This post is going to be a total moan fest! Sorry!
I really regret moving here!
There I've said it. It's not a place to live.
I've tried to be positive and find the good here. But the bad outweighs the good. For every good thing, there are 10 bad things!
We've been here for 7 months, and I honestly can't see things getting any better.
I've put leaflets out to get students, but no calls at all. Mikey told me that he called the local kindergartens to see if they would like English classes. They said yes, but only offered 1,000 yen an hour, whereas in the other city, he gets 5,000 yen an hour! If I had known that there was so little interest in English, I wouldn't have bothered putting leaflets.
We can't do anything with the land but have to pay tax on it, 10,000,000 a year, about £5,000, not sure if I have the Japanese right. I get my zeros mixed up.
We've looked into selling it, but to do that, we need to change the name to one of our names. That costs a lot of money. Even if we change the name, we can only sell to farmers as the land is zoned for farming. The zoning can be changed, but that would cost a lot of money as well.
So we are screwed!
Nobody has the time or energy to clear the land to grow stuff. We tried, but the bit we cleared is overgrown again. The few plants we tried to grow have died off. To get the land cleared properly, we need to higher a small digger, but again, no money.
I have searched the internet for online teaching, but most of the sites require a degree or a TESOL certificate. I tried applying by leaving that blank, but the application won't go through. The few that don't require degrees don't need English teachers. I keep checking, but so far, nothing.
I've thought about setting up a web page to get online students, but I have no idea how to do that!
I've spent hours watching YouTube videos on how to make money online, but everything is US or UK-centered and doesn't work here. I thought about making low-content books to self-publish on Amazon, but I think the market is saturated.
I even thought about crowd funding, but it's not a thing in Japan.
Christopher can't find a job. He keeps looking, but there is nothing local, and he can't drive. This is causing a lot of tension between David and Christopher.
I'm tired, hot, and miserable!
Just writing this has me in tears!
I really regret moving here. I know we had no choice, that renting another place in the other city would have been impossible, but here feels like a death sentence.
Just to finish on the one positive thing.
David picked some of the Japanese plums. A lot got blown down, the wind has been crazy.
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| Japanese plums |
David said that you can make jam from these, so I'll see what I can find. He usually makes this nice drink from them, it's very refreshing in the summer.
Could you possibly rent your land to somebody to farm on it? Maybe there are people who would like to do it but do not have enough of money to buy their own farm- renting may make their dream more affordable. However, you would have to advertise outside of your city as locally there may be no need for such enterprise unless somebody needs more land in addition to what they have already.
ReplyDeleteEven renting the land we need to change the name. We are renting one piece of land because my mother in law rented it and we are just carrying on.
DeleteIf you can't get students in another city, 1000 yen/hour locally is better than no money at all if your situation is indeed that desperate. Of course, prices in the countryside will be different than in a bigger community. It's a start though. Sometimes one cannot be too picky.
ReplyDeleteI haven't changed my prices for the past 34 years. The 1,000 yen is what my son was quoted for teaching a group of kindergarteners, it really too cheap, even in the countryside the going rate is 5000 yen an hour. Most private English schools charge that much or more for one kid! I feel part of is that the time for teaching English in a classroom setting has finished. I'm looking on getting online students as I think that is where the future is! Thanks for your comments!
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