Japan The Strange Country

by Kenichi Tanaka

uploaded by Mafiapll here

The Public Job Market The Hidden Job Market - Hide and Seek !

Only someone who jumped from a Bachelor's degree straight into a Director's position!, privileged to have experienced no hardships whatsoever could write something so true and so narrow-minded (and obviously, most recruiters match this privileged profile):

There are two job markets: one that works, and one that doesn’t.

The dismal U.S. hiring report that came out last week was describing the one that doesn’t work. It’s inefficient and frustrating for both the talent hunter and job-seeker. It’s where jobs are filled, not where careers are started. The one that works, while not publicized, is in plain sight, and it’s where all of the good jobs and good people are found.
Describing the hiring rules for this not-so-hidden job market was my main purpose for writingThe Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired. But figuring out the rules starts by understanding the differences in the two job markets. A survey we’re now conducting to identify source of hire will help clarify this. The results of over 1,500 respondents are summarized in the graphic.
The non-public, hidden and more effective market is on the left consisting primarily of internal moves and networking. In this market candidates are evaluated primarily on their past performance and future potential. This is a good thing since it opens up the doors to strong talent of all age groups with a different mix of skills, more diverse candidates, high potential candidates who are light on skills, and returning military veterans. The public and less effective market is on the right emphasizing job postings and resume matching. In this job market candidates are screened and evaluated on their skills, experiences and academics. This is not good since the implication is that you must be both fully qualified and willing to take a lateral transfer. The hidden market is huge: over half of (58%) of active candidates found jobs in this market, and an astonishing 81% of passive candidates found new jobs here.
The sequence of steps hiring managers use to fill jobs helps understand how the two job markets are created, and why they’re different. As managers ponder the idea of adding staff, they don’t typically start by preparing a detailed job requisition and posting the job for the public to see. Instead, using just general criteria they first consider people they know internally or have worked with previously. Next they start networking, seeking out recommendations from trusted sources. The focus of these two first steps is to hire the best person possible for the role. In many cases the jobs will be modified to not only attract the person, but also to take ensure a better fit.
If suitable candidates aren’t found in these first two steps, managers will reluctantly prepare the official job description and make the opening public. Their reluctance here is that once the formal requisition is opened and blessed by the compensation department, there is less flexibility, with skills and experience dominating the assessment process.
The big picture emerging from this small survey is that there are two fundamentally different hiring processes a play at most companies: one that works and one that doesn’t. Unfortunately it’s the one that doesn’t work that is advocated by HR, legal and the compensation group. The one that works is based on finding people who are known and judged on their performance and potential. Not only is this approach more predictable from an assessment standpoint, it also produces the best talent. Even better: it’s fully compliant with all U.S. labor laws. (David Goldstein a top labor attorney with Littler Mendelson prepared a white paper for The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired that fully validates the legality of this approach.)
The process that doesn’t work is based on attracting and finding people who possess some arbitrary level of skills and experiences. Not only is this approach less predictable in terms of subsequent performance, it produces far less talent, since the best people are filtered out on the wrong criteria. Worse, since people aren’t hired on their motivation to do the actual work, job satisfaction is less and turnover is higher.

Surprisingly, this obvious difference is lost on those designing and implementing the hiring processes used at most companies today. Maybe that’s why the best hiring managers don’t formally post their jobs until they find someone worthy or until they’re desperate, and why savvy job-seekers use the back door to find jobs.

(Lou Adler, The Hidden Job Market is Now Revealed as Source of Best Jobs and Best Talent, April 07, 2013 link here)

We are very glad to know your understanding of the world and ours have nothing in common.

R.I.P. Dr Philip Elliott

This was supposed to be a blog about art. It sometimes gets someplace else, for it cannot forgive unfairness nor forget a certain world of struggles and despair that most people are not aware of. Today we found the story of Dr Philip Elliott from the UK, who was working in a call centre. Until 27 January 2013.

We feel deeply sad that beautiful, talented, young people who dedicate their lives to knowledge are left alone in the dark so that this can happen. We regret the sheer ignorance of all those involved, academics, academics, academics, recruiters, recruiters, consultants, HR managers, assistants, anyone who has ever had the chance to touch the CV of a PhD candidate/holder, and chose to dismiss it, throw it away, instead of calling, meeting up, making an offer. People out there who have been given the power to create opportunity, do not make these mistakes any longer. These are some of the best candidates you have ever had, do not get scared, and please, please, do not let them go ...

