11/13/2003?@?@The Word Half
Let's face it -- Japan is a racist country. They try to hide their behaviour behind the curtain of ?ecultural difference?f but the truth is that there are deeply ingrained racist attitudes on the part of most Japanese. Newspapers often report eyewitnesses at crime scenes saying that the criminals were ?eforeigners?f, only to have the perpetrators caught a few days later, and it turns out they are all Japanese. A politician last year, before the World Cup, said that Japan has to prepare itself for foreign football fans raping Japanese women, and another politician said recently that Japan should curb tourism because foreigners commit crimes. The fact that elected members can stand up and say such garbage and not be kicked out of the party shows how easily Japanese people accept racism.
My students often tell me it?fs because Japan was a closed country for so many years, that it is not used to foreigners. Well, perhaps they have a point, but there have been non-Japanese people here for at least 60 years. It is time to get over it.
One thing that bothers me, more so now that I married a Japanese woman and plan, one day, to have children, is the term ?ehalf?f. Half what? This is what is commonly called a person with a Japanese parent and a non-Japanese parent. It?fs used in everyday speech as well as on the news (there was an election recently in Japan, and one of the candidates was referred to as being half, since her father was Australian) and most people don?ft seem to find it offensive. It?fs hard to imagine NBC news calling Mariah Carey ?ehalf?f, or even, for that matter, mentioning her ethnic background at all.
When I bring this point up with my wife or my students/friends, they often ask me ?eWhat do we call a person like that then??f My answer is ?eHow about their name??f
11/26/2003
One of the paradoxes of Japanese culture is that Japanese people will say that they are very polite, perhaps too polite. And while it is true that there are elements of politeness in Japan that we don?ft have in North America, and the language tends to be very polite, there are some rather rude things that drive me nuts.
For example, most Japanese people have no problem with just pushing past you without saying excuse me or even acknowledging your existence. Toronto and Nagoya have roughly the same population, and yet I?fve been knocked into, pushed aside and brushed past so many times in Japan that I can?ft even count them. Nagoya station, the major train station, is a nightmare. I will be standing still, leaning against a wall waiting for someone, and in the course of 20 minutes will be brushed against or hit with the edges of bags without a simple excuse me or a sorry. I?fm standing still! I?fm also 6?f2 and about 240 pounds, so it?fs not as if I?fm hard to see.
The same with getting on and off trains and getting in and out of elevators. Far too many times have I been trying to get off a train or out an elevator and someone knocks into me. The really fun times are when I?fm waiting for a train, standing in line, and people from behind me cut in front of me and push past people getting off the train to get on the train. Not only are they cutting in line, they are also not letting people get off the train first before they get on, which I assumed was a basic tenet of civilization, along with wash your hands after you use the bathroom and don?ft eat your young.
An ex-coworker of mine lived for 2 and half years in New Zealand, where he became used to the ?eladies first?f rule, as it is sometimes called in Japan. He flew back to Narita airport and at an escalator he let a woman go first. She didn?ft look at him but went ahead, followed by about 8 other people who pushed past him and didn?ft say a word. He then that he was back in Japan.
I think the real problem here is that people don?ft get angry in Japan. They don?ft even get miffed, and shying away from confrontation seems to be the rule rather than the exception. In Toronto if someone pushed past me to get on the train while I was getting off, I would say something. It?fs hard to imagine that happening. I should learn some Japanese swear words, or even how to be sarcastic, and use it. Maybe I could start a revolution.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Sep-03 The Hip Hop Guys At My Station
For some reason, every night a group of young Japanese men (usually but occasionally girls) gather at the train station near where I work (and live) and do this half-assed hip style dance. I say half-assed because mostly they just bob their heads, high five one another, attempt some circa 1982 break dance move which ends up with the person on the floor. Or, they get bobbing along and then just quit, putting their heads down, hands on their hips, silently mulling over where it all went wrong.
The strange part is that they aren`t asking for money, as far as I can tell. Nor are they part of some street performance art, or a guerilla music video. The station isn`t a major one as this area is mostly suburban. So, what are they hoping to accomplish? Some local level of fame, their names passed around in a junior high school math class? Perhaps it`s for chicks, though the kind of girls who would be attracted to break dancers who bust a move in a suburban train station are probably the kind you want to stay away from, for fear of serious mental defect or for getting in trouble for keeping them out past their bed time.
To add the general confusion of the station a few BMX riders attempted tricks in the station as well. The wickets open up to a wide hallway, that connects one side of the station to the other, and also has a string of stores, mostly the kind you find yourself in after coming home from work beat tired. Once again no monetary gain is apparent in their lame attempts to perform stunts such as bunny hops and wheelies, and more often than not they end up on the floor, the tire wheels spinning. There doesn`t seem to be any animosity between the two groups, but they tend to eye each other wearily. I can see the start of an urban epic comic series - Hip hoppers vs. BMXers, maybe jazz it up by giving them special powers.
