From Assistant Language Teacher To A Life With WordPress

I arrived in Japan a little over a decade ago to experience the country, its culture, and all it had to offer in all its glory.

This was a singular goal for me since primary school, and I pursued it without putting much thought as to how I’d live there if I ever made it to Japan.

I just knew I needed to experience living in Japan one way or another, and the ticket to do it was through teaching English as an “assistant language teacher”, ALT for short. So that’s what I did.

A very cliche story for many of us foreigners who happen to find their way here.

I put in the work to get a proper TESL/TESOL certification, passed an interview with one of the big ALT dispatch companies, and before I knew it I had a one-way ticket to Japan!

I was going to live the “dream” as an assistant language teacher teaching English to kids in junior high schools in Japan.

The city I was placed in was Sapporo, Japan’s 5th largest city, located in northern Japan on the island of Hokkaido. Sapporo is a bustling urban area with a population of approximately 1.9 million people.

I couldn’t have been luckier since I was secretly crossing my fingers hoping not to get placed in the countryside.

But after arriving, I would soon come to realize that the hefty price tag this path would lead me on was not toward the dreamy and adventure-filled Japan lifestyle I originally envisioned.

So let’s take a hard right and switch gears a bit to talk about money, a juicy topic that never fails to get everyone’s ears to perk up.

I’ll give it to you straight.

At the height of my ALT career, I earned ¥2,812,043 JPY ($24,443.20 USD). This was before taxes.

After taxes, this came out to be ¥1,788,400 JPY/yr ($15,545.36 USD). That’s ¥149,033 JPY/mo, so approximately $1295.41 USD/mo.

Rent was about $400 USD. I also had monthly student loan payments I needed to pay. Tack off another minimum payment amount of $200 USD, which doesn’t include costly transfer fees and money lost through the exchange rate.

Let’s not forget about utilities, transportation, food, health insurance, and the good old Japanese pension plan foreigners are obligated to participate in.

The amount my monthly salary dwindled to after basic expenses and taxes ranged between $200-$400 USD.

I eventually “graduated” from an ALT to being directly hired as a solo native English teacher at a private high school, but the raise (if you can even call it that) in pay was minimal.

Let’s just say that the first half decade of my time here in Japan was filled with many dark days, angst, and anxiety.

That was until I discovered WordPress.

Growing Up

I grew up in a low income family and am the eldest of four brothers.

My father’s highest level of education was a high school diploma. My mother was an immigrant from the Philippines with only some college education.

Although she never finished her college education, my mom had stable employment at a respectable job serving as the breadwinner of the household.

My father, on the other hand, frequently jumped from one gig to another.

He was the type of person who would rather spend his time doing something absolutely useless rather than figure out a way to help feed four mouths and put food on the table.

My mom would often bring up the discussions of money with my dad, and those would inevitably end up in some sort of argument. Arguments which I would often overhear.

At such an early age, I was massively aware of our financial situation and what that implied in terms of living. I knew that the things we’d be able to buy and do would be limited if we didn’t have money.

I knew that my mom worked hard, always putting her children first. I couldn’t say the same for my father.

In fact, he was too stubborn for his own good. He was always so full of himself and wanted his own way in whatever job he did, so there were many times he’d find himself unemployed.

I often found myself angry at my father mainly for not getting his priorities straight. He never took accountability for anything.

Money can always somehow be earned. You can always work for it, and you’ll have it. But time is something that can never be recouped, and he wasted so much of it doing trivial things.

I’ll never forget the time when I realized how embarrassed and ashamed I was of him.

In high school, I was accepted to attend this big conference called NYLC (National Young Leaders Conference) and I was able to fly across the US to experience democracy in action and meet members of Congress in Washington DC.

In one of our meet-and-greet sessions, I was with two friends, and we were able to meet with a senator. The experience was exciting and at one point the topic of our fathers’ occupations came up.

One friend said his dad was a cop. My other friend mentioned his dad was a retired navy veteran.

When it came around to me, I didn’t immediately answer. I actually scratched my head and let out a sort of nervous laugh.

“Oh, my dad? Hahah. He uhh.. He…”

The friend beside me turned to me and laughed, “You don’t know what your dad does?! Hahah”

I reactively laughed along, “Hahaha, yeah… um..”

