The Freedom of Perception: One Year Left (Part I)

As it has been for the past three and a half years since I moved to Japan, the end of January signifies one thing for all fellow JET participants: the final chance to decide whether to accept reappointment into the program for an additional year (up to five yrs. max), or move on to a new chapter elsewhere. 

Consequently, by early February, it becomes pretty clear who it is that will be staying, and who it is that will be leaving in a few months time. Thus, I have seen many great friends make the hard decision to leave and move on to new beginnings after spending one, two, three or more epic years here. Although, by the time summer rolls around and new faces arrive to take their place, their departure often makes me feel as though they take with them an intangible bond of mutual understanding and friendship which is hard to replace. 

Naturally, a certain amount of heartache accompanies this period of transition for both the “leavers” and those who are staying. For the leavers, the next six months are definitely bittersweet, since the realization that the clock is now really ticking away... drives them to take even more advantage of all the things there are left for them to see and experience here in Japan. For those of us who stay, it becomes evident that the times you get to spend with these close friends on the mountains, the onsens, the hockey rinks, the izakayas, karaoke bars, roadtrips, Zen temples, shrines, etc... are limited, and that once they depart and head back to their respective countries, it will be years before you get to see them in person again (if at all). In short, both parties come to realize not just how fast time flies by us, but also how far we’ve come and done together. 

The bottom line is that whenever you move into a country with a completely different way of thinking and language from your respective place of birth or country of residence, there is often a strong tendency to become close with many of the other “foreigners” with whom you learn “to go through the motions” of adapting to the new environment. In short, you are all in the same boat. 

This applies particularly well to most JET Programme participants, given that each of us has to deal with very similar situations (with a few exceptions across Prefectures), be it at work in our respective schools, or in the life we lead outside those restrictive parameters. All of us, after all, have to find a way to navigate through Japanese day-to-day life from the very first day we land in Narita. 

More often than not, that means learning the language from scratch and making epic mistakes from time to time (or daily...). It also means that whatever difficulty we may run into, chances are that one or more of the other JETs have also run into it and can lend each other advice, a helping hand, or simply an ear to listen. So whether you are trying to get an iPhone for the 257th time at Softbank, trying to buy a used car, get a driver’s license, set-up a bank account, withdraw money from a ATM, wire money overseas, drive on the opposite side of the road, give a speech in Japanese in front of hundreds of students on your first day of school, experience the harsh cold of winter inside your apartment, or figure out which of the crazy looking buttons flushes the toilet, you can be sure that many others before you and along side you “have been there”. 

That being the case, I think JET participants themselves are one of the things which make this program one of the best to work for around the world. The time you spent in it, regardless of how many years you end up staying, molds you in a certain way; turning into a very valuable opportunity to network not only with passionate and like-minded individuals at both the professional and personal levels, but more importantly, with individuals who can relate to your experience here. In essence, anyone who’s been on JET becomes part of a very determined group of individuals who weren’t afraid to step out of their safe harbor (even if only temporarily) and venture out into the unknown. Although it’s true that many of our “situations are/were different,” in terms of the technicalities; ultimately, each us leaves a part of ourselves here in our own respective way. What do we take with us after departing? Well... I think I’ll better leave that unsaid. 

Looking over at who is leaving and who is staying, makes it clear that only a handful of folks will earn the title of “Five-Year-JETs” in the upcoming "recontracting" year. It goes without saying that I never intended to stay here for five years, probably none of us did. My plan had always been three years, but clearly the universe had different plans in mind for me, and I’ve always been open to change. Therefore, looking back at the past three and a half years sitting on this exact desk and facing the same mountain I once faced when I was a 23 year old university graduate, brings a great deal of satisfaction. 

It’s time for a victory lap. 

After all, I am no stranger to being a “Five-Year-Man” both at my junior/senior high school for the Vancouver College rowing crew, as well as the five epic years I spent in Beta and the University of British Columbia. 

In any event, I think one of the things I like most about my job within JET is the fact that an any given moment during a work day, I can look out the window and come to realize that at virtually every single junior and senior high school across Japan, there is someone in a similar position to mine. Nevertheless, I’m often left wondering what each of them is attempting to do in order to fulfill what is expected, or at at times (as is often the case) go beyond it. 

Apart from that though, I believe that hands down the greatest thing I have gained from doing what I do for JET is what I like to refer to as the “freedom of perception”. What I mean to say is that no other place or job prior to moving to Japan had allowed me to learn how to "humble"myself to such an extent that irrespective of how many great ideas I might think that I can lay on the table, my role as an assistant in a strongly defined hierarchical cultural system often means that those ideas will often be treated as such... ideas and nothing more. For some, this could be seen as a real deterrent from wanting to prolong their stay in the program, but for me, it has actually turned out to be an incentive. 

It took some time to adopt this perspective, but it has proven to serve me well over the past year and a bit. Interested in finding out why? Look out for the second part of this post tomorrow. 

Best, 

           - Iker