There are also a few guitar players who sit at the other end of the station and belt out their heartfelt, if not exactly tuneful, songs. On Sundays, in the city, in a park called Central Park (which is mostly just concrete and patches of grass over top of a underground shopping complex) groups of people belonging to various sub-cultures gather round and share in their obsession. Notably a group of greasers, complete with leather jackets and pompadours, a distorted Asian verison of Sha-na-na, play 50`s rock and dance as if Dick Clark were presiding over the entire proceedings. People flock and stare, flash photos, laugh and talk about it, but the greasers seem unfaze. They continue on, twisting and shimmying. They must have jobs, perhaps regular ones where they wet their hair down and put on a tie, dreaming about next weekend, when they can cut loose. A Fight Club for men who can`t let Elvis go.
For some reason, every night a group of young Japanese men (usually but occasionally girls) gather at the train station near where I work (and live) and do this half-assed hip style dance. I say half-assed because mostly they just bob their heads, high five one another, attempt some circa 1982 break dance move which ends up with the person on the floor. Or, they get bobbing along and then just quit, putting their heads down, hands on their hips, silently mulling over where it all went wrong.
The strange part is that they aren`t asking for money, as far as I can tell. Nor are they part of some street performance art, or a guerilla music video. The station isn`t a major one as this area is mostly suburban. So, what are they hoping to accomplish? Some local level of fame, their names passed around in a junior high school math class? Perhaps it`s for chicks, though the kind of girls who would be attracted to break dancers who bust a move in a suburban train station are probably the kind you want to stay away from, for fear of serious mental defect or for getting in trouble for keeping them out past their bed time.
To add the general confusion of the station a few BMX riders attempted tricks in the station as well. The wickets open up to a wide hallway, that connects one side of the station to the other, and also has a string of stores, mostly the kind you find yourself in after coming home from work beat tired. Once again no monetary gain is apparent in their lame attempts to perform stunts such as bunny hops and wheelies, and more often than not they end up on the floor, the tire wheels spinning. There doesn`t seem to be any animosity between the two groups, but they tend to eye each other wearily. I can see the start of an urban epic comic series - Hip hoppers vs. BMXers, maybe jazz it up by giving them special powers.
There are also a few guitar players who sit at the other end of the station and belt out their heartfelt, if not exactly tuneful, songs. On Sundays, in the city, in a park called Central Park (which is mostly just concrete and patches of grass over top of a underground shopping complex) groups of people belonging to various sub-cultures gather round and share in their obsession. Notably a group of greasers, complete with leather jackets and pompadours, a distorted Asian verison of Sha-na-na, play 50`s rock and dance as if Dick Clark were presiding over the entire proceedings. People flock and stare, flash photos, laugh and talk about it, but the greasers seem unfaze. They continue on, twisting and shimmying. They must have jobs, perhaps regular ones where they wet their hair down and put on a tie, dreaming about next weekend, when they can cut loose. A Fight Club for men who can`t let Elvis go.
Monday, September 01, 2003
27/08/2003 Japanese TV
I was back in Canada for nine days, for something I will get into later. Going back home is always such as whirlwind - you lose a day traveling back, so you end up leaving on Thursday at 1:00 PM, fly for 12 hours, and arrive on Thursday at 12:00. That alone would do your head in, but add to that the noise and bustle of an airport, plus all of sudden the volume has been turned way up, it leaves you more than disoriented.
I was rather busy on this trip, so I didn’t get much of a chance to watch TV. I caught a few shows here and there, but for the last few years I only watch a few channels, such as CNN and CTV Newsnet, and of course Simpson and Seinfeld reruns, the Daily Show, and a few other randomn tidbits. One of the mainstays of North American culture is the rerun - you could be lost in the jungles of the Amazon for two years, drinking tree sap and licking poisonous frogs, but as soon as you were rescued you could find the Star Trek episode where Spock has a beard in a matter of minutes.
I do miss TV though, at least English speaking TV. I have the basic cable package in Japan, which means I get about 12 channels, and 2 of them are shopping networks. There’s about 8 hours of English TV a week, some of which is Sex and the City reruns at three in the morning. Lots of cheap and bad movies that the Japanese networks buy - Raw Deal, Strategic Command, Cliffhanger, the kind of movies that have biggish stars in them, but the ones that don’t get mentioned in their filmography. I’ve gotten into ER and CSI, two weekly shows that Japanese TV airs. What happens though is that once they show all the programs in a season, they pull the show off and wait for the next season to arrive, usually a few months to a year or so later, but then don’t show it at the same time.
