The One Thing I Can’t Stand About Teaching English in Japan (2019)

&quot;They knew of my miscarriage&quot;<p>So there appears to be a misunderstanding here. The enthousiastic-seeming politeness of one culture has accidentally convinced someone from a different culture that there was more emotional connection than there really was.<p>Just don&#x27;t fall for it. It&#x27;s mostly for show. Excessive politeness at a mass cultural level like that is simply an obligation. But this teacher doesn&#x27;t understand that and, perhaps being a little more prone than average even in her own culture to forming emotional attachments with students, is misunderstanding what is happening.<p>Imagine you walk into one of those restaurants where people are super enthousiastic about you, with big hellos and showy gestures and maybe even some singing. But it doesn&#x27;t mean you&#x27;ve formed a deep emotional bond with them. It&#x27;s for show, that&#x27;s just their baseline.<p>People everywhere in the world only have so much emotional bandwidth for strangers, but the difference in default displayed politeness level might make for some misunderstandings between cultures.

My uncle worked in Japan in the aughts. And he told me how his colleagues will do anything to avoid saying &quot;no&quot;.<p>For example he would ask them if they wanted to go to lunch and they would say yes, but still be at their desk working. He asks again after a minute of awkward silence if they&#x27;re ready to go, and they keep saying &quot;yes one minute&quot; and yet keep working until he gives up and goes away.

Dating in Japan sounds absolutely horrifying, if this is the expected behavior to your private teacher...

Does Japanese aversion to confrontation trigger this behaviour?

Can OP just keep charging them? As in build in a recurring rate into the contract.<p>If they ghost, you keep charging them until they decide to cancel the contract.<p>Just like how a doctor will charge a cancellation fee, you could probably do that as well &#x2F; instead.<p>Or up-front payments for x classes.

It seems like a cultural difference and not something that should be taken as an offense. It&#x27;s an introverted behavior, and aren&#x27;t Japanese people, and Asian cultures at large, generally considered more introverted than their western counterparts? U.S. people, especially, might be the most extroverted in the world, and thus the least capable of understanding this.

Just take a deposit. Don&#x27;t pay it back until they tell you they quit.

I get the impression that ending a lesson with teacher or tutor in Japan seems shameful in some way.<p>I had some thoughts on how I&#x27;d deal with ghosting if I were a teacher in Japan. I do not have enough exposure to Japanese culture to know how well it would work.<p>* Change lesson duration from open ended to a fixed time period where students would have an option to &quot;renew&quot; based on their preference and progress.<p>* Provide a number of acceptable and &quot;common&quot; reasons to end study students can use in an effort to reduce shame. Reasons as simple as &quot;I have met my goals as a student.&quot;<p>* Educate students early on on how to end their studies and present it as a part of the process and not shameful experience.

I heard a theory that this kind of extreme aversion to confrontation and the language effects are sometimes caused by a local history of essentially it being extremely common for someone to try to kill you if you offended them either through dueling or straight up murder. But that kind of killing was only socially acceptable for an obvious offense so language and behavior got tied up in knots to avoid confrontation of any kind.<p>This is why “bless your heart” and “fuck you” can mean the same thing in different places.<p>Alternatively this <i>didn’t</i> happen in places where conflict tended to be resolved with fights that didn’t escalate to killing.

Surprisingly not about Kanchō…

I understand a very little bit of Japanese culture and they probably just feel you don’t understand their social cues

&gt; I wanted them to just cancel.<p>&quot;Sorry, $student, but I am unfortunately unable to continue being your teacher. [Personalized summary of student&#x27;s progress, pleasantries, etc. go here.]&quot; x $no_of_students<p>Simple. Effective. Exemplary.<p>Edit: I am totally available to teach English to Japanese students. Ghosting acceptable! No money down!

I don’t see any problem with this. OK, if someone doesn’t want to talk to me, it’s their right. They don’t owe me any explanation or anything else. If I tried to repeatedly reach them and demand explanation — that’s borderline stalking to me.<p>Cultural differences?

Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ask.metafilter.com&#x2F;55153&#x2F;Whats-the-middle-ground-between-FU-and-Welcome#830421" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ask.metafilter.com&#x2F;55153&#x2F;Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...</a>

Reminds me of Ikiru when the doctor won&#x27;t tell the protagonist that he has cancer.

What shall we call this? Being disrespectful? Inconsiderate?

heh, you should set up payments like a gym membership... Until they get the balls to actually cut the ties properly you just keep getting paid every month.

&gt; I prefer someone blunt and clear who will say what they mean. I don’t care if they don’t say it in the nicest of ways, as long as they say it. Speak your heart!<p>If that&#x27;s the author&#x27;s preference (fair enough), then Japan is not the right place for them (in that respect). Intercultural Communication 101. Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else. (Or, sure, go on a one-person quest to change Japanese culture - what could go wrong.)

The author has correctly and rationally identified the problem. He knows exactly why and how his students behave this way, and yet he still takes it very personally. I&#x27;m glad he has at least found an explanation, but it would really help if he consulted with a mental health specialist as to which steps to take to stop feeling distraught every time it happens