The One Thing I Can’t Stand About Teaching English in Japan (2019)
86 points by insightcheck 2 years ago | 97 comments- afterburner 2 years ago"They knew of my miscarriage"
So there appears to be a misunderstanding here. The enthousiastic-seeming politeness of one culture has accidentally convinced someone from a different culture that there was more emotional connection than there really was.
Just don't fall for it. It's mostly for show. Excessive politeness at a mass cultural level like that is simply an obligation. But this teacher doesn't understand that and, perhaps being a little more prone than average even in her own culture to forming emotional attachments with students, is misunderstanding what is happening.
Imagine you walk into one of those restaurants where people are super enthousiastic about you, with big hellos and showy gestures and maybe even some singing. But it doesn't mean you've formed a deep emotional bond with them. It's for show, that's just their baseline.
People everywhere in the world only have so much emotional bandwidth for strangers, but the difference in default displayed politeness level might make for some misunderstandings between cultures.
- paddw 2 years agoI think it's less there is a misunderstanding, and more the author is simply expressing their frustration with this aspect of Japanese culture.
- afterburner 2 years agoThe misunderstanding is that she thinks the displays of politeness are evidence the people care about her in a deep and long lasting way. But they don't, they're simply being polite, and when they no longer want her services they don't want to interact any more.
- joshspankit 2 years agoYou’re making an assumption here.
You’re assuming that in the experiences she had with those students, it was their politeness that she interpreted as friendship. It’s also possible that she can discern between politeness and friendship and was seeing genuine friendship.
- joshspankit 2 years ago
- afterburner 2 years ago
- paddw 2 years ago
- Raed667 2 years agoMy uncle worked in Japan in the aughts. And he told me how his colleagues will do anything to avoid saying "no".
For example he would ask them if they wanted to go to lunch and they would say yes, but still be at their desk working. He asks again after a minute of awkward silence if they're ready to go, and they keep saying "yes one minute" and yet keep working until he gives up and goes away.
- lawn 2 years agoDating in Japan sounds absolutely horrifying, if this is the expected behavior to your private teacher...
- izzydata 2 years agoI dated a Japanese girl for 4 years throughout college. We spent basically every moment of every day together and then she just disappeared. Haven't heard from her in 11 years now.
- freitzkriesler2 2 years agoDid you go to school in Japan? If not, then did it not occur to you that a Japanese student studying abroad would need either a work permit or a marriage visa to stay? She probably was expecting you to propose and since you didn't she left because she had to.
- izzydata 2 years agoI went to school in the US and she is not actually from Japan. Both her parents were from Japan though despite her being born in the US. It could be a coincidence and have nothing to do with this Japanese cultural phenomenon, but it seemed pretty relevant to what I experience.
- crummy 2 years agoI don't think that makes ghosting after 4 years OK.
- izzydata 2 years ago
- freitzkriesler2 2 years ago
- dudeinjapan 2 years agoYep.
- tester457 2 years ago[flagged]
- izzydata 2 years ago
- bertil 2 years agoDoes Japanese aversion to confrontation trigger this behaviour?
- Liquix 2 years agoPerhaps also a strong sense of duty and shame - after skipping one lesson they are too embarrassed to show up again. Each successive failure to respond deepens the embarrassment, making facing the instructor again an unthinkably difficult task. The same thing can happen with lack of attendance at university classes in other countries.
- fomine3 2 years agoThis is my mind. If cancellation is available through a web form, it's easy. However, having to communicate it through a conversation makes me nervous.
- fomine3 2 years ago
- codethief 2 years agoCame here to ask the same thing.
If so, how do people quit their jobs then, or do break-ups? They just never do or do they just disappear over night?
- bhc 2 years ago
- Mistletoe 2 years ago>“Not a Good Match”: Almost One in Three Japanese Graduates Quit First Job Within Three Years. While earlier generations saw lifetime employment as the norm, 30% of recent Japanese graduates quit within three years of starting their first job.
Looks like it used to be lifetime and now that is changing.
- jvanderbot 2 years agoThey probably are very clear to each other, it's us foreigners who read the signals wrong.
- Sharlin 2 years agoDoesn't seem like it based on the article.
- Sharlin 2 years ago
- fomine3 2 years agoBecause of that, there are proxy services that handle quit job for you. (though it's happened within this decade) https://www.taishokudaikou.com/
- adastra22 2 years agoYou don't quit jobs in Japan (traditionally, at least).
- rurban 2 years agoThis changed for the better finally in the 90ies
- rurban 2 years ago
- bhc 2 years ago
- Liquix 2 years ago
- valbaca 2 years agoCan OP just keep charging them? As in build in a recurring rate into the contract.
