Category: plans and preparations

I have decided to move out. As soon as possible. I was planning to move out of Ebisu’s some time next year anyway, so the thought is not completely new, although I was not planning on doing it quite so quickly.

The main reason is that the house has turned (almost) into student’s dorm central… Of the six rooms that are occupied right now, five of them belong to students in their early 20s. Not that they are partying all the time, not at all (and I am rather surprised by that), and they are all very nice and considerate. It’s just that they sit and talk for hours on end. Which is not a problem as such, had they not chosen as their favourite discussion forum the room just underneath mine – and I think I have made ample remarks about the thin walls and ceilings of the house already… As I said, they are not deliberately noisy, they are just talking, so there’s nothing I can say, that would be unfair. However, it sounds like there is a TV running in the background all the time, and I really don’t want to have that in my own home.

Solution: fast track the moving plans. I am looking for something with at least two bedrooms, and there are sufficiently many places to choose from, if not necessarily in my neighborhood. It seems even possible to rent a whole – older – house for the price of a similarly sized but newer apartment, and to be honest, I am leaning towards this, as I have always lived in a house and like the simple fact that there is an “upstairs”.

I have already asked my tandem partner for a few phrases that may come handy when looking for or at a house or apartment. There are also a number of very small rental agencies in my neighborhood where I can go to and see what’s on offer.

In a way I have started the process two weeks ago already… On the other side of the hill, there is this wonderful strange old house in this beautiful garden. It is strange because it is old – and it consists of a Western part in front and a Japanese part in the back. I first saw it about half a year ago I guess – and fell madly in love with it. I have always liked old houses, and this one fits virtually every of my bills… Several weeks ago, when I passed by the house again – there was a sign “For Sale”.

Immediately, I put all of my friends and acquaintances to work to help me contact the agent – I just had to see this house. It is very old and – almost the standard in Japan – in a very bad state, and I was afraid that it would be sold to one of those awful developers who would tear it down and build a mansion instead of it or something equally ugly, before I had seen it.

And this morning, I had an appointment with the agent to see the house! I was very excited to finally be able to get in and check it out. It is as I had expected: absolutely gorgeous and wonderful – and huge! The house has two floors, the Western part has two rooms on each floor which are bright with large windows and high ceilings with stucco; and there are even fireplaces in the rooms upstairs and something that looks like a tiled stove on the ground floor. The Japanese part is very traditional – low ceilings, dark wood and shoji, tokonoma and tatami everywhere. Altogether there are three bathrooms and two kitchens in the house, and around 15 rooms in the Japanese part if I remember correctly.

The house is about 100 years old, and was apparently built by a medical doctor who was working at Kyoto University. It is even possible that the university had financed the building of the house, and at that time having Western style rooms was very hip. It seems that the house was used both as living space and as practice – in the front room on the second floor there is something in a corner that looks like a washbasin. Another reason for the size of the house is, that the professor’s students were living there as well – something completely normal in that era.

I absolutely love that house, and the garden – about 1200 square metres – is equally gorgeous with old trees and lilies growing wild… Unfortunately, as I said, the house is in a very sad state – I will add some pictures tomorrow – and I think that besides the price of the house (which is actually the price of the land) one would have to spend an equal amount on renovations…

It’s such a pity I cannot buy it and renovate it, it would be wonderful. But, it’s out of my budget, by about a factor of 15. Not counting any renovations here… No, I have not yet made my peace with it, but I will eventually, I am sure. And maybe, I will find another old house somewhere that I can personally save from the rampant “mansionitis”…

In Asia, many large, legally binding transactions, whether business (buying a house or car) or private (getting married) still require the involved parties to use personal seals rather than signatures. Many people use different seals for different purposes, the more important the business, the more important the seal. The transactions mentioned above require a personal seal that is registered with the local ward the person lives in, and is thus of the highest level. These seals – in Japan they are generally called inkan or hanko – are often elaborately carved, unique pieces that can be very expensive and usually accompany a person throughout their (adult) life.

