Feeling a little motivated to write something right now.

Its been one month and 21 days since I have come to Japan. Life has been pretty challenging to say the least. Largely as a result of the language difficulties. Though I have been studying Japanese for a year, I am not able to communicate properly as I am unable to hold conversations. Furthermore, what I learn in books is very different from what is being said in daily life. I have not watch Bill Murray's Lost in Translation, but I think I get a good idea of what he goes through. Its a little worse for me, because I have a long time to go through. Haaa...

Not that I am not enjoying myself. I appreciate being here! At the same time there are a lot of things I just miss having when I was in Singapore: namely the convenience, the cheap(er) food and the weather.

One more thing I really dislike about Japan, is its subtle "discrimination." I think that unless one is Nippon-fied, foreigners like myself find it rather tough to live in Japan. From what I gather from my international friends, a number of things are constant reminders that we are foreigners in Japan.

For example, the work permit. In order to do part time jobs, foreign students must apply for a Work Permit. It limits my classification to working 14 hours a week. It requires me to get a application from my home department's office in block 19, then it requires another application from the Centre for International Education office in block 22, then I have fill in another application for the Immigration Bureau, which requires a train ride AND a bus ride to arrive at the front desk of seemingly unenthusiastic Japanese receptionists. After that, I will have to wait for another 1 to 2 weeks for a certain postcard to arrive to inform me that my work permit card is ready for collection. Which requires me to take another one and a half hour train and bus ride to the Bureau just to pick it up. Did I mention the journey will also cost at least 1000 Yen per trip?

While I was there, I applied for a Multiple Entry permit at the same time. This means, that if I were to travel out of Japan to say, Korea (for my brother's wedding), I have to get a permission to RE-ENTER. And there are two classifications for this permission. One is SINGLE entry, which costs 3000 Yen. and one is MULTIPLE Entry, which costs 6000 Yen. If one fails to get this permission, that person will be barred from re-entering, and will be required to do his ENTIRE application process of Certificate of Eligibility, Foreign Alien's Registration's Pass and National Health Insurance (which means paying again) and which takes a few months. So in effect, he or she will be stranded, or has to go back home to redo his administration.

And so applying for this permit, requires me to make a payment of 6000 Yen, in a convenience store DOWNSTAIRS. The Japanese seems to like to keep their processes untainted by the exchange of money. Many food stalls (not all) have separated machines to accept the cash which will give you a ticket proving your purchase. Seems like an uncorrupted way of handling money. The inconvenient thing, is to walk that little bit more.

English is VERY limited here in Japan. Its funny how instruction manuals will have their title (and sub-titles) in English, but their instructions are ALL in Japanese. You know how electrical appliances in Singapore will their manuals in multiple languages? Well, Japan doesn't. Which makes me wonder why even bother to title their manuals in English in the first place?

Why am I talking about instruction manuals? That is because I applied for internet in my dorm. So on Thursday, someone from NTT (the internet service provider) came into my room to plug in the modem to my telephone point. But that's it. The LAN cable is neatly coiled and left for myself to do the rest. Along with the cable, are instruction manuals from NTT, as well as instructions manuals from Palala. Palala is the PLAN provider. So there are two different companies involved with the internet provision. And when I thought I finally had my internet, if I just follow the colourful pictures, it turns out that the installation CD from NTT, cannot be read on my English-based lap top. All the Japanese turned out gibberish, and nothing I did seemed to allow me to change it. I tried changing the language of the laptop, but to no effect.

So I had to call Kitai-san, the guy in charge and with whom I have had some trouble communicating him to about my Lap top being in English. And guess what, he had to take vacation, on the very next day after my modem got installed. I thought, "how convenient."

So right now, I have a modem sitting on my floor, two unreadable instruction manuals and a CD that can't be read on my lap top. I can get my Japanese friends to read the manuals, but its a technical problem that I seem to be facing right now...

