Comments by "Gordon Graham" (@gordonbgraham) on "“I Will Never Go Back to the US” Living in Japan for Americans" video.
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The list is long. Healthcare, Canada's used to be the envy of the world. Now, you have to wait anywhere from 6 months to a year for an MRI. I've had 3 operations in Japan, for each I had an MRI the same week I went for a diagnosis. From diagnosis to operation took less than a month each time. Our National Health insurance covers all medication and dental as well as hospital stays. We have 5 kids. We've saved close to or over 100k in dental alone. Education, Japan annually ranks in the top 5 in international testing among high school students in math, science and literacy. Sports, I coach ice hockey, our kids are on the ice 4 times a week 1.5 hours per session. They pay $150 a month. I think it's close to 10k a year to play hockey in Canada now. Housing, we paid the equivalent of 150k for a 3 bedroom home on a 1/4 acre lot, 50 minutes from the centre of Tokyo. The same home would have cost us 10 times that in my native Toronto for the land alone. Immigration, I was told flat out at my interview for the education program at York University in Toronto that "We aren't currently accepting applicants from white males". I was told so without the slightest hesitation or sense of injustice. Safety, there's no gun crime, no home invasions, no car jackings and very little street crime at all. There's really no such thing as a "dangerous neighborhood". Public order and social cohesion. Everything runs much more smoothly when everyone is on the same page in terms of public decorum and behaviour. Those are just a few things off the top of my head.
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I started out with the "Japanese for Busy People" series of textbooks, workbooks and VHS tapes, books 1, 2 and 3, to learn basic grammar and vocabulary for daily life situations. I then moved on to the 中級を学ぼう (日本語の文型と表現) series to study kanji. I also made a notebook to write down phrases associated with concepts such as means (手段), purpose (目的), condition (状態), etc. For example, purpose in English is expressed as "in order to + verb" , for + noun, so as not to + be verb or active verb. Conceptual language works the same in Japanese so ~する為に equates to "in order to~verb" while ~の為に equates to for + noun. I wrote sentences related to my daily life and topics such as the environment, the economy, social issues etc. daily using these phrases tagged on to the basic grammatical structures of SVO and SVC. By doing so, I was able to improve my writing ability as well as my ability to retain vocabulary. I also made a separate notebook for vocabulary in which I categorised words according to topics such as banking, commuting, the economy, grammar (I'm an English teacher who needs to explain English grammar to Japanese high school students...in Japanese), etc. I mainly wrote nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I kept a separate notebook for idioms, preposition usage, etc. In terms of listening development, I watched the same movie at least 200 times. I believe repetition is the best way to develop listening skills. When we are toddlers our parents don't talk to us about the uptick in the economy, they ask us if we're tired, what we want to eat, if we want to go the park etc. The content of speech directly used to speak to a toddler is limited. I found listening to the same movie over and over again beneficial for attuning my ear to Japanese spoken at native speaker speed. I highly recommend it. 隣 の トトロ "My Neighbor Totoro" was the movie I watched. It's a kid's fantasy, but it contains a lot of scenes of common daily life
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If your Japanese is up to par, you can get a teaching license from a Japanese university, which makes being a teacher far better. While the salary isn't has high as it would be in my native Canada, the cost of housing more than makes up for it. We bought a 3 bedroom home on a 1/4 acre lot, 50 minutes from Ikebukuro, the centre of Tokyo, in 2020 for the equivalent of $150,000 USD. The same home would have cost us ten times as much in Toronto, where I'm from. And that would be for the land alone! We've managed to raise 5 kids here with no issues and with my wife staying home to rear the kids. I have a month off in the summer, 3 weeks off over Christmas and New Years' holidays and 2 weeks off at the end of March, between school years. Teaching is a piece of cake because students are so well disciplined and behaved. Teaching in Japan is a great job if you can manage to get a license and full-time position at a high school or junior high school. I originally planned to come to Japan for 2 years...that was more than 30 years ago. I stayed because I love my job and I love living in Japan
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@ The list is long. Healthcare, Canada’s used to be the envy of the world. Now you have to wait anywhere from 6 months to a year to get an MRI. My wife was feeling dizzy last month. We got a CT scan at the local hospital in 20 minutes. Our healthcare includes all medications and dental. I have 5 kids. We’ve saved $100,000 or more in dental alone. Education, Japan annually ranks in the top 5 in international testing among high school students in math, science and literacy. Sports, I coach ice hockey. Our kids are on the ice 4 times a week, 1.5 hour sessions. They pay $150 a month. I think it’s around 10k a year to play hockey in Canada now. Housing, we bought a 3 bedroom home on a 1/4 acre lot, 50 minutes from the centre of Tokyo for the equivalent of $150,000 CD. The same home would have cost 10 times as much in Canada for the land alone. Immigration, we have strictly controlled immigration. I originally came to Japan after I was told at my interview for the education program at York University that “we aren’t currently accepting applications from white males”. Safety, Japan has no gun crime, no car jackings, no home invasions and almost no street crime. Public order and mutual respect in public spaces. Kids learn public responsibility from a young age and act accordingly by patiently respecting things like train delays and other inconveniences which makes public life run much more smoothly. Those are just a few things off the top of my head. There’s plenty more.
