Visa excitement

So I went to the Immigration Office yesterday to try and renew my work visa under my new company, Interac, yet the excitement never seems to end in my time here as I didn't have the correct documents, etc. Turns out I need tax certificates from Nova as well as a letter of release since a different company will be sponsoring my visa and to top all of this off none of the staff at the office spoke English! Now this may come across as American arrogance, but I feel in this instance it is actually called for as it is a damn Immigration Office! When I went to the consultation area to ask the staff there if I would be able to renew my visa despite not actually starting until April I asked the woman, in Japanese, if she spoke English. She replied in the negative and then asked me if I could understand Japanese. It turns out that I was able to explain my situation remarkably well even in Japanese and it wasn't until I went to the counter to actually file my visa application that the excitement started. The woman told me I couldn't do it and when I asked why she jabbered something at me in Japanese to which I kept replying I didn't understand, but she just kept going on in Japanese despite my continued insistence that I only understood a little Japanese. Finally her manager came over and said in halting English something about tax forms and how I needed them. Anyway I left in a decidedly darker mood than I had started in and now I am going back there tomorrow with Ayuko to act as a translator. It just seems to me that having English/Chinese speaking staff at an Immigration Office would be the norm, not something that is rare to find.

I don't know anymore. I'm finding that the little things are starting to frustrate/depress me such as today I couldn't figure out how to fax some papers and had to wait until Ayuko came home to do it for me. Just feeling so helpless all the time despite my low level of Japanese is really starting to get to me. Even the most mundane task can turn into a mountain of work as I attempt to navigate my way through Japanese manuals, staff, instructions, etc. Plus my visa is uncertain at this point due to my unique situation, so that doesn't help with the daily stress.

I haven't had a stable life for the past six months or so and the daily stress of that is starting to build up. Not only the financial situation, but also just wondering week to week if I'll have a job or not. Plus now that I have actually been offered employment the visa situation may keep me from keeping the ALT job, so even that isn't certain. Nor do I want to return to America at this point as without grad school it would be difficult to obtain a good job there and the earliest I could go to grad school at this point would be the spring semester of 2009. So overall my outlook is rather bleak at this point, but all of that could change tomorrow based on how my visa situation turns out.

Just talking with Ayuko about what we have had to give up in the past year is rather depressing as well. I have had to abandon a trip home for Christmas as well as going home for a month for my brother's graduation from medical school as well as a wedding of one of my best friends from college. On top of that not being able to spend money on anything besides dinner dates once a month or so for the past six months hasn't helped things except give me spending habits that Mother Teresa would be proud of. I honestly think about how buying a packet of gum could affect my financial outlook two months from now. Ayuko has also suffered as well as she has had to put up with my depression/anger over the past six months due to my situation, as well as giving up a trip to France at the end of March so we can afford to get an apartment together when we both start work in April. So basically boo hoo for me. Oh well I suppose the pity party is over, but they say its cathartic to write about your experiences, both positive and negative, so I suppose you'll just have to deal with it. Anyway I'll update tomorrow after coming back from the Immigration Office. Wish me luck.

Before I update everyone on my situation I wanted to apologize for the dearth of postings recently. After being sick in bed for about a week with a fever and various other fun ailments I have finally recovered and will now endeavor to continue with my previous posting record. Anywho on to my life.

As many of you are probably aware I have been offered a job with Interac, an ALT company, starting in late March. As of yet I don't know the exact location I will be working in, but I do know it'll be in Kanagawa which is a prefecture bordering Tokyo and one of the places I desired to be placed in. The pay will be the same as with Nova and the hours will be much better, roughly 9AM to 4PM Monday through Friday with weekends and all national holidays off. So this is great news. As far as my visa is concerned I am going in tomorrow to talk to Immigration to see if I can get my work visa renewed now that I have an offer of employment. Interac informed me that someone in a similar situation to mine was able to get their visa renewed despite not starting until March, so hopefully that'll work out. The only downside to this situation is that as far as I understand I won't receive my first full paycheck until the end of May, which means four months with no pay. I will receive my final two paychecks from Nova for January and the short time I'll be paid stand-by pay in February, but regardless it could be rather exciting in the coming months financially. One bright side to the financial situation is that my unpaid wages to be partially paid by the government, roughly 4-5K, should finally be available in May or sometime shortly thereafter. So not the best situation, but it appears I won't be deported so that is always a good thing. As more information is made available I will post it here and continue to update as close to daily as I can.