For practical reasons, and in view of a few important things coming up, I have decided to get my own registered seal or jitsuin, and, armed with my own elaborate design based on my last name, I went to a hanko-ya, a seal-carving shop last week. I must have chosen the most uninspired seal makers of town, because there my problems started…

First of all, they could not tell me whether my design would be acceptable by law. This makes sense, as for foreigners, there are strict rules a jitsuin has to adhere to, and apparently, they even differ from one town to the next. So, I went to city hall (which, thankfully, was not far from the shop) and I spent about one hour discussing with a very friendly young staff member which type of seal would be permissible for me. It seems that in Kyoto (and she stressed that emphatically), I can have a seal containing my last name, my first name, or both in either romaji, roman alphabet, or in katakana. I am not allowed an abbreviation of (parts of) the name, for example initials only, and: The thing must be recognisable as my name! This surprised me quite a bit, because I know that these seals for Japanese often contain very old-fashioned kanji that the modern Japanese probably would not recognise. Also, whenever such a seal is used, it must be accompanied with proof of its registration anyway – which you only get with proper identification…

In any case, she was not swayed, so my beautiful self-designed idea based on my last name with lots of flourishes and hidden letters (although all of them were there, I swear!) was out. So, I asked about katakana on my seal and made a quick, improvised sketch of something. After going back to check with somebody in the know, she returned and said: “Yes, this is possible, and it’s very nice, but you first have to register a heikimei.” Excuse me, a what? We could not quite find common ground on this one. Only at home, when checking the kanji she wrote down for me (併記名) it turned out that it literally means “also shown name”, the Japanese translate it as “pronunciation name”, essentially a way of writing your (foreign) name in katakana. So, in order to be allowed to use a seal with katakana, I first have to register those katakana as equivalent with my name. While it sounds a bit odd, it does make sense from a legal point of view. I guess. In any case, after we both had confirmed that I can register both the heikimei and the seal at the same ward office on the same day, I thanked her profusely and went back to the hanko-ya.

There, my problems went from bad to worse. Now they informed me that there was no way they could possibly furnish me with a seal carved in romaji, as this is nothing they are capable of. Then I said, okay, good, here is an easy design of my first name in katakana, with the syllables nicely flowing together. Oh, no, this was not something they could possibly do either, after all there is a machine doing the carving and the machine cannot possibly be told to move that one kana a bit to the left and the other a bit to the right and besides and anyway…

As I did not know any other hanko-ya to go to, I relented, and they took three days to tell that ominous machine in their backyard to carve the most uninspired and most ugly seal they ever made. I showed it to my friends for commiseration, but interestingly they found it cute – they had never seen a katakana seal before. Well, I thought, as long as it does the trick for registration…

This afternoon, I went to my ward office to register my heikimei and the seal, and to get a seal certificate as proof that the seal is really my official seal. I braced myself for severe difficulties again, but everything went smoothly. An assistant who is only there to assist people – Japanese and foreign alike – to fill out forms and put them on the right chair, filled out all the forms I needed. For the seal registration, I had to put the seal on the registration form and on a small extra slip of paper – the clerk explained that I should make an extra effort there because this imprint would be scanned and thus entered into the database. After maybe 15 minutes time in total and after paying 350 YEN, I received a registration confirmation and the registration card pictured above. If ever I need a new proof of registration, I’ll only need to show this card and a new document will be issued promptly.

Japanese bureaucracy does not cease to amaze me. Some things take ages and lots of “it can’t be done” interjections – those are the ones the typical foreigner thinks they should be straightforward – and other things – where you think they are virtually impossible – they have pat down and systemized and everything is finished within five minutes…

Cute anecdote on the side: I was called to the payment counter by name by an older man, whose first question was – in perfect German: “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” “Ich kann das auch auf Deutsch”, I replied and we then proceeded in English after all. I guess he saw my nationality in the paperwork, but I was indeed surprised – you don’t find that many Japanese  who speak German.

Yesterday, I got mail! Well, actually – as our doorbell does not work – there was a notice in the letterbox that I had received a registered letter in my absence. I could not really make out the sender – too many Kanji in a row – but it started with “Kyoto City…”

I have been a foreign resident in many countries and receiving unsolicited mail from any government related source (especially if registered) very quickly produces a very specific thing: A knot in my stomach. The first thing I did was checking my visa: No, expiration date is still some time in May next year, so this was unlikely to be the issue. I relaxed a little and took some time to look up all the Kanji and the sender appeared to be my health insurance. Okay okay, yes, I was indeed 4 days late with my last payment, but there is really no need to get that personal and registered within less than a week…

When I finally picked up the letter from the post office in the evening, all my stomach troubles turned out to have been for nothing: I simply received – like all the other Japanese – a new health insurance card. It seems that you are issued a new card every year by the end of November. The new one is green-ish, but besides the colour nothing has changed.

On the back of the card there is a little form on which you can indicate whether you’d like to be an organ donor, and under which circumstances. The default state is NO, but you can also agree to your organs being harvested in case of cardiac arrest or in case of brain death + cardiac arrest. I like this idea of doing it; it is very straightforward and easy to do, and the nicest thing about it is that you can change your mind every year. Apparently, not many Japanese allow their organs to be taken, which is a pity. I don’t care what happens to any leftovers once I’m dead, so I said YES.