If they ghost, you keep charging them until they decide to cancel the contract.
Just like how a doctor will charge a cancellation fee, you could probably do that as well / instead.
Or up-front payments for x classes.
- reustle 2 years agoEnglish teachers are a dime a dozen in Japan and are treated like garbage because of it. I doubt she has much sway over her contract.
- reustle 2 years ago
- TanguyN 2 years agoIt seems like a cultural difference and not something that should be taken as an offense. It's an introverted behavior, and aren't Japanese people, and Asian cultures at large, generally considered more introverted than their western counterparts? U.S. people, especially, might be the most extroverted in the world, and thus the least capable of understanding this.
- throwawaymaths 2 years agoJust take a deposit. Don't pay it back until they tell you they quit.
- MoSattler 2 years agoIf my language teacher asked me for a deposit, I would find another teacher.
- throwawaymaths 2 years agoIt doesn't have to be much. It can come with an explanation. If they are learning English, it's useful to know for the anglophone world ghosting (in many situations) is considered extremely rude.
I think Japanese people would be very receptive to this information and the $ incentive to let them know you're serious about it.
- jy1 2 years agoStructure as bulk "Buy 10 classes at a discount"
- throwawaymaths 2 years ago
- dudeinjapan 2 years agoThis is actually a great solution to the problem.
- throwaway426079 2 years agoFrom your username I figure you might know: are any other services sold this way in Japan?
I ask because if not then it's going to be difficult to go first. If yes, any idea how it influences behaviour?
- dudeinjapan 2 years agoApartments come to mind. In my business we also help restaurants take deposits for reservations, which is now becoming the market standard.
- dudeinjapan 2 years ago
- throwaway426079 2 years ago
- lozenge 2 years agoHomo economicus strikes again. Will the deposit make up for the emotional hurt?
- throwawaymaths 2 years agoIt may overcompensate... Call me cruel but I'd have a very meta chuckle that it was economically worth X to the student to not have to message me!
- throwawaymaths 2 years ago
- harperlee 2 years agoI was thinking more on the line of a subscription where you buy the hour of class, either if you dont show up.
- MoSattler 2 years ago
- m348e912 2 years agoI get the impression that ending a lesson with teacher or tutor in Japan seems shameful in some way.
I had some thoughts on how I'd deal with ghosting if I were a teacher in Japan. I do not have enough exposure to Japanese culture to know how well it would work.
* Change lesson duration from open ended to a fixed time period where students would have an option to "renew" based on their preference and progress.
* Provide a number of acceptable and "common" reasons to end study students can use in an effort to reduce shame. Reasons as simple as "I have met my goals as a student."
* Educate students early on on how to end their studies and present it as a part of the process and not shameful experience.
- colechristensen 2 years agoI heard a theory that this kind of extreme aversion to confrontation and the language effects are sometimes caused by a local history of essentially it being extremely common for someone to try to kill you if you offended them either through dueling or straight up murder. But that kind of killing was only socially acceptable for an obvious offense so language and behavior got tied up in knots to avoid confrontation of any kind.
This is why “bless your heart” and “fuck you” can mean the same thing in different places.
Alternatively this didn’t happen in places where conflict tended to be resolved with fights that didn’t escalate to killing.
- mhd 2 years agoSurprisingly not about Kanchō…
- mjd 2 years agoThat's what I thought it was going to be.
(P.S. Something seems a little off about your username, but I can't put my finger on wha tit is.)
- BMc2020 2 years agothere was a blog long ago called Gaijin Smash where I learned what that was...still sounds better than an English boys boarding school...
- mjd 2 years ago
- charlieyu1 2 years agoI understand a very little bit of Japanese culture and they probably just feel you don’t understand their social cues
- jancsika 2 years ago> I wanted them to just cancel.
"Sorry, $student, but I am unfortunately unable to continue being your teacher. [Personalized summary of student's progress, pleasantries, etc. go here.]" x $no_of_students
Simple. Effective. Exemplary.
Edit: I am totally available to teach English to Japanese students. Ghosting acceptable! No money down!
- atemerev 2 years agoI don’t see any problem with this. OK, if someone doesn’t want to talk to me, it’s their right. They don’t owe me any explanation or anything else. If I tried to repeatedly reach them and demand explanation — that’s borderline stalking to me.
Cultural differences?
- atemerev 2 years agoJudging from the number of downvotes, either I am even more socially inept than I ever thought before, or this is a genuine cultural difference.
