Fuck it. Thanks to the gloomy economic realities of being laid off, I cashed in my savings and, one week shy of my twenty-seventh birthday, headed to Japan in hopes of bettering myself financially. Having finished John Wharton's book entitled Jobs in Japan, which painted a lucrative picture of teaching conversational English to the Japanese, and with my unemployment checks running out, I began packing. I was going to Tokyo to become an English instructor. The goodbyes between my lady friend and myself were to the point Eshe wasn't waiting. So without further ado, I purchased a discount ticket and boarded a jetliner bound for Narita Airport from San Francisco International.
The Japanese customs officials were also brief and with suitcase in tow, I caught a shuttle bus for a ride into the Ginza where I planned to take a taxi to my accommodations. Now the Ginza, a trendy downtown district of Tokyo, wasnt much to write home about, but with the populace out in full force, the area was awash in a sea of black hair and that was a sight unto itself. There were plenty of taxis zipping through the intersections and, flagging one at a corner next to a koban (three-man police station), I gave the driver a brochure with directions to the ryokan (Japanese-style bed-and-breakfast inn) where I had reserved a room when my air ticket was purchased. The cab driver had no problem with the whereabouts of the hostel, and collecting my bag from the trunk, I moved up the entrance steps under the impression that Japanese people made politeness a point.
Yet the owners of the inn, a gray-haired couple behind the reception desk, didnt appear at all pleased to make my acquaintance, and a week passed before I learned the passive hostility was the result of foreigners who occupied my room just days earlier. Gaijins that split without paying their bill, leaving the innkeepers with a sense of paranoia concerning non-Japanese visitors. The term gaijin, literally outside person,is often used by the Japanese when referring to anyone nonnative. In fairness, I should say this has been one of the few incidents lacking in affability I have encountered from the Japanese upon introductory contact. And why is this? Because I'm fair-haired, blue-eyed and from the United States, and in this country that's a righteous fact to remember, my friends.
The room I booked for two weeks was on the second floor and furnished with a futon (cotton floor bedding), an air conditioner, a stereo television and a house phone. Except for having to share communal, squat-style toilets at the end of the hall and the baths, segregated by gender, across from the reception desk on the first floor, the lodging suited me fine. In any event, I wasnt jetlagged and not bothering to unpack hurried outdoors to investigate the neighborhood. The neighborhood which appeared not just an electronic fantasy with glass doors that slid open with a push of a hand, but also concrete with no sidewalks. Pedestrians, cyclists and cars alike shared the same access. My intuition told me I had made the right decision coming to Japan and continuing along the streets until dark, I never looked back.
Sleeping on the floor futon, a first, came with ease, and joining a table for breakfast in the dining area of the lodge beside three chatting gaijins was likewise uncomplicated. Introductions were exchanged and after a bowl of misoshiru (bean soup) was ordered from one of the inn proprietors, I asked a funky, dour-faced Chinese-American whose black, thinly trimmed mustache was his only distinguished feature, if he knew anything about the English-teaching market in Tokyo.
Instead of practical guidance, the humbugger, who was in Japan completing a doctorate degree in international business, gave the table a lecture on the discriminatory employment practices nonwhite, non-Japanese people faced trying to obtain work in Japan, practices which, in his opinion, Japanese companies hiring foreign employees observed in this homogeneous society. He was correct; I wouldnt have as many difficulties with the Japanese as those of a differing race or nationality than my own. Still, the guy came across as pompous in his accusations, and I wouldn't have blamed anyone for refusing to hire him be they racist or not.
Fortunately, the classified section of The Japan Times, a popular English-language newspaper found at the front desk, had a variety of teaching positions advertised; and making a few telephone inquiries, I managed to arrange interviews with various language schools over the next several days. My first interview in Shinjuku, or central Tokyo, went smoothly and the gaijin behind the desk asking the questions seemed satisfied. Often in situations where the Japanese management find communication a problem, or simply don't want to deal with a nonnative, a foreigner will be used to front for them. In this instance, the American, owlish in appearance with thick, horn-rimmed glasses, and shoulders hunched as if he were cold, discussed the terms of a one-year contract. The school was looking for a full-time teaching commitment and passing the initial interview arrangements were made for me to speak with the Japanese conducting the final hiring decision.
