Alastair Lamond, a 47-year-old Briton, is like many English-speaking foreigners. He began working in Japan as a teacher of his native tongue.
He later landed a job selling English-language educational materials.
"I liked teaching very much and was satisfied when I helped students, encouraging them to expand their life opportunities. But I didn't necessarily want to teach English. I was always interested in business," said Lamond, sales director at englishbooks.jp, which offers the learning materials mainly online.