Life as a Sensei
Adapting to Japanese culture
By Tiffany Minaret Sakato
Rising more than 12,000 feet above sea level on the central island of Japan, Mount Fuji is one of the most picturesque mountains in the world. This active volcano captured my imagination as a kid after seeing it beautifully depicted in prints by the Japanese artist Hokusai. What the prints fail to capture, however, are the chunks of serrated rock and ankle-deep, gravelly dunes that make up the nearly vertical stack of switchbacks to the summit.
Last summer, I took on the challenge of climbing Mount Fuji and completed the 8-hour trek through the night. Like most difficult journeys, this one proved completely worth it. I will never forget watching the red sun lift above the horizon, slowly awakening Japan. Standing on the peak while eating a rice ball wrapped in dried seaweed, I marveled at the view and recalled what had brought me to this country a year before, and all that had come to pass since then.
After graduating from college in 2007, I decided to move to Japan to teach English, travel, and, with luck, track down some family history. I wanted to live in Asia to explore the region on a sort of “birthright” trip, but I was nervous, and with good reason: I didn’t know a lick of Japanese beyond a sushi menu and had no credentials or formal teaching experience. I was apprehensive about leaving behind my secure life and plans to move to New York. Luckily, my friends and mentors urged me to take the leap.
“Consider it a ‘map year,’” a professor told me. “You never know what you’ll learn and how priorities will change,” she said. “Nothing’s lost. Plus, it’s Japan!”
She was right. As I learned the details of my work and living arrangements, it seemed like a year that was meant to be. I taught through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (also known as JET), the largest government program meant to internationalize the country from the ground up. Since 1987, more than 46,000 people from 55 countries have been hired as assistant language teachers, sports coaches, and civil servants. I was placed in Yamanashi-shi, a pleasant farming community of fewer than 30,000 people located near the northern base of Mount Fuji. Dubbed the “Fruit Kingdom of Japan,” its landscape is carpeted by a variety of orchards and vineyards, many family-owned for generations.
In the apartment JET arranged for me, I joke that I got to live my New York City dream, just in small-town Japan. I lived in the East Village in an apartment the size of a shoebox. From my third-floor room, I could see my train stop, a bowling alley, and a karaoke bar. Below me were a take-out pizzeria and a delightful patisserie.
But instead of a coffee pot, I had a rice cooker. Instead of a pullout, I slept on a futon spread across a large plastic wall shelf. And rather than facing a dark alley, my porch opened up to a vista of greenhouses and steep hills, perfectly framing the tip of Mount Fuji.
The greenhouses were so numerous and identical that, in fact, on my first day of work I got lost on my bike and was horribly late. This after hearing the advice, “If you’re on time in Japan, you’re late.” But my principal was sympathetic, and over the course of the year it became one of many humorous memories. As it turned out, the only people at school rigidly serious (albeit adorably so) were my first-graders.
In Japanese:
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from America.”
“Tiffany-sensei, this is Japan.”
Before coming to Yamanashi-shi, I had never worked with kids, never even babysat. Here, alongside a Japanese co-teacher who understood English, I taught at three elementary schools. Five days a week. Ages six through 12. Roughly 1,000 students total. Though the numbers were sometimes overwhelming, I discovered I really enjoyed children because of their earnestness to learn and their transparency in expressing emotion. When they were engaged in my lessons, as they were when I taught them how to make Halloween masks and holiday cards, their energy was irrepressible.
When students were bored or tired and English was their last class of the day, I added physical humor and drew elaborate cartoons on the chalkboard to try to keep their attention. As a foreign language teacher, I often acted like a stage performer, honing my improv skills, body language, and comedic timing. I learned to sculpt the energy and attitude of the classroom from the moment I walked in, while also trying to impart the day’s vocabulary list.
Every day my Japanese co-teacher and I would plan lessons together and prepare basic materials such as handouts, posters, flashcards, and game props. She served as the go-between with each grade’s homeroom teacher, who often understood no English but was responsible for monitoring the kids during our lessons.
Despite having minimal roles in creating the content of English class, the homeroom teachers ultimately determined their students’ attitude and readiness to learn. This was probably the most challenging aspect of the daily work experience for me and my co-teacher. As we went from class to class, we saw how much of a difference it made to have the homeroom teacher up in front participating in our games versus standing in the back staring out the window or disappearing into the hallway. The homeroom teacher’s involvement in English class set the mold for his or her students’ involvement, no matter how enthusiastic my co-teacher and I started the period.
Outside of class, I ran an English club; maintained a hallway bulletin board about American geography and culture; and designed a set of cartoon worksheets to introduce letters and phonics. I read online education sites to help give myself a framework for child development and learning processes. Getting advice from other teachers and school officials was extremely difficult, mainly because of what I gathered to be Japan’s office culture. Instead of being team-oriented or open for two-way dialogues, I was part of a strict top-down hierarchy.
“How do you know if you’re doing well at your job? How do you know if you’re improving?” I asked my co-teacher one day, curious about the process of promotions.
“You take tests. What’s important is you pass your tests and have those credentials to show for,” was her response.
Without verbal feedback, I learned to monitor and critique my own performance. Becoming very self-motivated was one of the greatest benefits from this teaching experience. I also developed a strong sense of accountability to children, which stemmed from my frequent interaction with them.
Every week I ate lunch with my students, participated in their school events, and often saw them around town at the grocery store or at the gym. Facial expressions and a pocket dictionary helped communicate ideas ranging from Matsui and Ichiro stats to the size of meals and cars in America.
For many of them, I was their first non-Japanese friend. Even though I may have looked like an older sister or aunt, I clearly did not have the same cultural reference points. Some of my students were young enough not to sense much significance about me being from another country, while the older ones assumed I was an expert on all things American. A few students suspected I really did know how to speak Japanese, but I was required to keep it a secret.
When I wasn’t teaching English or studying Japanese, I was traveling. With a generous income from JET and relatively frequent holiday breaks, I was able to explore seven of Japan’s nine regions including Kyushu, where my great grandparents came from. I also traveled to China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore.
After completing my JET contract in 2008 and returning home to the United States, I began to realize how much the experience had influenced my outlook on the future. I felt more open-minded about career options and interests. I have continued to support education and local service by initiating a mentoring program at my former high school and campaigning for President Obama in the weeks that led up to his election. I plan to study international affairs and East Asian languages in graduate school in the coming years.
Looking back, my time in Japan proved enriching beyond all expectation. I found teaching English to be a positive and respectful way to engage in my host community, with limitless opportunities for cultural exchange and exploration. Like my climb up Mount Fuji, my time teaching in Japan was approached with some apprehension but, in the end, proved well worth the commitment.
Tiffany Minaret Sakato graduated from Northwestern University in 2007, earning dual bachelor’s degrees for studying journalism, art, and political science. She is a former Abroad View magazine staff member, and lived in Italy and South Africa prior to moving to Japan for a year. She’s currently based in Northern California.