“We only hire native speakers.”

This was the sixth time I had heard these words. My mouth turned dry, my face burned, and I felt the familiar sense of nausea. My sixth failure! I tried to protest yet again, the words beginning to sound hollow in my ears. I repeated what had come to me so naturally and convincingly in the first couple of interviews. I repeated I was a “native” speaker, English was my functional language, I was qualified and experienced with a first in Masters in English Literature, had left a successful career in India to join my husband in Japan. I petered off hopelessly knowing none of this made any difference.  The manager, Simon or someone, listened with an insultingly condescending air.

I knew with a desperate feeling that he would not waste his time even glancing at all my hard-earned certificates and the glowing comments from my professors and previous employer. He would simply bin them. At least he was the first person to tell me frankly, if not in so many words, that the problem was with my nationality – the colour of my skin, I thought, reading between the lines. He himself was not Japanese but a Caucasian, and from his accent, American or Canadian. He had sharp blue eyes, very hard and cold when they looked at me. He had an annoying habit of flicking strands of blond hair that fell untidily across his forehead.

I knew with a sinking feeling that what I lacked was not the qualification or the experience but the blond hair and blue eyes, or at least the white skin that clicked in these language schools. Suddenly discarding all decorum and sense of formality so important in Japan, I leaned across and speaking a bit shakily but intensely said just that.

I asked him if he had looked at my qualifications and references in my rather thick file and why could he not at least give me a chance to demonstrate my ability inside the classroom? He flicked his hair. It was clear he was not interested. By the constant overt glances he was giving the clock on the wall, he left me in no doubt that I was wasting his time.  I decided to save what ever was left of my pride, told him his school was losing a good and dedicated teacher, and left with my head held high.

But as I walked out onto the busy Tokyo street, my stomach felt hollow and I could taste the bitterness of failure and humiliation in my mouth. Only six months ago I was enjoying life as a popular and successful lecturer in a college in India, brimming with confidence and passion for teaching. Although I did not expect a similar job, months after moving to Tokyo, I had been pretty sure I could teach in one of the many language schools that had sprung up like a rash all over the city.

However, with every failed interview my confidence sank lower and I returned home with the thought that perhaps I was not good enough even for these very average language schools. My husband comforted me by saying these were just fly-by-night language schools and their very existence depended on selling the western image to attract students. They were not good enough places for a serious teacher like me. I readily agreed although this sounded suspiciously like sour grapes.

Yet, I knew from an acquaintance who taught in one of these schools that the teachers were poorly paid and poorly treated. She was not a qualified teacher but was travelling and working her way through Asia. She taught English simply to afford the months she meant to spend in Japan. She even said the irony was that some of the teachers in the school were themselves not English speakers. They were Europeans but got offered jobs purely based on appearance. So much for the “native speakers only” clause. Actually, many of them hated teaching.

When she saw the look on my face, she cheerfully said if the schools paid peanuts, they got monkeys. But newly arrived in Tokyo with its astronomical prices and a husband who worked all hours of the day to make ends meet, I’d have been very grateful for the peanuts. But I was not even a good enough monkey.

Feeling thoroughly demoralised and rejected, for the first time in my life I almost wished I hadn’t been born an Indian. It is the memory of this disloyal feeling that would hurt and haunt me even years later. I had arrived in Tokyo married to an English husband, very proud to be an Indian, proud of my heritage and culture, proud to belong to my wonderful Indian family and proud of my education and the work I’d done until I got married. Suddenly, lost in a sea of Japanese and Caucasian faces, I felt alienated and not counted. This was 1981 and I hardly saw any Indians around me, not where we lived or where my husband worked and certainly not in the language schools.

It was not like in England or in the US where there was a whole diaspora of my kind. My cousins in the US used to tell me they might as well be living in India! I stopped wearing saris and a bindi and just wanted to blend and belong. I wanted to go back to where I belonged, where I could speak my language, wear the clothes I was used to and eat my food. And be back in the fold of my family.

I stopped applying for jobs and going for interviews.

Until one day. I noticed an advertisement for an English teacher’s position in The Japan Times. What caught my eye were the words “Top-notch teacher required.” “That is me,” I thought and before the familiar doubts crept in, I picked up the phone and dialled. This was no language school but a prestigious private University for women. I was connected to the Director of the Language Department who sounded American or Canadian – a “native” speaker. He sounded friendly but I stopped him when he asked me my nationality.

