Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

On Sep 15th The Times published some emails which were  communications between Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, a journalist with whom Davies was working on the newly released:  Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale

The first email in the article took my breath away with its description of the story development process. Obviously, Davies had been asked by Cook for notes which might be an insight to his process and Davies’ response is an insight into my own and I’m sure so many others’ process too… I’ve never seen the mud of story gestation and development expressed so clearly.  When I say to you "Sorry, I’m terrible when I’m writing" because I haven’t called in a while or because I’ve been sitting right there but not quite present and it’s been going on for months and yet I don’t have anything I’m ready to show you or even seem to be able to tell you the story very clearly… well, it’s not an excuse but this is why.

From: Russell T.Davies To: Benjamin Cook Sunday February 18, 2007 12:41:59 GMT

There’s little physical evidence of the script process to show you. No notes. Nothing. I think, and think, and think…and by the time I come to write, a lot has been decided. Also, a lot hasn’t been decided, but I trust myself, and scare myself, that it’ll happen in the actual writing. It all exists in my head, but in this soup. It’s like the ideas are fluctuating in this great big quantum state of Maybe. The choices look easy when recounted later, but that’s hindsight. When nothing is real and nothing is fixed, it can go anywhere. The Maybe is a hell of a place to live. As well as being the best place in the world.

I filter through all those thoughts, but that’s rarely sitting at my desk, if ever. It’s all done walking about, going to town, having tea and watching telly. The rest of your life becomes just the surface, chattering away on top of the Maybe…and the doubts. That’s where this job is knackering and debilitating. Everything - and I mean every story ever written anywhere - is underscored by the constant murmur of: this is rubbish, I am rubbish, and this is due in on Tuesday! The hardest part of writing is the writing.

 

Technorati Tags: Russell T. Davies,Doctor Who,Writing,Story Development

Dennis at Dead Things on Sticks (one of my favourite working-writer blogs which often crosses into politics) calls our attention to this wonderful monologue from Craig Ferguson . This blog doesn’t often get political but this is really about media and politics … give it a click - important points made expertly.

Afterwards, head over to read Dennis’ post and watch the other just as serious but less funny video he has embedded… it’s getting ridiculous over there.

Being in desperate need of printer toner and scratch books for my current projects, I took a trip to an office supplies shop we had spotted while out to dinner in Sakae the other night.  It’s not as large or frankly overwhelming as some of the stationery shops I’m planning a trip to Tokyo to see but it had everything I needed in so many different colours and I spent a relaxing few hours strolling the aisles and choosing my booty. Yes, I said nearly three hours - these places are to me what spas are to some women and had the store been bigger it would have been longer - easily.  My name is Danielle and I’m a stationery addict.  I know some of you out there understand lol.

Stationery was one of the things I was really looking forward to experiencing in Japan. I love to work with colour when I’m writing particularly when I’m developing and structuring - I simply couldn’t brainstorm without - it so I’m always on the lookout for pens/textas with different coloured inks (rather than just same colours but different nibs).  Boy oh boy is Japan on my wavelength!

Case in point - the multi-coloured pen.

We’ve all had one of these at some point in our lives. The originals that we knew in Australia were 4 colour with red, blue, black and green - but they lose their gloss quickly. There was always one colour that you rarely used, if ever, and when the colour you used most ran out the pen became useless - the whole point of is not to have to change pens for a different colour highlight after all. Not here in Japan!

Introducing the customisable tri-colour pen!

Choose your pen body from several colours of translucent plastic (I chose pink of course!)

THEN choose your ink colours - three different or three the same if you’re looking for longevity!

Pastel Pink, Pastel Blue and Purple not your thing?

No worries!

I haven’t yet located where to buy fountain pen ink but I do most of my writing with fountain pens so I’m hoping to find the same or similar range of colours (though I know it might be a longshot)

At the least I need to add a pink to my South Sea Blue, Purple and Sapphire Blue standards ^_^

Expect more of these utterly frivolous salutes to stationery in the future!!