*** HR manager, *** HR manager, we will meet tomorrow at 3 pm for an interview, what will you choose, *** HR manager?

Women, Worklife and Licia Ronzulli

 

Many men and women around silently agree with

 the BECAUSE section here

 

 

 

we wonder why

 

 

we are glad things have changed elsewhere

 

 

and totally love Licia Ronzulli and her daughter Vittoria

 

who work

 

vote

 

laugh

 

play

 

and grow at the European Parliament

 

Licia Ronzulli, Italian MEP

 website here

 

 

Thank you to all hard-working 

 

and inspirational women

 

out there !

Humanities Jokes: Digital Humanities in the 21st century

Back in 2012, while reading a really useful book How to find a career with your Humanities degree in 126 days, written by James from selloutyoursoul.com , and "composing" our list of New Year's Resolutions, we discovered a place in London specialising in humanities for business: SHM ltd. A little more transparency, please. We might actually like you. Any Careers page?

 

 

http://www.shm-ltd.co.uk/index.html

So, the jokes.

1. Humanities for Business / Humanities or Business ?

at the University ** Grant Challenge ... sorry, University ** Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction... yeah, right, we get it, another specimen of highfalutin jargon representing the Happy Valley of Higher Education.

The UCL Humanities for Business programme works on various levels... UCL specialists in arts and humanities – lecturers and professors of philosophy, of language and literature, of history, and of the fine arts – bring ground-breaking ways of thinking with real relevance to contemporary commercial and organizational challenges... managing change, creativity and innovation, dehumanization in society and business, and international security. Sessions range in format from seminar groups to lectures(...)

マジ、マジ、 MAJI-desu-ka?

2. Humanities Matter, do they not?

We expected a little more from these guys. Members of the Campaign for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, most of you from University ** , perhaps it is time to update your website, it would be unfair to assume that big fat paychecks landed in your pigeonholes and all of a sudden, nothing else matters... Ooops, the website is gone...

3. Digital Humanities

Oh, we love this. Digital Humanities, a new form of money laundering in the 21st century. Are you a poor graduate? Maybe you should not read this.

Where shall we start from? Here are just a few examples. They all have one thing in common: you just do not know what they are doing.

So, we have got entries from the UK:

UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
Oxford Digital Humanites
Cambridge Digital Humanities
King's College London Digital Humanities

Europe trying to catch up with:

Digital Humanities Deutschland conference 2012
Supporting Digital Humanities conference in Copenhagen 2011

then of course the United States:

Stanford Digital Humanities
Yale Digital Humanities
The Digital Humanities Initiative at Harvard

In Japan there is no other way of winning a grant: whatever you do, good or bad, it has got to be a digital humanities project.

MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) likes to invest. The reports MEXT reads are never independently written, therefore they never really know.

Is it worth investing, who is cashing in, how many insane PhDs and postdocs work for nothing? Which member on the list of project associates is not friends with the project-leader and not in the same age-range? How much does the personal profit of academics increase in times of deep recession for intelligent grads? How many arse-licking PhDs and postdocs are still being illegally sent to the UK and elsewhere for academics to justify the grants they get?

 

Sent even after the British Embassy and the Home Office rejected their visa application, Professor **?

 

What about the global door-in-the-face phenomenon acknowledged by so many young talents, what about the Japanese ever-so-common sexual, academic, and power harassement accepted by young people as the do-shiyo-mo-nai forget-about-it c'est-la-vie one-and-only way to succeed in university? Does MEXT know how much value is wasted, and how much non-value it is unfortunately protecting?

Let us consider some examples of digital humanities mania in Japan (oh, please, do not take it personally !) :

University ** in Kyoto caught the big fish with its grant proposal "Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures" in collaboration with the University of London. Hello, MEXT, anyone, you have not heard yet that there is no such thing as the University of London? Right, so we do not know exactly who is involved, but we are very glad that they are all friends.

University **  Winning Grant Proposal

JSPS & MEXT Digital Humanities COE

MEXT Global COE Program

Digital Humanities @ University ** in Kyoto , Japan

 (official website)

Books are being published. How many Japanese Cultures are there, anyway?

Book: New Directions in Digital Humanities for Japanese Arts and Cultures

Workshops are being organised.