So, I watch Japanese TV. Attitudes to Japanese TV mirrors the attitude to living in Japan in general - it’s exciting and confusing at first, then it become common place, then it degenerates into boring and annoying, something you do because you have no other choice. There is a highly-developed star system in Japan, and it seems most of the time there are only a handful of actors in Japan. I’ve had the surreal experience of watching a Japanese TV show with one actor on it (often called ‘tarento’ in Japanese English), a commericial comes on with the same actor, change the channel and there he is again, on a different show.
Last night I watched a program where a two comedians went to a soba restaurant to see soba being prepared. (Cooking shows are big in Japan, often having a multitude of stars going to restaurants and tasting the food, all of which is described, with crystal meth enthusiasm, as being delicious.) The two stars watched this chef explain how to make his special brand of soba. But here is where it got weird - in the corner they had to the two stars, superimposed over the screen, watching themselves watch the chef make soba, giving comments of not only themselves, but also on the chef. But most of the comments were the same as the comments they made when they first watched the chef make the soba (what can one really say about making soba, anyway?). It was more than surreal, it was at some goofy Disney on acid level beyond surreal.
This is entertainment?
I was back in Canada for nine days, for something I will get into later. Going back home is always such as whirlwind - you lose a day traveling back, so you end up leaving on Thursday at 1:00 PM, fly for 12 hours, and arrive on Thursday at 12:00. That alone would do your head in, but add to that the noise and bustle of an airport, plus all of sudden the volume has been turned way up, it leaves you more than disoriented.
I was rather busy on this trip, so I didn’t get much of a chance to watch TV. I caught a few shows here and there, but for the last few years I only watch a few channels, such as CNN and CTV Newsnet, and of course Simpson and Seinfeld reruns, the Daily Show, and a few other randomn tidbits. One of the mainstays of North American culture is the rerun - you could be lost in the jungles of the Amazon for two years, drinking tree sap and licking poisonous frogs, but as soon as you were rescued you could find the Star Trek episode where Spock has a beard in a matter of minutes.
I do miss TV though, at least English speaking TV. I have the basic cable package in Japan, which means I get about 12 channels, and 2 of them are shopping networks. There’s about 8 hours of English TV a week, some of which is Sex and the City reruns at three in the morning. Lots of cheap and bad movies that the Japanese networks buy - Raw Deal, Strategic Command, Cliffhanger, the kind of movies that have biggish stars in them, but the ones that don’t get mentioned in their filmography. I’ve gotten into ER and CSI, two weekly shows that Japanese TV airs. What happens though is that once they show all the programs in a season, they pull the show off and wait for the next season to arrive, usually a few months to a year or so later, but then don’t show it at the same time.
So, I watch Japanese TV. Attitudes to Japanese TV mirrors the attitude to living in Japan in general - it’s exciting and confusing at first, then it become common place, then it degenerates into boring and annoying, something you do because you have no other choice. There is a highly-developed star system in Japan, and it seems most of the time there are only a handful of actors in Japan. I’ve had the surreal experience of watching a Japanese TV show with one actor on it (often called ‘tarento’ in Japanese English), a commericial comes on with the same actor, change the channel and there he is again, on a different show.
Last night I watched a program where a two comedians went to a soba restaurant to see soba being prepared. (Cooking shows are big in Japan, often having a multitude of stars going to restaurants and tasting the food, all of which is described, with crystal meth enthusiasm, as being delicious.) The two stars watched this chef explain how to make his special brand of soba. But here is where it got weird - in the corner they had to the two stars, superimposed over the screen, watching themselves watch the chef make soba, giving comments of not only themselves, but also on the chef. But most of the comments were the same as the comments they made when they first watched the chef make the soba (what can one really say about making soba, anyway?). It was more than surreal, it was at some goofy Disney on acid level beyond surreal.
This is entertainment?
Monday, July 07, 2003
01/07/2003 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Went out to yet another good-bye party. This one wasn’t a farewell party - the person is transferring to another part of Japan, not leaving the country. When I was Japan for the first time I went to a farewell party and a welcome party almost every week it seemed, but this time it’s much better. Still far too many, but that’s the nature of this work, I guess.
02/07/2003 It’s A Church, Not A Cult!
I made the mistake of answering my door this morning. I work a rather odd schedule - I don’t start until 1:00 PM and I finish up at 9:00, so that means I usually wake up around 8:00 and go to bed around 1:00 or so. It took some getting used to, but now it’s comfortable.
My doorbell rang about 10:30 or so this morning and I quickly answered it. I should have looked in the peephole first. I’ve been waiting for the newspaper collector to come by and get some money for the last 2 months. It’s one of those situations in which I probably should do the ethical thing and call so that I can pay and also so that the newspaper doesn’t just stop coming one day, but I keep putting it off to see how long it will last.
