My Adventures as an English Teacher in Tokyo

I attended Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, using the G.I. Bill to pay for my studies and to have a little money left over. However, the stipend money I received wasn’t enough for me, my wife Kayoko, and our toddler son Timmy to live on in Tokyo, which had a sky-high cost of living, with inflation raging at the time. So I had to work on the side to help make ends meet while going to school full-time.

For English-speaking foreigners (gaijin) living in Japan, working on the side almost always meant teaching English, usually at one of the many English language schools located all around Tokyo. I eventually landed a job at a place called the Executive Language School, which, as the name implied, taught English to a lot of Japanese salarymen, but also a variety of others.

I taught 40-minute classes every weekday from 7:45 a.m. until 2:15 p.m., with a five-minute break in between classes; it was fairly hectic and stressful. The school was in downtown Tokyo near the American Embassy. To be ready to start teaching at 7:45, I had to leave our tiny apartment in the Tokyo suburbs by 6:30 a.m, which meant I had to get up at 5:45 to get ready and then walk the 10 minutes to the local train station. After that, I would catch a train that went to Shinjuku Station, the busiest terminal in all of Tokyo, after which I would then catch another train to travel to the stop nearest the English school.

Because of my English teaching schedule, I always had to ride the trains during rush hour, which is horrible all over Japan, but especially in Tokyo. During this time, people cram into train cars like sardines in a can (actually, real sardines have more room inside their can). As the siren sounds to indicate that the train doors are about to close, rail station attendants push the last few people into each car so that the doors can close. Forget about social distancing. If you had six inches of space between one person and another, you were lucky.

One time I was riding the train from my home into Shinjuku Station when an earthquake happened. The train I was on was a “semi-express” type, which meant it stopped at certain stops, but not every stop. Trains that stop at every stop are called “locals.” Well, after an earthquake, it’s standard procedure for every train to turn into a “local” and go extremely slowly or not proceed at all, because of possible damage to the tracks. That means that lots of people are trying to get off the train at the same time as a bunch of others are trying to get on. It’s a real mess.

People can get pretty desperate to get on or off. One time, a poor woman, unfortunately, was standing in the middle of the train car, with many people jam-packed between her and a door. She was trying as best as she could to make her way to a door, politely saying “orimasu yo” (I’m getting off) as she struggled to make headway. When she realized time was quickly running out to exit the train, she started saying “orimasu yo” louder and more frantically. Alas, she didn’t make it and the door closed just before she got there. Such is train travel in Japan after an earthquake.

All of that crazy travel to my English school wouldn’t have been too bad except for one crucial fact. After I finished my teaching duties each day, I then took another train to go to a different part of Tokyo to start my studies at Sophia University by 3 p.m. Those classes lasted until 9 p.m. every weekday. The only saving grace as far as train travel went, was that after I finished up my university classes each night, it was so late that it was way beyond the rush hour. So returning home was a lot less stressful.

In any case, each weekday was extremely long for me, and I didn’t have much energy left on the weekends to do much but rest up and get ready to start the routine all over again on Monday. Our tiny apartment didn’t have a bathtub or shower inside, so every weeknight after dragging myself home, I would head on over to the local public bath to get cleaned up.

As a gaijin, I stood out like the proverbial sore thumb among the Japanese enjoying their bath, especially since I was six feet tall. There’s nothing like being naked in front of a bunch of strangers, I can tell you. But eventually, I got used to it. After the bath, you experience a wonderful feeling when you step out into the nighttime air with steam still coming off your body, especially in the winter months.

I got paid pretty well for teaching the English lessons, but I had to pay for train fare and my lunch on weekdays with that money, in addition to paying for household costs. I got paid at the very end of each month, and the Executive Language School automatically deposited my earnings in the bank across the street.

Most days, to save money, I would eat at one of the ubiquitous noodle shops. I like noodles, but you can get pretty tired of eating them after a while. One time, I was out of cash, so I went to the bank to withdraw some of my funds. I told the bank teller that I wanted to withdraw 500 yen (about $5 in those days).

As politely as she could — and the Japanese are always polite — the teller said, “Mansfield-san, you only have 500 yen in your account, and you must leave at least 100 yen in it to keep it open.” Boy, was I embarrassed! I swallowed my pride and asked for only 400 yen instead, which would keep my account open, and give me more than enough to get my daily noodles. She gave me the money, and I quickly exited the bank, hoping no one else had overheard the conversation.

Every June or so, Japan has a rainy season, meaning it rained every day most of the day. I can deal with rain, but after a while, my poor shoes turned white around the sides from the salt (remember, Tokyo is next to Tokyo Bay, so there’s plenty of saltwater that gets sucked up into the clouds and turned into salty rain).

I couldn’t afford to buy new shoes, so I just had to keep putting polish on the sides of them every couple of days to cover up the white. As I looked around me, I seemed to be the only one with this problem. Of course, the Japanese had adapted to dealing with this issue long ago. It was just gaijin like me — already very noticeable because of our foreign-ness — who stood out in the wrong way. But again, I got used to it after a while. There was nothing else I could do, anyway.

The Executive Language School used a big, thick book of lessons, basically a script for the teachers to follow for every class, from Lesson 1 to Lesson 300. It was very rigid, and you would get in trouble if you got off-script. Free conversation with beginning learners was a definite no-no. We did everything using a question and answer format.

The beginner lessons were simple. Question: “Is this a pen?” Answer: “Yes, this is a pen.” Of course, I would hold up a pen to make sure the student knew what a pen looked like. You’d think this drill would be easy for most beginner students. However, for some of them, it was still quite a challenge. When you hear the answer, “Yes, I am a pen” one time, that’s okay. You just correct the student and try again. But after multiple times receiving the answer, “Yes, I am a pen” you have to restrain yourself from reaching across the table and strangling your student.

However, you muddle through as best as you can, trying to hang onto your sanity. Some students are, of course, a lot better learners than others. They’re a joy to teach, at least in relative terms. But then you get the students with odd quirks. One Japanese executive got very frustrated when he made a mistake, which was often. When that happened, he slammed the palm of his hand against his forehead and exclaimed, “dame da!”, which is Japanese for “that’s bad.” Each lesson was 40 minutes long, and this poor fellow slammed himself in the head about every minute or so. He had signed up for the full 300-lesson package, so come hell or high water (hell, usually), he was going to learn English, even if it killed him, which it could easily have done.

Ironically, this executive was a bigshot owner of a company, so when he invited me to go to lunch with him one day, I was happy to go because I wanted to see him in his element, speaking only Japanese to everyone around him. Also, I knew I wouldn’t be eating noodles at that restaurant. He had a commanding presence in the restaurant, with everyone there knowing his exalted station in life. In that setting, he was the exact opposite of his persona in the English classroom. He didn’t slam his forehead even one time.

Another student had this incredibly irritating habit of pausing before answering a question I gave him and then sucking in his breath very slowly like a reverse hiss. Other than that odd habit, he was a pretty good student. But after 40 minutes of listening to him make that sound, I was ready for the looney bin, for sure.

Overall, I liked my students and enjoyed watching them progress in their English language ability. You could see their confidence building almost daily. Some of these students were learning English because they needed it for their jobs. But others were doing it just for the satisfaction of learning a new language that’s very difficult for the Japanese. And some of them learned English because they wanted to travel to English-speaking countries, a practical reason, of course.

After I graduated from Sophia University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 1977, we packed up our bags and departed the Land of the Rising Sun to return to America. I was totally exhausted, but I knew there would be more adventures to come. And there were, but that’s a tale for another time.

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Thanks for reading. Copyright Terry Mansfield. All rights reserved.