A Fulbright Family's Survival Guide to Tokyo by Melinda Pash
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A Fulbright Family's Survival Guide to Tokyo by Melinda Pash To Do Before Leaving Home: Schools: If you have kids, the first thing you will want to do is begin working on school applications. While Tokyo has great public transportation, it will be an easier year for you if you live close to your child's school. But, there is a large international community in Tokyo and the more popular schools fill up very quickly, so get your applications in and begin the process as soon as possible. It is difficult to get advice on international schools as most of your Japanese colleagues will either not have children or their children will attend public schools in Tokyo. Likewise, all expatriates have different ideas about what they want their kids to get out of an international experience, so an opinion is only that, an opinion. Some of the more popular international schools are: American School in Japan (ASIJ)—ASIJ covers grades K-12, follows the American curriculum and grade structure, and requires testing before a child can be accepted. ASIJ enjoys a great reputation, but it is quite far from the rest of Tokyo and sending your child here will likely require an hour to an hour and a half bus ride to and from school. ASIJ also gives preference to students whose parents work for a company that will pay all fees and tuition in full at the time of acceptance. British School—The British School covers grades K-12 (the high school is only recently added) and follows the British curriculum so if you choose here, be careful about placing your child in the appropriate grade. Second grade in the U.S. would be the third year at the British School. The British School has a good reputation among expatriates. Academically, the British School is well known for working hard to prepare students and teachers will work individually with students to get them to the appropriate skills level. There are two campuses (based on grade), so be careful about that if you choose the British School. Also, the British School does not have a bus so you need to get your child to school yourself. Tokyo International School (TIS)—TIS covers grades K-8 and has a "new age" approach to education. All children are issued a Macintosh computer and all work is submitted via an electronic site called Manabi Mon. TIS has a nice campus, including a playground and a private pool. TIS is very popular for the lower grades and it can be difficult to get into those, but many students leave in grades 7 or 8 to transfer into one of the international schools going up through high school. TIS is also open to working with Fulbrighters on fees and tuition so that the stipend covers most of the school expenses. Sacred Heart—Sacred Heart is an all-girls Catholic school and enjoys a good academic reputation. Nishimachi—Nishimachi has a really good acadmic reputation and often wins the city spelling bees. Jingumae International Exchange School (JIES)—This is NOT a well-known international school, but I wanted to mention it because this is where our youngest son went when he did not make it off the waiting list of another school. JIES is an international school (all classes are conducted in English), but is located inside of a Japanese elementary school. The two schools hold "exchange activities" where the Japanese and international students get together for events such as Undokai (Japanese sports day). The school is small, class sizes are small (no more than 1:12 teacher:student ratio). Our 2nd grader really came to love school here. To be fair, though, I have to mention it is not particularly rigorous academically (you might want to put your child a year up from where he/she was in the US) and it was originally established as the Turkish school so about a third of the students have a Turkish background. But, the teachers work hard (are mostly British or American), after school programs are free and interesting, the school bus (within a limited range) is free, and the other kids are really nice. Also, we loved the exchange aspect and our son learned to speak Japanese better than we did! There are many, many international schools in Tokyo, many more than I could list here. The key is to research early and apply early and to find the best fit for you and your family (not necessarily the best school). Housing: The best place to start looking for housing is through your faculty contacts at the schools where you will be teaching. Some of the schools have housing (Sophia, Waseda, Todai, for example). I will note, though, that if you are a family (rather than a couple or a single), on-campus housing is perhaps not your best bet. In addition to having to apply for them (and no guarantee you'll get on-campus housing), the apartments are tiny (around 40-50 meters or 400-500 square feet). We are a family of 4 (2 adults, an 8 year old, and a14 year old) and we ended up with a 70 meter 2LDK (2 bedroom, living room, dining/kitchen room). We felt a bit crowded and stressed. But, convenience of location will matter once you are here, so better small and a bit cramped than to be located an hour or hour and a half train ride from your school or your children's schools. Finding housing is tough here—Japanese apartments often require key money, deposit money, and an agent fee. And, Japanese cleaning standards on apartments tend to be a bit more stringent than in America. Looking online before you come can give you an idea of where/what you might like, but try to enlist the assistance of one of your faculty contacts if possible. (I might also mention that faculty contacts are much busier here than in the US. The teaching load is incredibly heavy as are other college duties. So, it may be difficult for them to get back to you as soon as you would like them to or to help as much as you would like). Moving: Moving to Japan can be very expensive. The US Post Office no longer offers sea mail and the air mail can break your budget. I urge you to explore other options for getting your things to Japan. In our case, we used a Japanese shipping company called Yamato Transport. They offer both air and sea mail at a rate far below that of the USPS. They were also very helpful. If you do sea mail (tanshin), with enough notice they will deliver boxes and packing material to you and pick up the boxes at your home. I will also note that Yamato does have English speakers on staff who are very helpful (in both the US and Japan). You can check out Yamato online at: http://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/english/. Actually, I am noticing that this is the Japanese website—there is also an American website and a toll free number you can call to speak to someone. Items To Bring With You To Japan: MagicJack—This was one of the best purchases we made before coming to Japan. At Best Buy for about $20 you can purchase this device (I advise paying the extra when you set it up to get 2 years of service). It hooks up to your computer and a regular telephone (bring a phone with you to Japan) and gives you a phone number (you choose the state/country) and unlimited free calling to the US (or whatever country you chose). Skype is great, but this device allows you to call about bills and allows family to be able to just dial you up as if you were still home. Also, you can purchase international minutes for a cheap rate if you want. Slingbox—If you have kids you might consider this option (though it does come with certain frustrations). Also at Best Buy, this device hooks up to cable or dish back home and allows you to get American t.v. via your computer. Unless you download the software to hide your true IP address you can't access the full episodes available online at sites like Hulu in the US or Netflix. None of those sites will work here. Computer/keyboard—You undoubtedly are already planning on bringing your laptop. It can get old after a while, though, typing on the small keyboard and you will long for the comfort of your desktop. Before we left we purchased a plug-in keyboard for our laptop (you can also purchase cheap cordless keyboards at Best Buy). It was a good decision. The keyboards in Japan are different. In addition to switching into kanji at the most inconvenient times, the keys are in a slightly different formation, making it difficult to type. We bought a printer here at Bic Camera and it has been okay, but at times we had driver problems mixing an American computer and a Japanese printer. Personal Items: Japan is a wonderful place and you can buy most of what you need here, but bringing a few things from home can make your life much more comfortable. Here is a list: toothpaste (in Japan you can only buy Aquafresh or Japanese toothpaste and some of the Japanese kids' toothpaste is rumored to have sugar in it), toothbrushes (most toothbrushes here are very narrow, not like the ones back home), birth control (whether pills or something else, best to bring it with you!), tampax (you can find pads and tampons in Japan, but the choices are limited and, in my experience, unsatisfactory), medicine (you can get prescription antibiotics here, but for cold/pain medicine and especially kids' medicines, you should bring it with you.