Posts Tagged ‘Living abroad’

As much as I like making random sweeping statements about the various different nations and nationalities I have got to know over the world, the real interest for me lies in comparing the different places it is possible to live and teach English- including the ones I don’t know. Many such discussions are possible, but the (often unspoken) thing that is always at the back of the minds of people when speaking about this is: which country is better? And which is the best? A difficult question to answer? Yes- until now!

The key to working out a scientific method to calculate the best country for teachers was to ask myself, what other things can I make an 100% certain answer to the question “Which place is best” about? Art galleries? Nah! Restaurants? Getting closer… Ah ha! Bars!

And so was born the World TEFL Beer Index. By people living in different countries answering the questions below and adding up their points, we will collectively be able to decide once and for all which the best TEFL country in the world is. Here we go:

1. Assuming you had no expenses at all, not even food and rent, how many litres of the cheapest beer in the cheapest bar (not restaurant and not from a shop) could you buy with a typical monthly starting teacher’s salary? (Tokyo- 250,000 yen, 800 yen a litre= about 313 litres)
2. Ditto, but this time for a very swanky bar in a posh part of town (Tokyo= 71)
3. Ditto, but for the cheapest local beer in cans or bottles (500)
4. If a Guiness is 1 (little hangover likely) and homemade scrumpy cider is a 10 (hangover guaranteed, even if you just have one, with death possible), how bad a hangover does the local cheap brew tend to give? (6)
5. Ditto, with a local quality brand (3)
6. How many minutes do you have to walk from where you live to buy beer? (12)
7. How many hours a day is that place closed? (0)
8. How much does a cheap but liveable single flat cost, in erms of number of cheap local beers in a bar? (Tokyo- 57,000 at 800 yen a litre= 69 litres)
9. If you go drinking in a cheap bar, how many times a night are you likely to have to speak to someone you don’t want to? (1)
10. How many beers are a local lady or gent who fancies you likely to need before they will start a conversation with you? (6)
11. Ditto, but for a snog (10)
12. Ditto, but for a snog with a stunner (12)
13. How much will the locals’ opinion of you go up or down with each litre of beer you drink? (plus or minus percent) (+5)
14. If you are drinking with the locals, by how many litres of beer and you likely to have to change your input to fit in with the others? (2)
15. How many places are there likely to be for you to crash if you can’t get home after drinking? (2)
16. How much will the most expensive one cost? (In litres of cheap beer in a bar) (13)
17. How much will the cheapest one cost? (Ditto) (zero)
18. How many hours a day are normal bars closed for? (12)
19. How many hours a day are bars with longer hours closed for? (12)

Click on “comments” to see the marking scheme:

The full story here:

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No, David Attenborough has not had a change of career plan and joined the list of famous TEFL teachers (a teacher I worked with had worked with JK Rowling in Portugal and had been a trainer when the ex-singer from the Christians failed his Via Lingua CTEFLA). Instead, little to his knowledge, he was presenting the best metaphor of trying to accept and alien culture I have yet seen. Well, I say he didn’t know, but this is ATTENBOROUGH! (as the Japanese version of the DVD had it) we are talking about here…

Anyhows, my moment of ATTENBOROUGH! inspiration came in “The private life of plants” when he was explaining why the world’s biggest flower stinks like rotten fish. And when I understood why it looked like a giant private part, or maybe both combined, and smelt like Newhaven docks on a bad day it made me feel a little bit better about it. And then I thought- much as I understand, still never want to see that again…

And so it is with cultural differences: a bit of explanation of why people roast lambs’ heads in shop windows or fire their guns straight into the air does help you accept and understand- about 5%. The other 95% of acceptance comes with time or not at all, and in the meantime you can just practice your best Japanese gaman (putting-up-with-it-ness) or move out of Borneo to somewhere the flowers smell more to your cultural liking.

In today’s International Herald Tribune, Tokyo is said to be the 4th most livable city in the world and the most livable large one- the top three being Munich, Copenhagen and Zurich and all pretty damn small, if not as claustrophobically tiny as Dublin. I don’t know if the high ranking of Tokyo surprises any of you, whether you have or haven’t been here, but I am an unabashed Tokyo lover and so more unbelieving that anywhere in or near Switzsnoreland could come even close.

Reading between the lines of the article,

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