So... *blink blink* Sigh.

One more grouse: Apples. On apple in Singapore is 40 cents. One apple in Japan is a dollar. But then again, the apples here are at least 2 times bigger than the ones I get in Singapore. So I take that grouse back.

Because the Yen has appreciated soooo much against the Singapore dollar, I'm quite determined to not go out and play. As much as my friends implore me to do all things Japanese, simply because I am in Japan, could I remind all of us, that I am not Japanese and I am not earning any money, let alone earning a Japanese salary which would probably enhance my capacity to live like a Japanese. And doing any thing Japanese in Japan, is still very steeply priced. Public baths? Onsens? Kyoto castles amidst browning leaves? Sure they may be pretty, sure they may be enjoyable. But for a poor student who is worrying about his ability to find a job when he returns, suddenly it seems, that every dollar suggests survival.

Besides, I just paid 2000 Yen for the school's gym membership. I should try to make full use of it. And not to mention my 3 hour commuting. By the time I am done with gym, I should already be in bed, just so so I can wake up at 530 the next morning to try to avoid the morning rush hour, which seems to start at 530 every morning. I wont be surprised if there are Japanese just standing outside the frosty autumn morning, waiting for the gates of the train stations to open, like the small handful of them who wait outside the shopping centre next to my train station at 10 am, when it only opens at 11. Japan never ceases to amaze me.

The small number of Japanese friends I have made so far, somehow makes me very happy. Also the international friends too. Though I dun "hang out" with them so to speak, its always a pleasure attending classes with them, especially when we do group work.

In Japanese class, I usually pair up with an American guy called David, who plays the cello. He's just so funny. We usually have to come up with dialogues and he like so fun to make dialogues with. And in my Introduction to Intercultural Communications class, I am in a group with 4 very different Japanese girls whom I enjoy laughing about with, and from whom I learn quite a bit about Japanese culture from their perspectives. And in my Global Environmental Politics class, there is Satoshi who went to Scottland, and Michy that stayed in Australia. Both I have found great pleasure conversing with.

In the evenings, when I return back to my dorm, if a security guard named Hikino-san is on duty, and if I have enough energy to try to converse in Japanese, I would stop by and talk to him. I like him very much, cos he is so grandfatherly and he tries to explain Japanese things. For example, I learned that Japanese set meals are called teishoku, but non-Japanese set meals are called setto. Its another one of the distinguishing features of the Japanese language: the determination to distinguish all things Japanese. He also told me to stay away from certain parts of Shinjuku where the Yakuza roams. Hahaha!

Tomorrow is the grand SouKei baseball match. Sou represents Waseda Uni and Kei represents Keio Uni. And the baseball match is like the Oxford-Cambridge or NUS-NTU grand rivalries. So its going to be exciting. The only thing is, I'm not going. And the main reason is that, you have to reach the stadium at 730 (in the cold autumn dawn) to queue up and wait for the game that starts at 1400.

I will miss out on the atmosphere and the excitement though. Just yesterday, the student council presumably held a rally to rile up fervent Waseda Spirit. The entire military band was there playing music. And there were these male counselors in the Waseda military uniform trying shouting and screaming in Japanese in front of two flag bearers holding the Waseda and Keio flag that is at least 10m long. The flag bearers had to bend over backwards to hold up the flags. And the counselors were SUPER exaggerated in their shouting, their bowing and their clapping. Clapping cos, they were changing "WASEDA" and trying to get the crowd going. And as the music blared, female cheerleaders in all their short skirts and pompoms were cheer leading, and the male counselors were clapping behind the cheerleaders and there were two doing some out-of-this world choreography that involved wild swingings of their arms and mid air leg splits.

This video will show you what I mean.



And this will probably what I will miss in the game:



Well, I never had a thing for baseball. And I think I still have a backlog of Japanese to catch up on. And there will always be opportunity costs.

Japan and Waseda are continues to amaze me. =)