Iris – Page 97 – goinggaijin.com

Hobby

Between all the work for setting up the company and moving and unpacking, I had time to pick up a new hobby: For the last two months or so I have been playing Contract Bridge. For all of you who don’t know what that is: It is a card game for four players – playing together in two pairs across the table – originally adopted from a Russian game by the British.

What is interesting about it is that it is not so much about luck and not at all about bluffing your way through it, but that all four players have a rough idea about the hands of the others and from there, with elaborate guesswork, each pair tries to take more “tricks” than the other. In the beginning you have to say how many tricks you think you can win, and if you can, you get a number of points, and if you lose, your opponents get points, very roughly speaking.

I find the game intriguing, there are many rules how to tell your partner about your hand, and how far to go in this “bidding” step. It is rather difficult and overwhelming at the beginning, and there are lots of exceptions and special meanings to certain bids; and even playing a certain card later on may tell your partner something about your hand and help him in deciding how to play himself.

The group I am playing with is essentially a bunch of (mostly) old Japanese ladies, who meet in a home in my neighbourhood. Many of them have lived abroad, in countries as different as Canada, the US, China, Myanmar, Australia … and all of them are decidedly un-Japanese in their behaviour and attitude. They are loud and boisterous and funny and open and although I am an introvert and don’t cherish being amongst people very much, I feel very welcome and accepted.

I think I was allowed to actually play the third time I came; I have now played once a week for about two months, and I feel like an idiot, as there is so much to know and learn and I keep forgetting stuff. Still, although I make many mistakes, my partners are very polite and kind and keep praising my efforts a lot. Hence, I shall keep going for the time being and see how long I can learn something. So far, I’m having great fun.

Cynical

I went to Osaka today to meet a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in a while. He’s also Austrian and has been in Japan for 5 years now. It was very interesting to see him again, I remembered him as a lighthearted and fun person, and while he is still outgoing and philosophical in all the wrong places, he has changed quite a bit.

He seemed very tired and exhausted; the last time I met him he was working for a brand new little Japanese start-up, but because there were discrepancies in their views on how to conduct work (something much more grave than simply working hours), he quit. Since then he has opened up his own company with quite a lofty idea behind it, but because this is not a product that can be sold, but is more a way to build a community, he has troubles getting people interested.

All these experiences have made him quite cynical, and he even admits that. He told me a few stories, and a large complaint of his is that the Japanese are not friendly at all. Apparently, in a business setting, they expect you to fit in perfectly, without making any mistakes. This is of course impossible, and the fact that nobody tells you that you have just overstepped a line is not conducive to learning how to do it better the next time.

As to my objection that as an obvious – meaning: non-Asian – foreigner, there is always a certain bonus you have and people must realise that you cannot understand every single nuance, he said that was not true. The Japanese accept a number of mistakes, but if you have made one too many, they simply cut you off without further explanation or apology. Yes, even if that means they are losing business.

He is right, I have seen that with the very first real estate agent I went to this year when I looked for a new apartment. I am not aware of a mistake on my side (other than refusing to get a mobile phone), but at some point he apparently thought I was more trouble than I was worth and he stopped responding to my inquiries altogether.

I am very sad that my friend has become so cynical and negative, and I hope that’s just a phase and that it will be better once he finds acceptance with his new line of work. But as there is another friend of mine who has had similar experiences as a foreigner in Japan, I wonder what I will have to say once I have been here as long as they have. I have been a cynical asshole for long enough, I would really not like having to go back to that stage of my life…

Autumn

Finally, autumn has arrived. Although during the days we still have around 20 degrees, the nights are very cool. Today was the first time I felt cold when I opened my windows in the morning, and indeed, it was only around 10 degrees. It is still too warm for the koyo autumn colours, which are mainly made up of the momiji maple trees; but this last part of autumn will come soon. Usually it is towards mid or end of November, but this year it might be earlier, as the temperatures have not been that high all through the year.

In the weekend I finally went out to explore the part of Higashiyama that is east of my house. Unfortunately it is quite residential, and there are no nice shrines where I could just sit and write like there were near my old house. I have found a few small temples though which I will revisit in a few weeks to take pictures of the koyo. For today, you get only a single photo, which was taken not far from my house.

Insulation

Since my boxes arrived 19 days ago, I have been steadily unpacking and putting stuff away. By now I have whittled down the amount of boxes to 7 – all of them containing books – and the amount of extra stacks to… well, not too many. As the books will have to wait for a little while longer, and the stacks contain rather daunting papers, I took a break to do some more home improvement.

In all three rooms in my apartment where there are tatami, there are also interesting outlets in the walls, covered with plastic. If you unscrew that cover, you will see a hole in the wall leading out to the respective balcony. The hole is lined with plastic all the way, with another cover that can be opened on the outside. As I have one myself (courtesy of the previous occupant of my apartment) I assume that these are holes to more easily connect the air conditioners that stand on almost every balcony in my apartment complex. After all, the walls here are concrete, and it kind of defies the idea of an airco (which is here also used as heating in the winter) to need a window half open to use it.

