Hello! I recently applied to the JET program, but as much time and effort I put into my application, I’m not holding my breath on it. I know there are alternatives, like Interac and Altia or eikaiwa positions like ECC and Aeon. I know every situation if different, but I’m curious if anyone went a different route and had a good time. Additionally, was it livable for you? Thankfully I won’t have any student loans to pay back, but I will probably have to pay partial rent back in my home country.
Thanks in advance! 🙂
10 comments
There is no alternative to JET. It is the only government program.
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Don’t bother with the temp worker companies. The new system they are beginning to implement will pay minimum wage and have a maximum of two years.
Nothing pays as well as JET. Dispatch ALT work has longer holidays than eikaiwa, but the pay is lower. Eikaiwa can be more fulfilling, but it depends on so many factors, mainly how much autonomy you have in the classroom. If you are driven you should be able to work your way out of an entry level job into something more enjoyable in a few years.
> I know every situation if different, but I’m curious if anyone went a different route and had a good time. Additionally, was it livable for you?
The JET application process was too long for me (required a MASSIVE pack of stuff) and I’m a qualified teacher so didn’t want to be an ‘assistant teacher’.
While I’d recommend JET above all in hindsight, my route was as follows:
– Came over with Nova (15+ years ago) and worked in one of their metro branches (in a large, Tokyo shopping mall). Pay was ~285k a month (I got a tiny bit extra for having a master of education). However, in practice I got more than 300k each month because I took on extra shifts. Dunno if it still works that way but there was always a list of shifts I could do that was pinned-up in the office… I just had to tell one of the Japanese staff and that was a guaranteed ~15,000 yen extra for the month. Also meant I got to travel around Tokyo more and meet people within the Nova network, which was GREAT when starting out.
– I did lotsa day/weekend trips while working from Nova. Wasn’t actively looking to leave (pay was good enough and I was still genki). However, I quickly started visiting a few schools in small towns that were hiring, meeting their owners/management and seeing what small-town eikaiwas are like.
– One eikaiwa eventually stuck out. They offered me 290k a month + free accommodation. The eikaiwa was run out of an old house where I got to sleep in the top floor (two bedrooms, a lounge space and an attic storage area) and use the whole downstairs eikaiwa (kitchen, office, classroom…etc) outside work hours.
– **I was never loaded but IMO you wanna be earning as close to the 300k mark as possible, ideally with no travel costs and free/subsidised housing. That or a part-time job paying ~215k a month for say 3 days a week, so that you have a crap load of time to do privates. I’ve seen people rent houses in small towns and support families with 2 kids on 215k a month + privates [maybe 270k a month all up]. Japan’s a good country for people who love to be humble and make ends meet as the cost of living can be REALLY low IMO. However, I reckon ~330k a month (no matter how you cobble it together) with subsidised housing and minimal work-related travel is the end game for young, single, party-going English ‘teachers’ who wanna have a good time.**
– Side note on what life CAN be like. I saw one backpacker come over on 215k a month (with Peppy FWIW… heavily tattooed/pierced guy who’d been all over Asia). He would travel for 2 hours a day (to random as fuck towns by train, different each time) and get random visits from his supervisor which he HATED (rather than ‘training’ him, he said the guy just rocked up without notice, butted in and was like ‘yeeeah your lesson is shit mate… I’m gonna be back again [randomly] as this isn’t good enough’). Work aside, 215k was a LOT more money than what he could earn elsewhere in Asia but it didn’t go anywhere near as far. He got burned out within less than a month and randomly disappeared in the night. Not sure where he is now but I think we was able to live a ‘better’ life in poorer countries where he’d earn ~100k or so a month, but have no outgoings. Japan’s a developing country and I LIKE that. But, IMO it’s much more fun when you’re not scraping the barrel to afford the basics.
Don’t be an ALT at a company. You are underpaid, with no benefits, and they exploit the hell out of you. There’s no room to improve, and will do nothing to help you if you’re having problems. I was an ALT for 5 years and though I loved my schools, I regret wasting my time with these companies. As an example of how bad they are, my current company is splitting itself in half so it will not be required by law to pay for our shakai hoken (Health Insurance and Pension). If you do decide to work as an ALT, study the hell out of Japanese as quick as you can and go get a different job.
I failed my JET interview, got certified and found a job on teachaway com or one of the other job sites, can’t remember which exactly.
Took a job with a British Eikaiwa for the visa thinking I could always find another if it didn’t work out (common reddit advice at the time).
I googled the company and read a million horror stories about it on reddit, I was ready to nope out of there on day one but the actual reality could not have been more different. I had a great time and met a lot of really lovely people. I’m also quite introverted, so the extracurricular activities alluded to by JET didn’t really suit me, they were right to vet me out.
My only problem with the eikaiwa was that they didn’t cover healthcare or living tax and common advice at the time was to skip out on pension. My new job (not a teacher anymore) covers these. Luckily for me, Japan only tracks the last 2 years of unpaid pension, so I was able to make my contributions and ignore the letters until they eventually stopped, I think showing a “willingness to pay” puts you in a good light and my new company was taking care of that.
The only letters I get from Japan’s pension now are to notify me of refunds.
Contrary to others, I never felt exploited or overworked at my old company and genuinely enjoyed my time there. Perhaps I was lucky but it was the same in both Tokyo and Nagoya, where I ended up transferring to.
As for whether or not it’s livable, first year and single, 100%.
Second year on and starting a family, probably couldn’t recommend it.
Came over on a niche eikaiwa that no longer exists. Hated being an ALT. That life isn’t for me personally. Did the full-time route and that was shitty too. Now I work part-time eikaiwa jobs at places I actually like and am happy.
Ultimately you need to find out what works for you. There is no one size fits all way to live here. You’ll see so many people here tell you to get a PhD or whatever and teach at university. That doesn’t work for me because I prefer children for example. I can handle children acting like children but not adults.
Try Seiha. They’re slightly less shitty than the rest. Probably the best out of the shit pile of an industry.
I worked for A to Z in Nagano prefecture for a year, and had a pretty good expereince with them. Don’t get me wrong, all dispatch comapanies suck to some degree, but I didn’t have any serious complaints about them.
I was lucky also enough to be placed in Matsumoto, which imo is the best place to live in the whole prefecture (for my tastes).
What do you mean by partial rent? If I’m guessing where you are from, then that will be equivalent to a full rent in Japan! Because the average rent is about Â¥60,000 – Â¥80,000. Definitely under $1,000.
After your first year of working in Japan, there’s the city tax!!! About ¥100,000 coming out of your pocket. Employers don’t always share this additional info to overseas applicants.
Whether the salary in Japan is livable now…probably only in Japan.
I’m going to reply only to “is it livable”: if you are okay not traveling, staying in whatever town you’re placed in, not saving money, and generally continuing to live like you’re a college student, then sure. The ALT dispatch company salary is fine. I acknowledge that some people genuinely are in that place in life, and it’s good for them. If you have a future you are trying to work towards and save for, if you don’t want to live in a dorm room, and if you are used to living like an adult and will be forced back into this exchange student position kicking and screaming, then you’re better off looking at other countries for more involved and higher-paying teaching positions.