We're Headline News

In a half-assed effort to be professional, I have so far avoided mentioning by name the company I work for on this blog. Not that it's a big secret. I'm just trying to get into good habits in case I ever have a job that matters.

But it is probably worth mentioning that my company has been in the Japanese news pretty much none stop since I came back to Japan 5 months ago.

First a brief recap: I work for a private English conversation company. Teaching English can sometimes be big business in Asia, and the company I work for is the biggest private English Conversation company in Japan. Every major city has at least one branch. The mega cities have multiple branches on every street corner. The McDonalds or StarBucks of English Conversation, if you will.

Given the size of this company, and the large amount of both employees and students, and given the blogging times we live in, you can guess there is a ton of blogging, commentary, inside exposes, and complaining already on the internet if you look in the right places. (Both from the side of the foreign teachers, and from the Japanese students. Shoko, who is following in my footsteps as an internet addict, often reads Japanese Internet bulletin Boards, and gives me the Japanese perspective).

The buzzing on the blogosphere has only increased since the company started making headline news, so everything I'm about to tell you has already been done to death, but assuming those of you stateside haven't been following it, here's my 5 minute summary.

(I've highlighted the news stories, if you want to just skim through and skip my commentary).

1. February: Seven Teachers Arrested in Drug Bust in Tokyo

In February, seven teachers from my company were arrested in Tokyo during a drug bust. Mostly marijuana, a bit of cocaine. Hardly something that would make national news for several days running back in America, but then this isn't America. Japan's drug laws are notoriously strict, and recreational marijuana use is practically non-existent or kept very very quiet. (I have meet one or two discreet Japanese users in my 5 years here).

Apparently some years ago two JET Program participants were busted with Marijuana, and it was huge news in Japan. This was before my time, but they use their example as a warning in the JET Orientation book.

Despite the strict laws and the official warnings from JET Program, I have been at many foreign partys and gatherings where the substance was being indulged. The Japanese stereotype is that we Americans are a bunch of drug heads, but actually we're pretty tame compared to a lot of these other countries. New Zealand reportedly has the highest marijuana per capita use rate in the world, and many of the Canadians I've met (especially the West Coast Canadians) have had a fondness for the grass.

Most people just figure they won't get caught, and they're usually right (especially out here in the countryside in the middle of nowhere). But every now and again your luck runs out I guess.

2. March: Teacher's Body Found Murdered
In March, one of the teacher's for our company, a 22 year old British girl, was found murdered. The murder suspect, amazingly enough, escaped on foot (barefoot) from a squad of Japanese policeman who came to his house to question him, and is still at large to this day.

I'm not sure if this made the papers back home at all (maybe someone out there in internet land could help me out), but it certainly got all the tabloid treatment here in Japan, and I understand in Britain as well.

This is not the first time a pretty young British girl has been killed by a creepy Japanese man. There was the Lucie Blackman in 2000, which is remarkably similar to this case and also had a fare degree of police incompetence. In a case of remarkably bad timing, the Japanese courts found Blackman's killer innocent on a technicality the following month, further angering the British public. (He's still going to jail for all his other rapes and murders though).

As a result, Japan has been getting slammed in the British press. Shoko informs me of the Japanese counter-reaction on the internet, where Japanese bloggers complain of all the Japanese tourists and exchange students killed in foreign countries and then blamed for being so careless. Apparently some Japanese people in the internet community are also angry that the media isn't mentioning that both killer's have Korean blood in them and aren't pure Japanese. (Japan Times article here confirms this has been an issue in Japan's blogosphere...which I guess shouldn't be surprising).

3. Loses Court Battle over Refund Policy

I've got this listed as number 3, but it's been in and out of the papers for the past 5 months or so, so I could probably break it into several stories if I was so inclined. (Fortunately I'm not).

There are a few stories going on here, but basically the problem is students are complaining about being sold an expensive time limited lesson package, and then, due to a shortage of instructors, not being able to book lessons at convenient times, and then getting short changed on the refund. More complete info here.

I don't have any especially witty comments on this, but if you search the internet everyone else does.

Me, I'm just glad the students are complaining about the scheduling and not the teaching.

I'll close by saying none of this has affected me one way or the other in my day to day routine at the little branch out here in the boondocks in Nakatsu. But it certainly has given us a lot of discussion in the staff room.

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