experiences – Page 54 – goinggaijin.com

Rude

It is very rare indeed that people in Asia in general, and in Japan in particular are rude to anyone, especially to foreigners. Usually they go out of their way to help you and do so with a smile on their face. Now, what do you think of this:

The other day, when I was in a bookstore browsing the (tiny) English section, a man came straight towards me. Our conversation was very short, I only said a single word in response. In virtually perfect English he said, “Can I ask you a very impolite and personal question? I nodded and he continued, “Are you a native English speaker?” “No.” At which point he raised his hand in a dismissive gesture, turned around on his heels and disappeared without a single further word.

This the first time somebody has been obviously rude to me in Japan (I mean the running away part, not the asking) and it still baffles me. I talked about this incident with a housemate of mine who has been living here for 5 years or so, and he said this might have happened because the man wanted to practise his English, used up all his courage in the first question and then did not know anymore what to say. I doubt that as his English was too good for that, though. My housemate also said similar things have happened to him – he’s a native speaker and gets annoyed when people don’t leave him alone, so it’s the opposite – and I should not take this too seriously. I am still somewhat annoyed by this though, especially as this totally hits my sore ENS spot: English Native Speaker…

Wheels

As you know, I have started my soroban classes last week. The school is about 50 minutes walk away (along very busy roads, the scenic route next to the river takes more than an hour), and I’ll have to go there at least twice a week. The bus prices have just been raised, and although I wouldn’t call 230 YEN for one trip outrageous, it does add up over time. So, I have done the most sensible thing one can do with respect to city mobility:

I finally bought a bicycle.

I went to a tiny little shop that is owned by a very old man with huge, bushy, white eyebrows, and who of course speaks Japanese only. Neither his lack of teeth, nor his apparent hearing loss made conversation any easier, but we managed in the end. And now I am the proud owner of a bicycle, lovely, used, and red, and it cost only 6500 YEN. We adjusted the seat down (I have very short legs), checked the brakes together, and I had to prove by showing him that I understood how to use the attached lock.

Finally, the man’s wife helped me fill in a registration form for my bicycle. A registered bike has a yellow sticker on the frame bearing a number, and I now have written proof – for an extra 500 YEN – that this bicycle indeed belongs to me. In case it is stolen and retrieved by the police, I will get a phone call so I can pick it up again. (Oh, wait, I didn’t provide a phone number… well, they can always send me a letter.)

The only thing I still have to figure out is where to park when I go downtown. On the large streets of city centre it is even forbidden to ride a bike (pushing on the pavements is okay, but difficult especially during the crowded weekends), but in many more places you may not park your bicycle even for a short time. There are special parking lots or garages for bicycles, and they do remind me of the ones in the Netherlands, but you have to pay there (which means I could just as well take the bus) and I am not sure how conveniently they are located, as I only ever found a single one – being a pedestrian and all. I will find out soon.

What I have found out already is that it is not only possible, but quite likely that wrongly parked bicycles are towed and impounded. You have to go somewhere near Kyoto station with your registration card and pay a fine to get your bicycle back. I hope this won’t be happening to me any time soon, but if it does, you will hear all the details.

My action radius has just increased considerably, and I’m looking forward to lots of new and far away adventures…

Refill

The house I live in is a so-called gaijin house: Everybody has a private room, and we share facilities like kitchen, computer room, bathroom… We are also responsible for some house maintenance, meaning that we have to buy necessities like dishwashing liquid, replace broken light bulbs, take out the garbage, and keep the house tidy. Larger repairs are organized and paid for by the landlady and there is a cleaner coming once a week. In a way, it’s like a student’s dorm for adults, and mostly it works rather well.

Mostly. Right now, six of the eight rooms are occupied, that’s the largest amount of people living here since I came here. The house is still very quiet, and I am very grateful for this. Other things have changed though, for example we need a lot more garbage bags and have to take them out almost every collection day, and we seem to run out of toilet paper twice a week.