Life

So I've heard back from four or five companies after having passed the initial screening process and spent today filling in questionnaires, past work history, references, etc to hopefully move forward to the next stage. All but one of them would be ALT positions teaching in the greater Tokyo area or the surrounding prefectures, while the one I truly desire is for another big English school called Berlitz. Berlitz is similar to NOVA in their teaching style and setup and would therefore be a very easy transition. They are also a very well established company not only here in Japan, but worldwide, as they teach English in over forty countries. So keep your fingers crossed on the various applications.

The only unfortunate thing about achieving actual interviews is that they would all be in or around Tokyo which therefore means traveling and possibly staying overnight there. With Tokyo being one of the world's most expensive cities this could be rather exciting considering my current financial situation, but I'll have to wait and see if I actually obtain any interviews.

On a side note Ayuko and I have recently started running together and just trying to live healthier lives in general in a desire to return to my physical form of old, so that is definitely a positive change.

New Years

I'm slowly learning more and more about my blog interface and this can explain the constantly changing setup, so apologies to anyone who is confused. However as I am learning to customize my blog my enjoyment from writing in it grows and I now will hopefully update daily or at the most every other day. So to my massive blog audience of all of ten people or so brace yourself for an onslaught of information from the land of the rising sun.

First of all an update on the old job situation. I have put out about 20 or so applications for various English teaching positions with most of them being centered in the greater Tokyo area. As this is the hiring season for ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) for the upcoming school year which begins in April I have a chance of securing one of said positions. However due to the lateness of my applications and the flood of out of work Nova teachers I am keeping my expectations realistic. More news as it happens.

This is a picture of Kintetsu department store in Tennoji on New Years Eve. I went shopping there with Ayuko's mom at 9AM that day and was basically assaulted by diminutive Japanese housewives for two hours as I carried the ever growing bags of groceries she bought. Those ladies know how to throw elbows.



Three pictures of the massive crowd at the shrine I went to with Ayuko and her family on New Years Day. Chaos. A riot almost ensued when they realized a gaijin was in their midst, but the monks were able to quell it with minimal bloodshed.

Maids!

As some of you may be aware Japan has some rather interesting subcultures varying from the cute to the very weird. However one that Japan is perhaps most famous for is the maid cafes which have costumed women in them who will perform a variety of maid-like acts for you such as serving tea, playing rock/paper/scissors, cleaning your glasses, etc. None of this is done in any sort of suggestive or sexual manner and indeed most of them I've seen are wearing full length skirts or at the most skirts past their knees. I frankly can't understand the obsession some otaku or nerds possess for these cafes and in most large cities there are multitudes of these cafes. However it is getting pretty late here so I'll pontificate on some of the weirdness of Japan later.

Here is a clip of some of these maids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXl6q61ulok&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQ1uLA9doo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSBFC-hYyQ&feature=related

Some funny english lesson videos, as well as one funny Japanese skit at the end.

Word of warning: The first two videos contain some foul language as well as slightly adult themes, but as I actually like writing in this blog now as a means of expression I've decided not to censor myself anymore. So that being said watch and read at your own risk.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEkOVdUjHc&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=H-nF01ZYHZE

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rpJz_5oJwjo&feature=related

First order of business is a link to a website which has a more comprehensive explanation of my current situation and how it has come to be:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20071226a1.html

This should answer questions people may have and if there are any further questions feel free to ask me in a comment and I'll respond in kind.

Secondly Japan's population fell 16,000 people in 2007 and this is a huge concern for the current administration and indeed for all of Japan. Due to Japan's extremely strict immigration controls, the government's general xenophobic outlook, and the graying of the population Japan is facing an economic crisis in the years to come. A swiftly decreasing working population is having to support an exponentially growing pension system which has already struggled this past year due to misplacement of billions of yen due to the loss of records. Surprisingly enough Japan has one of the world's oldest populations and coupled with the fact that young Japanese are increasingly putting off having a family in order to focus on careers makes for a very dangerous future for Japan.

The thing that I find difficult to understand is that as far as I am aware, and I stay very up to date on current Japanese news, is that the government has done very little to deal with this problem beyond issuing empty statements. One of Japan's powerful ministers, possibly of the interior, said last year that women needed to realize they should be baby making machines in order to save Japan. This hardly seems like a viable plan to revitalize their population as Japanese women are getting married later and later in order to focus on their now promising careers.

Since coming here I have developed a love for this country, culture and people and I can only hope that the bureaucratic red tape that hinders their government will not stop them from finding a viable solution. Gambatte Japan!