For months before coming to Japan I read blogs of ex-pats living here to give me some insight into what the experience might be like. Since arriving, I have become involved in a small online community of ex-pat bloggers. I have now ‘met’ and communicated with many of those bloggers I used to read and it’s been both fun and a great support. One of those bloggers is Shane (of the blogs The Tokyo Traveller and A typical life) who, like me, is not an English teacher or married to a Japanese citizen (mind you she is female so that one is less likely anyway teehee) but the wife of a man who is working here. Shane recently saw a comment I had made on Twitter and shared an old blog post with me on being an ex-pat wife and the assumptions many people make about we strangely old fashioned creatures. I related to it immediately and was quite touched by it and so I thought I’d link it here.

Shane has had the gig longer than I and has obviously got her act together while I am still finding my way/identity here. I don’t have the multiple international households to run and don’t have enough visitors to be run off my feet like Shane has been the last couple of months (hope you’re enjoying the rest now, Shane ^_^) However, moving to Japan doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly started to see “shopping” as an activity in itself nor do I desperately need to know where the closest “international” food store is so that I can find “real” food, the Japanese supermarket does me fine. Nor do I want to spend my social life with other ex-pats simply because they are not Japanese, occasionally taking a class in some “quaint little Japanese traditional craft” as one’s tightly controlled ‘cultural experience’ once a month (with said ex-pat acquaintances, preferably in the safety of the home of one of us, of course).

Certainly, there are many ex-pat wives who live their lives in essentially this way (especially in Tokyo) and I imagine falling into this life is a great way of insulating yourself from the stress of changing cultures constantly. If one develops a life wherein you arrive in a country and become part of ‘the foreign wives club’ which is amazingly similar to the club anywhere else then I’m sure it’s a wonderful support for many but it is just not my scene. Maybe one day it will be but, for the moment at least, I am not trying to emulate my life in my home country and so need to buffer myself against everything I therefore feel I am lacking. That does not mean I’m trying to be pseudo-Japanese, either - as the wonderful people who gave us our inter-cultural training before we left said “You want to be a first class Australian not a second-class Japanese.”

All that being said, due to language and not working, I don’t have that much opportunity to meet Japanese people and the friends I have made so far are ex-pats (some are ex-pat wives) but they are people with whom I share interests and with whom I can have a good conversation and a good laugh because we have things in common other than that we are strangers here. To quote another of my online community in his comments on Shane’s post: “…my foreign friends here in Japan are cool people who would be my friends back home, too.” Obviously being a foreigner and new to Japan is a great ice-breaker and it does make it easier to find new friends than it is being at home, but it can’t be the only thing you have to talk about - for my money anyway.

Technorati Tags: ex-pat wife,japan,living in Japan,friends in Japan

*NB Much of this is a reworking of an email sent to Favourite Aunt in reply to a query as to whether we were okay - for some reason I feel I should note that the email came first and that I am not in the habit of copying blog posts into private correspondence lol!

Yes, we did indeed get the storms in Nagoya, in fact we were caught right in it and it was quite an adventure! We were at Red Rock which is an "Aussie bar and Grill" in Sakae (which is no longer owned by an Aussie but by a lovely American who is a lecturer at the Universities here and a member of the writers group which I will join and post on when it resumes after August hols.) We were there for the Thursday night  quiz, which I highly recommend along with the steak, and we could see that it was pouring down but since the bar is on the first floor we didn’t quite get the extent of it till we left  - the streets were streaming!

The water was lapping right over our shoes anyway but the speed with which it was running meant it easily drenched your trousers up to the knee - this was fine, though, as it completed the outfit because the rest of you was drenched anyway - umbrellas did very little but protect your face a bit. Gutters and any depressions in the pavement were fast moving lakes and the thunder and lightning really made you wish your umbrella wasn’t made of metal!

We tried getting a taxi but they either didn’t see us (totally possible) or didn’t want the wet people in their pristine cabs (also totally possible) so we headed for the subway. Except for the people, the subway was blissfully dry and once again I marvelled at the utility of these subways with their exit tentacles reaching out under the city. If it had been before 11:30pm when the outer exits are closed we may have barely been wet at all getting to the train! Unbeknown to us, some of the outer lines were already closed and Anonymous Car Concern put a bunch of Superman’s colleagues up in hotels overnight because they were on the closed line which I thought was interesting, I’m not sure who would pay for that in Australia. Luckily, the line was fine to Kakuozan.