Mind you, I was a sophomore in high school and for the first time in my life I was having a discussion with a member of congress, someone who in my mind was this grand figure. Someone important. This is what I thought and to be in front of this person and say that my dad didn’t have a job, that he didn’t do anything for a living — that was embarrassing.

My hands were sweating profusely as trying to come up with something to say was so nerve wracking. I didn’t want to make something up, but at the same time, I didn’t want to say my dad was unemployed either.

I did eventually manage to come up with an answer. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty but it was all I had.

“My dad works with computers.”

This was true. Kind of.

“Oh, really?” the senator said. “And what sort of things does he do with computers?”

I started sweating again as I didn’t anticipate the followup question. I somehow was able to soldier on though.

“Well, he’s an assistant in a computer lab, and he maintains the computers there…”

“Ah, I see. Interesting.” the senator replied.

And that was that. The discussion finally moved on. And while that interaction was probably only a few minutes, it felt like an eternity.

Here’s the story behind the full truth.

At the time, my dad was a volunteer at my younger brothers’ elementary school to watch over the school library during after school hours, and it would be for an hour or two.

He figured that since he didn’t have a job, he’d try to be “useful” by volunteering to be the after school library parent and at the same time be in a position to easily pick us all up.

What he really did during his volunteer time, since the library was almost always empty, was he installed KaZaA (a peer-to-peer file sharing application) on all the school computers and illegally downloaded music. It’s all he ever did during his time there.

Looking back on this, I find it to be unbelievable, hysterical even, that this is what he did. He could’ve used the web to do something more productive like search for a new job, or learn something useful.

But, no. Instead he chose to download music on all the school computers all the time. He was always so busy going from one computer to the next to check on the download status of the mp3s that were downloading.

He’d then go to each computer to burn the mp3s on CDS using a software called Nero Burning Rom.

Oh how so busy my father was…

This was the image that was running through my mind when I was asked what my father did for a living.

This was only one of the hundreds of instances of how my father behaved and was the root of many arguments in the house. There was always shouting. Crying. Slamming of doors. Periods of not saying anything to each other for days. This was a pattern that went on for years. It was so mentally taxing for everyone.

My brothers and I couldn’t stand these arguments to the point we couldn’t wait to move out.

When a recurring toxic behavior continues for so long, trust erodes, and eventually breaks. And that’s exactly what happened.

I’m not sure how my mom put up with him for so long (we’re talking 25+ years long), but they eventually divorced. It was for the best actually. My father lost his wife. And lost his sons as well.

After that meet-and-greet experience, I knew for a fact that I never wanted to be like my father. Never. If there was one good thing my father bestowed upon me and my brothers it was that he served as the perfect role model of what not to be in life. It sounds harsh, but this was our reality.

I made a promise to myself that if I ever had a family, I would do everything within my human capacity to provide the best possible life, that I would be a father and husband they could say they’re proud of, and that I would always do whatever it takes to live the life we want.

You could say this little micro-moment is representative of the cause for my drive to continually work hard and remember what my real priorities in life are, and why I do the things I do.

It was like my mind was instantly re-wired to think and act differently after that moment.

From that point, everything I did was done with precise intent. I always made sure that my time was spent moving toward a goal. No matter what I was working on, I made my time count.

University life

I was never a straight A student in my life, but I wasn’t below average in my studies either. I always felt I had to work two or three times harder than everyone else to reach the baseline of anything.

I worked my butt off to get accepted into UC Irvine, the university of my choice. I got in by a hair, but under probationary conditions. My writing level wasn’t up to the UC standards so I needed to sit out on my first year of courses for my major, which was Japanese. Instead, I had to take and pass this intro writing class for the first semester.

It was really stressful because if I didn’t pass, I’d be out. And I remember really struggling with the class. I eventually passed. Barely.

For me, it just felt like a never ending cycle of struggling.

Japanese studies and the level of pacing required to keep up with the curriculum was too fast for me. I ended up switching majors to East Asian Cultures. The more time spent retaking courses, the more student loan debt I was piling on.

It took me five years to graduate, but I made it somehow. I was a first-generation college graduate, and while that was great, I had a little over 40K in student loan debt waiting to be paid off.

