Need help worldbuilding: Irish girl with 20k Euro

MichaelR

Hello,

I'm writing a story (technically fan fiction, but all characters original), set in Japan.

One of the characters is supposed to be an Irish girl, age 17, a champion-level traditional dancer. Her older brother went to Japan to teach English and she decided to join and studies at an international school (where the story is set).

But I hit a snag when I found that Japanese international school fees for a year are at least 15000 Euro. Plus she'd need about 5k just to live on (that's a fairly lowball estimate but she can have a lot of "economies of scale" with the brother, to start with they can share a room, and they are not in a big city like Tokyo so prices are moderate).

Their parents are not "fat cats". They are middle-class, perhaps a tiny but upper I'd expect them to chip in to let her study abroad, but 20k sounds a bit much.

She could of course do a part-time job, though I suspect she'd make the most of privately teaching English. (She will muster the strength, and the Japanese language, to start teaching Irish dancing by the end of the story, but she can't rely on it right after landing because of a massive cultural and language barrier, let alone being still in school).

So there's quite a bit to fill in. Where could this come from? Saved First Communion and Confirmation gifts - can one be THAT wise at THAT early age? Any other ideas?

Victor

I can't see someone heading into their Leaving Cert going to another country.

What if the parents were moved to Japan for work and work paid for school? I'm not sure what that does to your plot.

Kidkinobe

The brother was actually a drug dealer and perhaps you have her as drug mule that was traveling to and from china on her weekends, being an innocent looking 17 year old Irish girl, she would be the ideal candidate, she would mule Opium from some rural village in China back to Japan. Of course she would also get into all sorts of grief in with the opium dealers in China, towards the end, she would have to dig deep to find what was the right choice for her, teaching Irish dancing in Japan or becoming a drug lord in China. I would go with the drug lord thing as that would offer more suspense for a follow up book.

Car99

The parents die is an RTA . Life insurance pays out , bro is now her legal guardian and she joins him for a life in Japan.

SirChenjin

An inheritance from a grandparent.

MichaelR

She is intending to study in Japan, or if she can't make that then the States or continental Europe, so is not that worried about her Leaving Cert. The school in question teaches the International Baccalaureate and is properly authorized.

The "inheritance from grandparent" part sounds quite workable, thanks! It's specifically earmarked by the loving great-grandmother for her education and nothing else. I'll also consider the "parents die in traffic accident" option (or just one parent does and the other has moved on). But not sure if it matches the character, but it might. As for the bro he's fresh out of uni as a teacher (bachelor), so a time in JP teaching English is actually a somewhat common thing, they like to hire native speakers at that level for a year or a few years.

km85264

She gets a scholarship to an international geisha school where she has to figure out how to do the Walls of Limerick in a tight kimono and wooden sandals.

MichaelR

I'm inclined to go with "family broke up a few years ago, father has new family, when bro is in final year of Uni mom dies in a RTA" (single-car to avoid adding a revenge motive). Both the mortgage and separately her life were insured. So as the dust settles her options are: live with Dad and his new wife and small kid (where she is tolerated but not really wanted), live alone at age 16 (to make things worse the family home, now mortgage-free, is a bungalow away from public transport, and she'd have to ride a motorcycle everywhere as she can't get a car), or follow bro when he decides to leg it to the *other* island nation at the *other* edge of Eurasia. Or shame bro into remaining which would totally suck and she knows it; she's not at all averse to legging it anyway.

As the story is set in 2017, renting off the bungalow (half an hour's drive from Limerick City) actually provides a nice additional income too. Dad keeps his hands off this money because she's underage and he does not want to get in trouble.

All bases seem covered?

(Geisha joke will surely go in, thanks. The story involves J-pop style singing and dancing so she'll get a snarky comment in about the roots)