What was really lovely, though, was the reaction of the everyone. The streets, even at that time of night, are usually so quiet in Nagoya, even the groups of drunken salarymen lower their voices when they pass another group, but everyone was giggling and panting and some even shrieking with laughter as they dashed for cover or shared their useless umbrellas. Down in the subway people were actually smiling and sharing a giggle with strangers instead of just avoiding each other’s gaze - even with we gaijin!! Maybe it sounds as though we had all gone mad but there really was  something just so funny about being that wet and I’m sure I’m not getting it across properly. On the way from the station I stopped at the convenience store for milk and such and the bag was half full of water by the time I reached the apartment! I spent the next couple of days carefully drying out my wallet,  PDA and mobile phone which were snugly in their pockets in my bag… we’re talking WET here, people!

But the adventure did not stop when we got to the apartment block. The noise of the rain nearly drowned it out but the fire alarm in the apartments was wailing and the fire brigade was there! No spectacular truck though - they arrived in the rain on push-bikes!! No one else in the block had their lights on or came out to investigate so the poor guys were left with the non-Japanese speaking gaijin to help them get into the building (kind of odd to me that they had no way to get in, I mean they are the fire department!!) Once in the property they found that one of the sprinklers was dripping and had a short which was causing the alarm but they couldn’t get into the cabinet to turn off the damned alarm!

I ran inside to find the folder with our emergency numbers in it and I was too wet to run through the house without drenching the floorboards so I just stripped off my jeans in the entrance, ran through half naked, found the folder with the numbers and pulled on some dry trousers to go back out. At this stage I didn’t even bother with the umbrella - there was just no point! At last they made the call and the fireman used the dictionary on his phone to find the phrase "entrust to us" and said thank you very much and finally, at 3 am, we managed to get inside and have a shower and dry off. It took another hour before the security team arrived to turn off the fire alarm but that was fine because it took as long to wind down.

So there you go, even a storm is a happy adventure for us here - though several people did die, including a fireman washed down the river not just people doing silly things, and some of the outer train lines were still closed the next morning so it wasn’t all fun and games.

Technorati Tags: Nagoya Storms

Now that the sea shipment is unpacked and this move which feels like it’s taken 4 months is over, I figured I’d write a post which would have been great to find at the beginning of the process. I guess a couple of qualifications first:
1) I am in Nagoya, I’m sure that there are many differences moving to, say, Tokyo or to a rural area;
2) My experience is not as someone moving to Japan by the seat of my pants or without a job (albeit my husband’s job not my own) it is most definitely the point of view of an ICT (Inter Company Transferee)/ICT wife. I found very few blogs relating to ICTs but since 176 of us arrived just for our company in the one week then it’s certainly not an irrelevant point of view!

Tip 1: Get help!

Unless your Japanese is nearly fluent AND you can read Japanese legalese AND you know how Japan works - get help. If you are an ICT then your company will no doubt arrange/choose a company or consultant to help you out. If it is just a suggestion or an optional extra - take it! Even if there is some arrangement whereby you will get some extra money if you don’t use the consultant, take the help. Japanese rental contracts are HUGE (in comparison to Australia anyway) and there are all sorts of things which need negotiating which you wouldn’t think of in a million years!

The truth is that even if your Japanese is excellent, unless you have some kind of intermediary in the form of a consulting company or even the HR dept of your company you will find your choices limited to say the least. Japanese estate agents don’t want the trouble involved in dealing with someone with whom they cannot communicate with ease. That doesn’t just mean language either, Japanese bureaucracy has its very own style and they don’t need to be part of your learning curve coming to terms with it!

Which brings me to:

Tip 2: It is how it is because it is how it is.

This is possibly the most important thing to grasp as quickly as possible in Japan but you probably won’t till you’ve experienced it yourself (I certainly didn’t quite believe the people who told me.)

Whether you’re dealing with an immigration issue, trying to get a bank account or license or just trying to buy a movie ticket in advance online - you will not change the way the process is done there is no point in arguing … with anyone.