I have a week off with no appointments whatsoever! My soroban sensei has his autumn vacation this week (which he spends by going to Italy and teaching soroban there) and my German-Japanese tandem partner has a lot of irons in his fire right now, so he too cancelled our meeting this week. Hence: I have vacation too! There are a few things I’d like to do:

Tomorrow seems to be a market at Kamigamo shrine, which might be nice, and nearby is the botanical garden of Kyoto which is probably very nice although it is still too early for the momiji.

Also, a friend of mine has given me a ticket for a private house that once belonged to a potter and which is still in the original state and functions now as museum for his works.

Speaking of museum: The Kyoto National Museum currently has an exhibition of so-called national treasures of Japan, often beautiful pieces of applied art, which I had wanted to see anyway.

And, finally, there is an interesting ritual involving rice cakes in a shrine not far from my place on Saturday…

Well, let’s see what I can accomplish this week. To be honest, I never had anything against lazy vacations with lots of books and chocolates either…

The other day, when I was returning from my favourite temple, an elderly man started talking to me. In good English, although using simple words and sentences, he asked me where I was from, how I liked Japan, the standard chat. When I said I lived in Kyoto, he warmed up a bit more, showed me a little booklet with a number of English phrases, and finally explained that he liked to talk to foreigners because he wanted to practise his English. The reason why he is studying English in the first place are the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020 – yes, that’s 6 years from now – and he said he was making an effort in anticipation of all the foreigners who would come to Japan during that time so he was able “to give good directions”. I can’t help chuckling a little about this reason, but hey, he has a goal to strive towards with his lessons! We said goodbye with mutual “gambatte!”

Today I received a letter from the mother of my Nagoyan friend. It was a very interesting letter – written in English, German, and Japanese! She started out stating her purpose in English: She had translated a Japanese children’s song into German, hoping that I would understand what was going on despite her bad grammar – the song was cute and her translation very good. Her goal is to learn German because she wants to go and visit Germany a few years down the road, and she’d like to correspond with me to learn a bit more easily.  I will start answering her letters in German and Japanese – I hope we both can learn something this way…

The resident status I now have in Japan does not only come with the upside of being able to stay without being pestered, have a bank account, own a mobile phone (theoretically that is), … but also with the downside of having to pay taxes and health insurance.

I just received a deposit slip for each month of this fiscal year (ending in March 2015) so I can pay my health insurance. It is very cheap, only 1800 YEN/month, but this is only because health insurance is calculated from your income of the year before, and if you didn’t have any, you only pay the minimum. People do say that in general, Japanese health insurance is very expensive, and on top of that you’ll still have to pay 30% of every bill in patient’s contribution; but obviously, so far I cannot really complain.

As the insurance company does not have my account number, I will have to pay the amount in cash by the end of every month. I just hope I will not forget that, I have heard they become rather unpleasant if you are not paying. Together with the stack of deposit slips, there were forms that appear to be debit orders, but as I cannot read them to be certain, and as my account is suspiciously empty anyway, there is no rush to do anything about that for now. I will get to it eventually.

I am only in my third week of my soroban studies – okay, I have gone to class twice a month for much longer than that, but still – but yesterday my sensei has suggested that I’ll take my first test already.

It must have been because I did surprisingly well yesterday in class… Okay, I guess I’ll have to explain how a typical class is conducted: I have a book – level 6 – containing sets of exercises for multiplication, division, and addition and subtraction. Each set of exercises consists of 15 calculations that you have to solve, and you have 7 minutes in total for each set, that is about 30 seconds per calculation. You do as many as you can in the allotted time, and all the correct answers will score you one point. So, essentially what we do is to do all three sets of exercises – first multiplication, probably because it is most difficult, then division and finally the addition/subtraction – for seven minutes each. Then I finish the exercises I could not get to during the 7 minutes, and finally I get to grade myself (the book contains the solutions in the back).

Somehow I had an exceptionally good day yesterday – I could finish almost all the multiplication and addition exercises – and not only did I solve as many exercises as never before, but I even solved most of them correctly! My sensei was quite surprised – as was I – and then he asked me if I wanted to try the test.

There is an official test scheduled every two months, and people can take it in their own school. Sensei will register my name, and on the test day he will receive a test booklet with the exercises I have to solve. It will be the same level of calculations and I’ll have to do them in the same amount of time; and I need to solve more than 10 correctly on each set of exercises to pass the test.

It seems that sensei is hopeful that I can do it, otherwise he would not have asked I am sure, so I will try. There’s nothing lost if I don’t pass – except for 1000 YEN – but it will be fun to try. I just hope I’ll have as good a day as yesterday…