I am reposting an email I received. I don’t work for the company but I thought I’d put it up for the benefit of anyone who reads this blog who does. And also to serve as a warning to anyone who is thinking about teaching English with a private company in Japan. They all care about money first and human interests second. Some are much better than others. Do your research and try get opinions from people who have experience with that company before you sign up. It would suck to drag your ass all the way to Japan just to get screwed.
> Hello all this is Morgan Jones former general
> manager of borderlink.
> As most of you know I have left borderlink due to
> unexpected circumstances.
> When I took this position I only accepted it because
> I was told that I would run human resources they way
> I see fit. Unfortunately I was forced into lying and
> persuading ALTs.
> I am sending this e-mail to as many staff as I can
> to ensure that the promises I made are fulfilled.
> Please keep in mind these following warnings
>
> 1. The company rules and regulations that you
> have received are not the same as the rules and
> regulations borderlink has filed with the labor
> bureau.
> 2. Your pay for March will probably not be paid
> in full do to that fact that the schools will end in
> late March. Please seek confirmation from borderlink
> before March to assure your pay. ( in writing or
> text)
> 3. If you live in an apartment that borderlink
> has arranged you are paying more rent than the other
> tenants in your facility. Meaning that your has an
> add on which leads to you actually paying for the
> set up fees although the apartment is not in your
> name and if borderlink does not renew your contract
> you will loose the apartment and your deposits will
> be kept by borderlink.
> 4. Your insurance is not legit and should be
> changed to Shakai hoken.
> 5. Your paid leave might not be paid if you
> decide to use those days in March. Please use them
> before March so you may confirm that you will get
> paid for them.
>
> I have made arrangements with RCS corporation. Now
> that Morikawa is gone it is a much better company.
> Anyone wishing to work as an ALT in Gunma or
> wherever RCS will give you priority on positions
> they have. If you have any problems or questions
> please contact me, I am more than willing to help. I
> would also like to justify my motivations by saying
> that I do not care about borderlinks future. But I
> do not want to be remembered as the guy that screwed
> you over. So please if there is anything I can help
> you with contact me. Best of luck
>
>
>
>
> Morgan Jones
A couple weekends ago I went to Guam. I have a friend who’s a stripper there for a few months. I wanted to see her. I wanted some sun and some warmth. And Guam’s only a few hours away by plane.
Originally, I wanted to go the weekend of the 24th because we had an extra day off on Friday for Labor Thanksgiving Day (It’s a lot more like Labor Day than Thanksgiving). But because of that one extra day, tickets were around $1,500 and most flights were sold out. I would have had to take a 9-hour wait in the Philippines. It seems like all the businessmen in all of Japan were going to Guam on that 3 day weekend to look at titties.
So I decided to take a couple days of vacation and go the weekend before. Tickets were only a bit above $400 and I got a direct flight. My company told my schools that I was going home for a bit, since that is apparently a lot more acceptable than taking a vacation. Since I had a bad cold a couple weeks before, everyone freaked out thinking that I was going home because I was really, really sick. Because people don’t just take off for no reason. I’m getting the feeling that it’s a lot more culturally taboo to take off work and have fun than it is to grope young girls on the train. I bet Japanese businessmen to the latter a lot more than the former.
Guam is a very, very strange place. There are a few native Chamorrans, mostly living in poverty. It’s mostly populated by Navy and Air Force troops. The rest are strippers, prostitutes and Japanese tourists. The main strip in Guam is lined with luxury hotels as high as you can see and accommodated with glittering water parks and beach fronts. Along the edges of the road are tourist trap bars and restaurants and high-end fashion malls. There are at least two Chanels, Louis Vittons, and Burberries in a three-block stretch. In between such decadence are loud, dimly lit strip clubs and all night massage parlors.
It felt nice to have the tables turned a bit. I only had to speak Japanese once and that was just to tell some lady to wait a moment because she was about to take the table that was supposed to be for my friend and me. Instead of being the one wandering around desperately hoping to find someone who spoke my language or to find a menu I could understand, it was the Japanese who were confused. But not much. Popular “Western” restaurants like TGIFiday’s and Outback Steakhouse had Japanese menus. The luxury market of Guam seems mainly to be targeted to the Japanese tourists. Most stores have Japanese speaking staff. Since Guam is technically part of the US, it runs on US currency. But many places accept yen. Since I was technically in the US, I was hoping to find some cheap clothes that fit me. But in the tourist area, I mostly just found Japanese styles, in Japanese sizes, at the equivalent of Japanese prices. I guess the Japanese wives shop till they drop during the day and pass out in the fancy hotel while their husbands go and spend an equal amount on strippers or full body massages at night.