In any case, the picture I took above shows the problem – the hole is empty. There is no insulation inside whatsoever. As I have been bravely unpacking however, I have lots of styrofoam and similar stuff left over, which I reused to fill up the three holes in my walls. Yes, you are right, it will not make any kind of difference with respect to the temperature in my house in winter, but surely, there must be some kind of placebo effect here as well. I for sure already feel much warmer!

Komai House

A few weeks ago, I have once again indulged my love for old houses by visiting Komai House, one of the designated cultural properties of Kyoto. It was built in 1927, in the second year of Showa, by the American William M. Vories, who was a bit of everything: educator, missionary, entrepreneur, and architect. In Japan, he was mainly working as the latter and his style was some sort of fusion between Western and Japanese style, which was very popular in that time. The owner of the house was Taku Komai, a Japanese biologist and geneticist, who was working for Kyoto University. He only died in 1972, and although the house was used by the American occupation forces after WWII, and somewhat remodeled by them, the building is in almost original state.

The house has two floors; on the ground floor are the public rooms: livingroom and diningroom, as well as a tatami room in front. There is also the main bathroom and the kitchen, and, unusual for a Japanese house, a large terrace leading out into the garden. On the second floor are the private rooms: guest room and bedroom, formerly with tatami, and an attached verandah, formerly a balcony, from which you can see the neighbour’s house. This neighbour was also a professor from Kyoto university; in fact, the whole neighbourhood was some sort of professor’s village since it was, and still is, situated conveniently close to the university. On the second floor also is the professor’s study, and on the left hand side, there is a large bookcase, filled with books about genetics in many languages from the obvious Japanese, to English, French, and even German. The red blinds are not original, they are used to protect the books, which are still in their original place where the late professor put them, from direct sunlight. The house is quite large, with three rooms upstairs and four downstairs, and all of them have a good size, even by modern standards. Additionally, there is a large annex building, which was used as a kind of student’s dorm – at that time, professors were obliged to take really good care of their students, including providing lodgings at their own houses! And then, there is also a greenhouse, which Komai had built because Darwin also had one. It was used as a cafe at some point. The garden is quite large too, and when the house was built, the surroundings must have been very peaceful. You can even see directly to the daimonji hill, it must be fantastic watching the fire from so close. However, what I liked best about the house were the little details, testimony to the architect’s good eye. There are arched windows with stained glass, roof tiles were used as ornament in the balustrade at the entrance, and, especially cute: door knobs from purple crystal. The house is lovely, and as I said, in a very good state. One could move in immediately, it has a very pleasant, almost modern feel to it. Yes I know… hey, a girl can dream, no?

Strandbeest

This weekend, from the 15th to the 18th of October, the Kyoto International Art and Film Festival takes place, only the second edition of the festival which has been created to balance all the things that happen in Tokyo. If you are interested and in Kyoto, the schedule is here: http://2015.kiff.kyoto.jp/en/schedule/

Like many of these things here where you already have to know about them to find them online, I have stumbled upon this festival by pure chance, yesterday, when I was in town. There is a wonderful exhibition on the square in front of City Hall, in fact this is a mixture of art and science: Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest. Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist cum scientist who builds large, autonomously moving mechanisms which he calls Strandbeesten, Beachbeasts. Those animals are propelled by the wind and he sets them free on Dutch beaches where they may wander around as long as the wind is blowing, and yes, it is blowing there very long, hard, and often… I came across the strandbeesten about 4 years ago when I was on summer holiday in Japan and I watched TV at a friend’s place. The interesting thing is that the whole mechanism moves purely kinetic, the legs are constructed in a way that there is a single degree of freedom, and they are essentially only folding over to create the movement. Think of a simple folding rule with only two parts – if you hold it at one end and then gently swing it left and right, the lower part will move as well, but only in a very specific way. Anyway, I bought a small assembly kit online at that time and stunned the students in my class on folding with this odd thing that moves. I was very happy to see a real one for once, and they move quite as beautifully – although you need quite a bit of wind…

If you want more information, including a video with several of the strandbeesten, here is Theo Jansen’s homepage:
http://www.strandbeest.com/index.php
and here is his youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/strandbeestfilm

And no, I’m not getting anything for this advertisement – I’m just a fangirl. And I think I’ll be off playing with mine for a while… 😉

Otsu Matsuri

Last Sunday I spent in Otsu, the capital of Shiga province, which lies on the shore of Lake Biwa, maybe 30 minutes east of Kyoto. Otsu, for a short period in the 7th century the capital of Japan, is still home to the largest harbour on Lake Biwa, which itself is the largest freshwater lake in Japan. However, the city is rather stretched out along the shore, and thus has the feeling of a little town despite its 350.000 inhabitants. There are a number of famous sites there, but I did not do any sightseeing this time.

