Narrative Disorder… in Japan!

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. 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!

Any native English speakers living in Japan will have experienced Japanese English speakers/students when lost for either words or courage flip out their electronic dictionaries and deftly tap away with their thumbs till they come up with the English word they need. At this point they will either show you the screen or say the word, depending on their level of confidence, and instil in said native English speaker denshi jisho envy. If only it could be so easy to find the right word from the other direction… to BIC CAMERA POST HASTE!

Unfortunately, browsing of the denshi jisho available in Japan quickly deflates one’s excitement - they are so clearly made for Japanese learning English and not the other way round. If you have an intermediate or above knowledge of Japanese I’m sure they would  be great and I know many translators use the big ones with the extra technical/medical etc… dictionaries but they really are inaccessible for the complete beginner.

First, only the Canon Wordtank series has an OS available in English so even working out how to use them is less than transparent and the second main restriction is that they simply contain the wrong dictionaries for us. Say you want to know what a particular kanji means - now assuming you have bought one of the new ones which allow you to draw the kanji on the device and therefor you don’t need to know the furigana to type in order to look it up at all, the dictionary meaning you first get will be in Japanese and you then have to translate that by “jumping” to the Japanese to English dictionary to translate whichever word you highlighted in the first definition - assuming your model has that “jump” function. What’s more, you have to keep re-entering the kanji to get back to the definition to “jump” again if the first word you translated wasn’t enough for you to understand the meaning.  And still you are unlikely to find the translation you need unless you know for sure you have the starting kanji of the compound (as most will only let you search for kanji in the first place of a compound) and further still, only the very expensive models have extensive Japanese to English dictionaries 50,000yen upwards. SO, the upshot is - there is no cheap and cheerful denshi jisho that will work for a beginner AND there isn’t really an expensive one which will do the job either until you are far more advance in your language.

What about that DS lite kanji dictionary? I hear you ask. Well I have to say that Superman bought this one before we left for Japan and he has had good success with it. It doesn’t require that you know keystroke order and he says he uses it at work quite a bit. It is, however, only for kanji and again the application itself is all Japanese so it takes a bit of working out.

But all is not lost for those who want a true denshi jisho for English (or German or some other languages for that matter) speakers!! A lovely guy named Peter who lives in Japan has taken it upon himself to meet the need of this rather large niche of people by providing a product which is actually far beyond a denshi jisho. It’s not his day job but his commitment to improving his systems and his customer service wouldn’t give that away!

All the information you could possibly need is on his site: Japanese Language Tools Site the site itself is mostly text and screenshots doesn’t look that swish but he doesn’t need it - the system speaks for itself. In brief, he offers a fully reconditioned, recent model ( I chose the Dell Axim x51v, though there is another option) PDA with a dictionary application called Edict and a several dictionaries including Eijiro/Waeijiro installed as well as a range of more advanced dictionaries which you opt to either have installed on your original  system or can later download or buy on memory card if and when you feel your language needs more. He also offers the whole system on card or for download IF you already have a PDA which is setup to read Japanese text as well as English. If you are in Japan, though, the full system is the only thing which is worth getting as PDAs are not available here and the whole system costs about as much as buying a brand new PDA which you would still have to set up to be compatible in the first place but of course it would be up to you.

Why I love it!

Drawing Kanji: Obviously, being a PDA and a touch screen, you can write your kanji directly on the screen - it does not seem to require a stroke order at all but if you are at all interested in learning it, the kanji dictionary (”kanjidic” hehe) will give you not only the meaning but also a stroke order diagram for next time! This is what I have used it for most of all - checking the kanji on food in the supermarket or to work out what mysterious pieces of paper with my name and address on them in the mail are lol!

Cross Searching: This doesn’t just mean being able to search in all dictionaries (which you can do) but searching for more than one word at a time so that you can actually find phrases in both languages for example you can put in “reside” “for” and you will get example sentences for how to tell someone how long you have lived in a place (very useful). Three days after I received my PDA I got a failure to deliver notice for a package I was expecting. Using Kanjidic and Daijirin I worked out that they were keeping the package for me at a post office but I couldn’t quite get the kanji for what was clearly the place but definitely wasn’t Kakuouzan (place name kanji is notoriously difficult, working on different rules and so I wasn’t surprised it didn’t find a local place name though it was probably user error anyway!) So I mosied up to my very very local post office tapping away at my dictionary and by the time I got there I was able to ask at which post office the package was being held and which train station and exit it was near. That seems pretty basic, I know, and I had many of the words I need already from the study I’ve done but there were some key words I needed to actually make my communication work and the PDA made it easy because it allows for cross searches (unlike most denshi jisho) so I was able to search for the phrase “pick up” and get an example sentence I didn’t quickly get by putting in “collect”.

Clipboard facility: Like any windows PDA, you can highlight any word or words and put them on a clipboard for pasting into any other application and is sooo useful if you are using the dictionary to decipher more than one word or kanji at a time.

Customer Service

I sent my first query email on a weekend, had a response from Peter on Monday and had my system in my hand the Sunday after (mail 7days a week in Japan)! The PDA looks absolutely new - came in all the Dell packaging including a sync and charge cradle and all the cables you would expect in a new PDA. It also comes with CDs and license keys etc… for all the software - there is nothing dodgy going on here! So how much was it? Well the full system on the Axim starts at 55,000yen - which is where any denshi jisho with even a basic set of Japanese to English dictionaries and a kanji drawing facility would cost - and you can add options/dictionaries from there. I added one extra dictionary to the standard set and you can see to the left all the choices I have on mine. Yes, you can get the Kenkyusha intermediate and the big one (he would have to get you a price for the big one though) BUT you may not even need them as it has dictionaries not available to the Japanese denshi jisho which will likely do you just as well.  Of course you also have a fully functional PDA as well - it’s my calendar and alarm clock and everything but my phone now!