Anyway this morning I opened the door to find two middle-aged women standing at the door, looking very surprised to see a foreigner standing there. I’ve had a few experiences where I open the door to find the salesman shocked, mouth open. Some even say ‘gaikojin’, which means ‘foreigner’, or specifically, non-Japanese person, to my face. It’s hard to imagine a door-to-door salesman saying ‘a black!’ when an African-Canadian opens the door in Toronto, at least not one that actually sells something. These two ladies today were undeterred. They started firing questions at me in rapid Japanese, which I had trouble following. They kept asking me what time I woke up, and asking if it was 5:00. I understood the question but I couldn’t understand what they were getting at. It turns out that they are a part of some cult, and they have meetings at 5:00 AM. They asked me to come and attend their meetings, but they said it was only in Japanese. They got excited when I told them my wife was Japanese (one of the ladies, the stranger looking one, even clapped) and gave me some book.
This is not my first experience with door-to-door religious recruiters. Last year I picked up my old apartment’s intercom one morning and a woman spoke in English about meeting some children and wanting to share some things that she learned when she went to an island. She was obviously Japanese and trying very hard to speak English, but it sounded as if she just looked up the words in the dictionary. Electronic dictionaries are popular in Japan but it often confuses communication more than it helps, since the people who use them often end up sounding like a semiotics professor who forgot the Prozac. On my way to work I found a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet in my mailbox. Another time, at my old building, I came back from shopping to find a friend of mine talking to two non-Japanese men in suits. I just passed on by, but they were Jehovah’s Witnesses as well, and my friend, an Australian who had studied philosophy in university, made the mistake of telling them that he wasn’t interested because he was an aethist.
Japanese people, for the most part, don’t really seem particularly religious. Christianity never took hold here and the two main religions, Shinto and Buddhism, don’t really require much of it’s followers. Shinto is more of a set of guidelines than a religion, and Japanese Buddhism seems muted. I think the lack of religion leads to these cults - such as the Aum cult, the ones who gassed the Tokyo subway a few years ago - because I do believe there is an inherent need in people to believe in something.
But I don’t think they should bother me in the morning.
Went out to yet another good-bye party. This one wasn’t a farewell party - the person is transferring to another part of Japan, not leaving the country. When I was Japan for the first time I went to a farewell party and a welcome party almost every week it seemed, but this time it’s much better. Still far too many, but that’s the nature of this work, I guess.
02/07/2003 It’s A Church, Not A Cult!
I made the mistake of answering my door this morning. I work a rather odd schedule - I don’t start until 1:00 PM and I finish up at 9:00, so that means I usually wake up around 8:00 and go to bed around 1:00 or so. It took some getting used to, but now it’s comfortable.
My doorbell rang about 10:30 or so this morning and I quickly answered it. I should have looked in the peephole first. I’ve been waiting for the newspaper collector to come by and get some money for the last 2 months. It’s one of those situations in which I probably should do the ethical thing and call so that I can pay and also so that the newspaper doesn’t just stop coming one day, but I keep putting it off to see how long it will last.
Anyway this morning I opened the door to find two middle-aged women standing at the door, looking very surprised to see a foreigner standing there. I’ve had a few experiences where I open the door to find the salesman shocked, mouth open. Some even say ‘gaikojin’, which means ‘foreigner’, or specifically, non-Japanese person, to my face. It’s hard to imagine a door-to-door salesman saying ‘a black!’ when an African-Canadian opens the door in Toronto, at least not one that actually sells something. These two ladies today were undeterred. They started firing questions at me in rapid Japanese, which I had trouble following. They kept asking me what time I woke up, and asking if it was 5:00. I understood the question but I couldn’t understand what they were getting at. It turns out that they are a part of some cult, and they have meetings at 5:00 AM. They asked me to come and attend their meetings, but they said it was only in Japanese. They got excited when I told them my wife was Japanese (one of the ladies, the stranger looking one, even clapped) and gave me some book.
This is not my first experience with door-to-door religious recruiters. Last year I picked up my old apartment’s intercom one morning and a woman spoke in English about meeting some children and wanting to share some things that she learned when she went to an island. She was obviously Japanese and trying very hard to speak English, but it sounded as if she just looked up the words in the dictionary. Electronic dictionaries are popular in Japan but it often confuses communication more than it helps, since the people who use them often end up sounding like a semiotics professor who forgot the Prozac. On my way to work I found a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet in my mailbox. Another time, at my old building, I came back from shopping to find a friend of mine talking to two non-Japanese men in suits. I just passed on by, but they were Jehovah’s Witnesses as well, and my friend, an Australian who had studied philosophy in university, made the mistake of telling them that he wasn’t interested because he was an aethist.