Digital Humanities Workshop @ University ** (in Japanese)

 

(unavailable in English)

We are so very grateful Digital Humanities is such an active faculty-centred field, a global phenomenon so powerful and so very shy, too shy to ever get involved with anything that really matters, or with anyone who might actually have something to say...

 

4. phdcomics

 

Now seriously, because nobody is taking you seriously if you are in any way involved with the humanities, have a real laugh with Jorge Cham and the famous PHDCOMICS series.

 

© Jorge Cham

http://academia.edu/Academica/Great-Tweets-of-Science



 

© Jorge Cham

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

We hope you had a laugh, humour is an essential tool for survival. Not sure you find it in the academia, though...We do believe Humanities matter. However, we see little progress being made towards those whose bums do not fit between the big bums already seated in the academic Colosseum, and too many of them thrown to the leopards. And oh, dear, how much delight they can take in all those enslaved PhDs and postdocs with no money nor career prospects who just want to teach philosophy but somehow ended up in the hypogeum...

How to fake a Call for Papers - Academic Crap Anticlimax Greasy Fuck

Fake a fuck? I bet you cannot tell the difference.

watch here

In the academic grants world, a conference or a Call for Papers (CfP) are sometimes just ways to justify the way the money you have been granted is being used. They help with something bigger, therefore they do not really need to be real. They just look real. In fact, many times, only insiders and acquaintances get an invitation.This is the logic of a lot of academics out there, a logic which does not feel right, and should be criticised, boycotted, discouraged, and exposed.

How to fake a Call for Papers? It is very simple. Keep it sexy.

This is how you can fake a fuck with a sexy call for papers in the puritanical academic world:

1. You must pay for a fuck - secure governmental/private funding for you and your friends.

2. Invite people to the orgy - release a CfP as proof of openness- must be labelled "international conference".

3. Get on the mike and let everyone know how well you can fake it - make lots of sounds. Remember: You, your friends and no one else can be there.

Got it?

Nope? Right, we need to come with specific examples.


1. You and your friends secure funding.

Imagine you won with the proposal at number 9 in the first section of the link below.

 link here

Even though the real target might be an S project of around 150 million yen ($ 1,835,450) to apply for in the near future, at the moment you secure 15 million yen ($ 183,545) for the next three years, for you and your friends from Malaysia. It helps with the prestige (not the CV, which you have probably not updated nor used in the past 20 years).

link here

Agggh, you clicked on the project and could not see any content? I bet the international partners in this project could not see anything either. Well, at least note that the description in the original language exists.

link here

2. Right, now that you have the cash to pay for a partner, you must use some of it to prove things are really up and running- you know, proof of bonner.
(Note: Keep and submit proof of bonner to Accounting by the dead - line.)

You give it a general topic. "Multiculturalism" blah blah. Make sure you do not mention that all you are interested in, is Malaysia. You must at least pretend it is an open call.

link here.

Note that the move in the given example was very smart. The only platform where they advertised for the CfP is kept alive by the University of Michigan, and we shall probably find a speaker from this university on the conference list below.

3. Right, it is all settled now. Clean that mike. The main topic is, you guessed right, Malaysia! You, your local friends and your friends from Malaysia - with whom you secured the initial $ 183,545 funding, the Michigan person (+ one more person from Australia specialising in Malaysian studies) get paid to do it. The following are snapshots of the whole conference listing official website. Just in case it disappears. Click on link here.

As Debra says, fuck me sideways! Does this look to you like an "international conference"? Yeap, this is a classic example of an insiders' event adapting their old school thinking to the modern world without actually changing anything. It is called access to funding. Anybody can do it. It always works.

For all those fond of academia, please do not get it wrong, it is not that we do not think these people might be nice persons. There is always a chance.

We just happen to believe in hard work, with no shortcuts. 

Respectfully,

Ours

Kyoto film for dreamers by Yasuhito Tsuge

This is a short film by Yasuhito Tsuge, whom I just discovered. Kyoto, as I would perhaps like to remember it if I were far.

 

http://vimeo.com/31955620

 

(for viewing, click the link above;

Vimeo videos cannot be uploaded on blogger)

 

 



Jobs in Japan for foreigners / expats / women - what you wish you knew (1)

You are close to finishing your degree at a Japanese university and you want to get a job in Japan? You even have a PhD but no one cares because your nationality does not impress them? You joined a spouse and think it is time you continue your career development, but rather not teach English in kindergartens? You are an expat whose little work experience gives you no smart alternatives in Japan but leave the country? I am The Bosa Bosa Review editor-in-chief and will tell you the truth about Japan - success stories and failed stories of real people around. The truth hurts, so be prepared.

