Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I once wanted to be an English instructor in Tokyo.  After numerous rejections from schools like Aeo, the JET Program, and NOVA (HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA the irony!) for not being white or non-asian enough, I was forced into taking up a real profession like IT.  Turns out that my acumen for my career path was accurate and here I am doing quite well for myself.  In some way, I wish I avoided the short period where I attended UC Berkeley for my teaching credentials....turns out that it was a pure waste of time and money.  But had I continued, I sometimes wonder what state I would be in now?

Well, I've known plenty of English teachers out here.  Some do okay for themselves, others end up with NOVA (bwhahahaahahahahahahaha!).  Others start off on the lowest rung of teaching schools,GABA, because they're willing to pay bottom dollar for backpackers and those who majored in underwater basket weaving, just wanting their first working Visa in Japan.  It's great if you're young, but realistically Tokyo is a harsh environment where you gotta hustle to get your next penny or you might end up like a NOVA teacher.

However, I noticed a pattern of some of the more ambitious English teachers out here.  There are upgrades from the destitute positions of being enslaved to little whiny brats in distant cities that make you occasionally believe you're in some 3rd world country.  Here's some points I've come up with:

• Private tutor - Natural extension of the English teacher.  Students (stupidly) pay top dollar  for private lessons.  Well, supply is plenty now so you don't have to pay top dollar, just a bowl of Yoshinoya and maybe give them a rug outside your balcony!
• Recruiter - Very closely related to the English teacher.  This is the vertical leap for those English teachers who have a knack of manipulating students and were slightly more business savvy than their NOVA brethren.  Most recruiters out here are non-Japanese (since Japanese don't typically jobs in the first place) and beginning recruiters would start off in pits like East West Consulting (pretty much the GABA of recruiting).  Some of these recruiters manage to even elevate their Japanese while they were scrounging as an English teacher.
• PC Support Guy - You love Akihabara but never could afford anything outside of the gumball drop 100-en toy machines on the minimal wage salary your slave pit bosses are providing you as a teacher.  You know how to hook up your computer to your ADSL outlet and can plug your keyboard in.  You're now IT! (like many brainwashed Japanese feel they are).  Maybe you were slightly smarter than your boozed out NOVA companions and decided to save the occasional one yen in your piggy bank (or figured that temples and ponds have troves of treasure if you're willing to sacrifice your sense of pride) and maybe you got some certification.  First jobs include a lowly paid technician trying to help out the local staff in making them realize the DVD drive is NOT a cupholder (yeah we're going old school here!).
• Bartender - The opposite of the PC Support Guy.  You boozed out so much with your NOVA friends but got good at it that you can now recognize what you had the previous night by the vomit stains on your shirt and toilet.  You're now qualified to become a bartender in Roppongi!  Typically, the bartender role supplements the income level of the English instructor.  You're constantly late getting to your class the next day and only sleep on the first train in getting from Roppongi to some outskirts, inaka kindergarten class.  You probably have a 3 year lifespan in Japan.
• Finance Guy - Okay, you never really wanted to be an English teacher but as we all know, finance companies are one of the few companies in Japan that, like English schools, are willing to take anyone as long as they know English.  Maybe in your past life you majored in economics, political science, psychology, sociology and/or history and perhaps even hold a degree in accounting or certification as an accountant.  But you needed that first Visa because you weren't the best of the best in your classes and needed a way to slide into this country.  And just maybe while you were teaching English in some prefecture where NO ONE was speaking English, you picked up enough Japanese to convince people in finance that you knew a thing or two and they (stupidly) hired you in because you had that slight advantage.  Congratulations.  You're now a money whore.
• Celebrity - The slimiest, most notorious insects that crawl out of these English schools manage to somehow worm their way through dark tunnels and sewers into the living rooms of passively watching grannies on late night TV.  These people are coated with so much gel that they're able to ooze through any crack and for whatever reason, manage to claim some fame in Japan.  But these people are perpetually considered clowns by the rest of Japan because they are willing to dismiss any sense of dignity from their national heritage in order to slide up the ranks in society and rub shoulders against the hot female celebs here in Japan (come, that's the only reason to become a celebrity here!).  Fortunately, these people never move above any rank outside of "class clown" because the yak and other producers are busy in the back determining the next form of humiliation to this gaijin sellout. 
  

Just for the record, about myself, I NEVER took any job for pay as an English instructor out here.  I do think English teaching is a noble cause, but I refuse to accept money for it.  I have my dignity and earned my right through hard work and determination for my position out here and will continue to do so.

And as for me cracking the whip at NOVA, well, let's just say that irony is a bitch and now you're my irony.