Teaching in Dreamland

"You can't be 45 and still working as an ALT, that's just sad..."

"I don't want to still be doing this job at 30. I need to go back home and get a real job."

"I feel like being in Japan is just delaying the real world for as long as possible."

These are a small selection of paraphrased things that I have heard from fellow ALTs over the past few months. It seems to be the general consensus that being an ALT is in many ways akin to being a student - it's fun, and it's fine for now, but to do nothing else for the rest of your life would be rather sad, if not a sign of refusal to grow up.

Now, this is an attitude that I can understand. I've done my degree, I've conducted quantitative research, analysed and written up the results, passed countless exams and written in-depth essays on a variety of topics. And here I am, with my Bachelor of Science from the University of Manchester, reading out "Do you like sushi? Yes, I do!" to a group of slightly bored twelve year olds. I can't help but feel, sometimes, that the massive tuition fee debts - which I will be paying off for most of my life - were unnecessary expenses. Years of knowledge and intelligence - the mind that I have spent over two decades carefully cultivating - seems doomed to disintegrate and regress to the level of a four-year-old who is just learning her ABC.


The common thought seems to be that continuing this well into your 40's is a recipe for braindead soup. But who says you are what you teach? While I have already met and said goodbye to a host of ambitious people, who completed their year or two in Japan and have returned to "real life", I have also met some people who ARE in their 40's and beyond... and still working as ALTs. How would they respond to accusations of being losers, wasters, manchildren? Could it not be more intelligent to stick to a job that you know is easy, fun and rewarding. Isn't that the dream? Why achieve it and then revert to some soul-killing office job? Has it been drummed into us from such an early age that "real" work is hard, boring, unpleasant - and that enjoying your job is somehow wrong, a sign of immaturity or denial? How sad is it that we can't let ourselves earn money in a way that is fun and easy without feeling that we are somehow cheating?

And yet, I understand how people feel. I don't think that I could do this job for more than another year before my brain starts to melt. I love my students, and I have a lot of fun most of the time. Life is amazingly easy and good, and I know that these are the days that I will pine for for the rest of my life. And yet, it's true, there is something unfulfilling about that. It is too easy. Making lesson plans and speaking your native language isn't a real challenge. Perhaps the greatest thing is that I am not making any real difference. I know that my schools would carry on without me, the English classes would probably be the same. Japan doesn't need me. Perhaps teaching in a third world country, where access to education is limited and rare, would bring a greater sense of satisfaction. A feeling that I was making a real difference.

What I wonder about, though, is this idea of "real life". Too many times I have heard people talk about returning to real life, or mention that they are putting it off by staying here. This leads me to ask - if teaching in Japan is not real life, then what is it? Is it a dream? Is it pretend? Are you not actually making money for speaking English with a smile? And, in that case, what constitutes "real life"? What constitutes a "real job"? I'm being paid, I have a contract, heck - I even wear a suit to work - so why isn't this a "real" job? Because it's easy? Because it can be fun? Because it isn't in an office where I push papers around in an anonymous cubicle, under an ill-defined job title and an unappreciative boss?

Here's my two yen - if it's happening, it IS real life. Japan may feel like a fantasy world sometimes, but unless you have slipped into some hallucinogenic coma (you never know, this might all be a product of your sick mind) it is still here, and still will be here when you go back to your own country. In years to come, when you leave this behind and find your "real life", you will think of nomi hodai, karaoke and disturbingly cute characters with fondness... and will you think "that was a good dream"? If you write off these days as a fantasy, as some interval before you start playing the real game of life, then you devalue what you are doing now. Wake up, this IS your real life. Appreciate every beautiful moment of it.

So this is my question to you (and myself, I guess) - how is being a mindless office drone, with the same spouse, house and two kids as everyone else, more "real" than travelling the world and experiencing different cultures first hand? The last time I checked, "real" wasn't a synonym for "normal".

I'd like to hear people's thoughts, so that I can post a follow-up, perhaps with interviews!