10 - 26 - 07 never forget

when the nova eikaiwa school collapsed in fall 2007 many english teaching professionals here in tokyo, some of whom had just arrived, were left without accommodation, money and hope. i did my best to help who i could with advice and by other means. there are still many hundreds of hopefuls arriving in japan by the planeload every day from all over the world. many want to see japan, but many others want to stay and teach english. teaching english was once a good way for a person with a bachelor of arts to see japan and live here. in recent years, probably over the last decade or two, it has become a subsistence job for most people in the industry, with many finding the approximate monthly 200,000 yen salary too little to survive on. i honestly don't know how even a young person with a ba could survive on that salary, especially in tokyo. there are many ways to come to japan to teach english. jet, esl, alt and other ways too. the interesting thing to observe is that despite the continuing economic problems, people are still coming to japan to do this. with geos going under, and rumors of other esl schools in japan having problems, perhaps what the industry need is a few planeloads of people a week to come to japan with the right stuff who can put things right and with the intention of turning the industry around.

 tokyo joe reminisces about the bittersweet memories around the time of the collapse of nova eikaiwa in japan