Japan offers Taiwanese working vacationer a chilly job

As part of an effort to promote winter tourism to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, the Hokkaido Tourism Organization, in cooperation with Japan Rail-Hokkaido, is offering a job to a working vacationer from Taiwan, with superb cold endurance a must.

The successful candidate will help with various winter events that run from Feb. 1 to March 12, 2010, in Hokkaido, including the Sapporo Snow Festival, the ice village on the frozen surface of Lake Shikaribetsu and skiing activities in Furano.

According to Tsai Ya-wen, a manager at Taiwan-based Rich Media Group, which has been commissioned to promote the campaign, the organizers will provide the vacationer with a round-trip ticket to Sapporo, and accommodation and transportation expenses during the work period.

As the successful candidate will need to work for three to four hours consecutively in temperatures of 10 to 30 degrees Celsius below zero, the ability to resist the cold will be a very important criteria in assessing the qualifications of the applicants, Tsai said.

More than 100 applications have been received to date, ahead of the Nov. 8 deadline, she said.

Two-phase interviews for the applicants are scheduled for Nov. 16 and Nov. 20, and the successful candidate will be announced Nov. 21, she said.

From Dec. 1 until the date of departure, the successful candidate will be required to post thoughts and feelings on preparations for the job on his or her personal blog every week, Tsai said.

During the work period, the worker will also need to post updates on his or her work situation or provide tourism information every day on the blog, she said.

The Taiwan-Japan working holiday program was launched June 1.

Those aged 18-30 are eligible to apply for the special visa that allows the holders to stay up to 12 months in Japan, during which they can undertake incidental employment.

The second round of working holiday visa applications since the program's launch are being accepted Nov. 2-6 at Japan's Interchange Association in Taipei.

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