University.

K: Why did you decide to stay in Japan longer?

M: Well, the reason I decided to stay longer was that I enjoyed learning about the culture and I wanted to continue serious Kendo, this teamed with work conditions that were getting better (more responsibility and more elementary school) made it a prime time to continue on.  I'm really glad that I stayed past the 3rd year as friendships with Japanese people can be slow and most of my real, close friends I made in the 4th and 5th year.  I guess this probably has something to do with language ability as I only really become fluent in the 4th year.

K: After JET, and returning home, what path did you choose, and why? Where do you plan to go from here?

M: After returning to the U.S., I decided to go back to school as a graduate student in psychology.  I really enjoyed being a teacher in Japan and even more, I enjoyed the conversations I had with other teachers about the behaviors exhibited by the students we taught.  I was interested in learning (and getting paid to do this) more about these behaviors, and also, the culture differences I saw.  Why I chose academia was that whether or not I study in North America or Japan, I knew that I would have plenty of chances to return to Japan for 'research'.  And even if I'm not 'researching', visiting Japan in the summer is possible, and encouraged, as I need to make friends in Japanese academia and continue my learning of the culture as a good cultural psychologist.