 

Pregnant woman looking for work

© The New York Post

 

 

You might have a job in Japan, or an arubaito. Yet your job might so badly paid, that you must keep looking for stable employment, within or outside your field. Which you do every day. You might not be the usual job candidate for a Japanese employer. You might be a foreign woman, with a young family, or a huge belly. You might not get in any suit anymore and fear you will be discriminated for all the wrong reasons. But you cannot leave your body at home. So you go out, the way you are, and keep trying.

 

You might have left your country upon graduation from high school. As most kids of that age, you did not have any work experience. You were hoping to get some on the way, while studying abroad. Yet as many international students reached to find out, the student visa is prohibiting them from working in their host countries. What can be done in Japan? I met successful foreigners, consultants making 8 million yen a year, embassy employees, businessmen. Yet these people are usually employed in Japan after gaining serious experience in their own countries, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK. They are at mid-career level once they land in Japan, managers, top executives. In my field, the only non-Japanese museum staff I heard of was curator David Elliott, a British who assumed the position of director of Mori Museum in Tokyo between 2001 and 2006. He did marvels but Japanese prefer Japanese staff. It is simply easier. Without the 3-5-10 years of work experience that is required for most openings, you might have A Big Issue finding a let us say, entry-level or a little more than entry-level position somewhere in Japan. And people like David, wealthy consultants and embassy staff take the opportunity and enjoy it to the fullest, without helping much those who need a stepping stone and got nothing but soft mud under their feet.

 

We shall dedicate a number of posts to employment issues and solutions in Japan. You will learn about Graduate Opportunities or 新卒採用 in Japanese companies, about company presentations or 説明会 and the importance of attending them, entry sheets, IQ or SPI tests 適性検査 and how difficult those are to pass, interviews and employment chances as a recent FOREIGN graduate. We shall also write about mid-career opportunities, sending your CV for Experienced Hire, interviews with consulting and financial services companies headquartered abroad (US, UK), what impresses them and what does not. Also, very dear to our hearts, is the subject of Academic Jobs in Japan. Will you be the lucky one tenured?This is not the kind of information you might have seen before in the kindest Guides to Japan published by Jasso, JSPS or Monbukagakusho. This is the raw experience of the people we talked to, on blog for you. Read before you burn your boats, Japan can be a lonely place.

 

 

To enter a Japanese company, at some point you have to

look like this, think like this,

or better, think nothing

 

 

Next post in this category is a case-study, a concrete example of inadequacy of the so-called global Japanese companies to diversity, globalization, and yes, foreign recruitment. A post useful to foreign graduates in Japan eligible for Graduate Jobs or Shinsotsu Saiyo 2014 onwards: an example of Japanese recruitment failure. You will learn about nationalistic speeches “We shall become No 1 in the world!”, pressure “You may login online and start the personality test now (6 p.m.), the test can be taken until...”, the SPI test and other WTF??? features that explain pretty well both why the Japanese economy is doing better than other economies – lack of diversity and backward thinking – and why most Japanese companies will never become No. 1 - lack of diversity and backward thinking – .

 

Until then, enjoy the weekend !

 

Cheers.

 

DAMAGED MISS POGANY AND THE MONORAIL (1)

To the memory of Nana & Tantzu

 

Sperren Sie endlich Ihren Kopf auf!

a Dada poster

 

1.

 

You and I are witnesses of each other, in time. We are seeing the constant, denying the change when we talk about ourselves and the people we hate, or seeing the change, denying the constant when talking about the people we love, with indifference. We are inspiring or damaging each other. No matter what the education, the opportunities, the context or the bless, we’ve got the ability to disappoint and destroy. This ability pleases our searches for the right to freedom, as the essence of human freedom finds itself in the capacity of committing evil. There is not enough space for all warnings that should be hanging off people’s foreheads, that Stay away! which could save so many wasted lives. One of those foreheads could be yours. And the saved life could be mine. Later in time we might discover it was the other way around. Welcome to your other context, the dada context!

