A European's move towards Japan
It’s Christmas season and although many people are stressed out buying presents and sending greeting cards, it is generally considered the time to be nice to each other. I mean, isn’t that the reason for all the presents and the cards and stuff?
I found this video of a “social experiment” last weekend, and although it made me cry, I thought I’d share it with you.
When was the last time somebody said this to you?
Doesn’t that mean we should say it more often?
You’re beautiful!
I have to admit that I’m rather proud of myself: I just made my self-imposed deadline with respect to paperwork:
So, there’s not much more to do until the New Year; the handful of Nengajo that I’m planning to write can wait. And even though it is not Sunday anymore, this is my plan for the rest of the day: 
I am not sure whether this has something to do with the Oseibo tradition I was talking about the other day, or with the end of the year or Christmas in general, but these days I keep receiving lots and lots of fruits. I have been given apples (from Aomori) and tangerines (from Kyushu) and even some small yuzu, Japanese type lemons. I also received yuzu marmalade, so those at least will keep for a while.
It’s in
teresting that fruits are considered a good gift, but maybe that’s because tangerines and apples are expensive, even now. Of course all of the fruits I received are immaculate and obviously store-bought, so I am wondering whether people would be happy about getting tiny apples like the ones that were growing in our garden when I was a child…
For quite a while now, I have been regularly meeting a Japanese woman. She is great fun and we do a lot of things together: cooking, going out, visiting temples and shrines,… Most of the time however, we meet in her house and then we sit and chat – in both English and Japanese. We have recently started keeping a short diary (mine is in Japanese, hers in English), and when we meet, we exchange it and correct the other’s mistakes.
I greatly enjoy meeting her, and we teach each other aspects of our culture. For example, she has helped me choosing the right Oseibo presents, and she has shown me how to cook some Japanese dishes. In return, I have recently explained why it is rude to have Christmas cards arrive after the holidays, even if they include new year wishes.
What I also enjoy is that – although she has never lived abroad – she is very open when it comes to answering more private questions about the Japanese. For example, she has explained that Japanese prefer group travel because of a need for security; and that they don’t bother much with elections because Tokyo (and thus the government) is “far away”.
She has also made a personal confession or two: She hopes that in her next life – she’s a practising Buddhist – she will get to marry a foreigner. Her biggest crush is Sean Connery (in his time as James Bond), which is something I don’t understand at all – I certainly draw the line at chest hair! She was greatly disappointed when I told her that all my European lovers were not very endowed in that respect, but then again, maybe Scottish men are different?
All in all, I hope that we can continue to build this friendship, and that it will last for a long time to come…
Yesterday, at 9:45 in the morning – I was barely out of bed – the doorbell rang and three men in work overalls carrying equipment and enthusiastic smiles were standing in front of my door. Their enthusiasm immediately gripped me as well when they explained they were here to clean my bathroom – hey guys, any time! – but it was a bit dampened when it turned out they only meant the bathroom drain pipes, and not the bathroom itself. When they had also finished with the kitchen pipes and I had signed some paperwork (of course), they had left, after maybe 10 minutes at most.
And in the early afternoon, just when I was finished with lunch, there was another ring at the bell; this time it was a postman carrying the official letter with information pertaining to “MyNumber”, a new kind of identity card for all residents in Japan, including foreigners. As far as I can make out, they need me to send in a photo for the real card; and that card will only be issued starting next year, so I have some time before I do anything with this (and write about it, too).
In any case, those two occurrences show that the Japanese do take their work seriously. Many small companies not involved in selling goods to tourists are closed in the weekends, and although mail is delivered on Saturdays (something completely unthinkable in Europe by now), even the postmen have Sundays off. I can only assume that in these two cases it was easier to come at a time when it can be hoped that most people are at home, so as to make things less complicated for everyone involved.
Still, I would wish that the Japanese would not consider Sunday morning as a good time to do anything…
Once again I am busy with paperwork – will this ever end?
Yesterday, my accountant has finished the taxes my company has to pay for its employees – meaning: him and me. As I was only working part of the year, the end result turned out to be much, much less than I had anticipated, so we’re good. I will have to pay those taxes by January 20th.
And I myself am working on a private income tax return – for the year 2011 when I started working in Germany. Unfortunately, I have only recently unearthed the (physical) form for that, and I have time only until the end of the year to file it, so you can see that I’m busy.
Yesterday and today, I spent some time on the phone with a friend in Germany who has experience with filing taxes. And even so, when I told her what I’d need help with, her reaction was “O holy sh…” Together, we have since unearthed my tax number (or, rather the fact that I don’t have one yet) and we have found out that the expenses for my move from Asia to Germany – because that move was job related – are fully deductible! As well as doctor’s visits, payments for private pension and health insurance,… Of course there is a caveat: You must produce all the receipts – in the original…
I have no idea how much of that stuff I can still find, after all I threw away a lot of paper just before I moved. And besides, who on earth is keeping the receipt for “the dinner you paid your friends after they helped you move in”…? Well, it will be obvious as to what I’ll be doing in the weekend. At least, today’s advent calendar treat has proved the right preparation: “Buy chocolates”…
It’s that time of the year when the Western countries are winding down a little and are getting ready for the Christmas break and the New Year. I have always enjoyed the changed attitude of people around this time – as long as you can avoid shopping, of course. Here in Japan, Christmas is a purely commercial thing, and although I am not religious at all, this overemphasis on Santa Claus and Christmas baubles and pure commercialism does annoy me a bit. This is partly because Christmas cannot be further removed from Japanese culture, and partly because I am probably still longing for that childhood feeling of expecting something very special…
Hence, I have decided to make my own preparations for Christmas Eve and I have made myself an advent calendar. Traditionally, those are calendars meant for children filled with small pieces of chocolate for every day until Christmas, and this is even the first year I found one in a department store – imported from Germany, obviously. However, I went a slightly more adult route, so behold my very own advent calendar:
It’s not very obvious, so let me explain: On the right is a Christmas card from a friend of mine, who always sends me an advent calendar every year. I will open the windows as time goes on. The large glass on the left contains one piece of paper for each of the 24 (now: 21) days until Christmas, and on each paper there is a single “to-do” item for that day.
