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Working toward pleasure
By Geoff Botting
April 4, 2004
Ask 30-year-old Miho why
she dated a foreigner, a Canadian in his late
30s, and she reels off a list of compelling
reasons. "Foreign men have the kind of sensitive
heart that you don't find with Japanese guys,"
she says. "When women are speaking, they listen
intently. After I confided this to him, we
started going out."
The couple met through an English conversation school, where she studied and he
taught. They got to know each other better at a going-away party for another
student who was leaving the school. From that point on, Miho and the teacher
began meeting frequently outside of school and eventually they began dating.
She even accompanied him on a trip to his hometown of Toronto.
It's a common situation at English conversation schools throughout Japan that
foreign teachers date their Japanese students, says Yomiuri Weekly, although it
adds that it shouldn't really come as a surprise. After all, the schools bring
together large numbers of adults of both genders, with the teachers being
around the same age as many of their students.
Yet at the same time, such relationships have been known to fizzle and burn in
a spectacular way, leaving nasty consequences for all involved, according to
the magazine.
That was the case recently with a 60-year-old Japanese woman who sued the
school where her 48-year-old American boyfriend worked, claiming he had bilked
her out of her life savings.
In an attempt to head off such embarrassment and trouble, most foreign-language
conversation schools have regulations governing social intercourse between
teachers and students. A few have outright bans.
The notable one in this group is Osaka-based Nova, Japan's largest chain of
such schools. When foreigners sign their employment contracts at Nova, they
promise never to associate with their students outside the school.
Not everyone is happy with the prohibition -- and it's not just the teachers.
The Osaka Bar Association presented Nova on Feb. 24 with a recommendation to
rescind the clause, calling it "excessive and offensive to public order and
morals."
Nova, nonetheless, has no intention of complying. "That regulation is in place
to protect both teachers and students, whose cultures and customs are
different, from trouble," a Nova representative tells the magazine. "This
school employs more than 6,000 foreigners, and we wouldn't be able to live up
to our supervisory responsibilities were not such a regulation established."
Most of the other major chains of conversation schools take milder measures.
Geos prohibits teachers from meeting students outside school if the students
are minors, and Berlitz relies on their teachers to use their "discretion as
adults" when coming into contact with students.
"The real reason for the prohibitions is because the schools don't want the
students to start taking lessons from outside the schools. If the students
learn English through their own relationships, then the schools lose out
business-wise," says Katsuji Yamahara, a member of the National Union of
General Workers, which represents large numbers of foreigner workers in Japan.
"I
think the argument about preventing trouble is
just for show," he says.
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