There is a place where the Wild East and the Far End meet, a place where you’ll find, certainly and without too much searching, a Post-impressionist country under snow. Unofficial statistics show that among the nouveau riche, 8 out of 10 people are former members of the Party, this, how would you call it, Impressionist- Structuralist- Illusionist- Ironist- Protagonist- Deuteragonist- Tritagonist Party. Funny name, party, when no one seems to be enjoying themselves… Some things have changed to some extent, others need a second round of elections and an improved brainwashing machine to leave a better impression of change. The country is under snow and it will stay so. Everyone looks taken by surprise, as if suddenly hit in the head with the shovel, even though it does snow every winter. Airplanes are not departing anymore, obviously, since it snowed. A man in an orange outfit is doing his best at removing the snow off the runway with a mop. He sweeps and digs until he disappears underneath. A baffled sheep comes out with a big slice of ice hanging on its fur. Her moves are wiggly but the man is nowhere to be found. In the far distance, trains stopped in the middle of cornfields, the police car fell bottom up into the hole of a poorly repaired road. And every winter the country freezes and screeches in its own discontent, the snow turns into the colour of dirt, while human steps are interrupted in their rhythm by heavy boots and drug-addicted kids inhale the dandruff off people’s coats on unmoving buses. In spite all less obvious change, the country’s been stuck in a halt for twenty years. Viva la revolucion!

On the telly, the BBC runs a 20 Years On type of documentary. The former president, who’s just irony in disguise, is being interviewed by the BBC presenter and asked to reply to the allegations brought by the international press, namely that him and his impressionist friends have set up a fake revolution which brought them a new type of wealth and us bullets in the chest. He is faced with a certain reality, against all certainties, as within these borders there is never just one reality going on, this is the land of a multi-reality show industry. And this particular one should have happened two decades before and still did not happen and will probably never happen: him being brought to justice and jailed for life. The genocide leader smiles ironically and dismisses all allegations, by simply saying How did they die? Oh, dear God! Everybody knows that. Down With Pneumonia: Cold bullet, Warm Chest, There You Go! No one would dare bang me up…He’s got a point there, the bald soprano always combs her hair the same way. Beginning of twenty-ten, showing the grotesque picture of smart graduates, unemployed, swimming with cold feet in a country that has little left to the imagination. Being out of the same rotten system means being left out for good, powerless. Those who haven’t emigrated yet, will emigrate soon. To the UK, to China, to Brasil perhaps.

2.

In this place legitimately called the end of choice, Mr Zed, 3 + 50 Jahre alt, spends most of his time inside, doing nothing. He is scared of life, he is scared of death. He has got a pretty good arrangement years ago, marrying a woman who was providing, financially. Which means she was working and he was sleeping. There have never been any feelings, any content, any connection. Just like a crust, the air between them dried up. Mr Zed does not spend his precious time thinking of this. He does not care. He is busy doing nothing. He is preoccupied with the crushing idea that the world does not care for him either. This makes him depressed. The depression gives him a good reason to justify all his actions, or the lack of action. Mr Zed would drive mad if told he was wasting his life, while destroying the lives of others. In his extraordinary unambitious mind, he is the victim of this world. No one listens to him. No one wants to hear of the superhuman efforts he is making, sacrificing himself to a world that does not care. No one cares to listen anymore, because one thing is certain, this man is mad. Madness has interesting ways to manifest itself. And Mr Zed is just another classical example. Intellectual, well-educated, overconfident, delusional, and above all, in denial. He considers himself a writer. Well, he has never published anything, he has never tried publishing anything and the desolation caused by not even trying to publish, made him stop writing. He is what is called hopeless. But from his point of view, he is far too good for the whole world to find out more.

The phone is ringing in Mr Zed’s room. The poor deluding creature starts dreaming of fame. Is it an agent, an editor, a publisher? Is this his moment? It must be. Mr Zed rips off his astrakhan coat, swinging his smelly feet nervously. Around him, on the walls, framed pictures of a glorious past. Not his, but his ancestors’. For some reason, the strength in those ancestors’ eyes has given him enough reasons to be complacent with his own lack of achievements. He knew his roots well, and counted on them to take him uphill. No reason to actually have an attempt to succeed, to make any efforts to move his precious rear off the armchair, the mission he had, was written in the stars. The dim light begins to shake his space. He’s got a problem: he’s got no written piece to show. What should he tell the one desperately calling from far away, disturbing the silence, corrupting the void of his room? The impatience of the ringing makes Mr Zed very tense. He storms off, stamping his feet angrily. Stop ringing like this, slow down, chill out, give me time, I need to think, I need to come up with a story, I need to win this one. I know, I’ve got a brilliant idea, my goodness, it’s a revelation, I can see its cover in the limelight, Chopsticks and Nothingness, right, I’m coming, Hellooo…The phone’s dead.

