Week 6: Where are all the white women at?

Taking the train.














This is the electronics store I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. I get a headache just looking at it.















Don't be sad, Tommy Lee Jones, you can buy Boss coffee at any corner vending machine.

Nouveaux Riches

That’s what Karen calls us now. Something about our paychecks being larger than anything any of us have ever seen before (well, at least me and Juniper). This week we got paid on Monday, a direct deposit into our new bank accounts which, until now, only held about a dollar just to get the account started. There were the usual provisions that had to be taken out, retirement, key charge for the arms (which was supposed to cover our rooms getting cleaned, but actually paid for nothing), and taxes (which was not supposed to happen at all but since I never got the letter from the IRS they are taking it out anyway). I never thought gross incompetence on the international scale could cost me so much money. On the other hand, I was reimbursed a small portion of what I paid for visiting the doctor (about a fourth of what I actually paid, four times more than what I should have) and my travel money to cover the cost of flying over here. The travel money was the only thing that was actually commensurate to what I shelled out, including the hotel stay in Chicago when I missed the connecting flight.

I would like to say that it was the lump sum thing that made me do all the spending. Had the checks come in small doses I would have been more inclined to put it away and not think anything more of it. But think of a month’s salary being dropped into your account in an afternoon, which nearly doubles the amount of money you had saved up working for six months before that. Now, wouldn’t you be just a little inclined to spend it with reckless abandon knowing that you are only a few weeks away from another said deposit? After living like a student, albeit, a spoiled one with generous parents (hey, at least I’m honest), actually having money to spend changed my entire outlook on life.

Everyone asked me what I was going to buy. Dunno, I said, like the ideas hadn’t been coming to me every time I walked into a store. One of the first things I did was go to the grocery store and buy up a lot of what would be standard at home but are luxuries here. Things like peanut butter (a knock-off), chicken breasts, and real butter. You wouldn’t think it, but butter is hard to get here. It usually comes in blocks that are slightly smaller than two stick in America or individually wrapped packets like you get with your rolls in Italian Restaurants. The rest of the refrigerator section is stocked with various kinds of margarine, which, if you didn’t know, is made from vegetable oil made solid with trans-fatty acids that are really bad for you. I should also mention that a quart-sized container of milk costs about the same as a gallon in America and is the consistency of half and half. After drinking skim for the past few years it reminds me of heavy cream. Cheese is also pricey, but you can get a large block of cheddar for a few dollars more than in the states. Cheese is also limited in variety, mostly cheddar and gouda, as well as shredded mozzarella for pizza and a few fancy cheeses like camembert. No wonder there are so many old people here hunched over from osteoporosis.

Now, what am I supposed to do with all this cool foodstuff? I can cook up all sorts of good eats with my brand new toaster/microwave/convection oven. Yes, it does all three things in the same size as a larger microwave oven. I couldn’t help myself as I seem to have developed an unhealthy need to bake over the past few years and here is a machine that I can not only make cakes or pies in, but reheat the leftovers the next day. To this day (about two weeks later) I have yet to actually bake anything in it as baking supplies such as flour are really hard to get. I saw some bags of flour in a foreign market (way cool) that were a few pounds in size and cost about six dollars. I see so many wheat things all over the place like sandwiches, cakes, and noodles, yet I cannot find flour to save my life. Until the day I can get a big bag of flour, I will be content reheating my rice and toasting bread. I have to mention, bread here comes in smallish loaves that are cut into either six or eight really large slices. Even the thinner, eight-slice bag is large enough that you only need on piece for a sandwich.

My oven also taught me a valuable lesson in making large purchases: most people in Japan have everything shipped to them. Since this was my first large purchase I figured I could just carry it home (less than a mile, maybe). After I paid for it, the guy in the store asked me (in Japanese) if I wanted it carried down to my car. I realized this only after he made the steering wheel motion with his hands, whereupon I said, no thanks, I’ll carry it. He then gave me a look that I easily interpreted as, really? Are you nuts? Apparently because, even though the oven could not have weighed too much more than ten pounds, the box it came in doubled its size and the handles where just round holes cut into side. I had to stop several times on the way home to adjust my grip, lean the box on various parts of my body since having it against my upper thigh cut off the circulation to my legs, and wipe away the profuse sweat from my face due to the effort and the hottest sunshine this country has had since I arrived. And to think, it was literally storming not an hour ago.