I had an interesting encounter concerning the latter issue with one of my housemates, a 50-something year old German. Essentially he said: “Oh, we’re out of toilet paper again, I know, but I don’t think I’ll go and get some because I bought the one before and I really think the new person (who moved in last week) should buy some, and besides, I’m leaving on Sunday anyway, so…” I managed to only remark that this is not the way things used to work around here, but I left it (and him) right there. No use making a stink in his last four days.

Inside I was fuming though. I mean, how old is that guy, 12? “But mommy, I did the dishes yesterday already…” I remember him coming in with four (in numbers: 4!) rolls of toilet paper and making a fuss about it as if he had just sponsored a complete bathroom renovation… Tit for tat, quid pro quo, and besides, I think I am perfectly entitled to…

There was something I found terribly obnoxious about Germans. Sheesh, if I could just remember what it was…

Reminiscences

Last week I was very busy. First of all, my soroban lessons started in earnest, we did three classes last week. Right now we are reviewing what I have learnt before, it is going okay, but I still make many mistakes. And that’s although I am not worried about speed at this point…

The big thing was the conference last week at Kyoto University, in my “old” field, so to speak. I went there several times, mainly because colleagues from my last university were attending the conference and they had asked me to do some sightseeing with them. We had lunch together on Monday, and I spent Tuesday afternoon showing them my personal highlights of Kyoto. Those are not that small or unknown places – certainly not for the Japanese – but I don’t think they would make the Top 10 of must-sees in Kyoto. My friends seemed to be very happy about that. On Friday, three of us went out the whole day; I have mentioned that. We went to the Silver Pavillion and the Philosopher’s path, and because of a problem with my watch, we were almost too late for lunch, which was my personal highlight of the day:

We had kaiseki for lunch, Japanese haute cuisine, which is especially renowned in Kyoto. There is a small ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn not far from my place, usually those serve kaiseki, and I had made a reservation the day before. Although only three people, we had our own room with a view onto their perfectly kept Japanese garden. On each of our places (we were sitting on a table, and not on the floor; I was a bit disappointed, but my friends were rather glad about it), lay an old poem, handwritten by the “lady of the house” onto beautiful Japanese handmade paper. Japanese calligraphy is hard to read, even for Japanese, but, as a special extra, there was a small slip with an English translation glued to the back of each poem. Our menu consisted of seven courses, and although you cannot choose what you would like to have – when you make the reservation you state the price only – we were extremely pleased with the food: There was lots of fish and seafood, many vegetables, all in season and from local sources, all cooked to absolute perfection, each bite marvellous. We were served by a woman in Kimono who only spoke Japanese, naturally, and in between the courses we admired the garden and the details and decorations of the room.

After lunch we took a train down to Fushimi Inari shrine, where we… well, let’s be honest, we ran up the hill and through all the torii. This was the main thing my friends wanted to see that day, and it was the most exhausting part of the day; my German friends with their long legs obviously had less of a problem with it than I did. Anyway, it was very nice, and while catching my breath very now and then I could even take a few pictures, chiefly of the red torii, but also some of the many cats that are living around the shrine. Finally, dinner took place in downtown Kyoto, at a simple running sushi place, but nevertheless delicious.

The conference was nice, although I only went to one of the talks. There were a large number of old friends and colleagues, one of whom I hadn’t seen since I did my PhD; students, postdocs, and professors from the various universities I have worked at and with before, my PhD advisor… It was very nice to see them all again and catch up with people. Never before had I had the feeling that so many people were so happy to see me. 😉

What I found most interesting though, is that although I enjoyed going there and meeting all these people, not for a single moment did I feel regret about having left academia. There was nothing pulling me back, nothing at all to trigger regret or to make me reconsider my decision. I guess, it was a good one after all.

