The Joys of Being a Gaijin

The wonderful thing about being a gaijin in Japan (well, one wonderful thing) is that most women make it pretty clear whether or not they like foreigners. Whether a 日本人 lady likes foreigners or not, it is nice to know where she stands right off the bat so you don’t waste your time.

FACT: Contrary to popular nerd beliefs, Japanese women do not all like white dudes. There are a certain number of women who do, in fact, only go after foreigners and they are called gaisen　(外専) and these are the women that you see with those greasy, lanky, American rejects all over Japan. I don’t really blame gaisen for this, they are just working with what they have, and Japan tends to attract the weirdos. I haven’t quite determined if the word gaisen is offensive yet, so I would wait on using it in public.

After talking to some of these gaisen, I’ve found that they don’t necessarily hate Japanese men, they just hate what there life would be like with them...and I’m not really sure which one is worse. For instance, Japanese men (and I am most definitely generalizing) tend to not show as much affection. Kissing, hugging, and saying ‘I love you’ are rarely done and most certainly not done in public. Plus, once a Japanese man starts work, he could work 14 hour days, leaving little time for taking care of and spending time with his lady. Some gaisen also like muscle which is something lacking on many Japanese men. They also don’t have big blue eyes like yours truly.

The younger generation seems to not hate us foreigners so much, so if you are in the market to score some Japanese ladies, now is as good a time as any, but…

READER BEWARE: Gaisen are often confused with Eigo-bandits - not a real word but a very appropriate phrase for these women as you will see shortly (Thanks go out to my buddy Zach for coining this phrase). Eigo-bandits and Gaisen are not the same thing. In fact, they are quite the opposite of what you’re looking for. While gaisen only like to date foreigners, Eigo-bandits simply want to use foreigners for their language ability. Some girls are really aiming high for that ANA job and need to practice their English! Found a Japanese lady but you’re not sure which kind of girl she is? Here are some clues that she’s an Eigo-bandit.

She ONLY speaks in English. She asks you to invite other foreigners out for her friends. She goes to Kansai Gaidai University.

Clues that you’ve got a keeper: She never speaks English, she wants to meet your friends (not just the foreign ones), good judge of character (she can spot the difference between normal and nerdy foreigners).

Eigo-bandits come in all shapes and sizes, so stay on your toes.

Last words of wisdom: Learn Japanese! The number of women you meet, date (or bone) is directly proportional to your language ability. Besides, I’m always wary of Japanese girls who know too much English – see above – and those are the only girls you’ll meet when you can’t speak Japanese.

More JET Fire

After expelling a lot of hate on the JET program, I decided to do a little more research and learn some more about this retarded program. I haven’t quite pinpointed the source of its failure, but I did find another JET with some stupid ideas and someone else who tries to let JET off the hook. So…maybe I was right in the first place.

Regarding this first JET, he has some ideas for helping teach English in Japan. His first idea being that Katakana should not be used in the classroom. While I do agree with this, he goes on to say that Roman characters (the kind you’re reading right now) can be used to represent Japanese sounds, but Katakana cannot be used to represent English….in this case, he is only half right.

I am reminded of my days studying Japanese at UMD with a book written in the 80’s and entirely in English characters. Needless to say, I didn’t learn much from that book, because I wasn’t really reading Japanese. Losing Katakana and using more English would give Japanese kids more exposure to the language, and would likely help out in the long run but the idea of Romaji accurately representing Japanese is absolutely false. There is no way to use roman characters to represent all Japanese sounds, because English simply does not have those sounds.
Take らりるれろ and が for instance. In roman characters, they are written RA RI RU RE RO and GA respectively, but this is just as close as English can get to writing these sounds. For RA, the actual pronunciation is like a fusion of LA and RA while flicking your front teeth. This is why they are sometimes written LA LI LU LE LO, and also why Crown and Clown sound the same to many Japanese.

It is also why somebody thought this was a good idea.

They are not used to distinguishing the differences between R and L, because the closest thing they have is something in the middle.

As for GA, you can pretty much say it the way it is spelled and get away with it, but I have noticed that the Tokyo (standard) dialect tends to put a nasally sound at the front of GA, particularly when women say it. When they say it, it sounds more like nGA. These are just a couple examples where roman characters fall short of representing Japanese. So for all of you studying Japanese out there, read Japanese and do not settle for Romaji! You’ll only be hurting yourself. It only takes a few days to learn the phonetic alphabet anyway..

As for the second Article, it attempts at defending JET but JET just seems even more stupid after reading it. Debito Arutou points out that the E in JET does not even stand for English, JET’s main goal is not teaching English, and the ‘teachers’ are not qualified to teach. That sounds like a worthwhile program to me!

After bashing JET a bit, Debito goes on to make some very valid points. English classes in Japan are HORRIBLE, and it seems like everyone knows it but is too stubborn to change it. This is why English cafes are so popular, because Japanese are desperate to speak the language – an opportunity rarely given in an English class.

