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| Wrestling |
 |
| Baton twirling |
 |
| Balloon animals |
 |
| Magic |
 |
| Unicycles |
 |
| Traditional dancing |
 |
| Trying stilts |
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Another festival: wrestling, unicycles, magic
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|
| Wrestling |
|
| Baton twirling |
|
| Balloon animals |
|
| Magic |
|
| Unicycles |
|
| Traditional dancing |
|
| Trying stilts |
Hi there... was just browsing through Sapporo blogs and came across yours. Interesting! It's not so common to find professionals working in Sapporo (as compared to partners/english teachers), so I'm very curious how you got there (and perhaps too lazy to find the answer).
ReplyDeleteMy wife's from Sapporo, and we've been going back for the last 10 years or so (currently living in Adelaide, Australia)... and I love Sapporo. But it's hard to find professional work there for non-fluent Japanese speakers from what I've been able to find (other than teaching English which I'm a bit too well established for). Would love to spend a year at least working in Sapporo... any advice?
Hi!
DeleteI ended up in Sapporo by chance. When I was still a grad student my Swedish university wanted me (well, all grad students) to do half a year or so somewhere else. At a conference in Mexico City I ran into two guys from a university in Sapporo that were very nice and we hung out a lot during the conference days. They also seemed to be doing interesting research so I asked if I could visit them for half a year or so.
They said yes, so when I got back to Sweden I asked my supervisor if I could go to Japan for half a year or so and he said that as long as it was half a year when I was not supposed to be teaching or something like that, I could go.
So I spent six months in Sapporo, then went back to Sweden and graduated. After getting my Ph.D. I applied for a scholarship for doing two years of research in Japan, which I got. When that money ran out, I got hired by some other people and they still have money so I am still in Japan :-)
As for working in Sapporo, I do not have that much experience but like you I have also heard that most "normal" jobs require you to know Japanese at least fairly well. People who know very little Japanese tend to teach English, work in restaurants/bars/prostitution, or do tourist related things. Almost all my foreigner friends in Sapporo speak Japanese much better than I do, and then it seems not to be too difficult to get a normal job.