You will definitely find yourself in situations in which you think a little “logic” or “common sense” will speed things up or get you round an administrative obstacle but do yourself a favour and just breathe, let it go and come back with the right piece of paper or whatever it is that is required of you. It’s not that the Japanese are not logical, nor are they stupid (as I’ve heard many a gaijin mutter under their breath in the short time I’ve been here) - they are perfectly intelligent and may even be able to see your point but it will not make a difference and they won’t do that “I understand you, sir, but I’m powerless” thing that western customer service reps do nor will they explain why something is as it is - they will just smile gently and repeat themselves over and over. Things are simply done the way they are done, IF any change happens it happens slowly and won’t be the direct result of your (possibly perfectly understandable) tantrum!

A kiwi friend of mine who has lived in Japan for many years now says the best thing to do is to expect that everything you attempt will take you three tries to get right - that way if it takes less it’s a bonus, if it takes four well it’s only one more than three!

Ok back to real estate specific tips!

Tip 3: Up front costs

If this is not the first article you’ve found while researching you will have come across the phrases “key money” and “non-refundable deposit” as well as the more usual “deposit” and the first month’s rent. Both of these are essentially once-off gifts to the landlord - that’s all. If you are inclined to jump to the conclusion that they are bribes (as I have heard others call them) well, you may not think they are right or fair but they are not bribes because anyone will have to pay this amount (and the amount should be set in advance) so no-one is getting any advantage by paying it.

Japan has a long ‘gifting’ culture and this is simply part of it and you will most probably have to lump it - most companies that are picking up your moving or accommodation expenses should include this as it is a standard cost (unless it’s a particularly exorbitant one in which case you will prob need to choose another property).

In the scouring of ads that I did, I rarely saw a demand for both of these - 99% of the time it was one or the other.

Tip 4: On-going costs: Beware! It’s not just the monthly rent!

Assuming you have any choice in where you live and are not just being deposited in company owned housing, you need to be aware of expenses beyond the monthly rent which you need to be careful to factor into your budget.

Parking:
I start with this because if you live in a large city chances are you know parking is extra but it can be extra here even when it’s built into your own building! I saw parking costs from 3000Y ($30 a month) to 20,000Y ($200 a month) so watch out for it!

Maintenance:
Most of the houses and apartments I browsed on the web had a maintenance fee of some kind.

The above costs should be listed on any property ad but there are some costs which you should ask about if it is not in the ad. A standard Japanese rental property will NOT include the following and you will need to buy or (more likely) lease them and so will be a further monthly expense:

Window treatments:
Curtains, blinds etc… some of the cheaper apartments will actually have brown paper over the windows when you go to view them!

Air-conditioning/heating units:
Any property built in the last ten years or so will have the holes in the walls and the electrics all set up for you but you will need to rent the actual units themselves - and you WILL need them, don’t skimp on this you will need them for cooling, dehumidifying and heating in winter! If you want to save money - seriously, don’t do it with air-con!!

Light fittings!
This is the one that really surprised me - electrics done in the ceiling but no bulbs or fittings of any kind whatsoever.

There are some places which include some or all of these things but they are by no means the majority and do tend to be the higher priced homes. If you are thinking to yourself “I wouldn’t know how to go about leasing such things” again, that’s where having local help comes into play - it’s all commonplace here so just ask your consultant or HR bod.

Tip 5: Be Involved -  create a home, however humble!

Tip 1 was to get help but here I am also advising that, unless you are the worker heading over with no family and you are absolutely certain that you will be working every hour god sends AND will never have a low point or be ill… don’t just leave it up to your consultant to find your Japanese home for you.

I am using the word ‘home’ throughout this post because you really need to think to yourself what it is that you need around you to feel you have a home and try to set that up here. Living in another country is an emotional roller coaster - things you would take in your stride where everything is familiar will be magnified tenfold or more depending on your state of mind. The very fact of spending your entire day actively having to strain to understand the language (or wild hand gestures) around you is exhausting and being exhausted makes anyone irritable.

You need somewhere you can retreat to.

