Nova Teacher’s ‘Volunteer Spirit’ Doesn’t Fall On Blind Eyes

Japanese officials were reportedly shocked and awed by images on television last week of Nova teachers in spite of not having been paid for months, turning up at shuttered branches across the country to do their duty.” We had no idea there were people willing to sacrifice so much to do their jobs” according to one official. “We will definitely have to look into this more closely” said another.

Unpaid Nova teachers shut out from their place of employment, showing up for work seemed to hit a nerve with many Japanese last week. “In Japan we don’t have a culture of volunteerism, I was very very surprised to see young foreign people willing to work in spite of not being paid” explained one housewife “If Japanese are not paid, they won’t work unless they are ordered to do so”she goes on “I understand the Japanese staff was not paid also, but they obviously were expecting to get their money soon. What got into those foreigners?”

This is the question officials in the Japanese government are asking themselves. “We were intrigued to see people not paid willing to volunteer themselves for the betterment of their employer and Japan. Japan needs more of these kind of people.” said a government spokesperson. A fact finding mission will be immediately dispatched to some of the countries these people come from to look into what this is all about. “We don’t foster a sense of volunteerism in our country, so it could be that because of their education or backgrounds, they are more readily willing to volunteer their time and energy, we will be definitely looking closely into this” said the government spokesman. “If in fact there are young people willing to volunteer their time and work for nothing in Japan, we need to take advantage of this for our own good.” In fact the Working Holiday Visa program which was implemented in the 1980′s may need to be revamped in light of this discovery.

“If there are young people from these western countries willing to give their services to us, we would be stupid not to take advantage of it. We had been looking into bringing over and employing nurses and such from low wage countries to take care of jobs for a pittance our people are not interested in doing, but if people from those other countries are willing to volunteer for nothing, then we would be stupid to hire Filipino’s, who would expect to be paid something. . It is much better for Japan to have these others who will work for nothing” an administration official explains.

“While it would be good for our young people to be less selfish and volunteer to do good deeds every now and then, we don’t think this is the sort of foreign value we would like to emulate in the Japanese social system.

“Who would be left to take advantage of it and be the bosses and CEO’s if everybody was a volunteer worker? That would not be good for Japan.”