Yes, there are only two.
The first is the long Christmas holiday you get. This is a bonus considering that Christmas is just another work day in Japan and most employers are not interested in whether it "goes against your religion" to work on this day. So, while your friends with with better benefits and higher salary jobs are slaving away in the office, you are back home eating turkey sandwiches on your parents' couch and watching infomercials.
The second good thing about being a teacher in an eikaiwa is the free gifts you get from your students. Not a week goes by that at least one student hasn't been away on vacation somewhere. Now, while they may not feel like bringing me home a present from France, Greece, Egypt or the like, one of their classmates did it last week so they now feel obligated to do the same (isn't guilt wonderful?). So, I receive an interesting mix of food (mostly desserts....which explains the weight gain since I started teaching), strange bookmarks, postcards, etc. I occasionally strike gold with cool bottles of wine, sake, bath salts, silk scarves, kanzashi, bags and the like.
Do these reasons make me sound like a selfish bitch who's only interested in material gain? Maybe. But when you realize the crap that most eikaiwa teachers put up with, I think you'll see I'm justified in celebrating the two things that make going in to work a little more bearable. So let me sit on my high horse and enjoy my "rare, famous" cookies from Kyushu.
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