I speak english, but it doesn’t matter
If any one of you reading this (by the way, thank you for spending your time reading about my (really boring and depressive) life in Japan) think you can survive in Japan with only english, you outta for some trouble.
As it true that you can live quite well speaking only english in Tokyo center, that’s not exactly true in most of other locations. When I arrived in Japan, I started living in Tokyo suburbs, I believe that I can count in my fingers of how many japanese actually spoke english where I lived. The small town is called Musashimurayama, really peaceful and perfect for families, I gotta say. Still love that place.
The problem is: the farther you move from Tokyo’s center, the less people will speak english.
Anyway, my days after my arrival where basically to adapt. I didn’t have any jetlag as I was so cautioned told I would’ve feel, nor I felt strangeness in the 12 hours of difference. Actually, I was quite fine from the beginning.
So, another brackets before I start babbling, just to situate my beloved readers. As I said in my last story, the easiest and usual way for brazilians to come to Japan, as descendants or married (sometimes haply ever after), is through specialized agencies. They have some agreements with third part contractors that hire the descendants and their family and allocate them to Japan.
Most of these contractors companies are japanese, some are brazilians, actually founded in Japan by brazilians. These contractors offer jobs in factories, I don’t think they have anything more then that. But there’re some reasons for that:
1- Most japanese descendants can’t speak japanese, so unlike a lot of immigrants in Japan that actually gotta pass a japanese proficiency test to get a visa (that’s how a lot of refugees and students get to enter the country);
2- Most of japanese descendants came from humble families and because of that, they don’t have the same kind of skills as, for example, some foreigners got when they come to Japan under special skills visa. That was actually true in early 90’s, but nowadays, there’re a lot of university graduated descendants around here, working in factories, mostly because of Brazil’s economy;
3- It’s easier. Japan has a lack of labor because the fall down in birthrates, so foreigners, and not only brazilians, but chinese, philipians, vietnamese, nepalese and from other asians countries, come to Japan to work in factories.
That’s, of course, the general speaking. There’re a few brazilians that come here as exchange students, transfer from their jobs or they got in some kind of project to work/study in Japan. But those, aren’t exactly many in our case.
Ok, so following up. My contractor company was a small one that worked with one factory only, I think. But that factory was the biggest bento (those package lunch) in Asia.
Anyway, I was really, really, really luck to have came through that agency and contrator, because they actually gave me as a present a small electric rice pot, a plate, fork, spoon, knife and so on… and, of course, one futon set (that I still use!).
But everything can(not) be perfect
So, I bet you ended up thinking something like “he’s so wrong” when reading my last story, when I wrote about working in a factory couldn’t be THAT hard for someone that was an office mouse.
Well… right, and wrong. The job was easy, the problem was that I couldn’t understand SHITAKO (and that’s from Deffiance series, when “shit” is actually said shitako/shitaco on an alien language) of what people was saying. Not because they were not japanese, but because I realized that I couldn’t understand SHITACO (again, but with a “C”) of japanese.
I’ve studied in some craziness intensive way for around 5 months in Brazil. I’ve studied japanese in Kumon method (yes, it’s not only for maths… they actually have some foreign language materials) and I thought something like: “Oh, ok, I think I can understand something at least”.
Fiddlesticks (as old people used to say)
I couldn’t make out any word, sentence, letter, nothing… I couldn’t differentiate shit from pants! So… hard beginning.
The job isn’t difficult, gotta admit that, factory work doesn’t demand nuclear physics PhD… it’s mostly practice, actually. The problem is, how you’re supposed to learn something (even if it’s easy) if you don’t understand anything the other is saying?
Showing, of course. And that is doable, but you don’t get the details, so it become more of situational trial and error and, it was frustrating. Both for the newcomer as for the one teaching. So people get angry, it’s not uncommon, specially when it’s a japanese person teaching you. Luckly there were only foreigners there, so… they kinda get that it wasn’t all my fault. They tried, specially the line leader, a philippine womam with a hearth of a mother (she’s mother of 6 actually. So, if anyone knows patience, it’s her.
Not all philipians speak english…
Although eanglish is taken as a secondary language in Philippines, not all of them actually knows english. Some of them knows nothing, actually. Most, the ones that has study and knows english very well, end up going to States, Canada or some english speaking european country. Those who doesn’t, go to some asian country that’s closer, cheaper and that offer better lives. So, usually (not all of’em) speak SOME english. Some actually speaks really well. She was the later though.
Still, it helped a lot, both in learning the job and learning japanese.
That place, my first job in Japan, wasn’t that bad. At least I thought so.