Living in Orange County with a degree in East Asian Cultures, I could say there weren’t exactly many jobs out there for me.

With my looming student loan payments creeping up from deferment, I really needed a job. That’s when I discovered it was possible to work in Japan teaching English.

It was harsh times. I was living in the living room of a house with seven other people, and my part-time gig as a barista wasn’t cutting it, so moving to Japan to teach English didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

I applied, interviewed, and got accepted to one of the big dispatch companies in Japan, and I was off!

Little did I know I was just simply disembarking off one struggle bus, and hopping onto the next one.

Japan Life

So here I was in Japan as a freshly minted ALT and I had no clue what was going on.

It was the first time to live in a new country, work in a new country, and have a full-time job.

All the Japanese I studied in university didn’t do much for me since speaking was what was essential here. I was basically starting from zero in this new foreign land.

I brought along all the saved money I had when coming here, but apparently it was not enough to cover the basic living expenses I needed for two months. I borrowed a loan from the company I worked for to help me out a bit.

I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t really have much of a choice either. Payments for the loan were taken out of my salary automatically. I probably didn’t see my first full salary until the latter part of my first year on the job.

To say living was hard would be an understatement.

Even after getting my first full salary, I already came to realize that I really needed to save whatever amount I could to stay afloat. In addition to my normal ALT job, I worked two other English-teaching side jobs as well.

This wasn’t “living the life”. This was surviving. My time was spent being too busy trying not to be poor.

I was tired, exhausted, and to a certain extent a little depressed.

Hokkaido winters last for a good half year here, and I greatly underestimated my ability to hold out for the first season.

I couldn’t afford proper winter clothes, which are essential for surviving Hokkaido winters. So I always just layered up on all the t-shirts I had when I was living in my 1LDK apartment.

I didn’t turn on the heater to avoid expensive gas costs (which I knew I couldn’t afford to pay anyway). I’m not sure how I survived, but I was freezing every morning and evening. I was only ever warm when I was at my schools, or any indoor environment that wasn’t my apartment to be honest.

Whenever I was invited out to eat with colleagues, the thought of whether I could afford to do that was always at the back of my mind. To maintain my social sanity, I opted to bite the bullet many times and paid up. But it would always be back to paltry living for up to several weeks after.

This naturally translated to not having very many friends. The very few people that I could actually call my friends ended up finding better jobs back in their home country, so they left Japan. It was lonely.

There were many times when I walked, what added up to be many kilometers, to and from my assigned schools just so I could save a few hundred yen on transportation costs. This would pay for a small “meal” I’d pick up from the convenience store and that would be my dinner.

During my university days I was a casual social smoker. But after living in Japan for a bit, this horrible habit amplified into consuming a pack a week. I don’t smoke anymore though.

I’m not going to lie, smoking helped me cope with my days. But I also did it for the practical purpose of curbing my appetite so I could save on meals. There were also times when I would stave off my hunger with only peanut butter and protein shakes.

Yet somewhere amidst all this chaos, I met a partner, got married, and we had our first child.

Time had flown by so fast without me even realizing it and financially I was still in more or less the same situation I was when I first got here.

I was not happy with this. My partner was also anxious about it too. In a way, I felt somewhat guilty for bringing my own burdens into my partner’s life. It’s not how I envisioned myself entering a relationship. I always wanted to be in a financially stable position before starting a family. But what we plan is not always what life has in store for us, right? My partner and I had a few heavy discussions that made me reevaluate my plans.

Was I really on the path to reliving my childhood and becoming like my father? The difference between me and him was that I wasn’t doing useless and unproductive activities during my free time. Or, was I? Or, maybe I was just focusing my time on the wrong things.

To stay grounded, I constantly reminded myself of my why, and with the birth of my first child, there was a switch that flipped.

Life was no longer just about me.

This in turn started a domino effect of me taking big moves to make a change. A big change.

Learning How To Code

After going through a whole lot of soul-searching and career tests, it was clear that I wanted to break into tech in some form or another. It was a field that was much more suited toward my personal interests and natural talents.