Japanese people, for the most part, don’t really seem particularly religious. Christianity never took hold here and the two main religions, Shinto and Buddhism, don’t really require much of it’s followers. Shinto is more of a set of guidelines than a religion, and Japanese Buddhism seems muted. I think the lack of religion leads to these cults - such as the Aum cult, the ones who gassed the Tokyo subway a few years ago - because I do believe there is an inherent need in people to believe in something.
But I don’t think they should bother me in the morning.
27/06/2003 Porno Porno Porno!
I was thinking about porn today. No, not like that. I was in the convenience store near where I work, where they have a rack of magazines, including an extensive porn section. In Japan lots of people stand at magazine racks and read, and the owners of the store don’t seem to get angry. They do it in bookstores as well, which is one reason, my fiancé claims, that the big box store type book store isn’t popular in Japan. Of course there were some youngish-looking guys leafing through porno mags while high school girls walked by, and I thought how you would never see that in Canada, because a lot of neighbourhood places have stopped selling porn, and it just wouldn’t be done.
I’ve been on commuter trains next to middle-aged salary men flipping through porn mags, or even worse, porno comics, while old women and young children sit across from them. I couldn’t imagine that happening on the GO train or on the TTC - somebody would say something, more likely with an angry indignation and much shaking of fists. But in Japan, no one arches an eyebrow.
At my old apartment building, newspapers and magazines were picked up once a month for recycling, and tenants would often stack their magazines in the front hall. Last summer there was a stack, and I mean 20+, of porno comics. Curious, I rifled through them, and not considering myself a prude, I found most of it disgusting - lots of comic high school kids having sex with each other, and other things you couldn’t get away with in ‘real’ porn. Last month it was middle-aged woman porn, another collection, this one stacked in a large brown paper bag. Once again curiosity got the best of me and I leafed through, to find myself once again disgusted. I have nothing against porn, and I admit that sometimes I look, but I can’t really understand why you would want pictures of unattractive women doing bizarre things with salad tongs. Nevertheless, this collection represented a serious commitment to collecting porn - it appeared to be a monthly magazine, which means that this collection had to be at least 2 years worth.
The Japanese have a strange relationship with sex. I think a lot of it stems from never having a puritan past, so it doesn’t have that moral hangover we do in North America. It’s not exactly European either. Ads for viagara, for example, can’t spell out viagara, because that would be too upsetting. Instead they change a letter or two, so it comes out as ‘viagana’, but it’s mutually understood what is being advertised. Every magazine has a woman in a bikini on it, not just the more ‘macho’ ones - you open it up and it’s about computer software.
The hostess bar scene is also hard to explain to non-Japanese. It’s supposed to be some ancient tradition that has been converted to keep up with the modern times, but a hostess bar is more or less a place where you pay a lot of money to go to and have women pour you drinks and listen to your stories. That’s it. It’s hard to believe that there isn’t any under the table hanky panky, but I’ve been assured that hostess bars are not for that. Though it happens, I’m sure, after hours, and a few years ago there was a somewhat famous case about a British woman who came to Japan to work as a hostess and one of her customer killed her and cut her body up.
There’s no social stigma attached to such places either, which I’m not sure is troubling or refreshing. It’s hard to imagine American politicians visiting a sleazy bar where women in tight clothes pour you over-priced watery scotches and keeping their reputations intact. Even in Canada, where we tend to be a bit more forgiving about such things, it would signal the fiery end of your career as if you had stood up in the House of Commons and advocated fiercely for ‘rounding up all the darkies’. Yet, in Japan, it’s business as usual.
I was thinking about porn today. No, not like that. I was in the convenience store near where I work, where they have a rack of magazines, including an extensive porn section. In Japan lots of people stand at magazine racks and read, and the owners of the store don’t seem to get angry. They do it in bookstores as well, which is one reason, my fiancé claims, that the big box store type book store isn’t popular in Japan. Of course there were some youngish-looking guys leafing through porno mags while high school girls walked by, and I thought how you would never see that in Canada, because a lot of neighbourhood places have stopped selling porn, and it just wouldn’t be done.
I’ve been on commuter trains next to middle-aged salary men flipping through porn mags, or even worse, porno comics, while old women and young children sit across from them. I couldn’t imagine that happening on the GO train or on the TTC - somebody would say something, more likely with an angry indignation and much shaking of fists. But in Japan, no one arches an eyebrow.