I have chosen things I really like to do, but very often don’t make time for in my schedule: “take a long bath in the evening”, “watch a movie”. Some things are expensive: “buy a box of chocolates”; others are free: “walk along the river”; some things involve people: “call friend x”; others are very personal: “make rice pudding”. Each day, I will draw one of my papers out of the glass and indulge myself.
What a pity I don’t have an oven here, otherwise I would have included “bake cookies” into my list. But then again, as I have found out over time, I am only inspired for that when it is snowing outside. And that is certainly not going to happen this year any more…
Today, I went shopping. Not for Christmas presents though, not even for myself. I went out to buy Oseibo – Year End Presents. Those are rather obligatory and formal things, mostly exchanged between companies, or given to bosses or teachers, for example. Most often, such Oseibo are food items or sweets, or alcohol or liquor.
The above is all I knew about these presents when I decided that I needed to buy one for my accountant. And because in this case, it is technically a business-to-business present, which is just another excuse to produce a minefield of possible mistakes, mishaps and other unpleasantries, I did not dare to enter on my own. So, I asked a friend of mine for help.
Since then I have learned that decent Oseibo are bought only at department stores (Takashimaya or Daimaru for example), and that there is a price limit on both ends depending on the intensity of the (business) relationship, with the most common price around 5000 YEN. Oseibo are usually sent to the recipient directly from the store where they are bought, and should arrive somewhere between December 1st and 20th. The shop usually takes care of appropriate wrapping, and there is a standard note attached with the name of the sender on it.
Armed with that knowledge and an appropriate amount of money, and with my friend in tow, I arrived at the Takashimaya at around 11 today. At the moment, maybe half of the seventh floor is dedicated to Oseibo, and indeed, there are all sorts of things you can buy. Japanese love food items as gifts in general, and as New Year’s is a time when traditionally no cooking is done in the house, things that can be eaten without further preparation are very popular. There are tins of crabmeat, condiments, fish in all thinkable states of preservation, and packages of Kobe beef and similar meat. You can also buy tea and coffee (Nescafe – really?) and things like cooking oil, preserves, or honey. Also, there are boxes with cans of Japanese and foreign beer (not a good present for winter, according to my friend), and bottles of sake in various sizes. Of course, there are okashi – Japanese sweets – and cookies and chocolates… Slightly odd I found the packages with a full year’s supply of soap, shampoo, and body lotion. If I got a present consisting of 8 bars of soap from an employee, for example, I would seriously wonder whether there is a hidden meaning to all this…
Anyway, after wandering the aisles of Oseibo displays for about half an hour – and freely sampling from the various offerings of tidbits – my friend and I settled on a small box with German ham and sausages (Dallmayr – I thought they only sell coffee) for a decent price. We then had to wait for another half an hour to pay for our present: Because the Takashimaya will deliver the box, they will need at least the recipient’s address. There was a small hiccup when it came to the noshigami – the note attached to the present stating the giver’s name – because my full name is too long to be written there in the usual, vertical manner. We settled on my first name, it should be rather unique anyway.
The gift will be delivered next week, and then I’ll see what happens. It appears that it is common to reciprocate – with a gift that is slightly cheaper – but I am not sure if this applies here as well. I’ll hope for chocolate – and keep you posted.
It seems that this whole week can be summarised under the motto “endings”.
My soroban teacher has more or less uninvited me from his classes which I have visited now twice a week for about 1.5 years. He has now much more students at the time I was usually going, and the new kids need more attention (and maybe also a bit more space) than at the time when I started. It is coming at a bad time now (psychologically) because on Sunday, there is the next test, but there’s not much I can do about it.
I am still very grateful that he organised the visa for me last year and to let me study soroban with him. It was very nice as long as I could go to school there, but from now on I will have to do my own studying. I still want to try one or two more levels of tests, but I am not sure I can manage without the motivation of exercises in class. At the very least, it will take much longer…
Before you ask: No, it is very unlikely that I will pass the test this weekend – I am still too slow. However, I think I mentioned that I mainly want to take it to see how the test is conducted on a larger scale. This I will certainly manage. I am curious…
The final ending of this week and of this post is a positive one: My ear and hearing are much better now! Although I still have some tinnitus in the right ear, the annoying pressure is gone completely. Sometimes, it will reemerge when I put on my headset or use the phone, but this is just temporary and subsides quickly. It’s something…
It seems that today autumn has finally ended and winter has begun. The time of the koyo autumn leaves has passed, and it is bound to get cold now – and today already, we had heavy rain in the afternoon, which prompted me to turn on my heater for the first time.
This year, the koyo were not quite as they should have been because the weather was not stable enough. To have good koyo, the weather should be warm and sunny until mid November, and then there should be a sharp drop in temperature. The latter is what induces the maple leaves to turn red or orange or yellow. This year, however, the weather was different, with many cold (but not too cold) days in between somewhere, so the leaves did not change that nicely, but instead just shrivelled on the trees.
Even so, the usual haunts for koyo-looking were all full to the brim with Japanese tourists, who, although slightly disappointed, still seemed to take photos of individual leaves. So did I, but as I missed the one sunny day to go out because of an appointment, I only have very few photos to share this year. I am sure there will be many better years to come though.
