Need present ideas for a Japanese person.
 

So it turns out I only have one more Japanese lesson until the exam. This means I only have a week to buy a present for my teacher for the last lesson. I'm unsure of what would be or would not be considered appropriate from a Japanese person's point of view. That's why I'm asking for some advise here. Thank you for any help it's much appreciated. Also if it helps my Japanese teacher is female.

You are a good student I think. Have a dinner together is OK in my opinion

We usually buy flowers as a gift for our teacher

A male student asking a female teacher out to dinner? Don't be offended when she doesn't accept because she probably wants to keep her job and doesn't want to appear to be engaging in inappropriate behavior.

A nice bottle of Plum wine; prefarebly Choya, with the plums. If she doesn't drink for some reason she could keep the thought and pass it along, or you'll end up enjoying the bottle.

I'd wait until the tests have been graded ^^.

Good man getting the teacher a good teacher a present!

Hotch: Now where did this come from? :p

Even if the student was female, this would be inappropriate. I would suggest, instead, something fairly unique, but inexpensive. Anything more than ten quid is probably too expensive. The last time I bought something for a female Japanese superior, it was a a $12 genuine handcrafted deer skin dream catcher from New Mexico (where part of my family has historically resided since the 1840s, the other part being across the border in Texas).

Unique, but definitely not expensive. Anything too expensive brings up the same issues as a dinner, although perhaps not quite as blatantly.

I definitely wouldn't play the dinner card for reasons such as: she's my teacher and I respect her, she's about 20 years older than me and she's married.

The main thing I'm stuck with is that if I got her something Japanese she would probably already have one. Any suggestions?

It's old hat, but you don't have the skills to make anything do you? I bought a bunch of those blank fans you can find in craft stores and painted sumi-e on them as gifts. On the cheap side, but i made them all personal and everyone really loved them. Another year (in the UK) finances were pretty rocky but thanks to my nan's garden everyone got jars of home-made jam or chutney. That one might come across a bit more odd in Japan though, I think, especially for a guy.

If you're stuck buying just Japanese things, maybe try and thing of something ordinary but then buy a nicer version that she might not pick up for yourself. What I mean is, everyone buys tea-bags, but most people would consider a more expensive loose-leaf tea to be an acceptable gift item. I don't know, has she expressed any particular hobbies or interests? My old japanese teacher used to bomb about the country going to beer festivals so ~that~ was an easy one. We all just got her booze.

I say to go with something simple. In Japan, teachers are generally not allowed to accept gifts from students, so there isn`t really any specific "teacher gift".

But really, why go with something "Japanese"? She isn`t living in Japan, and may be happier with something non-Japanese.
I mean, think about it - if you were working abroad, would you be thrilled to get something normal and boring from your home country? I wouldn`t... Don`t worry about where she is from. Just get something nice and small, and give it while saying thank you.

I wasn't planning on getting her something Japanese I was just attempting to (and failing to) get across that it would be silly to get her something Japanese.

I was thinking of maybe a plant or an attempt at some cakes. Do these sound like good gift ideas? I also think I should include a thank you letter with the gift, written in the best Japanese I can manage (it'd probably turn out to be an embarrassing mess but that doesn't really bother me).

A pot plant doesn't sound a half-bad idea. It's kind of neutral and unlike cut flowers, doesn't have any romantic overtones. Maybe try and find a flowering plant that won't grow too big and isn't too high maintenance. It's too late for bulbs unfortunately, which is a shame as they're great gifts as you can normally bung them in the garden when they've finished flowering and they'll pop up again next spring, luck holding.

The most common "gift" for the teacher from the student is 寄せ書き（よせがき） if you want to know. Each student writing a card or letter separately is nice but we usually go for this in Japan. Each student writes a small message on it. It's also easy for the teacher to keep.

In Japan, it's not common to give teachers gifts of monetary value unless:

1. The teacher is retiring or
2. The teacher is relocating long-distance.

Then again, this isn't in Japan so you could add a plant or cakes as you said.
Just remember that if you are doing the 寄せ書き or an individually-written letter, make sure to present it the way that that is the main gift, not the other thing (plant or candies).

That would be great to do. However, there are some problems. I don't have contact with the other people in my class and the teacher will be in the classroom before I can see any of them to make one. I am going to a attempt a letter though. Let's hope it's readable. Thanks for the help everyone.

Also I went down to the garden center and the only gift size pot plants they had were cacti and venus fly traps. Cacti are lower maintenance so I chose one over the venus fly traps (also, maybe some people could be impartial to venus fly traps). It has a nice colorful pot at least.

That's great!! I hope your teacher likes it. And I hope I was of some help to you. LOL. :)