Category: experiences

With the beginning of October 2019, Japan has raised the consumption tax from 8% to 10%. Compared to the 20% I’m used to from Austria, this seems rather puny, but then again, it’s another hike from the only 5% it was back in 2014.

It seems that consumption taxes are a rather touchy issue in Japan, with the first consumption tax ever being introduced only in 1989 (and with a rate of 3% only). Not even 10 years later, in 1997, the new government raised the tax to 5%, and only in April 2014, the tax had been raised to 8%. That is a doubling of taxes in only 5 1/2 years, quite a hike indeed!

Of course this didn’t go smoothly at all, even in a country where conformity and obedience to the higher-ups in the hierarchy is practically mandatory. And especially elderly people often have only a tiny pension, and it can be very hard for them to make ends meet. Whether the government had them in mind when it come up with a number of (rather interesting) exceptions to the 10% rule, I do not know.

However, “items necessary for daily living” are still taxed at 8%. As you can see above, that food and drink as bought at a supermarket or delivered, but not alcohol or dining out, which are taxed at 10%. This can lead to interesting situations like at the Starbucks, where the barista must now ask you whether your coffee is indeed “to go”, so they can apply the correct amount of tax. On the other hand, they are not to bother customers who consume their coffee indoors after all.

Fun fact: newspapers are also considered “necessary for daily living”. Books are not, sadly…

Anyway, for me, that is, the company, this change in taxes does not make a difference. My services still incur 10% taxes, and for foreign customers, there’s no tax at all. I still have to change all my invoice templates to reflect the new amount, but since they are printed only when I need them, it’s not a big deal.

A few days ago I came across this very funny video on twitter. It’s mostly self-explanatory, in particular with the subtitles. A little background information to make sure you won’t be missing the finer points of the video: The standard length of a work visa in Japan is 1, 3, or 5 years. Once you have received a 5-year work visa, you may apply for permanent residency at the end of it. And with this, I’ll let you enjoy this masterpiece by Maydaysan in Japan:

THE FUCKING SUBTITLES HAVE ME DEAD LOL pic.twitter.com/w6ZowOwy3m

— maydaysan (@Maydaysann) October 10, 2019

It is a well-known fact that Japanese homes are small, in particular those in the big cities. I can consider myself lucky that I can afford a nice apartment with 60 square meters, which does meet all my storage needs so far. In all my rooms except the kitchen/dining room, I have what is called an oshiire, a large closet that is 80 cm deep and as high as the room. The name literally means “to push/shove in”, and in the olden days, when everybody still slept on a futon, they were mainly used to store the family’s bedding during the day.

The oshiire in my apartment have two large compartments at the bottom that reach up to about 175 cm, and another smaller one on top of that reaching to the ceiling. Because I am rather short, this is where I store things I don’t need often; in case of the oshiire in my bedroom, I put my out-of season clothing up there, as well as currently unused bedding and linens etc.

I guess I have to confess that I’m a bit stingy – I avoid buying stuff that I don’t strictly need, for example if I already own something that can be repurposed, I’d rather go with that cheap option. In the case of boxes to put in my unused clothes, I simply used the moving boxes they came in 5 years ago – a perfectly good solution. Or so it seems, until you find out that those boxes are rather large (around 1/4 of a cubic metre for the big ones) and can weigh up to 20 kilos. And it’s no fun to lift them up over your head while balancing on a stool so you can push them into the top of that oshiire…

I am nothing but stubborn, so I did that for two of these large boxes – 40 kilos in total – twice a year in spring and late autumn. But now, the time has come, I’ve finally had enough of this, especially as the moving boxes are now finally breaking apart anyway – that’s me dropping them every now and then because they got too heavy to balance over my head.

So, after 5 years of living here I have given in and bought rather standard plastic storage boxes that are half the size and thus much easier to handle and lift, while still fitting all of what I need to pack away each season. I’m feeling mightily accomplished and like a real adult! Here’s the before and after – I’m wondering what’s next on my list of adult things to buy…

Yesterday afternoon I had a visit from the gas company; they wanted to check my gas equipment. I have a gas heater for hot water in my kitchen, and also the kitchen stove is using gas.