I knew that if I wanted to have any sort of chance of breaking in, I’d have to do a lot of studying, networking and resume-building. Since I was coming from a non-tech background with nearly zero experience, this was obviously going to take some planning and a lot of time.

After being directly hired by a private high school, I had a little bit more free time and autonomy during my work day to do what I want.

You could bet your bottom dollar I was on my computer educating myself on everything there was on how to get a tech job.

I quickly learned there were so many different avenues to get started and it was totally overwhelming. So I decided to start out with the basics and thought I’d go back to revisiting my HTML & CSS skills first.

My first encounter with these languages goes back to when I had a Xanga account. Using its “Weblog”, I’d often mess around with the HTML formatting when writing posts and I’d always be fascinated with what kind of changes were made when using different tags.

I jumped right in by taking some free courses on Codecademy. I took its HTML, CSS, & JavaScript courses, but I didn’t feel like I was making progress toward anything. I think most of it had to do with the fact that everything I was learning was contained on and restricted to the platform. Additionally, there was a lot of “handholding” involved while going through each coding exercise. Eventually, I moved away from the platform to try others.

It’s also worth mentioning that during this time, I wasn’t immediately sure as to which area in the industry I wanted to get into, or rather, which area would suit me best.

I ended up learning a bunch of programming languages and taking many different courses on various platforms. Platforms that really excelled my learning included Udemy, Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning), The Odin Project, and Code College.

The first programming language I spent some serious time studying was Python. The book I used for learning it was Learn Python The Hard Way by Zed Shaw. A lot of my fundamental programming knowledge came from this language and book. Other programming languages & frameworks I learned and tried out included Django, jQuery, Swift, PHP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails.

Frameworks I touched upon included Bootstrap, Foundation, Materialize, PureCSS.

I also became comfortable using my Mac Terminal, setting up test environments, different CLI tools, and version control tools like Git & GitHub. I even got into web design for a bit, explored the Adobe Suite, and learned the business side of freelancing and entrepreneurship.

I was literally all over the place for my first couple years of learning and trying to find my niche.

Eventually, it was through a freelancing course that suggested I should start a personal brand, and invest in a personal website. And that made sense. I was planning on creating an online portfolio anyway, so I decided to finally invest in web hosting and a domain. The suggested platform to build a site on was of course WordPress.

As I delved deeper into the section of the course that discussed different aspects of WordPress, what struck me the most was that the instructor pointed out how there were many career options in this field.

Since WordPress is open-source, folks are able to freely get under the hood of the software, understand the code, make contributions to improve it, modify it, and even push out their own custom solutions to make available for public use. Because of this, profitable businesses have been made around a single WordPress plugin or theme.

Careers aren’t limited to being just a web developer in the WordPress world. You could be a designer, digital marketer, content creator, support technician, SEO expert, and the list goes on with many more options.

Unlike most traditional jobs where experience is acquired after getting the job, with WordPress you can create your own experience. You do not need permission to start contributing. You also don’t need a university degree or Ph.D to land a career in WordPress. All you need is curiosity and a desire to learn.

This little nugget of a fact about WordPress that I never realized intrigued me.

I started to explore more about the history of WordPress, learned about its community, and its mission: democratize publishing.

I’m a big believer in purpose, and for me, that mission is what makes WordPress great.

WordPress believes in empowerment, the means to express yourself freely, and the idea of sharing & building upon ideas.

Not to mention that, at the time, it powered over 30% of all websites. Fast forward to present day and that percentage is now 43.3%.

It was clear to me that the ambition of WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg (and CEO of Automattic Inc.) is to make the web a better place both through its open source software and the community.

Many of the values and beliefs of the WordPress brand aligned so well with my own that I knew almost instantly that this was the road for me.

When thinking about what I really wanted out of a career, I realized that there’d be nothing more fulfilling than to be a part of a crew that democratizes publishing.

By this time, my web development skills and learning were well honed-in and exclusively focused on WordPress and I definitively knew this was the route I wanted to take.

Whether it be through freelance web development, or a web development agency, the future of my career would be with WordPress.

WordPress Life

Throughout this whole journey, there was a book I read called “The 4-Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss and there was this one quote regarding the value of money that particularly struck me.

“Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the ‘freedom multiplier.’”

