July 31st to August 5th 2015; Leaving Japan

Packed up my life:

Starbucks from my Kouhai:

Kouhai already exhausted before the newbies even arrive:

Israeli food for dinner! I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was:

With these peeps:

(Plus 2 not pictured)

July 27th-30th 2015, Monday to Thursday ~Last week in a JapaneseGovernment Office!!!~

A coworker made this for me. It's the kanji (chinese character) for 'yume', dream, written using the hiragana (one of the Japanese alphabets) for 'arigato', thank you.

Farewell dinner with my closest coworker, Miyazaki-san, and my supervisor, Sogo-san.

Message card from all my coworkers!

Beautiful bag present from my coworkers.

Chopsticks from my lovely coworker.

I may have treated myself to some family mart chicken (famichiki) and the new Animal Crossing game; Happy Home Designer.

You get to make your own character too!

June 4th & 5th 2015, the Weekend

Sorry for the lack of posts. My life is taking a lot of unexpected turns at the moment and a lot of them I'd like to keep private but I'll keep posting when I can!

Thanks for understanding!

Saw this car when I was out today and thought it was cool:

Losing the Love of My Life

I’m at a point in my time here in Japan that I’m fed up of the culture differences, language barrier and general misunderstandings that I see everything in Japan as attributing or part of this negativity.

This is simply not true. I try to tell myself, day in and day out, that I used to LOVE Japan and in fact I once spent a year in Tokyo loving life in Japan and having very little difficulty with the language and culture. But my mind won’t listen and I’m strugglingto find the reason why I even liked Japan in the first place.

Yesterday was a public holiday and I spent my day off as usual, at home, playing games, eating and generally perusing the interwebs. I decided to watch some of the old variety shows that I once was addicted to and found that I wasn’t sure whether I liked them anymore and noticed things in them that hadn’t occurred to me before. The way someone subtly voiced their opinion or how formal one person was to another, their body language in regards to their sempai. I didn’t mean to pick up on these things but my newly acquired knowledge of the office politics in Japan and how Japanese people work together pointed out these small interactions amongst the pure entertainment those shows used to be to me.

I notice at work my Japanese seems to be devolving rather than improving and my confidence has completely dropped out of the game. My pride in my language abilities and all the compliments I used to receive about my ability have disappeared into my past and I’m now a blubbering foreigner who can’t remember the word for ‘apple’.

The major problem with all of this is that, even though I am obviously able to look at this objectively and see how ridiculous it’s all become, I haven’t been able to snap out of it. It reminds me of something the keynote speaker at the JET Programme Tokyo Orientation said about culture shock; “Some of us never come into the phase of acceptance”. The ‘phase of acceptance’ being the final stage of culture shock where you come to terms with the differences and accept them.

As I remind myself that there are many things I enjoy about Japan I can’t help but create a mental pro and con list of reasons to stay in Japan. My con list is starting to get very heavy and I feel my desperation to leave this country and go somewhere new getting stronger and stronger.

I don’t know if that feeling is simply coming from my dislike for my current job but I have a feeling there are certain things about this office that areinherent in any office and will follow me wherever I go. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who is unable to let go of the ‘western way’ and adapt. I’ve always been very accepting of other cultures and it fuels my love of travelling but perhaps it’s not entirely my fault. Maybe, it’s Japan’s inability to adapt themselves.

I started watching a movie last night called Ikiru (to live) made by Director Kurosawa in 1952. The first 5 minutes show exactly why the Japanese office confuses and frustrates me (namely bureaucracy) but then I realised this movie was made over 60 years ago! I knew Japan hadn’t changed for a while but 60 years is a long time to go without improving your system for the better. The only thing that wasdifferent was that my desk has a computer (without internet access) and that I use a fax machine (though snail mail is also frequently used).

I don’t know if one morning in the next year or so I will wake up and just snap out of this but I sure hope so. I hate to see my passion and dedication to Japan evaporate into nothing after 10 years of study. In the mean time I’m just focussing on things that do make me happy and trying to tie Japan into that.

But maybe it’s time to conclude that, for me at least, Japan is just meant to be a place to admire from afar.

My Amazing Japanese

Hello there,

The common hurdle a lot of foreigners in Japan are faced with is ‘compliments’.

Now I know this sounds lovely and Japanese people being renowned as polite and kind would make this point obvious but anyone who has been to Japan to live or study for an extended period of time will understand the drop in my stomach anytime someone praises my use of chopsticks or ability to greet.

“Wow! You can use chopsticks?” Someone asks me, 8 months into my second period of living in Japan.

This is not the first, nor the second, third or fourth, time I have received this admiration from a Japanese co-worker. Each time I reply gently with a “Yes, actually we use chopsticks in New Zealand too.” This never fails to shock and mystify my sweet Japanese colleagues and they relish in their new found knowledge… until a few weeks later when they see me eating rice and are once again astonished at my nifty fingers.

Not your average fork and knife using hands

I am aware that not all foreigners are as lucky as me to have grown up in a country which is one of the most multicultural on the planet. As a New Zealander I was introduced to Asian culture early on and learnt to enjoy my sushi and chicken chow mein through the practical use of chopsticks. Maybe, someone from a less multicultural country or a New Zealander who might have preferred the use of a knife and fork, being complimented on their use of chopsticks every few weeks would be a welcome recognition of their growth. But as a practiced chopsticks semi-expert, it is a constant reminder of patience and the joker’s smile.

A common conversation in the office is as follows:

*writing up new schedule for meeting*

Co-worker: “Wow”

Me: “Wow?”

Co-worker: “You know Kanji (Chinese characters)?”

Me: “Yes, the computer comes up with them automatically anyway.”

Co-worker: “Wow”

Me: “I have had to learn a few over the 10 years I’ve been studying Japanese”

Co-worker: “Wow”

The co-worker remains in this stunned condition for about 5 seconds before reporting their findings to the rest of my co-workers for them all to join in the chorus of “Wow”.

While I appreciate the kind reminder that my Japanese degree has paid off, when this ritual admiration repeats, on average, every two weeks it does get a bit tiring. There are worse conversations of course; the ‘konnichiwa’ expert. Any foreigner trying to have a go at communication in Japan will face this at some point.

Me: “Konnichiwa” (hello)

Other person: “Wow. Your Japanese is amazing!”

Me: “I said nothing.”

And repeat.

Encouraging for the everyday tourist but excruciating for the live in foreigner just trying to buy some shampoo at their regular supermarket.

I know this all sounds a bit ridiculously picky to anyone who has never lived in Japan before but I wrote this for all my fellow non-Japanese workers and students in the country who will no doubt understand the wonderfully blurry line between compliments and patronising.

Whether or not the repeating of the same compliments is a part of Japanese culture or just my co-workers poor memory I don’t know.

Just thought you might want to know.