The service man checked the heater for damaged parts and when he turned on the hot water, he used a mirror to look outside and check if the exhaust fan is working. He also checked the gas faucet that connects to my stove, and advised me to move the stove a bit away from the back wall because there is a rubber tube connection that might get burned otherwise.

In the end, he also said that if I ever smelled gas the very first thing to do was to open the windows. I have a gas detector in one corner of the kitchen and showed it to him. Apparently it’s a rather old model and I could get it replaced with a rental one for 350 YEN/month. I declined because it’s not my apartment, and old doesn’t automatically mean not working.

The whole check was over in 10 minutes or so, but I have learnt something interesting: In one corner of each of my rooms, there is a little terminal, for what I didn’t find out until yesterday: It’s extra gas supply! So, in the winter, you can use a gas heater and connect it there rather than using liquid gas which I find very unsafe to be honest.

I’m not using gas heaters and I have no plans of doing so. Ever so often, there are accidents where people are poisoned by carbon monoxide (CO). I would need some sort of heating in my bedroom where I sleep on the floor – and CO is heavier than air… Just to be on the safe side, I’ll pass on any kinds of gas heaters and keep using my electric one, even though this is much more expensive than using gas. Yes, I have said that I want to stay in Japan until I die, and I’m still planning to do so, but there’s no need to hasten the arrival of that day…

Last Saturday, I took the day off to go to Arashiyama in the western part of Kyoto. It once was a kind of country retreat for the city’s aristocrats, and even though distances have shrunk thanks to modern travel, it still takes me more than an hour to get there. That means, I don’t really like to go there – unless there is something very special going on.

Like a hawk show. The Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts and Culture is holding a special exhibition at the moment with paintings of birds. And to make things interesting beyond the usual talk of art experts, they invited a falconer to come and show us his hawks.

First, there was a talk, of course. In Japan, falconry is called takagiri and it goes back as a sport for the nobles to the 4th century, when it was introduced from Korea. Tokugawa Ieyasu was particularly fond of hawking and put together a string of laws to govern its use during the Edo period. After the Meiji Restoration, however, takagiri was mostly discontinued, and today it is practised by a private clubs.

When a hawk is hatched, it takes about two months until it reaches the size of an adult. At this point, the training begins, first with very short sessions of 5 minutes a day, increasing to 10 minutes, 15 minutes… up to 4 hours of training a day. Interestingly, female hawks are larger than male ones, and they are easier to train for some reason. Hawks are flown daily and there is no retirement for them; they have a life span of 20 – 30 years.

Most of the training is based on incentives with food. Unfortunately, I did not quite understand what exactly they are fed, but the falconer stated that it’s not as simple as going to the supermarket and buying meat there. An interesting tidbit is that Japanese falconers fly their birds from the left hand, while in China the right hand is used. Part of it is that most people are right-handed, but part of it is that in Japan, the samurai still needed to be able to draw a sword…

After the talk, we were treated to a hawk show. There were two hawks present, and one of them was flown indoors between two people. After one or two how-to’s, visitors were invited to try themselves (with the help of a falconer, of course). Finally, we went outside for a more authentic experience. This time only the falconers worked with the birds though, but we saw how a hawk would hunt for a flying object, and it is amazing how fast these animals really are.

Last week my friend and I once more went to the Tamayuran Cafe to see the cats and little Yoshida Kyoichiro in particular. He has grown quite a bit in the last month, and although he is still very small for his age (he’s about 3 months old now), he has developed into a very sweet and playful kitten.

While we were having drinks, we had Kyoichiro play on our table for more than an hour, and although I prefer somewhat older cats because they are generally easier to care for, I cannot deny that I’m totally in love with him.

At the end of our playdate-threesome, he fell asleep in my arms, and although you can’t see it here, I’m just as happy as he is!