[jasonbvr]

Alright, here's the deal. If you teach someone English and they pay you for that service without reporting it and paying the taxes (regardless of your visa status), that is illegal. Now if you meet someone, have an English conversation and they happen to give you a cash "gift," (again, regardless of visa status) it is not technically illegal. There is also another method of going about this which is even more acceptable. The person "paying/giving" you such generous "gifts" can go and buy a gift card that can be used at numerous chain stores, malls, and convenient stores for the amount of the agreed gift.

This is the "legal" way to teach "illegally," and most Japanese know this. It is just the same as with prostitution. If you pay for a massage but "unexpectedly" get intimate with the masseuse, this is not really in the control of the business's owner. Let's take another example of say something like murder to show the screwiness of Japanese laws. If you kill someone but the police can't prove exactly how or when you did, what they will prove (and most likely get a confession for) is that you abadoned a corpse. This is the first thing killers are charged with and the hardest for a defence lawyer to get you out of.