This meeting was the beginning of my encounters with the Japanese in a professional capacity, and the start of numerous misunderstandings. My impression of the second interview was that I would contemplate their offer, only the personnel manager misunderstood, and at the end of the week I received a fax at the inn with the date, time and place of my teacher training. Telephoning the company I spoke with the American again, and responded to the proposal with a thanks but no thanks. The hour and a half commute out of Tokyo to where I would teach had me rethinking the contract and I would pass. (If the mundane nature of teaching English doesnt put you in front of a drink after hours, traveling home on a jam-packed train certainly will.)
There were other language companies hiring, and pitching my resumE I wandered into the commercial district of Akasaka and found Interlink, my first place of employment. The gaijin overseeing this gig didn't do a damn thing except get drunk at lunch; but the location was good and the pay wasnt bad at twenty-eight hundred yen per hour ($28, based on a fluctuating rate of one hundred yen to the U.S. dollar). Following the observation of a few classes I was told to pick out some textbooks from the staff room and my career, as an English teacher got underway.
The Interlink Company, besides conveniently having a sakEvending machine next door, was within walking distance from the Jaffera Institute of Language Learning. Jaffera was a Japanese-language center where many of the nonnative teachers employed at Interlink enrolled to receive bogus attendance records that enabled them to change their visa status from touristEto student,Eand thereby seek part-time employment without the work permit most employers require. The cash deal Jaffera offered worked like this: The gaijins paid the monthly fifty thousand yen ($500) times three to the institute upon registration, which entitled them to falsified school documents needed for a six-month renewable student stamp on their passports. Jaffera, where I soon registered, was operated by two United States Navy retirees who realized with a growing number of gaijins wanting to enter the Japanese economy, they could charge a fat fee for the doctored attendance papers needed by the immigration authorities. The immigration officials in Tokyo have caught on to these paper mills, but not before the shrewd owners of Jaffera developed a thriving business with a student enrollment of over two hundred.
I planned to study Japanese, yet like the majority, I was in Japan to work and grab as much take-home yen as possible. Even so, Jaffera wasn't a complete washout and I did learn a couple of extracurricular things while attending classes. Like the morning I waited to use the pay phone during a break, and listened as one of Jaffera's more diligent students haggled over the telephone in spotty Japanese about money. Understanding little of what was uttered, I asked this graduate student of England's celebrated Oxford University, who took a year off from his studies, to fill me in after setting down the receiver. Getting me cock suckedwas how the stocky Englishman in rugby shorts put it before trotting back to class.
My classmate, who worked at Interlink, later explained he was speaking with a call girl that gave blow jobs at a discounted price, and whose number hed found on a lewd sticker affixed to the inside of a public telephone booth. Another of Jaffera's finest would venture into love hotels, where many of the women conducted their trade and where rooms are rented by the hour. This john also persuaded several of the ladies to make house calls paying up to fifteen thousand yen ($150) per ninety-minute tryst in his apartment, a considerably reduced rate over what he would have paid had he done his thing in a love hotel.
So, figuring if my classmates could hook up with a marked-down date I could at least give a call, I dialed a number the Brit passed along. Unfortunately, the woman's voice on the other end of the line said, No gaijins,Eand slammed down the handset, which I thought both rude and atypical of Japanese telephone manners, but getting blown wasn't a priority. Finding myself a new place to live was, and landing a vacant room in Tokyo House, a decrepit old building which been used as a hospital during the Second World War, had me counting my lucky stars.
For Tokyo House, with its various nationalities, all sharing one shower and two bathrooms, was not only a riot, it was almost always booked solid during the summer months. Click for next chapter
