goinggaijin.com – Page 110 – A European's move towards Japan

Acquaintance

It has 23 degrees right now – and I’m cold. Yes, I know how that sounds, but only this morning we still had 10 degrees more… It started to rain in the afternoon, and thus cooled down considerably. Apparently there are two typhoons on their way to Japan, one of them (No. 11) is coming from the South and is probably the reason for the rain.

I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Especially now as I don’t really know what to wear – shorts and sandals are not warm enough, and long pants and sneakers get soaked within five minutes. Today I chose the latter, and ran around with squishy feet all evening, which was not really nice, so I might try the long pants with sandals idea next time, as my feet will be equally wet and cold, but there is at least the chance of them drying in the restaurant…

Yes, this is what I was doing – I went to a restaurant with my language exchange partner and a friend of his, and it was really fun! He did not tell me much about his friend beforehand, only that she had spent the last year in Austria, so I was very excited to find out that she lived in Graz, where I myself had studied so long ago! We talked about Graz and where she lived and where I lived and how much Austrian she actually spoke… We talked about her favourite Austrian dishes (Bauerng’röstl, closely followed by Käsespätzle), and when she mentioned that a friend had given her a bottle of real Styrian Kernöl, I recommended her one of my favourites: Vanilla icecream with said Kernöl. She was very surprised, apparently she hadn’t heard of it, but she promised to give it a try. The evening was a short one, we were literally kicked out of the restaurant a bit after 9 pm, and I think because of the rain, nobody wanted to go elsewhere and keep chatting.

I gave her my email address and she promised that if she had time, we could meet again – and talk about Austria. She claimed that she could understand Austrian dialect but not speak it, and I’m curious to try it out… What a great evening, despite the rain!

Certificate

Yesterday I received my first soroban certificate! Here it is:It says that Iris is now a sorobanista of 6th kyu rank, which is not really much but, it’s a start. Everything has to have its proper order in Japan, so this certificate is signed (see the two red seals on the far left) with the names of two famous people who are somehow affiliated with this soroban association. The leftmost of them is Yamazaki Naoko, who, in 2010, became the second Japanese woman in space… I feel honored, actually!

The interesting thing about this certificate is that is does not contain my birthdate, although it should. No, it’s not because I deleted it… It’s because this is a pre-printed certificate, where only name, birthdate, and current kyu-rank are filled in by hand. Apparently, only children take these sort of exams, so the birth year is pre-printed as “Heisei”, the current Japanese era (we are in Heisei 26 right now). However, my birthdate falls into the last Japanese era called “Showa”, hence they left this part of the certificate blank. Sensei promised me to ask next time to have a “Showa” certificate issued, I said it was not important until I’ll get the first dan grade – the equivalent to a black belt in martial arts. Anyway, it’s a nice certificate (noticed the phoenixes?) and I am sufficiently proud of it!

Fees

The other day I transferred some money from my account in Europe to my account in Japan. I only sent 50 EUR, mainly because I wanted to find out how long such an international transfer would take, and because I wanted to make sure I had entered my endless account number correctly.

The money appeared, quicker than I had expected. And also, much less than I had expected… Besides the money, I received two letters, one from my bank in Europe, the other from my bank in Japan, each letter informing me that the transaction happened (yup, I know that, thanks), and each letter telling me about the fees incurred: 10 EUR.

You are probably not reading this correctly, so let me clarify this: I paid a 10 EUR fee to my bank in Europe, and a 10 EUR fee to my bank in Japan – making 20 EUR in fees for transferring 50 EUR, that is 40 % of the amount! And on top of that, I will have to pay one Yen for each Euro whenever I choose to exchange my Euros to Yen.

I have no idea what happened, I did notice though that the money was here within a day – and most certainly I did not want that because, first of all it says there that a speedy transfer will incur larger fees, and because I wanted to test how long a normal transfer would take. I asked my bank in Europe to explain what happened – and also to send me a list of their fees (I assume that the smaller the amount, the larger the fee), but I have not heard back from them yet. Yes, that’s what they call customer service there, I’m not surprised in the least.

Heatwave

This summer’s weather in Kyoto is rather strange. It is not (yet) as hot as it was last year, and even though it is summer, it is mostly overcast and grey. Only for the last three weeks – just in time for the Saki matsuri parade – the sun started to come out. The last few weeks were so bad all over Japan, that at least 15 people died because of the heat – I assume mostly old people who live in houses without aircondition, just like I do…

And on top of that, my room faces West, so it gets lots of sun in the afternoon. At some point, the ventilator I have started using since Gion matsuri only distributes the hot air, and there is no more cooling effect. The best thing to do during such a day is to flee to some place where there is aircondition. I like to go to the Prefectural Library near Heian shrine, and also to Kyoto International House, either to their library or downstairs to their big meeting hall. Both places are convenient because they have desks where I can work and even plug in my computer, and you can stay there as long as you like. These days I see many more people there than otherwise, I guess none of them have airco at home, or they choose not to use it for financial reasons.