Instead I went to enjoy Otsu matsuri with some friends of mine. Otsu matsuri has its origins at the beginning of the Edo period at the turn of the 17th century; the first time it was officially recorded was 1624. It is similar to Gion matsuri in that there are large floats that are paraded through the city, but there are also differences. The hikiyama of Otsu matsuri are about two storeys high, that’s somewhere between the size of the yama and hoko floats of Gion, and they are similarly decorated with beautiful tapestries on the outside. They only have three large wheels, which makes them more easy to manoeuvre by the people who are pulling them – yes, I have seen some women doing that as well!

On the second floor of the hikiyama, which can be reached by a staircase at the inside, only men are allowed though. Traditionally, only the first sons of families that lived around the storage house of each hikiyama were allowed to take part in the matsuri, but this has changed recently, and other young men may now participate too. When the floats are moving, they play a tune with flutes and drums that is similar to the one at Gion matsuri – to my ears, at least.The most interesting part of the 13 hikiyama however, are the wooden displays on the second floor. Those are karakuri ningyō, mechanical dolls, and they depict, or rather, act out, a scene from a well-known fairytale or story, mostl of them originating in China. One of the exceptions is a float with a doll representing Murasaki Shikibu, the authoress of the famous Tale of Genji. It is said that it was in Otsu – more precisely in Ishiyama Temple – where she began writing on her novel some time in the beginning of the 11th century. We were invited to one of the houses that “own” one of the floats, and we could go to a second floor balcony and watch the parade from there, meaning that we were eye-to-eye with the dolls and the men playing the instruments. From such an elevated postion you can see that the dolls were operated manually as the men crouched down, but that did not take away the beauty of the performance. I especially liked the one depicting how to catch a Tai (a lucky fish of golden colour), and because each performance was repeated twice in front of our balcony, I could even catch the decisive moment on camera.

Taiiku No Hi

Today is Taiiku No Hi, the Japanese national “Health and Sports” holiday. As this is one of the recurring Happy Mondays, I have written about it before; and because I don’t want to repeat myself, here is a nice old photo depicting a traditional Japanese sport: The two girls are playing hanetsuki, a form of Badminton, albeit without a net. The goal is to keep the hane – the shuttlecock made from a little hard ball and a few feathers – in the air as long as possible, using only the wooden hagoita. The game is usually played by girls around New Year’s, and the longer the hane remains in the air, the longer the protection thus incurred will last. These days, the game itself is less popular, but the hagoita are still sold. Traditionally their backs show famous Kabuki actors or other celebrities. Hanetsuki can be played by many people, or by one person, but woe befalls the one who drops the hane – her face will be marked with black ink!

The photo above was taken by Kusakabe Kimbei (1841–1934), a Japanese photographer.

Concern

In the middle of my chaos at home, I have now seen my accountant a second time, and I think I have found myself a real gem! He has already organised all my paperwork in differently coloured folders: red company papers, black taxes, yellow salary; and two more for my invoices and receipts, both incoming and outgoing. I think so far he is up to date with all my paperwork and money issues, but he still has some problems getting the accounting software he is using – and wants me to use down the line – to work on my computer. However, he will take it up with his office, so this should be solved the next time he visits me.

What I found extremely encouraging was his concern with respect to my salary. When setting up the company, I had to prepare a document stating my monthly director’s salary, apparently for tax purposes. Technically, I can pay myself as much as I like, but in my case there is the additional constraint that I have to make the immigration office happy, which means I have a lower bound on the amount I can earn.

Now, the first time my accountant saw this document, he called me to him and told me flat-out: “You earn too much!” His concern was not so much the wellbeing of my company, but my personal one. He explained that with this amount of salary, I will be hit with a lot of taxes next year. I tried to explain why I could not go any lower, but in the end he called my lawyer to get the information first hand – and in Japanese.

I found his concern extremely nice and thoughtful, and as I said, I am very happy about this. I think this will be a very pleasant relationship – let’s hope it will be a long-lasting one too!

Shock

When I came to Kyoto in 2013, I found a little cafe in town, and I visit it quite regularly. I especially enjoy this one because they have great ice cream, and the staff are extremely friendly. By now they know me and I can go there and write for hours without being bothered. Usually I go on Wednesday afternoon when I have no other appointments; it is quiet there, and I sit in a little niche upstairs. The last time I was there, before summer, there were some renovations going on, so this was not possible.

I should have investigated further then already, because when I came there today again after a break over summer, I stood, not in front of my cafe, but in front of a newly opened pancake house! I was shocked – no more ice cream! And when the youngster in charge told my they didn’t serve hot chocolate either, I turned on my heels immediately. Of course he had no clue what happened to my cafe…

Thankfully, since this is a Kyoto based company, there is another branch of my cafe in town, and although a bit inconveniently situated, I went there for today’s hot chocolate and ice cream fix. There I learned that the other branch had not closed completely, but just moved to a shopping arcade nearby the old place, and that they had severely downsized. I can only assume that the rent of the old place had been too expensive over time, thus the move.

Personally I am not sure whether this was a good idea, as the new location seems to me less busy than the old one, at least during the week. Oh well, as long as there will be a place for me to go with a free seat for me, it will be okay.