Moving to Shinjo

My first month in Yamagata has seemed incredibly long and yet somehow has gone by in a blur. We had to leave for Yamagata at 9:00 in the morning on our last day of orientation, which meant another 6:00 wake up because for some reason no matter what time class/work actually starts, breakfast is served from 7:00 to 7:30. There are very strict rules here for eating, and they always warn us that if we want breakfast we need to show up at 7:00 exactly, because for some reason people need half an hour to eat no matter what. Furthermore, clearing the breakfast hall is always interesting because this is an indirect society. That means that they never say, “It’s 7:30 get the hell out,” instead they say something like, “It looks like most people have left already.” For Japanese that is very direct, but when you are a foreigner who is hungry you usually get the sudden urge to feign ignorance and keep eating, but it’s only a fleeting urge. Anyways after saying goodbye to the people I met at orientation half of the Yamagata JETs headed up to the train station to go to our new homes. Yamagata is so big that they actually had two options for getting JETs to their new home; half of us used the Shinkansen while the other half flew into Yamagata on a local flight.

One of my only regrets on JET so far has been to be a little reclusive on that day of travel. I think I was just a little intimidated because all of the Irish JETs had gone out last night to party together and I felt that I was one of the few people on that train who had not bonded with everyone, so I withdrew a bit. This of course will not haunt me for long because I am sure that I will make friends with anyone I want/need to when the time comes, but it probably would have been a good idea to get a good head start on it then. Shinjo is the last stop on the Shinkansen so we had to watch as everyone exited the train one by one. This changed at Yamagata city which holds almost half of the JETs in Yamagata, so here half of our group got off. This left just Kristin, Peter, Alex, and I on the train after Yamagata city for a half hour ride up to Shinjo. Alex is our CIR in Yamagata, which means that he was chosen to be the head of the Yamagata JETs as well as translate any documents and go on any government business that requires a translator. This is really the job I wanted to get, but since my Japanese was not that good I became a ALT. Hopefully in 2 years I will have much better Japanese and I can apply for a CIR job my last year in Japan, but again who knows what the future holds. All throughout the Tokyo orientation we were told again and again how hard it is to change jobs or locations once you were accepted into JET, but I have met so many people who have done that that it is a little hard to believe that it is nearly impossible. Alex is a very nice guy and he is actually dating my block leader Clea right now, who is super genki (energetic and fun) and adventurous. I should also explain that prefectures are also broken up into blocks as well, kind of like how northern Japan is the Tohoku region; each prefecture has regions of its own. Anyways I am in the northern block which has the fewest amount of JETs but it is very pretty and I really do love it here.

When we got off the train Peter was greeted by his supervisor and then shooed off to his own school for his own welcome party. Kristin and I were greeted by Koseki-san, who over the next few weeks, and from now on really, has been our saving grace when it comes to Japan. He was also with our Ko-cho (boss) Kurita-san. Kurita-san is a hilarious man even if my Japanese cannot always keep up with his jokes. Every time we go anywhere with him he always makes sure to crack a joke with anyone he meets and he makes sure that our meetings are never quiet or awkward. These two men took us straight to our apartments to drop off our belongings and set up our house before we went out to our Enkai (welcome party). The apartment that the Board of Education (BOE) moved us into is brand new and not fully rented out yet, so I actually do not have any direct neighbors above or next to me. I am at the end of the building on the first floor in room 109, and I really do wish I could say that it is more than just a room. My apartment includes a bathroom and a toilet room, which is an odd Japanese tradition that says that a toilet cannot be in the actual bathroom, so they need to make a very small toilet room with no sink except for the one attached to the top of the toilet. It has taken me 3 trips to Japan to trust that toilet sink enough to use it. It could just be me but I always found it a bit odd to flush the toilet and then stick our hands under water that looks like it is coming out of the toilet, but it is clean and I use it now. We are also given a “kitchen” which is at the end of the entry hall into our room. All that we have in our kitchen is 2 electric burners, a tiny refrigerator, a microwave oven, a sink, and a cabinet big enough to hold maybe 5 cups or plates at most (so basically it’s pointless). My room is fairly large and it looks like it comes with a bed. This of course is not true, we are given a storage box that we put our futon on top of. I am incredibly grateful for this because there would be no other place in my room that I could have stored my suitcases or any of my boxes that should be coming soon. Now when I first arrived in my apartment I expected them to show us about and tell us a few things, maybe make our bed or tell us what we needed, and then we would leave. To my surprise Koseki-san turned to us and said, “So let’s set up your internet.” It turns out that Leo-Palace apartment complexes always come with their own internet and cable system that is part of the rent. So I am proud to say that Kristin and I were probably some of the first JETs to get internet, even if it took 4 Japanese people and me to figure out how to set it up.