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@ootts456 The list is long. Healthcare, Canada's used to be the envy of the world. Now, you have to wait anywhere from 6 months to a year for an MRI. I've had 3 operations in Japan, for each I had an MRI the same week I went for a diagnosis. From diagnosis to operation took less than a month each time. Our National Health insurance covers all medication and dental as well as hospital stays. We have 5 kids. We've saved close to or over 100k in dental alone. Education, Japan annually ranks in the top 5 in international testing among high school students in math, science and literacy. Sports, I coach ice hockey, our kids are on the ice 4 times a week 1.5 hours per session. They pay $150 a month. I think it's close to 10k a year to play hockey in Canada now. Housing, we paid the equivalent of 150k for a 3 bedroom home on a 1/4 acre lot, 50 minutes from the centre of Tokyo. The same home would have cost us 10 times that in my native Toronto for the land alone. Immigration, I was told flat out at my interview for the education program at York University in Toronto that "We aren't currently accepting applicants from white males". I was told so without the slightest hesitation or sense of injustice. Safety, there's no gun crime, no home invasions, no car jackings and very little street crime at all. There's really no such thing as a "dangerous neighborhood". Public order and social cohesion. Everything runs much more smoothly when everyone is on the same page in terms of public decorum and behaviour. Those are just a few things off the top of my head. There are plenty more
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@happylifegrace4674 I've been entirely in education and ice hockey. Outside of those sectors, I only know what my friends etc. do for a living and some laws and regulations concerning foreign visas, immigration etc. I originally came to Japan after being hired by an "eikaiwa" company. Eikaiwa are chain language schools. When I first arrived, they were huge and outside of every train station. They still exist on a large scale, but nothing like it was in the 80s and 90s. It was a grind, but it was good experience. I worked there for a year, then I got a mailing list for high schools and junior high schools throughout the Kanto area. I sent out around 400 applications, got 10 interviews, was successful in 3 of them. I chose the one nearest a hockey rink, because hockey is my passion and I found a rink in Kawagoe. I've been at the same school now for more than 30 years, and I ran a youth ice hockey program up until 5 years ago, but I became too busy with school since we began a study abroad program with Australia and Taiwan. I coached hockey for more than 20 years. I loved every second of it. Some of my players are playing pro and on the National Team. If you're going to work outside of education, you're going to have to learn how to read and write at a minimum junior high school level. My first 15 years, I had a low salary because I didn't have a teaching license from a Japanese university. It took me 15 years to be able to read and write sufficiently enough to have passed the language requirement for the course. That was about 1.5 hours of diligent focused study, 5 days a week, while living in Japan. It took me only a month to become functional, but 10 years to become fluent and 15 to become literate. You can work as an ALT, (Assistant Language Teacher) with zero Japanese but at half the salary of a full time licensed teacher. Great holidays though...2 months a year! Hockey is all volunteer. Travel costs, hotels etc. are all paid for but coaches, trainers etc. don't get paid in youth sports. To get an ALT job, all that's needed is a B.A. in any field. It doesn't have to be English or an education degree. Education degrees are non-transferrable for full time status. You have to have a teaching license from a Japanese university for that.
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@Denise00700 I started out with the "Japanese for Busy People" series of textbooks, workbooks and VHS tapes, books 1, 2 and 3, to learn basic grammar and vocabulary for daily life situations. I then moved on to the 中級を学ぼう (日本語の文型と表現) series to study kanji. I also made a notebook to write down phrases associated with concepts such as means (手段), purpose (目的), condition (状態), etc. For example, purpose in English is expressed as "in order to + verb" , for + noun, so as not to + be verb or active verb. Conceptual language works the same in Japanese so ~する為に equates to "in order to~verb" while ~の為に equates to for + noun. I wrote sentences related to my daily life and topics such as the environment, the economy, social issues etc. daily using these phrases tagged on to the basic grammatical structures of SVO and SVC. By doing so, I was able to improve my writing ability as well as my ability to retain vocabulary. I also made a separate notebook for vocabulary in which I categorised words according to topics such as banking, commuting, the economy, grammar (I'm an English teacher who needs to explain English grammar to Japanese high school students...in Japanese), etc. I mainly wrote nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I kept a separate notebook for idioms, preposition usage, etc. In terms of listening development, I watched the same movie at least 200 times. I believe repetition is the best way to develop listening skills. When we are toddlers our parents don't talk to us about the uptick in the economy, they ask us if we're tired, what we want to eat, if we want to go the park etc. The content of speech directly used to speak to a toddler is limited. I found listening to the same movie over and over again beneficial for attuning my ear to Japanese spoken at native speaker speed. I highly recommend it. 隣 の トトロ "My Neighbor Totoro" was the movie I watched. It's a kid's fantasy, but it contains a lot of scenes of common daily life
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