[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

I don't necessarily agree. I find that I really enjoy teaching. I have a degree in English, which somewhat limits my opportunities back home, but it opens a lot of doors in Japan. I'll admit my Japanese skills aren't that great, but they are improving regularly, being the only foreigner in the area makes speaking Japanese rather necessary.

I`ll both stick to my opinion, and agree with you at the same time. You sound like you`re a real teacher - that makes a big difference, and puts you in a category apart from the remaining 95% that are "teachers" in Eikaiwa.
I know of quite a few people who came to Japan with big dreams of learning Japanese - and who jumped on with the quickest path here of a chain school....
Only to end up working the entire day, and spending the rest of their time in an apartment with 3 other foreigners or out with the rest of the teachers - never learning more than a few phrases, and going home with a bad opinion of Japan.

As for those sad souls on gaijinpot, I know many of them, and they would be just as unhappy at home (and a few are) as they have been in Japan. The fact that they are/were teachers in not really relevant.

Being a teacher isn`t necessarily what made all of them the way they are - they`re just concentrated in that field. But I think that English teaching, as a whole, pushes a whole lot more people in that direction. If you`re alone in a foreign country, and feeling stress from it, chances are your feelings are going to be a mess... And you`ll be looking for friendship/support from others in the same boat. If they`re negative, that is going to make a big impression on you.

My own upbringing was not very pleasant; you can't pick your parents, and there are no entitlements. You simply have to take what you are given and try to make the best of it. That said, I wouldn't have had it any other way. It seems that many who come from "perfect" families are often the most dysfunctional of people.

Somehow I get the feeling that our families are in different categories of "unpleasant". I`m not an angsty teen complaining that my mom didn`t let me do a lot of the things I wanted.
There are dysfunctional families, and then there are dysfunctional families.