When coming across this quote, I paused for a bit and it made me reevaluate my own situation and the number of W’s I controlled (which were none).

The What (aka the work) — I wasn’t in control of what I wanted to do. Teaching English was not what I wanted to do. It was a means to pay bills. I should mention that it wasn’t so much that I disliked teaching, but rather it was the poor (or should I say toxic) working conditions that eventually steered me clear from continuing on.

The When (aka the time) — I wasn’t in control of when I wanted to do it. Being at a school on a set schedule from 8am to 5pm M-F, and every other Saturday, was not something I enjoyed.

The Where (aka the place) — I wasn’t in control of where I worked. Like with any job associated with a brick & mortar establishment, you need to go to the place to work. That means the radius for where you can live in relation to the place of work is limited. I didn’t enjoy living in the area I was in at the time, nor the small apartment my family of three was cramped in.

The Who (aka the people) — I wasn’t in control of whom I worked with. In an office environment, you don’t get to choose where your desk is and with whom you’re situated around. In my case, I hardly talked to anyone because 1) I didn’t want to be there in the first place, and 2) no one really cared to talk to me. I had literally zero colleagues that I could call an actual colleague, a “colleague” being a person you get along with at work at the most basic level.

In any case, this helped me put my own situation into clearer perspective, and served as the main motivator for me to keep on trekking.

I knew there would be only one of two web development career paths I’d take: freelancing or working with a company.

Both were viable paths since my only goal was to be in a position that allowed me to grow my skills further.

In a way, I was already sort of freelancing and had a project already in progress with a hair salon. I managed to convince my stylist to let me build their website just so I could get some work under my belt.

In the meantime, I also researched which companies I’d be interested in applying to and listed them up. There were quite a few that had my attention, but to start off, I figured I’d aim high and see if there were any positions at Automattic first.

I read many great stories (on HeroPress actually!) of how some folks made it into Automattic and their journey to get there. It was really inspiring reading those stories, along with the different stories of other contributors as well.

I was looking for a junior frontend position but there weren’t any posted at the time. I did see there was an opening for a Happiness Engineer position (support technician) which seemed very interesting. It involved helping people, working with WordPress, and a whole lot more. It was everything that I knew I’d enjoy doing, so after reading the job description, I decided I’d go for it.

Meanwhile, I wanted to also become more involved with WordPress and learn more about the community.

I started helping out in both the WordPress.org and WordPress.com support forums. I contributed to the forums every day whenever I had a chance. I’d hop on in the mornings before work, sometimes during my breaks while at work, and then again in the evenings.

Contributing in this way helped me learn so much about the fundamentals of WordPress and the kind of things people wanted to do with it.

It also felt good to know whenever I’d get positive responses from the people I helped after solving their issues.

However, I wanted to do more. I noticed there was a WordCamp coming up and it was being held in Kyoto. WordCamp Kyoto 2017 would be my first WordCamp that I ever attended.

Traveling was still a big expense at the time (remember I was still on a teacher salary) but I convinced my wife that this was important and I needed to go to this. Fortunately, I was able to find a good deal on both a flight and hotel, so it was off I went!

The Japanese character, 縁 (えん), pronounced as “en”, was the theme of this event. The character has many meanings but in the context of this event, it took on the meaning of “connection” or “connect to” as the official catchphrase.

Honestly, I can’t think of any other way to summarize my first WordCamp experience than with this single word, connection.

My time spent at my first WordCamp is a story for another time, but to sum it up, my experience was 100% positive. I learned a lot through the talks that were given. I also contributed to the translations of some plugins and themes, which was a new way of contribution for me. I was also able to network with many members of the Japanese WordPress community as well.

It felt good to be a part of something positive, and from that point I was hooked.

WordCamp Tokyo was the next WordCamp being held that year, and you bet I attended that one too. Like what I did in Kyoto, I learned, contributed, and networked.

Later that year, I applied to Automattic. After passing an initial resume screening, I went through two different project assignments, two interviews, and finally a trial before making it through. The whole process took three months in total!

For nearly a month though, my days started at 6am and ended at 1am when I was doing my trial on top of my normal full-time job as a teacher and parenting.