My next big purchase was a couple days later. Karen and I went out to Jmart, a really big store that looks like a Home Depot on the first level and a Target on the second. You can quite literally buy your entire home in this place and not need to shop anywhere else, though you may get sick of packaged foods after a while. My mission was to get some plastic drawers, a desk of some kind, and a bookshelf. Karen was on the look out for some kitchen supplies and a new kitchen cabinet. Remember how I said the place was never cleaned? Well even after several cleanings the cabinet she did have was still encrusted with mold and looked like it had been picked up off a curb in the rain. She didn’t trust food to be in it, let alone wanted to look at the thing taking up space next to the fridge.

Karen was also in the market for a tatami mat. A tatami is a pad for the floor and a mat is a thin cover that goes on top. Living rooms and bedrooms of a residence have recesses that the pads fit into. They are about two centimeters thick and, like the mats, are made of woven grass so they will be soft for sleeping or walking on and smell nice when the weather gets warm. One interesting thing about them is that there is only one size of pad, and a few common room sizes they fit into. That way, you can make a large mat for a room in only a few sizes to fit a room perfectly. In another cheap-ass move on the part of the landlord was to purchase the cheapest pads he could find and not replace them even after the recommended date. As such, they are stained, discolored, and stared to fray leaving bits of grass on everything and requiring constant vacuuming. I have been told that the lord sometimes comes to work functions to meet everyone, but I seriously hope I never meet him as I may be unable to stop myself from punching him in front of everyone. If you ever visit, you would understand.

We looked around Jmart for a while to see what all we needed. In one corner we came across the pet section where, like an American pet store, several puppies and kittens where on display in windowed cages. The pet area was pretty extensive, consisting of food, toys, beds, and, in addition to the aforementioned animals, fish, lizards, rabbits, chickens, and beetles (big, ugly ones like the kind you have only seen in museums). People can actually bring their pets into the store provided they are on a leash or in the cart. Karen and I got all gushy around the cute animals, then were shocked that the average price for one of them was around two to four thousand dollars. I’ll admit that they looked good, pure bred, healthy, and young, but that much money for a cat? We left shaking our heads and feeling sorry for the one dog that cost $800 because he was the cheap one.

After spending a couple of hours looking at things, we get more or less what we came for. I never got the desk, but I did find a nice bookshelf and some drawers and Karen got her mat and cabinet. In order to get all of this stuff home we walked over to the customer service desk and asked for someone who spoke English. Since I was feeling savvy having discovered a dictionary on my phone, I showed them words like “delivery” in the hopes that they would hand me the form. Not so simple, they called over an older man who spoke a little English to guide us through the whole process. After talking with the other employees he turned to us and said, rather distraught, We can deliver your goods to you tomorrow, but I’m afraid it is going to cost you five dollars (OK, he didn’t say dollars, but I translated it). We pretended to be a concerned by this. Think about two large boxes, a tatami mat, and two large plastic drawers being delivered overnight to your home for five dollars. I guess that’s acceptable, Karen said. This is where I felt really stupid for having carried that oven home.

On another night out spending money, Russell and I managed to convince Juniper to get a cell phone. Since I had a good experience buying mine, I had suggested to Karen and Juniper to go to the same place since I knew for sure that they would have an English speaker working. Of course she was there, and spelled out the plans, the monthly rate, and the cost of each phone, which had gone down in the couple of weeks since I had gotten one. After the whole process was over the woman gave her the phone and said, actually, the phone is free when you sign up. Not that I was bitter, but I paid about $90 for my phone, and at the time I bought it the phone Juniper received cost about $120. The night before this Russell had purchased a new digital camera and after saying he was going to buy it, the clerk handed him a series of things like a bottle top mount so you could use a coke bottle like a tripod when you want a steady shot but are just out with your friends and not in full on art mode.

This led Russell to the hypothesis (I’m giving him the credit here) that, in Japan, people are rewarded for purchases rather than enticed to buy. The longer you have a cell phone the cheaper it gets every year, even though you can only sign up for one year at a time. When he explained this I thought about all the free crap that everyone seems to offer with large purchases, like a free printer with my laptop, but never is there a surprise for someone who goes in expecting the one thing. Personally, I would think that this would be a much better method since it encourages loyalty rather than an easy out for another offer. If cell phone rates went down the longer you stayed a customer people might be less inclined to cancel their service and sign up with another company every year. But that’s just me.