If we had wanted to, we could have simply chosen an area from the area descriptions given to us by our consultant and then flown over here to be shown what they thought was best for us during our orientation visit. It was tempting to do that, there was so much to be done anyway BUT I am positive we would not have ended up in as great a place as we have. Why? Well, first of all we were able to work out exactly what we were willing to spend to get a home we could enjoy - just because your company gives an accommodation allowance doesn’t mean you have to stick to it if you can afford it. By scouring our consulting company’s listings and emailing the ones I was interested in I discovered that by going up even just 13,000 yen ($130) a month put us into an entirely different level of accommodation simply for going over a certain price point (every city has these price points you just have to find what they are.)

Also, by looking for ads that attract you and sending links to your consultant she/he will get a much better idea of what you are looking for than by just writing them a list. They can also check things for you in advance (like whether your pet is allowed - cats are much harder to get accepted than dogs btw) so you don’t waste time when you are actually here.

By the time we got to Nagoya for our house-hunt trip we had a list of properties to see which had been well and truly streamlined. We were able to be fairly quick and decisive and, most importantly, I knew the market and so we weren’t in the position of thinking “hmm I really like this one but I don’t want to apply in case there’s something hugely better” - in fact we beat out at least one other couple for this place because I was really only confirming that it was as good as it seemed on the Internet and I immediately put a hold on it so that we would have first dibs! We looked at the last few places just in case but I had no qualms holding this one because I was pretty sure.

You may, as I did, feel like you are being the most annoying client in the world but it’s a toss up between being annoying before the house-hunt trip but being efficient when here or being the vague one asking all the questions and not being able to make a decision when you get here! Also, though, you are actually helping out your consultant, she or he may have 20 other clients they are juggling and you can’t expect them to be able to do what you want if you don’t communicate with them and be willing to remind them of who you are (we were “the ones with the cat” I’m sure!)

Of course, if your company doesn’t provide for a house hunting visit then it is even more important that you get stuck in and ask as many questions as you want!

That will do for this post - next instalment: To ship or not to ship and furniture leasing!

Technorati Tags: Moving to Japan,ICT,Moving to Nagoya,Housing in Japan,Living in Japan

Okay, so it doesn’t seem like it would be a big deal and, in fact, I had assumed it would not be that big a deal but it’s hard to find a wok in Japan! Well, in Nagoya within non-car walking distance from the house, with very little knowledge of the city lol. You can find plenty of different cooking vessels for both Japanese and Western style cooking but an honest to goodness, non-electric wok is not that common (I checked Tokyu Hands and everything!) We used our (well, I say ‘our’ but it was actually Superman’s brother’s which he asked us to season and use till he needed it back many, many years ago) wok a LOT in Australia - not just for stir fries but for steaming, deep frying, poaching and on one occasion, which I have admitted to no-one till now, an attempt at smoking (Elizabeth Chong said it could be done, I swear!) Anyway it was beloved but the wooden handles were scorched and the more I learned to use it the more I realised that there is a reason purists push for the round-bottomed type, so we discarded it before the big move (Flash, if you’re reading this, we’ll buy you  a new one any time you need it!) After all: OF COURSE it will be easy to find a good wok in Japan!

Saturday night I was really, really in need as we had friends coming over to whom I had promised tempura and I really didn’t have a pan which wouldn’t be sorely tested, if not destroyed, by deep frying.    Et voila I found one! Don’t you love serendipity? It was in a little shop which stocks all sorts of special cooking things both Japanese and not and with which I am quickly falling in love. It was the same place I bought my superwhizbang pastel-yellow enamel steamer/double-boiler/stockpot which I also adore!

I seasoned the wok last night and made tempura (which the wok directions suggest you do as part of the seasoning process - more serendipity!) and  I finally found out what the weird springy metal thing is that sticks up in the middle of the hotplate on the right on my stove. 

Turns out, it’s related to this …

Under the "firing  button" on the left there are 3 temperatures (160, 180 and 200) with a little tempura prawn picture next to it. Obviously I new this was about setting the temp for tempura but I didn’t realise that the springy thing was … the thermostat! While I was cooking the tempura the flame was constantly firing up and slowing down to make the perfect tempura! Okay, okay maybe I should have guessed thermostat but I just didn’t connect them.