Language is also fluent and ever-changing. How do you tell if someone’s English is WRONG? Did they get the point across? If your dialect is different from the standard, does that make your version wrong? I'm pretty sure I made like, um, bout 20 grammer mistakes in this post alone. But you know what I'm talking about....right guys?

JET

How does someone get to Japan? One option (typically a last option) is the JET Program. The JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program is for lack of a better word…retarded. Let me clarify. The idea of the JET program is great, but the problem is that it is run in such a terrible manner, that nobody benefits. The idea is to send native English speakers to Japan to teach English the way it is naturally spoken. I’ll list their problems in list format from here on out because thinking about JET makes me too angry to form a complete thought.

JET only hires morons. From my many friends and acquaintances that have applied for JET there has been a common theme to the ones that were accepted. Those ‘qualified’ to teach could barely locate Japan on a map and had little to no knowledge of Japanese culture outside of Anime. The only educational requirement for JET is that your native language be English and you have a Bachelor's Degree in 'something'. It is a running joke that you should wear an Evangelion T-shirt to you interview to improve your odds of getting accepted (for the longest time I thought JET stood for Jackasses in Evangelion T-shirts). It is never spoken of openly, but JET fears charismatic, intelligent teachers (who can actually speak Japanese) because they can easily leave the program and get another, better, job in Japan. The less you know about Japan and Japanese, the less likely you are to jump their ship.

You can only be in JET for 5 years. This probably has something to do with the number of applicants they get or the fact that they want young, energetic people for their program but it seems more likely that they just want younger folks who will put up with JET's BS and not ask too many questions (being under 40 is an application requirement). You typically sign a one year contract and have to renew it every year you wish to continue. It almost seems like once you get the position you are fighting for your life to keep it. This is a dumb system because once you get the hang of teaching English, they kick you out and some other idiot has to learn from scratch. The kids get inexperienced teachers over and over again, and learn little English as a result.

You will likely get placed in the middle of nowhere. This is not really the JET program’s fault. So many people sign up for JET and want to be in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and other key cities, but there are just not as many open spaces in these cities as there are applicants. Picking your top 3 cities you want to be located in is part of the application process, but you rarely get any of those locations. Odds are if you do get accepted into JET, you will be in some unknown city with a population of around 100 people. I know some folks that were put in this situation and had to take a bus and train for 2 hours to get to somewhere that had convenience stores. Getting placed in the middle of nowhere also has the added inconvenience of learning non-standard (incomprehensible) Japanese.

There are many different types of English. This isn't so much of a 'problem' but have you ever heard a Japanese person speak English with an Australian accent?? It'll blow your freakin mind!! To add to that, what the hell is rubbish? The word is trash!

Me Hate JET! I think a lot of my excessive, and possibly misguided, hate comes from actually seeing the JET program and it's participants in action. The JETs in Japan are very cliquey. They only hang out with other JETs and only speak English. I met some JETs that lived in Japan for 4 years and could only order noodles in Japanese. You'll also notice that well spoken English is hard to find in Japan.

If you are a decent human being who has a fondness for Japan, you have an uphill battle getting accepted by JET. If you do in fact get accepted, and don’t mind the bureaucratic bull crap, then power to ya, and enjoy those next 5 years! You deserve it!

But you certainly have your work cut out for you. MANY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

外国人: The love-hate relationship

I think Mr. Baseball most appropriately described being a foreigner (Gaijin) in Japan. "It's like being a black guy back at home. Only there are less of us." To a large extent this is true. Foreigners are foreigners, it doesn't really matter too much which country you came from. Being in Japan opened my eyes to many new experiences. Before Japan, I had no idea what it was like to be unfamiliar with a country's customs and I had never experienced racism.

Bad racism does not happen too often, but when it does it is eye opening. You can go a month without seeing/experiencing it, but then one day you are sitting on the train and someone starts bad mouthing foreigners/Americans right in front of you. This happens in every country, Japan is just my first place to experience it. And typically it is the old generation that is 'distributing' the racism. The younger generation in Japan seems to be quite accepting and very much open to talking to foreigners. I have found it extremely easy to make friends in Japan, even outside of the University setting. The younger generation is more open and not as likely to move away from you on the train...

In contrast to the racism, many (and I do mean MANY) Japanese people are more than happy to assist a foreigner who looks lost. In many instances, Japanese people have gone 5+ minutes out of their way to help me. One man in particular, in my first month here, walked with me and my friends to a shrine 10 minutes out of his way. The level of kindness I have experienced here is unbelievable. I've seen more kindness from strangers here in 5 months than my whole life in America. I think its a fair trade for the racism - seeing as the racism is pretty minor. Not being allowed into bars/clubs because you're foreign is a little annoying though.

Oh, as for the picture, some buddies and I went bowling last Friday and managed to make friends with 7 Japanese kids. Language barriers are not even a problem. I love this country.