- molotovh 2 years agoIn this case, it's because the teacher is now left not knowing whether they have an opening in their schedule for the student or not.
This is a freelance teacher who is responsible for finding her own clients and managing her own schedule. If you let them know that you won't be taking any more lessons, they can find another student. If you lie to them and they think you'll be back for your lesson next week, they aren't going to look for another student to fill your time slot. So when you don't show up, you've just cost them to opportunity to earn money from someone else.
If I were in the same situation, I would absolutely institute a policy of continuing to bill for the student's time slot until they formally cancel services. Given the level of conflict avoidance being practiced here, I foresee such a policy being quite profitable.
- atemerev 2 years agoI assume they have paid in advance already, as I inferred from text. And yes, of course, everyone bills until formal cancellation, at least here in Switzerland.
- atemerev 2 years ago
- akvadrako 2 years agoThey don't owe an explanation, but if two people have an ongoing relationship the one ending it should say "it's over" or "bye", not just leave the other hanging.
It's just a basic level of respect to not waste others time with wondering if it's over or not.
- t-3 2 years agoPeople should also be expected to be able to read the context and not need explicit confirmation or denial. It's rude and pushy to chase people and try to pressure them into saying yes and force them into saying no.
- t-3 2 years ago
- molotovh 2 years ago
- atemerev 2 years ago
- js2 2 years agoAsk Culture meets Guess Culture.
https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
- slibhb 2 years agoReminds me of Ikiru when the doctor won't tell the protagonist that he has cancer.
- sdfghswe 2 years agoWhat shall we call this? Being disrespectful? Inconsiderate?
- arkitaip 2 years agoSaving face.
- sdfghswe 2 years agoSaving face means that you made a mistake that has become obvious and you try to avoid owning up. That's not the case here.
Example: if you ghost your teacher without quitting that's inconsiderate, and calling it "saving face" is saving face.
- FabHK 2 years agoThey're saving the author's face by not explicitly telling them that their services are no longer required. (They're obviously implicitly telling them, loud and clear.)
- FabHK 2 years ago
- sdfghswe 2 years ago
- nubinetwork 2 years agoRisk adversity.
- arkitaip 2 years ago
- senectus1 2 years agoheh, you should set up payments like a gym membership... Until they get the balls to actually cut the ties properly you just keep getting paid every month.
- FabHK 2 years ago> I prefer someone blunt and clear who will say what they mean. I don’t care if they don’t say it in the nicest of ways, as long as they say it. Speak your heart!
If that's the author's preference (fair enough), then Japan is not the right place for them (in that respect). Intercultural Communication 101. Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else. (Or, sure, go on a one-person quest to change Japanese culture - what could go wrong.)
- Marqin 2 years agoShe said in the article she would move out if not her partner
- oh_sigh 2 years agoAnd the fact is Japanese people have no problem understanding what people are really saying. Things can be bluntly stated in Japanese even if their direct transliteration isn't blunt in English.
- timr 2 years agoThat's not true. There's no magical bat-signal that only Japanese people can read, and there are lots of contexts that even Japanese people talk about as ridiculously subtle to the point of fiendishness (funny example: I think it's at Bishamon-do temple in Kyoto, where there's a room that was used to "greet" guests who had no chance of meeting with anyone of importance -- the way you "knew" this was because the fusuma paintings all had subtle errors, like animals out of season for the scene. You were just allowed to sit there until you got the message. Obviously this is historical, but it's hilariously "Kyoto", which is itself known across Japan for being maddeningly indirect. The meta-point is that they describe this during the audio tour of the temple, and Japanese people are always amused by how subtle it is.)
The primary "you need to understand this" difference about Japan rejection, IME, is that Japanese people readily accept anything other than an explicit yes as a clear no. Your average westerner tends to be really delusional about this, and the even the ones who accept it (like the author, apparently) are still hurt when it happens. Like, this sentence:
> “I’m sick today. I can’t make the lesson. I’ll contact you later”
Is practically a cliché of a Japanese rejection. This is a country where people will show up to an obligation half-dead, and absolutely never cancel something important at the last minute. If someone flakes on you with an excuse of sickness -- particularly if they don't apologize PROFUSELY and attempt to reschedule -- just accept that it's done. Anyone who has been in the country more than a few weeks has experienced this, and you'd have to be willfully obtuse not to pick it up.
(to be clear: I don't think OP is being obtuse. I think she's venting for catharsis, which is fine.)
