Confessions of a Gaijin 2: Episode 5 – Sayonara

I’m writing this from Haneda Airport, waiting for the check-in desk to open so I can drop off my comically hefty luggage and fly to Taipei. I am no longer working as an English teacher in Japan. This is a very good thing indeed. The last few weeks at the school were, predictably enough, an absolute tornado. At times it was gruelling, other times it was rewarding, but I feel an abiding sense of relief that I am done with it all.

There were a slew of last-minute twists and turns; the guy they were training to be my replacement quit one week in and flew back to Florida. He cited personal reasons but my guess is that he had a taste of how awful the corporate culture here could be and decided that he didn’t want anymore. Sally was beset by dreadful health problems, exacerbated greatly by cack-handed mishandling by the school management. She developed a severe chest cold characterised by a cough so awful that she sounded for all the world like she had emphysema, but because she didn’t have a fever, the only criteria by which you can officially be sent home, she was kept at school and made to do lesson plans all day, slaving away horrendously while sick as a dog. She may as well have been stuck in a Chinese iPhone factory. Last week she had to leave a meeting halfway through in order to be physically sick. And she still wasn’t sent home.

The climactic finale of my last few weeks meant that I was furiously meeting people and seeing as much as I could before it was time to go. I made a few last-minute friends, folk who work for the same company that I did, and I heard stories from other schools that would curdle the milk in your cereal; foreign teachers bullied to the point of psychological collapse, incompetent managers, double standards, an entire company running on low morale, and worst of all, a head office that tolerates it all because it doesn’t know what else to do. This is one burning building I will be very happy to step away from.

My last day at the school went by in a blur. At the end of it, my manager told me I was a kind person who had helped her a lot and handed over my final paycheck. The sense of deliciousness in finishing was oh-so-brief as I had to leg it across town to my leaving drinks, hosted by the wonderful, beautiful friends that I’ve made out here. I drank my body weight in sake and threw up twice. It was very cathartic.

My leaving party at the school the following night was a mixed affair: the kids headteacher, an individual whom I never did quite see eye to eye with, frowned almost all night and left without saying so much as a thank you or a goodbye. She won’t be missed. The adults headteacher shook my hand, gave me a hug and handed over a big bottle of gourmet sake (which I donated to someone else as I was too ill from the night before to drink it). I didn’t get a card from the staff, something which I confronted my manager about when she came to collect the key to my apartment on Monday morning. She apologised and said the staff were too busy and forgot to buy one. To anyone else this may sounds like the flimsiest of excuses, but I know exactly how badly that school is run, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. She said she tried sending a card to my hostel in Tokyo but it still didn’t find its way to me. The words “piss-up” and “brewery” come to mind.

Fittingly, it was the students who made it all worthwhile, especially at my farewell party; a kindly Japanese pensioner told me I helped build his confidence, another said I helped make her feel less lonely. One woman gave me an exquisite antique painting as a thank-you gift. Another told me she always looked forward to my classes each week. The people who mattered the most said all the right things, the rest was just static.

My last few days in Japan were spent in a hostel in Tokyo, which was my base as I packed and sent the last of my things, transferred large sums of cash via Western Union and did my best to soak up as much of the place as I could before it was time to go. People who I hadn’t spoken to in months, and in some cases years, appeared out of nowhere in order to enquire how I was doing. On the day before I was due to leave, I made contact with someone who I’d been thinking about a lot. She wrote back. I have no idea what, of anything, will come of this.

I will remember this experience as one of the biggest challenges of my entire life. Somehow, I made it through. Somehow, I endured horrific stress, late nights, passive-aggressive co-workers, ineptitude, insomnia and ennui to come out victorious the other side. My reward for all of this is a few months off and a deeper sense of self, two things you can’t really put a price on. Also, a grand adventure awaits, and I aim to make the most of all of it. I’m a very different person to the one I was when I first got here, and I hope my new perspective can enrich my experience. After everything I’ve been through, I feel like I could parachute into Uzbekistan and be able to make a decent go of it.

I have very mixed feelings about leaving Japan. It the fates align, I’d like to come back in the autumn and give living in Tokyo a shot. There is no other part of this country that I’m interested in living in. The place I was in is already far behind me.

So I made it. I’m not sure how, but I made it. And it really doesn’t feel like the end of one thing so much as it does the start of another. Finishing my job is an enormous relief, I smile regularly at the thought of it, but it hasn’t given me the warm, fuzzy feeling I was anticipating. The lesson there, then, is that nothing external can really complete you. The only thing that can do that is yourself.

They’re opening the check-in desk soon. I’m eager to see where my adventure takes me next. I feel like this experience has shown me everything, so much so that it will take a while for it all to sink in.

There’s a lot I’ll miss, but there’s more to discover. I step happily into the unknown.

I wonder if they have heated toilet seats in Taiwan?