Tired

I’m very tired – I’ve just come back from a big tour through Kyoto with two friends of mine from Germany that altogether took about 11 hours… We spent the morning in the area around Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion, one of the top 5 sights in Kyoto. Then we had an amazing lunch at a ryokan close to my place, a seven course traditional kaiseki menu, which is essentially haute cuisine from Japan. Afterwards we took the train down to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the main shrine for the god of wealth and business, the one that has thousands of orange torii gates lining the paths up and down a mountain. Finally, I helped a friend buy green tea, and then we had sushi for dinner.

You see, I was very busy today, but we had a lot of fun too. I am especially pleased about lunch, it was my first kaiseki since I came here last year, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was delicious. Anyway, I am dead tired now and I have to see another friend of mine tomorrow morning… Hence, I will not look for a photo anymore, but go straight to bed now.

Fireflies

Last night, after a very busy day (I’ll tell you on Friday), I had my first soroban class that is the requirement for my visa. We have decided that in the beginning, I will join the last class of the day that has only teenagers clicking away, and which lasts for an hour, starting at 7 pm. I haven’t practiced in a long time, so I needed a bit of time to remember how to do division and especially multiplication, and I made many mistakes. Oh well, I have lots of time to improve.

When I finally went home after some extra training and a bit of chatting, it was already 9 in the evening and I took a small road that runs next to a little brook to get to the river and walk home along it. The brook is rather small and it runs through a residential area that is very quiet, with one-way streets left and right. Every now and then there are little bridges crossing the water, and although the night was cool (it had rained shortly before), I could see people standing on the bridges and staring into the dark bed of the brook.

It is often better not to show too much curiosity, but at some point I could not restrain myself any longer and I went onto a bridge myself to look down. It took me a while to find out what the people found so interesting, and I was glad about the Japanese couple next to me who kept staring down so intently, I might have left after all, completely clueless…

There were fireflies! I had never seen fireflies before, they don’t seem to live in the part of Austria I am from, so I was very surprised. They were of the greenish glowing variety, very nice, and very bright for their tiny size. I watched a bit, but left when it got too cold. The most interesting part about this was that the people who watched were doing so in complete silence, which is very unusual.

Pet

Tonight, I was chatting with one of my housemates in our kitchen for a while. He has told me that today, he had seen his first cockroach of the year (I haven’t so far, but I am sure they will become more numerous soon). Having finished our conversation, we left the kitchen, through a small corridor, one side of which is essentially one large shelf, currently mostly empty. I don’t know what exactly caught my eye, whether it was movement, or just an odd shape… Anyway, I took a closer look – and then I started running, because from the corner of my eye, I saw this:

I hate spiders. The photo does not really do it justice, because it is hard to estimate from it the real size of the spider. Believe me when I say that from toe to toe, so to speak, it is about the length of my hand, probably around 12 – 15 cm, which makes the body alone around 4 – 5 cm long. Have I mentioned that I hate spiders?

My housemate told me that it has been on the shelf for several weeks, but this is the first night I have seen it too. He is quite relaxed and claims it eats all the mosquitoes and we should just leave it.

I have relented so far, although I really hope the thing will not climb up to my bedroom. And if it does, it’s fair game. We had an equally large spider around the kitchen last year, and I only saw it once, thank goodness… Why can we not have nicer pets? I wouldn’t mind adopting any of the geckos from outside the house that sometimes – but only very rarely – find their way inside. They would eat mosquitoes too and are much less scary…

Hairy

When I was in Tokyo this week, I spent quite some time in the trains and subways there. Whether it’s a bus, a train, a subway… any type of public transport in Japan is covered in advertisements. They are placed above the windows, next to the windows, hang from the ceilings across the aisles, and I am sure the only reason they do not cover the floors is that public transport is popular and usually crowded. Most ads come als old-fashioned posters (these days often with QR codes for them ubiquitous smartphones), but in Tokyo’s subways there are video displays above the doors announcing the stops – and in between the stops, they show little clips – advertisements, of course. Sometimes, however, we get something with a more educational value though…

With great interest I watched a little comic that went like this: A young woman with long hair sits in front of a computer, typing away. The hair eventually falls into her eyes and she brushes it back. The second time she has to do it, she flips it back more violently, her boss, who stands right behind her, gets the whole load smack into his face. Afterwards, we get to see a little instruction of how to tie your hair up and out of the way, and the clip finally concludes with a row of woman happily typing away, undisturbed, and a boss, obviously equally happy about all that increased productivity.