When I cleaned and hung up the wok I noticed that the flames had made a lovely, metallic rainbow, flower pattern on the bottom! I’m not sure whether I should try to make the flames hit the same spots in subsequent uses or see if I can get a layered rose petal kind of effect lol!

So, we enjoyed the meal on the new dining room table which had arrived in the mid-afternoon. After a month of anticipation our living/dining room is finally complete!

With miso, sashimi, tempura and plenty of beer and chu-hi we had a great night and the table began it’s life as we hope it will continue: at the centre of much merriment - thanks for coming A&R!

Technorati Tags: wok,japan cooking

While browsing the NIC newsletter the other day I noticed they have a regular photo contest. This Summer’s theme is "A Japanese Summer" and I thought: what is more Natsu than fireworks except, perhaps, for flowers in full bloom so I thought I’d enter my "Hanabi no Hana" from my Gifu Natsu Matsuri evening. It probably won’t be particularly unique lol but it can’t hurt to enter, right? Getting involved is what being here is all about after all!

Here is my entry:

Information about entering can be found here

If you do enter, best of luck!

Technorati Tags: NIC Summer photo contest,fireworks,photography

Anyone who reads this blog from the blog itself rather than via a feed reader will notice a dramatic change in design in the last couple of days. For some time now I’ve been nagged by my WordPress install to upgrade to 2.6(.1) and I finally gave in the other day remembering how much of a nightmare it was when I left  it till I had to update through many, many versions last time. I was definitely right to do so, the update from 2.5 to 2.6.1 was a doddle BUT, of course, my sweet old non-widget ready theme just wasn’t cutting it anymore technically. I was tired of editing code directly to insert a widget or switch something round in my side bar and I had also been wanting a second sidebar for some time. Of course it’s also waaay past Spring now and Cherry Blossoms simply are no longer appropriate!

So, I spent my insomniac night hunting down themes I could play with.  My aim was to find something to reflect that it is Summer in Japan and, for me, that means life at night when it’s cooler and firework-ridden festivals (or nightly in local parks set off by kids, for that matter) so colour on black was the aim and I think I’ve achieved that.  This theme started as Black-Tec and some hours with Photoshop and fiddling with its code has produced what you see here. In contrast to the old, delicately elegant sumie cherry blossom it is incredibly busy and probably a little mind (or at least eye) boggling and may be a little over influenced by my insomniac state at the time. It is hardly unique if you read blogs by photographers - the mosaic is very ‘in’ but they are my own shots so I reckon that’s a fine excuse. I like the way the black background shows off any photos too, and it is fun to try something so different to my usual minimalist style and out of my comfort zone. So, if it boggles the eyes too much let me know and we’ll see how it goes.

Of course it will have to change for autumn…

More cream and pink crockery I’m afraid!    This teacup and bowl are part of a set available at Nitori for around 299yen a piece. I got plates too which are a lovely organic semi oval shape.

The five-petaled flower is a very popular design here, indeed I almost bought another set which had the same flower and was much more pink - very pretty as individual pieces but as I began to load the full setting into my basket I was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of pink building in one place and the repetitive nature of the uniform design. This setting has just a blush of pink on each one and the design and colouring are not strictly the same on each piece making for a much more elegant effect on the whole.

If you are wondering what on earth the teacup is sitting on, it is actually the lid of the box in which the floral fan of the post "Prettinesses Pt 2" came. The traditional box is made of wood with a lid exactly like a sushi mat and a leather thong with a wooden badge on it to close it. I have taken to using this as a case for my fountain pens which get lonely when left in the plush boxes they were bought in but are too delicate to flop around in a pencil case!

Note also the peach slices in the bowl - a Prettiness all nature’s making! For those in Sydney (or California, from experience) wondering what the red blush is on the inside of the slices not just on the skin - that’s what happens when peaches are allowed to ripen ON THE VINE lol. The flavour of these peaches is magnificent as is the flavour of most of the fruit and vegetables here in Japan - things just taste… right!