In All the Wrong Places

Despite the fact that since the day I first expressed interest in going to Japan I was bombarded with reassurances that I would be hottest thing to every cute Asian girl I came in contact with, I have yet to really hit it off with anyone (unless you want to count the hostess at the J-Girl party, but I would rather not). This week, however, a coworker, and a Canadian, no less but we'll just call her Joanne, and I expressed mutual interest in dating one another. Ultimately we decided that it was a bad idea since we work together, live together, and are together socially all the time. Not to mention the fact that everyone pretty much works and lives together and any such activity would fall under the close scrutiny of nearly everyone we see regularly and awkwardness would be the prevalent feeling. Sad since I probably get along with her better than anyone else here, but good because this means things can stay cordial. Funny, Joanne let me in on Russell's astute observation made in a pithy text message to her when I arrived saying, you’re going to like the new guy, which made me laugh. The problem now is most know we like each other but no one knows me well enough to just ask me and no one wants to be rude and ask her about it. I assume some are fine not knowing while others prefer to fabricate some elaborite scenario in their heads based on their observations, but that's how these things work.

On the other hand Russell and Juniper are now dating which sort of makes them the litmus test for interoffice relationships. All of this is giving me a weird sense of déjà vu since last year started with me interested in someone who agreed that a relationship was a bad idea while Juniper was quickly picked up by a co-worker who had a reputation for being a womanizer. Russell has acknowledged his reputation, though with confusion since he is not the womanizing type. I have no reason to believe that he is, understanding how gossip can just be a lot of shit people say to make themselves feel important. However I can say with some confidence that he is a far better person than the previous guy I know Juniper dated whom, for several other reasons, I would like to work on with a 7-iron.

I realize that I am gossipping here and I apologize, but I sort of feel it important to note this now to see how the various relationships are going to play out over the next couple of months (let alone, the next year).

Speaking of Ruth, my dear has recently decided that she would like to come and visit me. She hammered out a date and purchased a ticket with the plan on getting here at the end of June to spend ten days hanging out with me and her friend Joy, who is planning on leaving in July. Of course being the selfish prick that I am, I immediately began formulating a list of things I would like her to bring me from America. This was under the assumption that she was leaving from Minneapolis, my beloved home, and could put together a bag of my things from my parents and just carry it through the airport for me. Not so fast, before you could say, mule, Ruth changed her mind about her Minneapolis move and is now going to stay in Washington for a while to get a grip on what she wants to do for the next year before applying to a doctorate program. She assures me that she would like to end up in the Twin Cities for that, at least, since it is such a cool city and the University has a good program. End shameless plug.

What was that?

Constant exposure to students and people is constant exposure to germs and bacteria. I caught a monster of a cold from someone--if I knew who I could throw down, but, alas, I cannot--that is going around and hitting everyone. My advice to you if you should ever come here or ride a train anywhere is to never touch your face for any reason until you have washed your hands. You will see a lot of people, especially this time of year when pollens are in the air, wearing facial masks. This is, of course, to protect them from allergens, but it’s also a courtesy thing. For many people, if they catch a cold or are unwell, they will put the mask on to protect others from infection. Isn’t that nice of them? In America you’re lucky if the asshole next to you on the bus doesn’t just farmer blow all over you. Blowing your nose in public is also strictly forbidden, so sniffle until you can get to a bathroom, no one will mind.

One night I was up late, stuffy, tired, and generally feeling ill before going to bed. After only a few hours of restless sleep I was awakened by the rattle of glass panes in the bookshelf and the floor moving. I had only woken up in time to catch the tail end of it, not entirely sure for a moment what had happened until my senses had returned. I spent about three minutes staring at the faint outlines of my desk in the dark wondering if I was close enough for it to come down on top of me when I just fell asleep. Eschewing any pride I may have, if I had been completely awake at the time this occurred I am certain I would have been crying and moaning like a pansy. Joanne wanted to call me and ask me if I was ok, which sounded really sweet until I noticed she was laughing at me for putting on a scared face.

Earthquakes are pretty common, or so I’m told. Stu warned me that I should expect one every week, but they are usually so mild that you may not even notice. There was one on another day that felt like little more than a large semi driving by outside. Having grown up near an airport, I hadn’t even noticed it until someone pointed it out. These have been the only two instances that I have noticed in my time here. On my first day Russell showed me his emergency kit complete with a flashlight, food, and bottled water because if a major one hit we could lose water and power for a few days. I was frightened, reminded of many days sitting in the basement waiting for the tornado warning to pass. But a tornado can't get you in the basement the same way a quake can get you anywhere in the building.

The local elementary school is an emergency center where we can go if a big one hits, but make sure you open a door when it starts cause the foundation can shift and next thing you know you trapped inside. There was a large one in 1995 that killed 1,590 people, followed by the Tokyo subway gas attack not long after. The last really big earthquake was in 1923 where about 143,000 people died. There has been a lot of speculation about when the next big one will hit, but scientific predictions are only slightly accurate. But then, they say the end of the world is coming in a lot of ways. AU provides us with a helmet at each desk while a map on the wall guides us to meeting points. In the office everything is so crowded that nothing could fall over since it would just run into something else. I know I am not supposed to run outside if a quake hits, but I would rather be at work if a real big one occurs.

