Category: plans and preparations

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.

As you know, I have received all my things from Europe – 42 boxes – a month ago. Today, I finally finished tidying and putting away and cleaning things! All my rooms are clean again, the things I don’t want out at this point are put away, and I even had some energy left to go through some of the paperwork I brought and which needed to be sorted.

What surprised me was that, with one exception, I will not need any new storage items. Although the apartment is small and the layout seems a bit unpractical, I could put away all of my things somewhere. Especially the kitchen cabinets proved to be quite large, there is even one which is still empty (okay, this one is so high that I can’t reach it anyway, but still). Some of the things I have no use for right now have been stored away in those large closets that are usually used for futons, but everything I need is accessible rightaway.

Interestingly, I have not regretted bringing anything, although I regret throwing so many things away in Germany. I should not have sold all my wine glasses or given away all my vases; and let’s not start talking about my hundreds of books that went to the library please…

The books that remain are the only thing I have not touched yet. They fill six boxes that are piled in one corner of my living room, and I have not yet decided where to put them. I always wanted a large library, but this apartment does not lend itself to it. The only three walls that would be suitable for a room high bookshelf are in my bedroom and in my designated guest room, and just in case there is an earthquake, it’s probably better not to get buried under books. Hence, I have to find another solution. A friend of mine gave me an idea, but I’ll still have to see if this is feasible. In any case, until I become a real rich person who can afford a decent library in a decent place, I shall dream of – or shall I say: drool over – The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination…

It was a very busy day today, and it’s not yet finished. This morning, at 9 am, the 42 boxes containing all my life so far have been delivered, finally! Everything went smoothly, both guys from the moving crew were very courteous and spoke good English, and although they had a hard time hauling all my books into the 5th floor (remember, no elevator!) all was said and done within two hours, including already unpacking some of the boxes – the large ones in the right hand back corner – you see here:

Since then I have been unpacking with more or less enthusiasm. At first I stood before that mountain and thought: oh my, where to start… but then I remembered that “one box at a time” would be a good approach, and I have been at it ever since. So far, I have already regretted one choice I made when packing two years ago – I could have brought my whole wine collection, the import fee was negligible – and I was already surprised about one or two others – what’s with the cowhide?

However, as I have focused so far on unpacking the boxes with bedding, linens, and clothing, the big surprises and possible disappointments will come once I arrive at the boxes labeled “misc household”… It is very interesting to see all my clothing together on one big pile – all those T-shirts! – and I am actually making a point and an inventory list to curb further shopping sprees, hopefully.

Once my inventory is finished, I may post some of the more interesting numbers here, but for today, only the most important one: 27. That’s the number of boxes still unopened as for now, although I may get to empty one or two more tonight. I’ll update you with the numbers in the next few posts.

After a month-long search, I still have not found an accountant. Although I received an initial reply to my query from one in Osaka, there has been deafening silence ever since I asked for clarification on a few points – and a possible meeting. A friend of mine promised to bring me into contact with his accountant, and we have made an appointment on next Friday. It seems that this accountant only speaks rudimentary English though, so working with him might be difficult.

In any case, I was asked to bring my files and paperwork for the meeting, so he can check the current state of the accounts. And I’m thinking: What accounts – what state? Does this mean the large envelope into which I stuffed all my bills so far? And that single piece of paper on which I scribbled my income until now (and a number of assorted other stuff)? Somehow I have the feeling this will not entice him to work for me…

So, I will have to sort out all the papers and bills and at least make a neat list somehow. Obviously, I am not using any accounting software yet, but I hope that either my spreadsheet version will do for a while, or that the accountant will provide me with some software – and an explanation on how to use it. You can probably guess how much I am looking forward to using Japanese only software to track my money… Well, this is something that needs to be done in any case, so I better get going with it. I love paperwork, I love paperwork, I love… Ommmmmmmm….

Somehow related to this was today’s excursion to my bank: I wanted to know how to transfer money from abroad onto my company account. Yes, I anticipate lots of international clients… and as I know how terribly nitpicky Japanese banks can be, I wanted to make sure I get information that is 100% correct. Interestingly, they already had a paper ready with the necessary information, but then I wanted to double check how my company name transliterates into the Roman alphabet, and whether I can omit anything, which made it a bit more complicated. The clerk I asked did not know for sure herself, and I even saw her making a phone call. Well, given that she could not even read the Kanji correctly, this was probably a good idea…

As I have been very tired and thus very unmotivated the last few days, I could only do a few little things here and there.

One of them was the translation of my so far only English company homepage into German and Japanese. While I am quite confident about the German one, I will have to ask a friend of mine to check the Japanese translation before I put it online. There is nothing more off-putting for a potential client than a homepage riddled with errors – and as I want to appeal to the Japanese in their own language, I better go and make an effort.

Another thing I have been trying to do is to find an accountant to help me with company taxes and related work. Obviously I will need somebody who is capable of speaking English, but it appears to be very difficult to find somebody here in Kyoto. My lawyer has brought me in contact with a company in Tokyo, but I am not sure whether they are a good fit: Although all their accountants are bilingual (their boss is a British expat), this is a rather large company and thus seems to be a bit too inflexible for a tiny one like mine. The sales representative I talked to on the phone was a nice enough guy, but he tried to sell me all sorts of things which I am not sure I’ll need, at least not as long as I am a one-woman show only. Besides, all the paperwork will need to be sent back-and-forth, and if there is ever a problem that needs solving face to face, I will have to go to Tokyo, which is not really optimal.

So, I have now sent inquiries to a company in Osaka and another one in Kyoto; both seem to be smaller in size themselves and may be more happy to work with somebody who promises only a small revenue for the time being. So far, I have not heard anything back from either of them, despite the fact that they state on their homepages that they can deal with English-speaking clients. Maybe they are still trying to gauge how much English they will need when working with me?