Peter is absolutely lovely (from the emails, I haven’t actually met him) and will happily answer any questions you have before buying - just fill in the contact form with just the minimum required details and type your query in the space, he won’t be mad it’s not an immediate order and he will answer!

Though I am basically just hiding from the heat while Superman works and sleeps and works again, we did manage to get out on August 2nd  and take in the fireworks in Gifu. Gifu is somewhere that I have longed to go all my life as they have some astonishing flower festivals in Spring.  I’m delighted to know it will be an easy drive so I can take as much camera equipment and picnic gear as I like! (Assuming we finally have our Japanese licenses by Springtime!)

The fireworks were, of course, beautiful and went for about three hours all up AND no silly music, popular or otherwise, to bare with as there usually is in Australia. It was simply tens of thousands of people happily celebrating the beauty of light and fire.

At 3pm we met some of our new friends/Superman’s colleagues at the Golden Clock in Nagoya Station to take the 45min train trip to Gifu Eki. From there we joined the long queue sauntering through the heat for about 10mins to the bus terminal to get into the blissful airconditioning of the buses instead of walking for 45mins in the heat.

As I was previewing this picture I noticed the man in the yukata and his partner are looking at the camera (she is making the ubiquitous “V” symbol) This is something I have noticed a lot when uploading photos here, I rarely take pictures OF people exactly but blow me down if the Japanese aren’t as aware of a camera as a cat! Now, you may say “Hey, I saw the pic of your camera in a previous post and it’s pretty hard to miss.” Sure, I’ll give you that - but here’s the same shot with my zoom lens set at 50mm equivalent (that’s human eye equivalent)…

I call that Eagle-eyed!

Natsu Matsuri (Summer festival) is an excuse for the girls who wish to do so to dress up in their light, cotton Yukatas. I am told that they can be cooler than dressing up in modern clothes but it depends how heavy your obi is and how tightly you tie it around your waist - mostly, though it is a full dress-up occasion and comfort has little to do with it!

The Yukata fun is not just for the girls!

I’d suggest that mostly the men did it to impress the girl they were taking to the event (lots of couples there being sweetly romantic) but it’s entirely possible that they simply wanted to. Japanese men LOVE to dress themselves up and primp away at least as much as the girls, if not more!

So, the bus took us through Gifu to the banks of the river (I think it’s called the Nagara.)  I’m not sure if the 200 yen we paid as we jumped off the bus was fare for the bus or an entrance fee but it was a pittance to pay for either!

This was the view from our spot - you can see the crowds across the river just beyond the bridge which was the prime spot in front of which the fireworks were fired and the low lying ones danced. To get those spots you had to be very, very early but we were happy being less crowded and saw plenty.

From the hills off camera to the right of the shot above, Gifu Castle watched over the scene. It was a loong way off (my zoom was at max for this shot) but I couldn’t help wondering what the fireworks must have been like from there!

Of course a festival isn’t a festival without sharing food - so we made our way back up to the road where there were lots of food stalls with delicious things-on-sticks!

The fireworks began about 45 minutes before sundown with some fireworks which didn’t so much sparkle as explode in multi-coloured smoke. They were few and far between and unfortunately those I managed to catch were badly exposed either one way or the other, as I fiddled with my settings trying to access the long-ago archived photography folder of my brain, in the fading light.

As the sparkling ones began, the dusk light made for some delicate colours, almost pastels…

At one stage, everything went pink and I turned to find the sky had gone all sentimental…

(this photo has been cropped to remove some head-silhouettes along the bottom but not colour-processed in any way - it was truly breathtaking)

At last, the sun set over Gifu…

And the show began!

This was my first chance to play with my camera and I was excited to take some fireworks shots but, as we were going with friends and I didn’t want to be too anti-social, I didn’t want to bring a tripod which is really essential for good fireworks shots. Nevertheless the handheld, and therefore faster (yet still too slow for the hand) shutter speed, made for some interesting effects not entirely un-pretty…

Zoom was fun too…

And this one was even a little eerie…

The audience was mostly silent but would ooh and ah and swell with “Sugoi!” (Amazing!) at the big fluffy ones which produced the most light but my favourites were some I hadn’t seen before which exploded in the shape of flowers…

and, my very favourite, butterflies…

or perhaps they were magnificent birds dancing for the joy of Summer…

Afterwards, the crowd made its way to the stone steps in the wall to  climb up from the grass. No amount of Pentax built-in Image Stabilization was going to make up for the jostling as I took this dreadful shot but I had to get it. Obviously we were already up by the time I took it, some 45 minutes after the fireworks ended - imagine how huge this pool of people was at the beginning!

Everyone was actually very patient and calm - we were just pushed together. I can’t imagine being given safety permission to hold an event with such a bottle neck of an exit in Australia!

The walk back to the station was leisurely in the warm (still 28 degrees) evening and had something of a community feel to it as we streamed through Gifu’s streets. The convenience stores en route were having what must be one of their biggest nights of the year as we all piled in to buy drinks and use their “facilities.” An hour and a bit later we were on the train and an hour after that enjoying cool, cool showers before collapsing happily into bed feeling it was worth breaking the vow not to leave the house till Autumn!