I really need to learn to end on a more positive note.

Shave and a haircut, forty bucks

The old locks were starting to get a little mullet-y in the back and something had to be done about it. When I first asked about getting a haircut people told me that I should either bring someone along who can explain things like length or find a picture of the cut I wanted. Assuming that no one in any shop was going to know what I was saying, it was easy for me to understand. I asked them in return who their preferred stylist was and got a variety of answer ranging from shaving his own head every morning to traveling across town to an Australian stylist and paying $80 for the pleasure of polite conversation with a basic cut. There is a shop not far from here where the stylist there speaks some English, but, again, the cost is around $40. I’m from the school of thought that a simple haircut should cost no more than $15. I admit that this is on the cheap-ass side, but I refused to pay more than $20 even if the stylist was a native English speaker. But when Joanne told me that somebody (being intentionally vague) got their hair done for around $200, suddenly I felt I was on another planet, never mind another country.

Hair salons are about as ubiquitous as cell phone shops. Seriously, half this city’s labor force must be made up of stylists and cell phone dealers. On Skip Dori there must be at least eight salons, plus three more around the corner and a couple more across the street. If ever I need variety in who I wanted to cut my hair, I need not travel far. When I first saw kids working their hair in the bathroom at school I really not put the two things together, but a lot of importance in put on people’s hair, more so than clothing. And every place has their prices listed in the front or on the window, and all of them are asking at least 4500Y ($40) for the pleasure of a cut. Mik told me there was a place on the Skip that would do it for 1800Y, but I was unable to find it in regular travels to the train station. There is one place that advertises 1000Y ($10) haircuts in ten minutes, but you get what you pay for, and it’s located under the station next to a coffee shop that specializes in “to go.”

If you think the cost is not worth it you are thinking of what you get for an American cut. A Japanese cut consists of shampoo (twice), shave, scalp massage, cut, and shampoo again. The whole process can take up to an hour and a half if you get the full treatment, but if you say cut only, they will just cut it and send you on your way. When I was reading through the orientation book on the plane, I remembered the part where it said, haircuts can take a long time, so don’t go get one between obligations or you may be late. If you are still willing to pay $40 for a haircut and all that other stuff, I expect you to look fabulous when it’s over.

One night after 30 minutes of trying to find a picture of George Clooney ala From Dusk Till Dawn, I finally broke down and went looking for a shop no matter what the cost. Again I looked for the cheap place and did not find it, went by a place that had two prices advertised, 4500Y and 2250Y, but could not figure out how to get the cheaper one. My phone dictionary had no idea what the word next to the cheap price meant, and I could only assume that it was member’s only. In the middle of the Skip I walked up a flight of stairs and asked what it would cost for a cut. 4500Y, she said, but there was a discount for some reason, and it would really be 3300Y ($30) tonight. This was all in Japanese, of course, even the part where I told her how long I wanted it and she said, one hour. Do you have pictures, I asked. She took me over to a shelf covered in books, each with all sorts of pictures of various styles taken from four angles. I jumped to the short section and found what I was looking for.

Since the picture featured a guy with highlights, I had to make it clear that all I wanted was a cut. After that I told her that I like it combed forward when it was done while running my hand through my hair to demonstrate. Forward, she asked. Like the picture, I said, pointing again. OK, she said. After my two shampoos she led me over to the stylist and told her, forward. The stylist said, forward? I became worried. All told the process did take about an hour. The stylists had a method for only cutting a tiny bit off the end of my hair repeatedly until it was the desired length. The process might have something to do with Japanese hair being black and, usually, thicker, but either way I was covered in what looked like cocoa powder when she finished. She then took me back to the sink for a second wash and got out all the little specks from my scalp that surely would have itched like Hell that evening and I was done.

A strange phenomenon occurs when you meet people looking like one thing. They establish this idea of you and how you look and it sticks with them. Everyone noticed immediately at work the next day, it was a sharp contrast, but they all said that they almost didn’t recognize me. Even Juniper, whom I have known for over a year now, thought I was a random stranger who wandered into the office. I don’t really see the difference now between this and my $15 cuts in the states, but I guess it was worth the extra cash for the shampoos and the looks I got the next day. Next time, however, I really am going to find the 1800Y place and go there.