Mr Zed drops back in his comfort. He doesn’t look pleased at all. The chance is gone. It was definitely someone important at the end of the line. Someone who would have changed his life, who would have provided him with the fame he was so deserving of. Clenching his teeth together, Mr Zed dreams of having finally been in the spotlight. He is overexcited, thrilled and enraged, as this chance would have given him a function, even if it was a temporary one. He could have made decisions that would have affected other people’s lives. He would have had the chance to drive others crazy with his theories on how the world was going to collapse, and what an innocent victim he happened to be. Well, maybe they’ll call back. He has plenty of time to wait, no doubt about that. He agrees to stay still, wandering about in his own mind like a shirt in the washing machine. Following a very bizarre logic, he already considers himself a winner. He’s got the blue blood, he’s got the noble babouches on, he has it all.

The grim room absorbs the sweat of waiting. The eyes roll inside their cavities, tick-tock, tick-tock. The remains of aristocracy look lame tonight. From the dusty corridor, the sound of Christmas carols penetrates the dampness of all things. Mr Zed crooks a finger in the empty space, and loses his wispers in a distressing line: I’ll, I’ll get you someday ! Memories of the former ironist-agonist Futurity  guards are flowing in. Futurity, hilarity, mediocrity, priority, authority…Mr Zed sits upright in his armchair and lets his arm fall and swing sideways. An interior voice makes him shiver: he has survived the regime, he has yet to survive himself…An image of himself as a child is flashing in the back of his mind. Mr Zed’s first wrinkles appear, as a poignant reminder of shame. Story…I need a story…I need a story. I need a history, a mystery, baptistery…

(...!"#$%&...to be continued...) 

Brilliant Start of the Year with Employ Adam

Happy New Year everyone, and a fabulous start to Adam, who, like many of us, needs employment urgently. We just love his creativity and sincerely wish him concrete results. Not soon, not tomorrow, now.

http://employadam.com/

 

 

 

You may also want to see our job hunting Progress Reports for 2012 to understand why we support Adam.

 

love you Bill, can't get used to it though...

 



Later edit (16 February 2013):

Adam got a job ! Well done~

Happy New 2013 kids

To all beauty in the world expressing itself in ways we feel close to, and to all those going through the school of hard knocks, may 2013 bring you only the best ! Happy Holidays ~

 

© A great kid

Think you’re ready to go study in Japan? QUIZ

Think you’re ready to go study in Japan? A quiz in 10 steps for Monbusho kids and not only.

 

Test 1: Preparation

 

© The image owners.

 

1.    Do not think of anything.

2.    Start worrying that you will not be able to learn the language or adapt to the new culture.

3.    Reassure yourself that the monthly scholarship you will receive is way better than your local friends’ incomes.

4.    Stop thinking and start packing.

 

 

Test 2: Gather your friends

 

Barack Obama enjoying a beer and good conversation

© The image owners.

 

1.    Meet your high and junior high school friends and playground-days mates and treat them with beer.

2.    Answer “why not?” to all why questions and stay confident. You are making the right decision.

3.    Read the last book, write the last short story, go to the theatre, meet more friends, have beer, laugh, dance, laugh. Everything you would want to do in the next five years do it now.

 

Test 3: Aim for the airport

 

 

© The image owners.

 

1.    Get all stuff out of the hand luggage and place it in a garbage bag, this way it will meet the size requirements.

2.    Show your passport with a proud face, the garbage bag full of items and the empty bag attached to it. Do not worry customs are staring, you are the smart one leaving.

3.    Put everything back in the bag, the way it was.

 

 

Test 4: Flight and arrival

 

© The image owners.

 

1.    Accept the idea that it will take forever to get there (if you are departing from Latin America, prepare for a globe-round flight to the east).

2.    Once you do arrive, happily offer you fingerprints and eye-prints to the official database of aliens (that is, foreigners).

