You're often the only one.
ALTs are frequently the only foreign staff member at a school. Colleagues are kind, but it can be hard to get past polite chat.
Teaching English is one of the most common ways people move to Tokyo, and one of the easiest ways to end up surprisingly lonely. You might be the only foreigner at your school, your eikaiwa shifts run into the evening, and your coworkers change every few months. Here's how teachers build a real social life in the city.
ALTs are frequently the only foreign staff member at a school. Colleagues are kind, but it can be hard to get past polite chat.
Eikaiwa teachers often work evenings and weekends, exactly when everyone else is free.
Teachers from the same company can live an hour apart, so after-work hangouts rarely happen.
Contracts end and friends move on, so you rebuild your circle more often than most.
Buy Me a Matcha shows you people in Tokyo who speak English and also want new friends. You match, pick a café and a time that fits your shifts, and meet one-on-one over a matcha. Free, and not a dating app.
It can be, especially for ALTs who are the only foreign staff member at their school or eikaiwa teachers who work evenings and weekends. Most teachers who build a good social life do it through hobby groups, other teachers and meeting people outside work.
By joining school activities and staff events, meeting other ALTs through trainings and groups, joining hobby clubs and language exchanges, and using friend apps to meet people outside teaching.
Use your days off: weekday daytime classes, cafés and museums are quiet, and other shift workers are free then too. Morning running groups and weekday hobby sessions also fit an evening schedule.
Both. Japanese friends help you feel at home in the city and with the language, and other international friends understand your experience. A mixed circle also lasts longer when contracts end.
HelloTalk or Tandem for language exchange, Meetup for group events, and Buy Me a Matcha for meeting one person at a time over a coffee or matcha, in English, at a time that fits your schedule.