So far, so good, but for somebody not educated in proper office lady etiquette, it does raise a few questions:

Why are only women targeted? Surely, there are men with long hair too. I do admit that they won’t be working as typists though…
It’s all about productivity, right? Pity I did not get to see that clip where the chaps are invited to take fewer smoking breaks…
Why is a woman’s hairstyle anybody’s business? As long as she adequately, professionally dressed for the job at hand and gets it done at the end of day…
If my boss stands so closely behind me to get my hair into his face when I move – he may consider himself lucky I don’t wear extensions with steel reinforcements…

I am glad I don’t have these type of problems. Even if I was an office lady in Japan, I have had a short haircut ever since I moved to Asia for the first time. And it seems to get shorter every year. The only thing I regret about this is that now I need to have it cut more often…

Skytree

I am back from my trip to Tokyo, and I’m rather tired now. I got everything done and even had some free time to do some sightseeing. Tokyo is a very modern city, and instead of historically and interesting sights you have in Kyoto, you need to go into another direction to find interesting things to do in Tokyo. So, I chose the most modern sightseeing spot you can find Tokyo right now to spend a few hours there yesterday afternoon and early evening.

I went to and up (and then down again) the Skytree. Isn’t it fantastic: The Skytree was built over four years, and since its official opening on May 22, 2012, is the highest tower in the world, standing 634 m tall. Its main purpose is that of a broadcasting tower; it was built so high to avoid interferences from all the skyscrapers in Tokyo. And while they were pouring the concrete, they also built a shopping mall beneath it (of course), an aquarium, a planetarium,… The Skytree has two observation decks, the first one is called Tembo, where there are – actually on three floors (called 340th, 345th, and 350th floor) – a 360 degree view over Tokyo, a souvenir shop (of course) and a restaurant, as well as two cafés. Smaller attractions there are holes in the floor of the lowest deck, and very cool interactive maps of the surroundings where you can zoom in and out, change the view from day to night, and look at the history of the city.

From the Tembo observation deck you can take one of two elevators an extra 100 m up to what is called the Tembo galleria, a wonderful walkway that takes you up in a spiral to the highest point you can reach in the tower as a visitor: the so-called sorakaba point at 451.2 metres. Needless to say that this is exactly the spot to take a selfie… The galleria is very nice, especially if you like steel and glass, but I think it is only worth the extra 1000 YEN on a very fine day, because the view is the only thing you have up there. I am sure the view is spectacular – if it is clear enough, that is… Although it did not rain yesterday, it was very hazy, and once again, I could not see Mount Fuji.The tower became very crowded just before sunset, and Tokyo by night is indeed quite a sight! Once again, the whole experience is very organized: People leave and enter the tower and even the two decks on different floors, so people in/out, or up/down will never get in each other’s way. You can buy an advance ticket which allows you to enter the tower without queueing up for a ticket (and, according to the space that is allocated, the queues can be very long indeed), but they are more expensive than if you just go and wait in line. I did not have to wait, as it was Tuesday afternoon, but I guess that the Skytree will become very crowded in the weekends.

Okay, a few more facts about the Skytree to satisfy the nerd in me (and in other people as well): As mentioned above, it is 634 m high, the numbers can be read in Japanese as “mu-sa-shi”, which is a nod to the old name of the area in which the tower stands. At the base, the Skytree’s cross-section is shaped like an equilateral triangle, but the higher you come, the more and more round it becomes – this progress is depicted in the elevator as you go up, by the way – and the Tembo observation deck on 350 m already has a circular cross-section. This makes the base very stable, and the top is such that it can withstand high winds easily. Depending under which angle the Skytree is viewed, this change of diameter shows a different shape from below.