3.    Find the loudest guy at Arrivals. He is waiting for you and other ten with a huge sign.

4.    Get on the mini-bus and forget you are hungry, thirsty. It is 10 am (already!)and no one cares.

 

Test 5: The first year

1.    Wake up at 8. Go to school. Take kanji (Chinese characters) lessons, vocabulary, listening, speaking, economics, politics, history, geography, pop-culture, more kanjis. At 4pm go to the computer room. Read emails from friends studying in the US. Be happy for them.

2.    Go back to your room before 5pm. Start practicing the newest 20 kanjis, one by one, stroke by stroke. Repeat 20 times. Look cheerful.

3.    Read out loud. “A-ka-ka-ka-ka-tta” no “A-ta-ka-ta-ka-tta” no “A-ta-ta-ka-ka-tta” yes. Smile. Now you can say “It was hot.”

4.    Men: find a Japanese girl to fancy you. You will make tremendous progress, improve vocabulary, listening, speaking, kanjis, pop-in, pop-out culture and stay sane. Come before 2 and sleep.

Women: read out loud “A-ta-ta-ka-ka-tta” and record it on tape. Play it 5 times before going to bed alone at 4 am.

 

© The image owners.

 

 

Test 6: The next 4 years, at university

 

© The image owners.

 

1.    Go say hi to the 175 Japanese students from your year. Do not use English, it will freak them out. Look for another foreign student. Keep cool if you do not find any and abandon ship if you do and they all look stupid.

2.    Try to take notes in Japanese at maximum speed during the 15 courses you are having each semester. Try to understand the content in the same time. Do not despair if it is hard. It is OK to give up listening and sleep.

3.    Make some Japanese friends. Bring them home. Cook. Have nothing to share.

4.    Men: Make many Japanese female friends. Bring them home. Make them cook. Share it all. Hide your mobile phone, they get jealousy panic attacks and search through everything.

5.    Women: start working on your thesis, getting to 20000 kanjis takes time.

6.    Women: do not even think of looking for a job. You are smart enough to get into Grad school.

7.    Men: do not think. You will either live on a spouse visa and teach English for the rest of your lives or return to your countries to work in Government. It is all good.

8.    Graduate. Wonder where did five years go and how many are there left to count. Call grandma back home.

 

Test 7: The next 2 years, the Master’s

 

© The image owners.

 

1.    Forget the Japanese mates who got a job. They will not call anymore.

2.    Imagine that students joining you for a Master’s and Faculty care about your presence and great contributions you can bring to a constantly non-diverse academic community. Keep enriching your imagination.

3.    Do not think you are getting close to 28 and have no real skills to survive in the real world. Work on that Master’s thesis, research more, research harder, you need that student visa.

4.    Read the last email you got from the US. One friend started his business, one friend changed the third job, one friend moved to Barcelona and is having a whale of a time. Look cheerful. Type one more sentence in your Word document and wonder which kanji was the right one.

5.    Graduate with a Master’s. Wonder where did seven years go and how many are there left to count. Wish you could still call grandma.

 

Test 8: The following many many years, the PhD

 

Cecilia from phdcomics

© phdcomics

 

1.    Ask for permission to write the doctoral thesis in English. Accept the rejection with diplomacy.

2.    Discover no one needs you in the academic community.

3.    Check the job-market:  be honest to yourself that there are possibly no academic jobs for you in Japan.

4.    Deflect from reality: try to get some real skills quickly. Go to small companies, get interviews, tell them about your many years of hard work, tell them about the many scholarships. They will learn about them for the first time. To them, you are totally unemployable.

5.    See your scholarship coming to an end. Ask for help. Listen to the silence.

6.    Give up the PhD. Lose your student visa. Consider a tourist one.

7.    Wish you had kids, a job, a life.

 

 

Test 9: Repeat

Repeat in your mind everything that happened in the past many many years. Answer “why?” to all choices you have made. Meet a female stranger, a housewife. Answer her questions, tell her where you are coming from, and that you can indeed use chopsticks. It will make her happy. Do not think you have nowhere to go from here. Meet a male stranger, a “salary man”. He might whisper in his own cowardly way a “go back to where you came from”. Get mad. Open your suitcase full of graduation papers and scholarship agreements. Shout at him. Everyone will pretend you are not there.

Japanese housewives - those using the money earned
© The image owners.

 

Japanese salary men - those earning the money

© The image owners.

 

 

Test 10: Congratulations !

Now you are ready to go study in Japan. ENJOY!

 

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