At my old apartment building, newspapers and magazines were picked up once a month for recycling, and tenants would often stack their magazines in the front hall. Last summer there was a stack, and I mean 20+, of porno comics. Curious, I rifled through them, and not considering myself a prude, I found most of it disgusting - lots of comic high school kids having sex with each other, and other things you couldn’t get away with in ‘real’ porn. Last month it was middle-aged woman porn, another collection, this one stacked in a large brown paper bag. Once again curiosity got the best of me and I leafed through, to find myself once again disgusted. I have nothing against porn, and I admit that sometimes I look, but I can’t really understand why you would want pictures of unattractive women doing bizarre things with salad tongs. Nevertheless, this collection represented a serious commitment to collecting porn - it appeared to be a monthly magazine, which means that this collection had to be at least 2 years worth.
The Japanese have a strange relationship with sex. I think a lot of it stems from never having a puritan past, so it doesn’t have that moral hangover we do in North America. It’s not exactly European either. Ads for viagara, for example, can’t spell out viagara, because that would be too upsetting. Instead they change a letter or two, so it comes out as ‘viagana’, but it’s mutually understood what is being advertised. Every magazine has a woman in a bikini on it, not just the more ‘macho’ ones - you open it up and it’s about computer software.
The hostess bar scene is also hard to explain to non-Japanese. It’s supposed to be some ancient tradition that has been converted to keep up with the modern times, but a hostess bar is more or less a place where you pay a lot of money to go to and have women pour you drinks and listen to your stories. That’s it. It’s hard to believe that there isn’t any under the table hanky panky, but I’ve been assured that hostess bars are not for that. Though it happens, I’m sure, after hours, and a few years ago there was a somewhat famous case about a British woman who came to Japan to work as a hostess and one of her customer killed her and cut her body up.
There’s no social stigma attached to such places either, which I’m not sure is troubling or refreshing. It’s hard to imagine American politicians visiting a sleazy bar where women in tight clothes pour you over-priced watery scotches and keeping their reputations intact. Even in Canada, where we tend to be a bit more forgiving about such things, it would signal the fiery end of your career as if you had stood up in the House of Commons and advocated fiercely for ‘rounding up all the darkies’. Yet, in Japan, it’s business as usual.
Monday, June 02, 2003
I had to trudge over the to the city hall today, because I had to get my Alien Registration Card changed. The ARC, more commonly known as the Gaijin card, is issued to all non-Japanese people living in Japan. It`s rather strange. It`s a simple plastic card that has my picture, my address, my visa number, passport number and where I`m from, but when you think about it, it has some eerie Soviet Empire echoes to it. I`m supposed to keep it on my person at all times, and if an official demands to see it, I have to show it our I could go to jail. I`ve never been asked to show it by a cop, but you need it to do anything -- get a phone, rent an apartment, all that. I heard that a few years ago they even had your fingerprints on it, but they got rid of it because people complained about it. It`s creepy to think that there is some government record of me, so if things sour between Canada and Japan, the government could come and round me up.
I had to changeit because when you move, you have to make sure your address is changed withing 14 days or something bad will happen. What that might be is not explicitly said, but I`ve been told that it`s `bad`.
Perhaps the stranger thing is that Japanese people have to register when they move as well -- my fiance has to go to the same office and change their resident status. And when students go off to university they have to get a piece of paper that says that they live where they say they live.
I could imagine if something similiar were attempted to be implented in Canada -- well, it wouldn`t, would it?
I had to changeit because when you move, you have to make sure your address is changed withing 14 days or something bad will happen. What that might be is not explicitly said, but I`ve been told that it`s `bad`.
Perhaps the stranger thing is that Japanese people have to register when they move as well -- my fiance has to go to the same office and change their resident status. And when students go off to university they have to get a piece of paper that says that they live where they say they live.
I could imagine if something similiar were attempted to be implented in Canada -- well, it wouldn`t, would it?
Monday, May 26, 2003
20/05/2003 My New Apartment
I recently moved. For the last year and a half, I’ve been living in a company apartment. For those unfamiliar, the big English schools (and some of the small ones) give their teachers apartments to live in while they stay in Japan, and most even furnish them. Finding an apartment in Japan is not easy, and it’s especially not easy for non-Japanese. A friend of mine, who has a Japanese girlfriend, lived in Okayama, a semi-large city in the Western part of Japan. When they went apartment hunting she would call ahead and make the arrangements, but when they both showed up, a lot of the real estate agents would say that they couldn’t live here. Some would offer excuses why, but some did come straight out and say it was because he was a foreigner, and they didn’t want a foreigner living here.
Nagoya, where I live, is a bit more cosmopolitan and I didn’t have too much finding an apartment with my girlfriend. We moved into a government assisted apartment, which in North America would conjure images of crack slums, but in Japan it’s the opposite. Well, it’s not posh - it’s five large buildings together so it has a project feel, and the buildings are as about as ugly as most buildings in Japan, but the apartment itself is very nice. I can actually eat, sleep, and watch TV in different places. My old apartment had one room - a small kitchen (one burner and a sink), a toilet and a shower, a closet for the laundry machine, and one room, which served as dining room/bed room/living room/command centre. My new apartment has three rooms, a large kitchen, a washroom separate from the shower/sink (which is Japanese style) and a nice hallway, two balconies, one with a view of a park and the city.