Our welcome party was in a restaurant called the “English-Pub” which served all the typical English food like pizza topped with corn, spaghetti sauce, and crockets. We were greeted by everyone at the BOE and then set to start drinking and eating while trying to tell our life stories to everyone. Almost no one speaks English at the BOE, and even if they were fluent it seems that now that they knew we spoke some Japanese, we would never hear a word of English from them. Occasionally over the past month they have told us a few words in English, which raises the question at how good they actually are at the language, but the truth is I will never fully know how fluent they are. At drinking parties it is rude to have an empty glass, but you are not allowed to fill your glass. That means that while you drink you have to keep scanning everyone else’s glasses to make sure they are not running low on beer, and if they are it is your job to pour them a new cup. Another rule is that you must always pour for your boss first, wait for him to tell you when you can drink, and always make sure to be aware of what he wants to do with the party. This means that when he wants to leave the party is over, and every Enkai starts and ends with a speech from one of the senior members of the organization that is hosting the event. Once the Enkai is over the party does not have to stop, because there are usually second or third parties after that. I was actually invited to a second party that night by Koseki-san and Kakizaki-san, where we went out to the local Karaoke bar. Again I cannot stress how much I dislike singing in public, and this dislike is doubled when I am around people I have never met before. Yet you cannot argue with someone who you just met so I agreed to go and get a few more drinks to boost my confidence. This Karaoke place is actually pretty interesting because besides just singing you can also play darts, and there is an unlimited amount of vanilla soft serve as well as free non-alcoholic beverages. That night was actually the first night where I was the center of attention while I sang, and it is hard to come up with songs on the spot like that. Luckily I had read Learning How to Bow, which is a great guidebook as to what to expect in JET. Here I was informed that it doesn’t really matter how bad you are at singing, if you are white you can say the words and they are impressed enough by that. I do not need to reminisce on my horrible singing though, so in the end I came back to my apartment at around 1 o’clock, only to have to get up in 6 hours to go to work the next day.

This was probably the most productive day I have had in Japan so far, because as soon as we got to the office Koseki-san took us out to do all of our errands. At first we went downstairs and to the next building to get our picture taken for our Gaikokujin Tourokushou (Alien Registration Cards). In Japan you need to carry around your passport or your Gaikok Torok (what they call it for short) at all times if you are not Japanese or the police can simply walk up to you and arrest you. Since this is a homogenous society for the most part open racism is not seen as a problem here, so racial profiling is also deemed acceptable. From there we went and got our bank accounts at a local branch that only exists in Yamagata. Kristin and I thought this was kind of stupid because that would mean that if we traveled we would be screwed, but Koseki-san assured us that any ATM in Japan would accept our cash cards and that this bank refunded any ATM transaction charge, which would be very nice to have. The next stop was then to get us some supplies at the local dollar store. If you have never been to Japan you cannot begin to grasp how perfect dollar stores are in Japan. In America it is where you pick up cheap last minute gifts, or just some random things for a party. In Japan you can get almost anything at a dollar store ranging from kitchen to cleaning supplies, as well as some furniture that lasts forever. I went with Koseki san while Kristin was lead around by one of the female members of our office, as if we would be getting completely different items. In the end of course it did not come down to gender differences but simply preferences and what we thought we would need at the moment. This was not and will not be our last stop at the Daiso dollar store; because every time you get back to that small empty apartment you think of one or two more things you could buy to make the place feel a little more like home.