I said I would rather not give an interview on the phone but would come over if he wanted to speak to me. I could hear the smile in his voice when he said of course we could meet and speak. He turned out to be a charming Canadian and the interview went well, I thought. I apologised if I had sounded like I had a chip on my shoulder by refusing to answer questions on the telephone, particularly about nationality, as I felt that might have ended his interest in talking to me further about the job. I felt I’d have a better chance if we actually met and talked. He laughed and said he understood, but nationality was not important for universities; quality was.  He said he was seeing a few more applicants and would call me. The job was for the new term following the summer hoIidays and it may be a while before they got in touch. Hmmm, the “don’t call us, we will call you” trick! I walked out thinking he seemed a very nice person but that was the last I’d see of him.

We went back to India for our holidays and I managed to put aside my frustrations for some time. On the morning of our return, I was in deep jet-lagged sleep, after what had seemed like an interminable journey back. The phone ringing sounded very distant and muffled. Suddenly, I was jolted from my heavy, almost drugged  tiredness by a ring and crawled to the phone. It was the director from the University calling to ask where I had been as this was the third time they had tried to get in touch and did I want the job? I was washed and dressed and on the train in 30 minutes.

The kind and friendly Canadian director  left to be replaced by an equally kind and friendly Japanese director. Mr Abe was new to the post and depended on the senior teachers to help keep the department running. I was one of them. He and I hit it off from the start. I had written an article about what sort of language teachers Japanese schools and students needed (perhaps prompted by anger of the initial rejections) which had been published in the The Japan Times. This had been translated and published in other major Japanese newspapers like the Asahi Shimbun, and my own department had put up a blown-up copy of the article on its notice board. This had greatly influenced Mr Abe’s attitude towards me.

I treasured our relationship and loved my job and students. Although I was not allowed to teach literature initially as this was only taught by Japanese teachers, that had changed with time. Apart from the language courses, I now taught two literature courses designed entirely by me, one on poetry and another on Shakespeare. I had other responsibilities. New teachers were sent to my class to observe my teaching and I then had to observe theirs and give feedback. This was never easy as I knew most teachers disliked being observed and “judged,” and I tried to make this as painless, informal and friendly as possible. Empathy was easy as it would be a long time, if ever, before I forgot what it felt like to be rejected.

I was doubly happy for having got a job with a good University when the economic bubble in Japan burst. Language schools started closing everywhere. Suddenly there was not much work for language teachers. Redundancy was rife. University teachers, though, knew their jobs were secure and I was grateful to be one of those and not someone working in a fly-by-night language school as my husband had put it.

One morning my director told me there was a new teacher they might be trying out initially on a short-term contract and he would be sent to observe my teaching; would I then observe his teaching and give feedback? I always geared myself up mentally for such responsibilities as I knew I owed it to my department but also that someone’s career and future might depend on my feedback.

Ten minutes before I was due in my class, I was marking some papers and heard a discreet cough. I looked up and saw someone apologetically peeping into my room and a pair of nervous blue eyes looking at me. There was something vaguely and disturbingly familiar about the eyes and the face. Then I knew when he flicked his blond hair anxiously. Simon or someone. Offering him a handshake and a coffee, I said, perhaps a bit brusquely, that I had just a few minutes before my lesson.

Suddenly, putting down his thick file of certificates and references, I asked him if he remembered me. He didn’t. When I reminded him of the last time we met, his jaw dropped. He started stammering an embarrassed apology that was balm to a wound that had perhaps not completely healed. And yet, hearing how his had been one of the schools that had been forced to close down and how desperate he was for a job, any trace of lingering resentment evaporated. These had been cruel times for teachers. I stopped his stammering by thanking him and saying I was actually grateful to him for rejecting me. I had to smile at his shocked face and explain that had he given me the job, I too would have been made redundant by now. In fact, had I succeeded in any of the six interviews, I’d perhaps not have found this job. Sometimes failure is the best gift of all.

Rani Rao Innes is the senior partner and lead trainer of Link Communications, a specialized communications skills company based in the UK. She has regularly presented courses and training workshops for private and public business sectors as well as students and teachers in the UK, Belgium, Malaysia, Japan and India. She has also been active in theatre for 30 years and was the director of Canterbury Players in Kent for eight years.