The only drawback - it’s up a slight hill, so the trek home is a bit ardours. Also, we have to wait 3 months to get parking for my fiancé’s car. And we are bit further out from the city, but not that much.
But it’s still nice to eat in one room and sleep in another. I almost feel like a real person.
21/05/2003 The Psychological Condition of Japan
Spent the morning at the bank. I had to get the direct withdrawal sorted out for the rent for my new apartment. One of the problems about living in Japan is that all non-Japanese residents are issued an Alien Registration Card (commonly called a Gaijin card) that enables you to do just about anything. It’s very 1984ish - it has my picture, date of birth, where I’m from, how long my visa is until. I’ve heard that the old ones even used to have fingerprints, but they government dropped that after too many complaints. The gaijin card lets you get a bank account, but since the card is based on my passport, my full name has to be used : Gregory Michael Devine. A fine sounding name, I know, one steeped in a proud heritage. However, it’s about 2 characters too long for most Japanese computers. And, most Japanese people don’t have middle names, so when I get important documents it looks like this: Devine Michael Grego.
The problem today is that I had filled out my apartment forms in katakana, one of the Japanese alphabets (there are three) that allow non-Japanese sounds. (And my last name, Devine, is hard to fit into Japanese pronunciation. There are 5 versions, all of which don’t really sound the same as it does in English) My bank account has my name in English, so I had to add my name to the bottom of the form, but in a one character/one box style, starting with first name, so it looked really messy and confusing. Shouldn’t stop them from taking my rent out each month though.
There was a woman at the bank who, for some reason, refused to take a number. The bank wasn’t very person, just the usual collection of seniors and housewives. One thing I love about Japanese banks - they have tellers to help you use the bank machines. They stand there and direct you to an empty machine, and if you have any trouble, say pressing the key, they rush over to assist you. This woman, however, would rush up to the counter every time the number display would bing. The clerk would tell her to just wait a moment, and she would sit back down. She was wearing what could pass as the garb of the mentally unadjusted - big sneakers, a dirty sweater and a big hat, pulled down over her greasy hair. She didn’t have a bag with her or any papers, and her purpose at the bank seemed unclear, but every time the next number would roll over, she would rush the desk.
Japanese people are not good at dealing with abnormality. They have this whole philosophy, called wa, which more or less deals with not dealing with the uncomfortable. Japan ‘experts’ like to throw out this concept of wa, group harmony, when they want to explain odd fashion choices or the spiralling Japanese economy, but to me it sounds like a load of bunk.
I can just imagine what psychiatry is like in this country:
Patient: Listen, doctor, you’ve got to help. I feel sad all the time. I can’t focus on my work, or on my family.
Doctor: Do you have obsessive thoughts about death?
Patient; Yes!
Doctor: Do you often wonder about your life choices, if you had made the right ones, or about the direction that your life is going in?
Patient: Yes!
Doctor: Well, obviously, you are not working enough. I recommend putting in more hours at the office, even if it’s unpaid overtime, to free your mind about these personal doubts and redirect your energy to your job.
I recently moved. For the last year and a half, I’ve been living in a company apartment. For those unfamiliar, the big English schools (and some of the small ones) give their teachers apartments to live in while they stay in Japan, and most even furnish them. Finding an apartment in Japan is not easy, and it’s especially not easy for non-Japanese. A friend of mine, who has a Japanese girlfriend, lived in Okayama, a semi-large city in the Western part of Japan. When they went apartment hunting she would call ahead and make the arrangements, but when they both showed up, a lot of the real estate agents would say that they couldn’t live here. Some would offer excuses why, but some did come straight out and say it was because he was a foreigner, and they didn’t want a foreigner living here.
Nagoya, where I live, is a bit more cosmopolitan and I didn’t have too much finding an apartment with my girlfriend. We moved into a government assisted apartment, which in North America would conjure images of crack slums, but in Japan it’s the opposite. Well, it’s not posh - it’s five large buildings together so it has a project feel, and the buildings are as about as ugly as most buildings in Japan, but the apartment itself is very nice. I can actually eat, sleep, and watch TV in different places. My old apartment had one room - a small kitchen (one burner and a sink), a toilet and a shower, a closet for the laundry machine, and one room, which served as dining room/bed room/living room/command centre. My new apartment has three rooms, a large kitchen, a washroom separate from the shower/sink (which is Japanese style) and a nice hallway, two balconies, one with a view of a park and the city.
