"...the world's cities painted with sound."

A few weeks ago I finished Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities. The book is centered around a fictionalized series of conversations that take place between the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, and the explorer Marco Polo. Polo has been hired by the great Khan to travel around his empire and describe to him its cities. Kublai Khan, with few years left, wants to understand the empire he has created, and of all his advisers he shows the most interest in the stories Polo has to tell. The book contains the descriptions of 55 cities but fairly quickly the Khan realizes that Polo is actually describing the same city over and over again. I'm not sure how far I can go into explaining the plot of a book before I begin to ruin it, so I'll stop there since it's irrelevant to what I want to say anyway (plus, for much better plot summaries go here or here).

After I finished the book I went online to see if I could find a relevant discussion group and stumbled onto something even better. An electronic music label, Fällt, has created something called the Invisible Cities Project. Artists in 24 different cities around the world were asked to make 5-minute field recordings in order to paint pictures of those cities using sound. I listened to a few of them and think the idea is brilliant, even if the execution on a few fell flat.

The Invisible Cities Project can be found on the Fällt website or simply follow this link. If you use the link provided, the recordings can be found by clicking on the grid about halfway down the page on the right. The Moscow and Delhi recordings were cool, not so much for Tokyo.

I'm motherfucking rich!

You see this graph? You know what this means? It means I'm motherfucking rich.

This is the yen-dollar exchange rate for the past three months. This number drove me nuts while I was traveling because my yen-denominated account kept shrinking and I wasn't even getting high for it. Now its on a rebound and at least this guy thinks it will continue to get stronger.

Right now I have all of my money in three very inconvenient places. I have my Citizens bank account in Boston, a wad of Thai bhat that I haven't converted back to dollars yet, and my Citibank Japan account (denominated in yen) that I was able to draw funds from at ATMs in Asia (very convenient if you ignore the 3% transaction fee for doing so).

A 4% appreciation in the yen doesn't mean much to someone like me (I think I have an extra $56 in my account now) but it's like getting free money and that rocks. You would think with a background in Economics from a respectable university I would fully understand why this is happening to the yen, but I don't. It makes me feel better to know that very few other people do either. Reading online financial opinions from February and March, this wasn't something everyone agreed upon. I hope it lasts.

Drug busts, a murder, and the METI

is in trouble! But what else is new?

I spent the entire day yesterday in front of this computer. Most of that time was spent reformatting this blog but I also had time to do some Japan-related searching. I have been in the dark about what's been going on in Japan, and specifically what's been happening to NOVA since I quit on January 13th. On June 13th, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry imposed a 6-month ban on NOVA, preventing it from signing up new students to contracts longer than 1 year (this is aimed at the core of NOVA's business since 90% of their revenue come from new contracts). The sanctions are in response to NOVA policies for refunds on canceled contracts. There is a law in Japan that says you have eight days to cancel contracts without penalties but NOVA claims this law doesn't apply to them. That's where the problem seems to lie from what I've read. Officials at the ministry described NOVA as "organized and malicious" and have received over 7,000 complaints against the company since 1996.

Unrelated, shortly after I left Japan 7 NOVA employees were charged with possession (of cocaine and marijuana) in the Tokyo area. This was all over the national media. The charges result from a drug bust made back in November, while I was still an employee but safely in Nagoya and drug-free. I remember hearing about this at work and it seemed like nothing was going to happen to them. They might still get off but NOVA's instructors aren't new to drug charges. In response to the charges against two teachers in 1994, NOVA started its drug-testing policy. This was fought in court but before I went to Japan I remember I had to sign a form that said I would consent to be tested. According to the union, no instructors were ever required to take a drug test.

Additionally, on March 27 of this year, a 22-year old NOVA employee, Lindsay Ann Hawker, was found murdered in a sand-filled bathtub in Chiba. The police suspect one of her students but he remains at large.

Financially, the company is in rough shape but that's not new. I looked up the following data on Yahoo! Finance this morning. The company's stock has been on a steady slide since at least 2 years ago. When the news of NOVA's most recent troubles was released, the stock tumbled 25% in just a few days.

So what does all this mean? Everyone who maintains a blog is predicting the end of NOVA. They say all of this is irrefutable proof the company is fucked. One guy advised all current employees to not even bother quitting, but to just not return and start looking for another job immediately. I think everyone needs to calm the fuck down. I'm not sure what the steady slide in NOVA's share price means, other than it's a great time to buy if NOVA doesn't go under. As for the the sanctions against NOVA, they're only for 6 months and they can still sign up students as long as the contracts are for less than one year. I know NOVA has recently opened schools in Taiwan and earlier this year some spokesman for the company said they have plans for mainland Chinese schools as well. This is a lot of bad press all at one time, but I don't think I should cross NOVA off of my list of places to apply to.

Nova, Geos and JET

I've already started reapplying for jobs in Japan. I haven't made up my mind to return yet, but I want to at least know what my options are.