Still, the weather is a bit strange. Last Saturday we had 37 degrees in the afternoon, with bright blue sky. And yesterday, it was equally bad: 30 degrees at 10 am, and I was dripping like a leaky faucet at that time already, so I left the house then, the first time I fled that early this year. However, today the sky was grey and overcast again, we only had 35 degrees, which still sounds a lot, but I swear it was much more bearable. And this is how it went the last few weeks: A day or two of blue skies and blistering heat, followed by several days of cloudy skies. It seems that places around Kyoto have much more sun; I think this is one of those few times when I should be grateful that Kyoto is surrounded by mountains and everything is grey and thus cool. Sometimes it is so hot that I am yearning for a bit of rain, but there is none, at least not in my area. We will see how the summer develops. Kyoto people claim that the highest temperatures are between Gion matsuri and Obon, which is two more weeks off.

Payments

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.

Exhibition

One of my housemates, who has been living in Japan for about 5 years now, has studied photography. Although he does in Japan what most English natives do here – teaching English – he never stopped taking photos.

And now, he has his first exhibition! It is a very small one, in a cafe not far from the imperial palace. A friend of mine and I went there today to see it, and although it has only a few photos in black and white, they are all beautiful – and, just as he promised, you’ll have to think about them a bit and to engage with them somehow.

Here is his webpage, if you are interested in seeing his (other) pictures – check out the links to Facebook and to his blog: http://white-rice.co.uk/ If you are in Kyoto and interested in seeing the exhibition “Souls Perceived”, it is in the Cafe Kamogamo, and will be held until August 4th.

Ato Matsuri

Yesterday was another busy day, it was the day of Ato Matsuri, the second parade of Gion Festival. It has ten floats, somewhat smaller than those of the first, the Saki Matsuri parade that happened one week prior, and although it takes the same route, it does so in the other direction. At the very end of the Ato Matsuri parade, there was a newly constructed O-fune yama, a boat-shaped float that always comes at the end of the procession. It is based on the traditional O-fune yama which unfortunately had burnt down a number of years ago and, as there was already a Fune-yama to end Gion Matsuri, it was not needed for the last 50 years and thus had not been rebuilt. This year, however, it had its reappearance and a new boat was built – for a total of 120 million yen – and decorated with some of the old tapestries that had survived the fire. You could immediately tell that there was something special about this float – you could still smell the new wood used in its construction.

Right after the ten floats, there came the floats of the so-called Hanagasa, the flower hat or flower umbrella procession, which starts from Yasaka shrine, goes through the inner city, joins the Ato Matsuri parade for two streets and then returns to Yasaka shrine. In the beginning, there were a number of small children carrying small mikoshi, probably some of the many deities that reside in Yasaka shrine. It seemed that the kids had big fun, and they even tried to emulate the mikoshi carrying of the adults by lifting the mikoshi onto their shoulders.

Behind them, there came a number of more serious adults dressed in beautiful kimono or other traditional garb and accompanying little floats decorated with flowers and umbrellas. They were beautiful, but, to be honest, I would have preferred to see real flowers rather than the obviously artificial ones that were used.

I met with a friend at 8:30, one hour before the start of the procession, and although there were not so many people as a week ago, we were lucky to still get a place in the third row at one of the street corners. The whole parade took about 2 hours to pass us by, and once again my friend was very taken by the turning of the large hoko around the corner. Unfortunately, after standing in a tight spot for all but three hours, I had developed a terrible backache, and I was very happy that the parade was over and we could go to lunch – sushi again, in the same restaurant as the week before.

My friend then went home to Kobe, until Osaka he planned to ride his bike along the river, I hope everything turned out as he had planned. I went home also, and because of the backache (which lasted well into the night, I am obviously getting old), I did not attend soroban class that evening, and I also skipped the Kanko-Sai, the returning of the three mikoshi to Yasaka shrine in the night.

6th Kyu!

I’ve passed my first soroban exam!

I am from now on the proud bearer (owner?) of a 6th student’s (or 6th kyu) degree of soroban. I received my results yesterday, I scored multiplication/division/addition 130/140/150 points from a maximally possible 150 points each, and I needed 100 points per section to pass the exam. Together with the results I also received a little orange sticker bearing the 6th kyu, which many kids put on the side of their soroban.

And now? Well, more of the same. I already bought a book with exercises for the 5th kyu level (the student or kyu levels are counted down, the highest one is thus 1st kyu; the next higher level would be first dan. Yes, it’s the same grading system as in many martial arts). The only difference now is the size of the numbers: Up to 4 digits for addition/subtraction and multiplication, up to 5 for division. According to my sensei, the 5th kyu level addition and subtraction is the one where the kids have most problems with – the allowed time stays the same, but if they calculate too fast, they make too many mistakes, and if they slow down, they do not make the cutoff of 10 correct answers… We will see how I will do. I think my sensei will only allow me to take the test if he’s sure I will pass it.