- FabHK 2 years agoSure, there'll be a gray zone of ambiguity in Japan, just as there is elsewhere. And it might even be larger (in some sense - how could one measure it?). But as you point out, there certainly are utterances in some circumstances that Japanese will understand as a clear "no" (for example), yet a word-for-word translation to English would be interpreted in English as "maybe" or "sounds good".
(I am reminded of this wonderful phrase book between British English and "Dutch" English: https://www.economist.com/johnson/2011/05/27/this-may-intere... )
- robwwilliams 2 years agoThis is a wise comment and even applies along the north-south gradient in the USA.
My family moved from New Haven CT (Yankee land) to Memphis TN—the latter being the heart of the South or the buckle of the Bible Belt.
In Memphis if you ask a question or invite some one over to a party and they answer “I’ll try” that is a very polite and standard version of “Hell no”.
We have lived here 34 years and I am still catching on.
- bsder 2 years ago> The primary "you need to understand this" difference about Japan rejection, IME, is that Japanese people readily accept anything other than an explicit yes as a clear no. Your average westerner tends to be really delusional about this, and the even the ones who accept it (like the author, apparently) are still hurt when it happens.
Somewhat. But the Japanese will try to exploit the asymmetry, too.
If a Japanese businessman says "Wakarimashita"(I understand) they mean "Pound sand". Do NOT take "I understand" as a "Yes, I agree." You will get burned.
However, if you as a Westerner delivers a "Wakarimashita" as a "No", the Japanese will get VERY VERY upset.
One of my favorite moments along these lines was dealing with a Japanese company who had dorked with us for almost 24 months (also a Japanese cliche) but now finally needed the deal to go through quickly. As they impressed upon us the newfound importance of the deal my response was "Wakarimashita" with lots of nods and a wide, friendly smile...
Watching the facial expression on a half-dozen people on the other side of the table darken visibly was quite glorious. The Japanese discovered that "Wakarimashita" can also mean "Bend over" in addition to "Pound sand".
- seandoe 2 years agoWhat do they say if they are really sick, can't make the lesson, and will indeed contact you later?
- FabHK 2 years ago
- Eisenstein 2 years agoTransliteration means taking the symbols of one readable language and converting them to another set of symbols. Like 'Владимир Ильич Ульянов' in Russian Cyrillic becoming 'Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov' in English Latin script.
I think what you meant was 'literal translation'. Sorry if this seems like a nitpick but these terms mean completely different things.
- timr 2 years ago
- bsder 2 years ago> Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else.
To be fair, I would expect that HN would have a bit more sympathy for the fact that the ambiguity means that she has to hold open a "schedule slot" that she could otherwise sell to somebody else.
My friend teaches guitar and has to deal with this all the time. "I'd like to cancel the lesson." "That's great, but you still need to pay for it." "WHAT!?!?" "Look. You aren't just paying for being taught guitar. You are also paying for that 4:00PM Wednesday time slot that everybody in the universe wants."
- Marqin 2 years ago
- AstixAndBelix 2 years agoThe author has correctly and rationally identified the problem. He knows exactly why and how his students behave this way, and yet he still takes it very personally. I'm glad he has at least found an explanation, but it would really help if he consulted with a mental health specialist as to which steps to take to stop feeling distraught every time it happens
- blackshaw 2 years ago> He
Given that the post mentions the author's pregnancy and miscarriage, I'm pretty sure it's "she".
- smsm42 2 years agoIt's not a mental health issue. It's not unhealthy to feel upset if people behave in a way that inconveniences you or makes you feel bad. It's a normal human emotional reaction, people are not robots, and knowing the rational explanation for something does not prevent one from feeling emotions about it. There's not much to be done about it, but blogging about it may actually be pretty therapeutic.
- bawolff 2 years agoIsn't it reasonable to feel a little sad when something like this happens?
Like by all means if they are crushed by this, see a specialist, but a little pang of sadness hardly seems like an unreasonable reaction requiring a mental health professional.
The goal of therapy isn't to make you immune from all negative emotions.
- lobstrosity420 2 years agoTo be fair the feeling you get from reading the post is that it crushed her.
- lobstrosity420 2 years ago
- analyst74 2 years agoI do not like ghosting, but having the ability to adapt to local customs is quite important when living in a foreign country.
It seems the author actually understands the local customs, but couldn't accept it emotionally.
- crummy 2 years agoWould accepting it emotionally mean not having those emotions?
- crummy 2 years ago
- WarOnPrivacy 2 years ago> The author has correctly and rationally identified the problem.
Did she? She indicated politeness likely plays a role but didn't get into the specifics of Japanese politeness that results in this.
- citizenkeen 2 years agoShe.
- 2 years ago
- blackshaw 2 years ago