I could go on about how arduous that process was, but it would only add another lengthy chapter to this already massively long essay, so I’ll save it for another time.

In short, my days were long and tiring, but what kept me going every day was remembering the promise I made to myself back in DC, and the thought of a brighter future for me and family.

If the trial didn’t pan out, I was completely ready to hop right back on my freelance hustle, but considering how far I came to this point already, a part of me also really wanted to get this job.

I remember getting a ping in the evening in Slack for my final interview which lasted a couple hours, and then finally receiving word that I was being recommended to HR for hire. It was nearly 12am by that time and I still had work the next morning, but I couldn’t sleep at all because I was just way too psyched. The next evening we celebrated with pizza & a much needed craft beer ?

Present Day

It’s fascinating to think how my lifestyle dramatically changed ever since discovering WordPress.

Revisiting Tim Ferriss’ freedom multiplier concept, I could say that I was now doing something that I loved. I was no longer constrained by a fixed time schedule. I had the choice to work wherever I wanted. And the colleagues and members of the WordPress community I interact with on a daily basis are some of the most friendly, talented, and passionate groups of folks I know.

I’ve been able to travel to several locations to meet with amazing people because of WordPress.

July 2018 — I traveled to Shirahama, Japan for my first team meetup. One of the highlights there was that I led a small WordPress workshop for kids, which was a lot of fun. Our team meetup was actually featured as a story in Yahoo Japan News!

September 2018 — I attended WordCamp Tokyo 2018.

October 2018 — I attended my company’s first Grand Meetup in Orlando, Florida.

April 2019 — I flew to Seoul, South Korea for my second team meetup.

September 2019 — Orlando, Florida for my second Grand Meetup.

November 2019 — I traveled back down to Tokyo to attend WordCamp Tokyo 2019. I was also set to attend WordCamp Asia, which was going to be held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2020, but it was unfortunately canceled as the global pandemic had begun.

Not only has WordPress allowed me to leave a meaningful impact on others in a variety of ways, but it has also allowed me and my family a lifestyle in Japan that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought was possible.

We’ve since moved out of our tiny 2LDK apartment and now live in a house conveniently located in the city and close to a major subway line.

We’re no longer penny-pinching like we used to when we go out to do our grocery shopping.

When I work, I usually switch between working from home, working from a cafe, or from a coworking space. I find I’m usually most productive when I’m working from a cafe or nice coffee shop, so I go out when I can.

My wife has been able to quit her job (one which she really disliked) and now has time to pursue her real passions.

We’ve been able to let our son experience and participate in a wide range of extracurricular activities like skiing, piano lessons, club basketball, and club soccer. Skiing is my son’s favorite, so during winter, we usually go at least twice a week since the slopes aren’t that far from us.

We also had our second child in the latter part of last year, and so I’m currently taking advantage of a 6-month parental leave (fully paid) to spend quality time with my baby girl and family. My father-in-law half-jokingly told me recently that if anyone took that amount of time off in a Japanese company they’d probably be told to just quit.

Conclusion

I have so much to be grateful for, and a lot of what I owe goes to WordPress.

My journey is far from over though, and there’s still a lot I want to do to give back.

I’m nowhere near as knowledgeable as other folks who have been with WordPress since the beginning. In fact, I came in around when WordPress was at version 4.6 I believe.

However, I’m committed to sharing everything I’ve learned that has helped me get to where I am today.

I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the vast amount of free information that has been published on the web about WordPress.

And now, with how far WordPress has come along, it doesn’t have to take a lifetime to learn how to build a website anymore. You can be up and running in a day.

Unfortunately, not all newcomers “get” WordPress right away. I’ve come to realize this through the 20,000+ support interactions I’ve had so far in my daily work with WordPress users. So in that regard, I feel there’s still a lot of improvement that can be done on the documentation and education front, which is an area I’m hoping to contribute more to in the coming year.

As a former teacher, with a knack for taking complex ideas and breaking them down into easily understandable explanations, my quest is to democratize simplicity & minimalism for site creators just getting started with WordPress so that they can build their sites with ease, and get on with doing what they do best.

While I was able to leave my life of teaching English behind me, my passion for helping others through education has never left, and my hope is to continue educating others about WordPress for as long as I can.