When Meg Mahoney’s husband Jake saw an ad in a paper for English speakers to teach English in Japan, Meg was 15 years out of Carleton, 15 years away from Japanese study, and two years into motherhood.
Since graduation Meg had focused on dance although her major had been Asian studies and she had spent six months in Japan on a Carleton program. She had been teaching movement to toddlers in pre-school settings and also had a two-year-old at home. She thought she had too many toddlers in her life and was looking for something different. The ad for a teaching job in Japan came at just the right time.
Meg, Jake and Corey headed to Japan after Meg brushed up on her Japanese. Previously in Japan, she had stayed in cities, studied tea ceremony, and wandered through temples. However, her assignment in Japan was in a small, traditional, rice-growing, village. The people of the village were appalled that Jake was an at-home dad caring for their toddler. They organized and convinced the local authorities to provide day care for Corey. At the excellent day care Corey picked up Japanese easily and, in her mind, fit right in. Meg thought that most of the villagers had never seen a blonde, blue-eyed baby and consequently she was treated a bit differently; she was never given a uniform even though all the other children had one. Having a toddler opened a lot of doors for the family and everyone in the town knew Corey and her parents!
The first year was really hard. Meg and Jake decided to stick around for a second year because they wanted to change the experience into a positive one. The first year Meg worked six days a week and was partnered with 27 Japanese English teachers and she was often in a crowded teachers’ room with many smokers. She taught half-time in a high school and in the other half, she rotated between three junior high schools. She felt the educational system was very restrictive and it all seemed suffocating. The English teaching was strictly focused on a very difficult test taken as a college entrance exam. Prior to the national program that she was part of, there was very little emphasis on spoken English.
By the second year she was only teaching five days a week and they were much more comfortable speaking and understanding Japanese. The village was very thankful to Meg for teaching the children. Grandmothers would bow to Meg as she walked down the street and thank her for coming. And whenever local newspapers wanted to show a change of seasons, they’d find the Mahoneys and take a picture of them enjoying cherry blossoms or autumn colors. Meg summarizes their two years in Japan as challenging but worth it. They have been back once and both children have studied Japanese.