I wrote the following email to NOVA's Boston office on July 24th:

Dear Boston Recruiting Staff,

My name is Benjamin Egan and I taught in Japan with Nova for a year. I applied through the Boston office in July of 2005 and was accepted for the February start date, 2006. I finished my contract in late January of 2007 and traveled around Asia afterwards. Now that I've completed my traveling, I am interested in returning to Japan. I was wondering if an additional contract is something I could pursue with Nova and if so, when would be the next available start date? I appreciated the opportunity to teach in Japan and look forward to a good working relationship with Nova in the future.

Thank you very much,

Benjamin Egan

They sent me this reply:

Benjamin,

If you would like to be considered for re-employment, please submit the online application. Once we receive this we will forward it to our personnel office in Japan for approval. Their decision will be based on your past employment record. Thank you.

Regards,

The Recruiting Team
Nova Group Boston
535 Boylston St, Ste 204
Boston, MA 02116
617-437-7977 or 800-551-6682

So I did. I filled out their stupid online application like they've never heard of me and I'm waiting to hear back from someone. If the only way for me to return to Japan is through NOVA, that's fine. I'm not crazy about working for them again, but I could quit as soon as I land (after getting my Visa and cheap flight naturally) and find another job. I don't think it would be hard with a year's experience under my belt.

I filled out Geos' online application on the 26th. Geos, as far as I can tell, is a NOVA clone.

Big disappointment in the past few days came from JET. This is a government program that puts native speakers in classrooms to teach alongside certified Japanese instructors. It's the preferred way to teach in Japan (for reasons I'll address in a moment) and it looks like it might not be an option for me. If I return to Japan, I want to do it relatively quickly and not next spring like the JET program requires for American applicants. They only do one hiring period per year and applications are filled out in September, interviews are conducted in February, and new teachers are informed in April. I'm not willing to wait that long. I emailed someone at the Japanese consulate in Boston and they said that its possible to apply to the JET program while living in Japan, but interviews are only conducted on US soil. Which means it'll cost me $800 to fly to Los Angeles just for the interview if I leave before next spring. I emailed the Boston consulate yesterday and asked if it was possible to do the interview anywhere closer, and the prompt reply I got suggested flying to Guam. I took a quick look online today and found flights from Osaka to Guam for about $560 next February. At least there are options.

JET is far superior to NOVA for a number of reasons. According to this website, JET instructors get paid 3,600,000 yen a year. Working for NOVA I made about 2,760,000 yen a year. That's roughly a 30% pay increase from NOVA to JET. According to my friend Bruce, you don't have to pay for health insurance at JET, but I definitely had to through NOVA. Lastly and most importantly, JET employees work about 200 days each year, whereas NOVA employees work about 250. That includes all vacation time, national holidays, etc;

The only thing going for NOVA is that if I get rehired, I can leave for Japan by October. I'd have to wait at least until April through JET.

多分,日本に帰る

I'm considering returning to Japan.

I've been home for two months now and while I love being back, I should probably be thinking about the future. Right now I work with my dad a few days each week (lawn mowing and maintenance on his buildings mostly) but I wouldn't call it a job exactly. It's probably more accurate to think of myself as unemployed. I've been trying to come up with things I could do with my life, but very few of them appeal to me. Here's what I've come up with:

Moving back to Boston. Daniela is there. I have friends there. The city is great, especially in the spring and fall. Boston is large enough where its possible to find any job that you could want. The problem is that I don't know what kind of a job I want. I could always return to Investors Bank & Trust where I worked right before I left for Japan. It would be easy enough to get my old job back and the money wouldn't be terrible. However, I know that I wouldn't be able to do that for more than a year or so. Mutual Fund Accounting isn't a career choice, trust me. Plus, with a year of experience doing that kind of work, it would make more sense to go to one of IBT's competitors (Evergreen, State Street, Fidelity, etc;) and make more money. However, I think I've decided that no matter what I do it's not going to be about the money. It just seems like such a lame thing to spend so much of your time pursuing. Like Slug said "I'd rather live in a tent than bust my ass to pay the rent." Fund accounting is out. Unless I can think of a job that I would want in Boston, going somewhere new is probably better than somewhere I've been.

I could try to get a job at an architectural firm. I think it's something I would like to do. It's also the kind of job that you find in any big city, which means I wouldn't have to move to Duluth or anything. The only problem is that its a plan for the long-run and I may not be there yet. I don't want to sign a lease in some city, get comfortable, and then decide I want to try something temporary a little bit longer. Like teaching English in a foreign country.

Option three: returning to Japan. I go back and forth whether I want to return or not. A few days ago it seemed brilliant and last night, while talking to Daniela, it seemed lame. What is it that I would gain out of going back? I could improve my Japanese. That's huge. This is also why I would want to return to Japan over going somewhere new. I mean, I don't want to start all over again with French or German. There are still plenty of things to see, especially if I went somewhere new like Osaka or Kyoto. When I think about the things that I like to do the most, reading and learning are at the top of my list. Speaking fluent Japanese is a goal that I've set for myself, and I would improve a lot faster living in Japan than watching anime and reading textbooks here.

I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I think I've already ruled out a few things. That feels like progress I guess.