At the centre of the tower is a 375 m high concrete pillar. This and the steel structures surrounding it can move independently to absorb up to 50 % of the shock from earthquakes. Interestingly, this appears to be an ancient way to construct high buildings – traditional five storied pagodas were built using the same principle.The tower is painted a special type of white, also coming from old, traditional sources, and in the night it is lit by LED’s in two different styles that alternate daily – the purple one I saw uses a colour that is reminiscent of the old Edo court, when the Shogun and the samurai were still in charge of Japan. There are four elevators to the Tembo deck, and, if you can believe the display in them, their maximum speed is 600 m/min. Well, we did not travel very long, that’s for sure. Two more elevators – this time with a glass door and a glass top to “heighten anticipation of the visitors” lead to the galleria in 450 m height.

Account

Today I crossed another thing off my list: opening a bank account. Once more, the experience was pleasant as everything was rather organised, except for a tiny little hiccup (which was entirely my fault), but the clerk managed it bravely (and in a rather un-Japanese fashion).

I opened an account with Shinsei bank, as I have heard that they are the most foreigner-friendly bank, and also because you can withdraw money from essentially every ATM in the country free of charge. It took me a while to find their branch on Shijo street, and when I entered, all I could see were the ATMs. I looked confused, so the security guard that was there (every branch of every bank seems to have at least one) approached me, and when I said I wanted to open an account, he pointed up the stairs to the office. Interestingly, on the ground floor, there were only three ATMs and a drugstore playing noisy music.

Anyway, once upstairs, I presented my brand new zairyu card and asked to open an account. The clerk pointed me to a computer and helped me enter all my information: Name in Katakana and roman alphabet, address, occupation,…

The little hiccup occurred when we came to the field “phone number”. I don’t have a phone, neither mobile nor landline and I tried to explain that to the clerk. She answered essentially “no phone, no account”, which I found odd (and I am seriously wondering if I could get a phone without a bank account, by the way) and tried to convince her that a phone number is not necessary, after all, they could send me an email… Nope, she insisted, no phone – no account. I relented and asked if I could give her the number of my landlady and she said if the landlady would be okay to receive my phone calls from the bank, that would be all right with them. Unfortunately, I did not bring the piece of paper where I noted down my landlady’s phone number, and I don’t know it by heart as we usually communicate per email… So, I asked whether I can just enter any number, and if it was okay to change the phone number later once I knew the correct one. And – I was already prepared to leave and start afresh on Monday – the clerk said yes to my scheme! Honestly, I did not expect that, kudos to that clerk!

After filling in the online form and checking the Katakana over and over again (I have a difficult last name, at least for Asians, and I used a way of transcribing it so that the pronunciation will be correct), I had to wait a few minutes for another clerk to take over. I had to sign the account application form, where instead of my signature I chose to use a hanko, a Japanese seal. I know that this means I’ll have to bring the hanko every time I go to the bank, but as I do most of my stuff with internet banking anyway, I hope it won’t be too much hassle as long as I’m not turning senile and keep forgetting the thing…

After that, we were almost finished. I was immediately issued with a bank card (I could choose between some 10 colours and went for the black although I have to admit the bright orange one had something too…), received a comparatively small pile of extra paperwork, and was promised that everything I’d need for internet banking would be sent to my address in a registered letter within 10 days. After asking about transfer limits, and being instructed about how to register for a credit card, we were finished and I left very happily. Interestingly, I was never asked for an initial deposit. The whole procedure (including the fight about the telephone number and answering my questions requiring two clerks) took maybe 30 minutes and I can start banking right away. Once I have any money, that is…