Our last stop for the day was at Softbank to pick up our cellphones. We were told on our way up that the Japanese did not have a credit system, so how this would work is that they would make you pay for the cellphone in full when you first bought it, and then every month they would detract $20 from your bill in order to refund you for the supposed “Free Phone.” Well of course this was not the case, and for some reason Kristin and I had completely different experiences buying the phone. For Kristin she just had to sit down, pick out a number, tell them some of her basic information, and then receive her phone. I, on the other hand, did the same process up until it came time to receive my phone. Then for some reason the company decided that I was not trustworthy enough, and insisted that I be charged the full amount for my phone on my American credit card, instead of to the Japanese bank I had just set up. I have no idea what could have led to this different policy but nonetheless I had the cell phone troubles while Kristin did not. By this point it was already 4:30 and time to head home, but we had other plans. The new JETs were supposed to have a Yamagata welcome party, making it the second day in a row that I would go to work after heavy drinking and little sleep. This party was in the biggest city, which is a full hour away from Shinjo by normal train. So in order to make it to the party on time we had to leave the Softbank store immediately and not head home. Luckily for us our coworkers were kind enough to take our new stuff back to our apartments for us while we headed to Yamagata. This was probably the shortest train ride I can remember because playing with your brand new iPhone sure kills a lot of time. Our welcome party was supposed to be on the roof of some Beer Garden, but by the time we arrived it was raining pretty hard so they rescheduled and moved it to a bar that was much smaller, but drier.

I think that night there was only one waiter, who was probably not too happy to see 20 some foreigners packed into their tiny restaurant and acting as loud as a hundred Japanese on their rowdiest day. We all had to introduce ourselves again and try and order food which took forever to get. I sat by a Chinese American girl who got me to try gut soup (It was a soup containing all of the intestines and organs of a pig) and after a few rounds of beer we started to do Karaoke again. Now for some reason I had the misfortune of sitting right by the Karaoke machine and was in charge of changing every song which was kind of a pain in the ass but it also meant I didn’t have to sing. Now some people did catch onto this by the end, and they made me stand up (which no one else had done) and sing Like a Virgin by Madonna why everyone watched. It was embarrassing to say the least, but I guess when you are singing a Madonna song, ability really doesn’t matter. The only truly embarrassing part was realizing that I only knew the chorus of that song, and most of it I was kind of stumbling along. Perhaps the best part of that night was the fact that Alex and Clea picked the song Rasputin to sing. It is the oddest song in the world but now it will be my Karaoke favorite because of just how stupid and ridiculous it is.

In the end we had to leave early in order to catch our last train to Shinjo, arriving at midnight or later once again so we could get just as little sleep for work the next day. The last thing I wanted to add in this post was Nisshida Mama. She is Kristin’s old host mother and one of the most outspoken Japanese people I have ever met. She met us as soon as we got off of the train in Shinjo and greeted me by saying, “I am Nisshida-san, you can call me Nisshida Mama because I am your new host-mother now.” She has been an incredible help to us, and has gone out of her way in order to get us whatever we need to make life her comfortable. In fact our third day she told us to meet her at her house for breakfast because she knew we weren’t making our own proper breakfast. The other interesting thing about Nisshida Mama is that her son Takuda (Ta-kun for short) is one of my students at Nisshin Junior High School. He apparently likes me a lot but he hates English and is embarrassed to be seen with me, so he is definitely going to be an interesting student. I will talk more about Nisshida Mama later; she kind of deserves her own post for all of the stuff she has done for us, including hopefully finding me a Kendo instructor.