Tips for Joining the Japanese Workplace (School Edition)

Hey, so it's that time of year when many fresh graduates in the West are looking for jobs, and some are looking abroad...specifically, towards Japan.  For example, recently applicants for the JET program have been notified of their acceptance (or not) into the program, and many others are applying to work at eikaiwas, or conversation schools (they're kinda like the Sylvan learning centers or Kumon of Japan for English conversation).  I'm not some kind of cultural expert or claim to be any kind of pro at interactions in the workplace, but I thought I might share some tips that I've learned as I've been working and living in Japan for the past 9 or so months.  So here we go!

Aisatsu  (Greetings)

Aisatsu is the Japanese word for greetings and goodbyes, and aisatsu is very important.  The way you greet and leave a person or situation makes the biggest impressions and can set the tone for all the interactions to come.  Thus, it's really important to greet everyone with a hearty おはようございます (Ohayou gozaimasu) in the morning when you first arrive at work and nice clear お先に失礼します (O saki ni shitsurei shimasu) when you leave the workplace at the end of the day.

In fact, there have been reports of Japanese school employees feeling as if the foreign coworker is standoffish or cold because they don't greet anyone in the mornings or say anything when they leave at the end of the day.  (I know...I don't have a citation for this one, but I learned about it through my work orientation and trainings and from talking to Japanese coworkers.)  To the Japanese employees, it's rude and the opposite of friendly.  Sometimes it may feel like you have to initiate more often than not or that it's really scary to almost yell out Good Morning, but, I promise, your greetings will be returned and greatly appreciated, which will help your coworkers feel more at ease and more willing and excited to welcome you to the workplace.

Tales of Kyoto

One day my Kyoto-sensei asked me what my hobbies were, so I jokingly replied that my hobby is to goro goro (ゴロゴロすること), which means to lie around and be lazy.  He made this face and noise of surprise and was like, nah, c'mon, be serious.  We laughed, and the secretary joined in our laughing, and he was also surprised that I said such a thing.  I then struggled to list actual hobbies since goro goro-ing is legit my hobby.  I like to be lazy and do nothing and relax at home.  This is why I have been having trouble updating all these social media things because I come home and sit under my kotatsu and watch Netflix and Youtube and nap.  It's so cold, too, so once I get under that blanket, I don't want to move or do anything that requires leaving the warmth, ha ha.  I laugh, but I cry a little inside.

Anyways, my Kyoto-sensei then went around telling everyone that my hobby is to goro goro, which produced much laughter.  Thanksssssssssssssssssssss.

Staying Positive

Hiiiii my dear readers,

So one of the things about how happy you are in life is how you perceive situations. If you focus on the negative, then the situation will suck, and you'll feel like everything sucks, and then everything actually will suck.  If you focus on the positive, a.k.a. look on the bright side, then even if there are negatives, you won't feel as suck or even you'll feel better even if it did suck.  At least, I feel like perception functions this way for me.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I'm normally a cheerful person, but I will gossip and bash things and actions so quickly.  If I start even looking at one negative thing, then the rest of the conversation goes to shit, and it becomes a "misery loves company" gab fest.

This is what I mean.

I was planning a lesson with a teacher, and the thing is, our students have finished the textbook, and the last grammar point in the textbook was past tense, both regular and irregular.  We've been doing activities to practice the past tense for like three weeks now.  So I asked my teacher if maybe we could change it up a bit and review some other topic or just not make past tense the focus of the entire class time.  She agreed that past tense was getting old (ha ha).  Then I asked her what we should do, and she seemed to be at a loss and kept passing the idea ball back to me.

I suggested that maybe one activity we could do is listen to a piece of a popular American song and have students fill in the blanks for words they should know in the song.

Ah, that's too difficult for them. (In Japanese)

My teacher training kicked in.  Then I suggested how to scaffold the activity- how we could modify the activity to still address the same listening objective but put the task to the ability level of the students, "Okay, how about instead of blanks, I'll give them two or three words to choose from and they have to circle the word they hear?"

Hmmm, but that sounds not fun.