I know this may sound strange to people less nerdy than I am, but I really enjoy doing this!

Umi No Hi

Today is the third Monday in July, which marks the holiday umi-no-hi, usually translated as Marine Day or Ocean Day or Sea Day. It was first celebrated as a national holiday in 1996 in remembrance of a sea-voyage the Meiji emperor took on July 20th 1876, where he went on a steam ship along the coast of Tohoku all the way up to Aomori prefecture and even Hokkaido before returning to Yokohama.

Before that, it was simply called Marine Memorial Day and even today it is meant to consider the importance the ocean has on an island country like Japan (which is one of the major harvesters of seafood and fish, by the way).

Since 2003, it has been moved in to the third Monday of July in accordance with the “Happy Monday” system.

Weekend!

The last three days were very busy, I was on my feet – literally – for more than eight hours each day… When I came home last night I was so tired, I went to bed at around ten, hence the delay in my report, but here it is, finally:

Wednesday night was the last evening of the yoiyama for the Saki matsuri parade. Just like last year, from 6 pm the streets of the inner city where the floats had been built were closed for traffic, and were turned into a huge pedestrian area. It was very crowded; when I looked from Yasaka shrine over Shijo street, it was filled with people, the heads of the Japanese turning the space into a black mass. It had been a very hot day and it was a lovely night, but because it was so crowded, the feeling was more hectic and much less relaxed than last year.

I had fun though, trying out new street food: pancakes made from takoyaki batter, rolled up and then topped with all sorts of condiments. I had one with mayo, parsley, dried fish flakes, and ketchup, thus each bite tasted differently. Altogether, there were at least four different types. For safety reasons I did not try the one with the fried egg on top: although seemingly delicious, the yolk still looked rather runny… Also, I have to admit that I succumbed to shopping and bought a tengui, a traditional, thin Japanese towel, that was sold at the stand of the boat-float, which always comes last in the parade. I bought this one because I really liked the phoenix on it, what do you think:

The biggest novelty – and one that my inner treehugger is especially happy about – were the ECO-stations placed at exits and large crossings of the pedestrian area. When I bought the pancake, I received it in a little dish made from very sturdy plastic and I already thought it was a shame to throw it away after single use. Only then did I discover the ECO-stations, where one could return these dishes to have them washed and reused directly. What a wonderful idea! I hope they’ll keep it up and they can be seen at many matsuri to come!

Thursday started very early and ended very late… A friend of mine came up from Kobe and because we wanted a decent spot on a corner to watch the parade, we met at 8 am – and were still about 30 minutes late for the perfect spot, which was reached by the parade only at 9:30… My friend was amazed by the big fuss that was made to turn the naginata hoko around the corner. However, she was not quite as patient as I had been the year before, and so we gave up our front row spot after about an hour of watching, and we walked along Shijo dori towards the other floats of the parade. I showed her my favourite one (topped with the praying mantis), and she was especially excited about the boat-shaped Ofune hoko, traditionally ending the parade, because it looks so different from all the others.

We then had sushi for lunch, and when we left the restaurant at 12:30, we could still see the last floats leaving Kawaramachi street. We then went through Gion to my favourite temple where we relaxed a little before she went to the station where she had booked a tea-ceremony, and I headed back home.

After a nap that felt hardly longer than 10 minutes, I was up and about again to go to my soroban class – it was the big exam day, remember! We conducted it almost like we do a normal class; first a short mental calculation warmup, then the test. It went well, no big surprises, although I was a bit nervous. I could leave right after the test was over as I was so tired, it must have shown. I think at that time my sensei already knew whether I had passed or not, but he said I would get the result only next Tuesday. You are thus still allowed to keep your fingers crossed!

Yesterday, on Friday, I went to a friend’s place at 10:30. She had an invitation for the opening of the summer exhibition at MIHO Museum and had invited me to come along. Miho museum is about a 90 minutes drive from Kyoto, situated in the middle of mountains. it is a privately owned museum, founded by and named after what was at that time the richest woman of Japan. The special exhibition centres around two large tapestries (probably two metres by one), depicting a Kwannon – the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy – and a sitting, pensive Buddha. The tapestries were hand-woven for the museum after two old images, and you can see the original paintings as well as statues and other related objects of art.

The permanent exhibition is exquisite, albeit small. They have a beautiful little statue of Horus, made from silver, gold, and lapis lazuli, that apparently was once the main deity of an Egyptian temple. There was also a standing Buddha statue, some 2.5 metres high I guess, upper body leaning forward just a little bit. It gave me the impression of a father stooping down a little to his children. I really enjoyed the trip although it took much longer than I had expected. The museum is certainly worth a visit, even though it is a bit far from Kyoto.

Now, those were my last three days. Today I had planned a rest day; from Monday on there will be the second yoiyama before the Ato matsuri parade. It should be much more quiet though, but I hope the friend with whom I will watch it will like it too.