There were so many Japanese people. In the tourist area of Guam I sometimes forgot I was in Guam instead of one Japan’s of the south islands. Kanji, katakana, hiragana. A lot of times the Japanese tourists still gawked at me as if I were the foreigner. Ack! Tall blonde freak! Gaijzilla!
Outside of the high-end shopping area, the main tourist attraction seemed to be Kmart. I shit you not. On the plane ride back to Japan, everyone was trying to stuff all their brimming plastic Kmart bags into the overhead compartments.
But in Guam, the Japanese are only well taken care of in order make it easier to take their money. I do experience racism and discrimination in Japan, but we were definitely giving it to them in Guam. Many of the seedy places in Japan explicitly refuse foreigners. In Guam, they let them in with open arms, they just charged them a lot more money.
The kitten was ravenous. At first I didn’t feed her much because I thought she had been a starving stray and I did’t want to kill her by overfeeding. Then I budgeted a can and a half of kitten food a day for her. Within two days she needed two. Then two and a half, and then that wasn’t even enough. I learned that when she meowed and nibbled on my figers, she was hungry. She grew noticably in the span of days. The feel of her bones became less sharp.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the kitten when I was in Tokyo. I knew that my friends were very trustworthy and would treat it at least as well as I would. Probably better. But I had this weird superstition that something bad would happen to it if I weren’t there to watch it myself.
When I got back to Maebashi, I took a nap and got on the computer. No one had responded to any of the emails or postings I had made looking for someone to take the kitten.
I couldn’t wait to see the kitten any longer. I wanted the kitten and I wanted to show it off. I sent my friend, R, a message and drove off to my catsitting friends’ apartment.
And now, a little about R. R is from Texas and once worked as a janitor in a professional wrestling arena. Until recently he had a big Confederate general squared mustache and beard. He likes motorcycles, owns a PT Cruiser with neon blue underlighting, and has a concealed handgun license in his wallet. Somehow he also has a computer science degree, plays World of Warcraft, and is perfectly tickled by my theatrical, melodramatic antics. R and I trade LOLcat macros and videos of kittens on YouTube. Seeing as he shared my dark obsession with small furry things, I decided to invite him up to show off my fuzzball. (more…)
It seems like you’re all getting the news in my life several weeks late. I only get around to writing these letters when I both feel like it and when I have time to goof off at my junior high school.
In the past month, I’ve made a couple new Japanese friends. They’re two ladies about my age (22 and 24) who come to a weekly group in Maebashi called the Global Café to practice their English. It’s a pretty good deal for me. I get paid ¥2,000 ($17) to talk English to people who are almost fluent, pretty interesting, and well traveled, for an hour and a half. Three weeks ago on Friday, I made dinner plans with one of the girls I met. She was going to pick me up at the Denny’s parking lot at 7pm.
Around 7pm I started out from my apartment. A fenced concrete ditch about three feet deep runs by a small road passing next to my apartment. It goes underground through a tube when it crosses the highway to the back of my apartment. As I crossed the ditch I heard a high-pitched meowing. I called my friend on my keitai to tell her I would be about 5 minutes later. I went back to my apartment but couldn’t find my flashlight. I went back to the ditch. “Kitty?,” I called. More meowing. I walked to the Denny’s parking lot to get my friend and tell her what was happening. We went to the neighborhood Sekichu where I bought a new bike light (my last one got stolen). When we got back to the ditch, the cat was no longer meowing. I shined the light down there, but couldn’t see anything. Maybe it had gone through the tube? Maybe it had never been in the ditch to begin with, but on the bank, and was ok. There was nothing I could do. (more…)
Here I am posting an article from the New York Times…
Want to hide in plain view? Disguise yourself as a vending machine. Tokyoites anxious about the declining morals of Japan can solve their safety fears through naive consumerism and questionable fashion.
Chuck was flipping through archived copies of and underground rock magazine, Rock Is Loft, when he stumbled upon his own picture from back in 1979 when he was the bassist in a band called 8 1/2.
