Nova, Ex-pat, mercurial, under-30. He ran to football fame on the field and made fortunes in movies. But his world was ruined after

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Ex-pat English teachers stranded by collapse of Japan's Nova schools

By David McNeill in Japan

Published: 05 November 2007

In a country teeming with cute cartoon characters, few are cuter or better known than the Nova bunny. The pink mascot stood in the doorways of language schools across Japan, promising a short educational encounter with an exotic foreigner. But now, thousands of teachers and students have found that the bunny bites, hard.

The collapse of Nova, Japan's biggest employer of foreigners, has left 4,000 teachers – including more than 900 from the UK – stranded without work, money and, in some cases, a place to live. "There are people who don't know where their next meal is coming from," said Bob Tench, an official with Nova's union. "It's very distressing."
The union is offering a lessons-for-food programme to former Nova students, 300,000 of whom have lost out on classes they have paid for. The British embassy in Tokyo has fielded dozens of calls from distressed ex-pats and several airlines are offering Nova teachers discounted tickets home.
"I came to pay off my college overdraft and credit card and now I'm living on pot noodles and cheap rice dishes," said Alec Macfarlane, who joined Nova in the summer after graduating from Liverpool University. Like many teachers, he is officially homeless, has not been paid for months, and is depending on the charity of friends and family in the UK.
The unravelling of one of Japan's most popular high-street companies has riveted nightly television viewers. The ubiquitous bunny fronted the nation's largest private language chain, controlling nearly half the market for English-language teaching; two generations of Japanese had their first and sometimes only encounter with a foreigner in a Nova classroom. But while the company's aggressive cost-cutting helped fuel Japan's language-learning boom, its president, Nozomu Sahashi, was criticised for his stingy hiring policies and take-no-prisoners' marketing.
Nova's slide began earlier this year when the government ordered it to close temporarily for posting misleading advertisements, and banned it from selling long-term contracts. With students abandoning it and suing for refunds, it filed for bankruptcy last week, crippled by debts of 44bn yen (£185m).

Mr. Sahashi has fled the company's offices and is nowhere to be found. In the meantime, Nova is promising that it will be back in business once it sorts out its financial problems. But furious ex-pat bloggers have already posted their verdict on their websites. "I'd like to boil that bunny in a pot," wrote one.


Motorola's decision to make a cartoon rabbit its spokesmodel in China underscores the importance of the mercurial under-30 demographic to technology companies there.


mercurial Show phonetics
adjective LITERARY
1 changing suddenly and often:
a mercurial temperament
She was entertaining but unpredictable, with mercurial mood swings.

2 lively and quick:
a mercurial mind/wit


under (LESS THAN) Show phonetics
preposition
less than:
All items cost/are under a pound.
The discount applies only to children under (the age of) ten (= younger than ten).
If you get under 50%, you've failed the exam.
NOTE: The opposite is over.

under- Show phonetics
prefix
used before a word to mean 'not enough' or 'not done as well or as much as is necessary':
These potatoes are undercooked.
We're all overworked and underpaid.
His boss says he's under-performing (= not doing as well as he should) at work.
Compare over- at over (MORE THAN).

mer・cu・ri・al

━━ a., n. 機敏な, 快活な; 移り気な; 水銀の［を含む］; （時にM-） 水星の; 水銀剤.
mer・cu・ri・al・ism　n. 【医】水銀中毒.

no·va (nō'və)
n., pl. -vae (-vē) or -vas.
A star that suddenly becomes much brighter and then gradually returns to its original brightness over a period of weeks to years.

[New Latin (stēlla) nova, new (star), nova, feminine of Latin novus, new.]

(日本) Nova 倒閉案

Nova English School - Japan 200 x 266 - 69k - jpg www.all-about-teaching-english-in-japan.com	... working at nova, japan, ... 143 x 247 - 11k - jpg www.grassrootdesign.com	NOVA Fails to Pay English Teachers 230 x 230 - 25k - jpg www.japanprobe.com	Japan Likes Me 588 x 441 - 53k - jpg www.jimnova.com

expatriate Show phonetics
noun [C] (INFORMAL expat)
someone who does not live in their own country:
A large community of expatriates has settled there.

expatriate
adjective
an expatriate Scot

expatriate
verb [T] FORMAL
to use force or law to remove someone from their own country:
The new leaders expatriated the ruling family.