Mt. Fuji from the grounds of Byakko Shinko Kai
Here’s what’s been happening with me job-wise since December 16, 2001. I have had a strange year so far with work. I left my high school teaching job (three classes) at Hokkaido International School in Sapporo in mid-December for a full-time job with EC, an English conversation school also in Sapporo. This job began training on Jan. 17th, so I took a nice, long vacation over the holidays. I taught a few private lessons and relaxed with Angie. I was still trying to find a college/university teaching job for April somewhere in Honshu near Tokyo, checking the web and The Japan Times for open positions. I sent out over 90 letters to high schools, conversation schools, colleges/universities, and corporations. I think I have, to date, received about 10-15 rejection letters--the rest of the jobs are in limbo, never to be heard from again, I assume.
I began training at EC and promptly came down with the flu. It knocked me out for a week, then I resumed training. “Training” consisted of practicing English lessons on cardboard cutouts of people, alone in a room, for anywhere from 4-6 hours a day. This training was to continue for about a month, before the second phase of training began. Being a real teacher, in a real classroom, for the last four years, this was hard to swallow. My professional integrity was suffering badly, not to mention my pride, so I quit. Plus, the hours were to have been 2:30-9:30 PM Monday-Friday, with a five hour shift on Saturday to boot. I never would have seen Angie, as she goes to bed about 9-10 PM and wakes up at 6:30. Not great hours for a marriage.
I entered the job search again, in a time when Japan’s unemployment rate was at 4.8, a recent record high. Newspapers were reporting polls that showed Japanese people were angry that foreigners were taking jobs from qualified nationals, so the job market was tight, to say the least. I was worried about bills here and at home, much less surviving, but in the first three days of my job search, I hooked up four interviews. These were just for part-time jobs, but I went to all of them, hoping for the best. After it was all said and done, I landed three part-time jobs, plus rounded up a few more private lessons. Not the best schedule, to say the least. There were simply no full-time jobs to be had.
Then, another interview came through--with NCB English Language Institute in the Odori (downtown) area of Sapporo. This was a full-time position, 25 hours a week, teaching conversation from textbooks developed in conjunction with San Diego Sate University. It is rare to have textbooks here, much less good ones, so I took the job. It was more from desperation, don’t get me wrong--there were no other full-time jobs. I started at the very end of February. The position has turned out to be great. I work with good people and the students are well prepared and genki(“full of lively energy“ is the best translation Angie can come up with). Overall, it’s a good job.
I have continued to send out applications, however, because Angie and I still want to move to Honshu this summer. We were preparing to settle for teaching at conversation schools again, when I applied to a place named Byakko Shinko Kai. The job advertisement was for a publications assistant--that was all I knew. I received a e-mail asking me if I would fill out a formal application--the first time that had happened--so I became excited. I then worked on a trial assignment for them, and received an interview. They are located in the foothills of Mt. Fuji in Fujinomiya, just north of the city of Fuji, between Shizuoka to the southwest and Hakone to the northeast (all of this just 1.5 hours southwest of Tokyo on the bullet train).
Mt. Fuji from the grounds of Byakko Shinko Kai
They were willing to reimburse me for the flight down, the hotel, and the train tickets, which is something I never expected. It made me think that they really wanted me to offer to pay for all that--travel within Japan isn’t cheap.
So I went down for the interview on Friday and Saturday (4/6-4/7/01). The meeting went really well; I met with my immediate supervisor, then the head of the Publications Department, and by chance, the president of the organization. The job consists of being responsible for the bi-monthly production of their magazine, Byakko. I am editing the translated material, conducting interviews, and organizing, laying out, and following through with the printers on the publication of the entire magazine. A very nice job! I am negotiating a salary/days off/etc. right now. I hope to move down and begin working at the beginning of June. I don’t want to leave Sapporo until the last possible minute because Angie’s contract with the city runs through the end of July, and we will have to be separated. I will be working out of Sapporo via e-mail until I move down, so everything is good.
Here’s a little background on Byakko Shinko Kai. It is an organization that promotes the spiritual ideas of Masahisa Goi and his spiritual heir Masami Saionji. It isn’t a religion at all, but rather a spiritual movement. They believe that all human beings are divine, they just need to move past negative behavior and self-doubt. All “bad” things we are or do are simply “shadows” that can fade if we move towards positive thinking. They are also involved in the world peace prayer movement, which focuses on simply directing positive thoughts to the earth and all the people on it. It is rather like the ideas of existentialism--become more than you are--and the collective conscious--each individual can affect the whole with his/her own thought and beliefs. They just want everyone to be a little happier in the hopes that this shift in thinking will affect the entire world. A lofty goal, but well intentioned. I am interested in the job for the position and the experience, but as an added bonus, I can support their philosophy.
The only bad thing is that I have to break my contract with NCB, which is something I don’t enjoy doing. I like to see a job through, but we need to be happy, which a move south will help. It means that we will be surrounded by history and culture, which is not so readily present in Hokkaido. Plus, they only had three bad days of snow in Fujinomiya last winter, compared to the 4-5 months of snow and ice in Sapporo. All these factors, plus money (I’m not above the material, unfortunately), make this a positive and necessary move. I’m just waiting for final hiring approval from Byakko Shinko Kai’s Board of Directors (which I fully expect), then all I have to do is pack, hop a plane, four trains, and an automobile, and then we (me in June and Angie in July) are all set.
Admin. Bldg.
Fuji
Conference Center
The 7-Step Path
Spring Flowers
Fuji from a restaurant between Byakko Shinko Kai and Fujinomiya