The only drawback - it’s up a slight hill, so the trek home is a bit ardours. Also, we have to wait 3 months to get parking for my fiancé’s car. And we are bit further out from the city, but not that much.
But it’s still nice to eat in one room and sleep in another. I almost feel like a real person.
21/05/2003 The Psychological Condition of Japan
Spent the morning at the bank. I had to get the direct withdrawal sorted out for the rent for my new apartment. One of the problems about living in Japan is that all non-Japanese residents are issued an Alien Registration Card (commonly called a Gaijin card) that enables you to do just about anything. It’s very 1984ish - it has my picture, date of birth, where I’m from, how long my visa is until. I’ve heard that the old ones even used to have fingerprints, but they government dropped that after too many complaints. The gaijin card lets you get a bank account, but since the card is based on my passport, my full name has to be used : Gregory Michael Devine. A fine sounding name, I know, one steeped in a proud heritage. However, it’s about 2 characters too long for most Japanese computers. And, most Japanese people don’t have middle names, so when I get important documents it looks like this: Devine Michael Grego.
The problem today is that I had filled out my apartment forms in katakana, one of the Japanese alphabets (there are three) that allow non-Japanese sounds. (And my last name, Devine, is hard to fit into Japanese pronunciation. There are 5 versions, all of which don’t really sound the same as it does in English) My bank account has my name in English, so I had to add my name to the bottom of the form, but in a one character/one box style, starting with first name, so it looked really messy and confusing. Shouldn’t stop them from taking my rent out each month though.
There was a woman at the bank who, for some reason, refused to take a number. The bank wasn’t very person, just the usual collection of seniors and housewives. One thing I love about Japanese banks - they have tellers to help you use the bank machines. They stand there and direct you to an empty machine, and if you have any trouble, say pressing the key, they rush over to assist you. This woman, however, would rush up to the counter every time the number display would bing. The clerk would tell her to just wait a moment, and she would sit back down. She was wearing what could pass as the garb of the mentally unadjusted - big sneakers, a dirty sweater and a big hat, pulled down over her greasy hair. She didn’t have a bag with her or any papers, and her purpose at the bank seemed unclear, but every time the next number would roll over, she would rush the desk.
Japanese people are not good at dealing with abnormality. They have this whole philosophy, called wa, which more or less deals with not dealing with the uncomfortable. Japan ‘experts’ like to throw out this concept of wa, group harmony, when they want to explain odd fashion choices or the spiralling Japanese economy, but to me it sounds like a load of bunk.
I can just imagine what psychiatry is like in this country:
Patient: Listen, doctor, you’ve got to help. I feel sad all the time. I can’t focus on my work, or on my family.
Doctor: Do you have obsessive thoughts about death?
Patient; Yes!
Doctor: Do you often wonder about your life choices, if you had made the right ones, or about the direction that your life is going in?
Patient: Yes!
Doctor: Well, obviously, you are not working enough. I recommend putting in more hours at the office, even if it’s unpaid overtime, to free your mind about these personal doubts and redirect your energy to your job.
Monday, May 19, 2003
I first came to Japan in 1999, a fresh-faced graduate from university, with only vague ideas what to do with my life. I also had vague reasons for wanting to go to Japan -- I had grown up in a rather small town in Canada, and went to university there, and I wanted out. I had been surrounded by two types of people -- the kind who went to university and then moved to somewhere else (TO/Van/Ottawa) or those who got stuck, working at McDonalds or as security guards and who got pregnant when they were 24 yrs old. I was so afraid of getting stuck that I headed out for anywhere, and Japan seemed to be a good anywhere.
My first year here I worked for a large, English teaching company, which, to avoid lawsuits, will be called LARGE FACELESS ENGLISH SCHOOL #1. I had a good time, and I left in Jan. 2000, thinking that I would never come back again. But here I am. I came back in Oct. 2001. That story I will get to.
My first year here I worked for a large, English teaching company, which, to avoid lawsuits, will be called LARGE FACELESS ENGLISH SCHOOL #1. I had a good time, and I left in Jan. 2000, thinking that I would never come back again. But here I am. I came back in Oct. 2001. That story I will get to.
So, finally, a blog about Japan.
I know what you are thinking -- I don`t think this has been done, a rambling blog about Japan, told from the aspiring-writer/English lit grad/English teacher in Japan perspective, with self-referential jokes and obscure references that no one will get.
Yes, perhaps it`s been done, but there is one thing that separates mine from the rest:
Sass!
I know what you are thinking -- I don`t think this has been done, a rambling blog about Japan, told from the aspiring-writer/English lit grad/English teacher in Japan perspective, with self-referential jokes and obscure references that no one will get.
Yes, perhaps it`s been done, but there is one thing that separates mine from the rest:
Sass!
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