My Two Yen

Truly it will be long before cursed war will be swept from the surface of the earth, for force seems to be the final court of appeal even in the private affairs between man and man.

Sorry for the dramatic opening, but I thought those words were fitting given the current state of things. Those words are not my own, of course, but were written in 1904 by Natsume Soseki in his first novel, Botchan. And here we are, just over a hundred years on. I wonder how things will be in another hundred years.

As of course you’re all aware, things are heating up in my neck of the woods. North Korea tested a nuke. World leaders are talking tough. Citizens are scared. Also, the media, in a somewhat alarmist fashion, have been talking about a north Asian arms race where Japan, supposedly, will respond by developing nuclear weapons of its own (apparently they could do this really fast!). This will then prompt China and South Korea to do the same. However, it is the response of the USA that has me far more worried. And I dare say I’m not the only one. With Captain Bush at the helm, who knows what will happen?

It is a surreal feeling to suddenly find yourself in a region that is coming under the ever-intensifying scrutiny of the U.S. Yes I know—the Korean peninsula has always been carefully monitored. But to hear US officials make comments along the lines of “At this stage we are not considering military action, though of course we leave all options on the table” does not exactly fill me with a sense of security.

The problem with North Korea, as I understand it, is that they are unpredictable. And yet somewhat paradoxically, they can be relied upon to ignore the wishes of the UN and the international community (Wait, that sounds like another country I know . . .). I guess the real problem with North Korea is that they belong to the wrong Axis—the dreaded Axis of Evil. They’re also a rogue state. And communist. That’s three strikes, isn’t it?

Time for some semantic masturbation: according to the Oxford English Dictionary a terrorist is a person who uses violence and intimidation in an attempt to achieve political aims. (It’s interesting to note that Webster’s online dictionary goes to much greater lengths to clear up the term for us, just to make sure that there is no confusion as to who the bad guys are--http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/terrorist) Let’s review our strategy in Iraq. Intimidation: check (Operation Shock & Awe?) Violence: check. Political aim: check (the completely altruistic goal of ousting Saddam). As for Al Qaeda and the like, they of course use intimidation and violence, but as far as a political aim is concerned, well if you listen to Bush, Blair, and Howard, their only aim is to terrorise us simply because they’re evil. Thus, by the reasoning of our own leaders, Al Qaeda do not fit the definition of terrorists. But like I said, I'm merely wanking with words, and a terrorist by any other name is still a terrorist, right?

If protecting America’s and the West’s interest’s means blowing up the rest of the world, is it any wonder that leaders like Kim Jong Il want to do all they can to get some deterrence. And doesn’t anyone else find it a bit rich that the country with the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and, let’s not forget, the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, is free to attack and condemn other countries for pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t exactly like the idea of a North Korea with nuclear weapons, especially given the history and the tensions between Japan and North Korea. But nor do I rejoice at the thought of a Texan cowboy (with the support of other world leaders), who believes he has a mandate from God, bringing to Asia the sort of peace and stability that he has given Afghanistan and Iraq.

In my opinion, valued at 2-Yen don’t forget, I don’t think the US will attack North Korea; at least not pre-emptively. I think the American people have had enough of war, and with the approaching election I don’t think Bush and Co. want to start another fight (am I being naïve?) So it is for these reasons that I remain cautiously optimistic.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a quote from Jon Stewart: “Look at it this way: North Korea now has one less nuclear weapon.”

'Aparto' Hunting - Part II

Tomoki: voice of reason

My girlfriend, Tomoki, has known me long enough now to know that occasionally I make decisions without fully thinking them through. After all, that’s how I ended up in Nippon.

I had told Tomoki that despite all of my reservations about Sugar and his apartment, I was still thinking of taking it because, I believed, there was nothing better out there for the price, and in that location. Tomoki might have had more confidence in this conclusion if it weren’t for the fact that Sugar’s apartment was the only place I had checked out, and therefore, all my assumptions about what else was on offer were based on nothing in particular.

So, wanting to prevent me from making a terrible mistake, Tomoki took it upon herself to get into contact with a number of real estate agencies and to line up some places for us to look at. That Sunday, we met up with three real estate agents and saw about a dozen apartments.

We arrived at the office of the first agent at about eleven o’clock in the morning, and were greeted by a very affable, smiling young gent. The office was quite large, well air-conditioned, clean, no clutter. The guy, who from here on I will refer to as Smiley, led us to a table where we all sat down. Another guy—the only other employee in the office at the time—served us iced coffee. Tomoki and Smiley proceeded to look at a number of papers, maps, and catalogues, to choose the places we were to check out. During this time I sat quietly, drinking my iced coffee, trying to pick out the details from their conversation. I could make out prices and the names of locations, but that was about it. Tomoki and Smiley got on well and were chatting away, with much laughter, like old school friends. I gathered, from the way they kept looking at me (whilst laughing) that much of their talk was, in fact, about me. When I asked what they were saying, Tomoki said, “We’re saying good things about you, yo.” (yo is Japanese for I tell you) They were getting on so well together that, for a fleeting moment, the more insecure and suspecting part of me imagined how they might be making plans to meet up at a love hotel later. These thoughts, however, were interrupted, when the guy who had served us coffee decided, probably from boredom, as there were no other customers in the office at the time, to test out some of his English on me.
“Where from country?” he ventured.
“Australia.”
His eyes lit up. “I went there.” He raced over to a workstation and began searching for something. Smiley, who had overheard, explained to Tomoki, who in turn explained to me, that his colleague loved Australia, and told anybody who’d listen that Australia was the best country in the world, that he wanted to live there, and that he was, for all intents and purposes, Australian. Smiley also claimed to want to live in Australia—forever. He cited marine sports, lifestyle, and friendly people as reasons. The only trouble, according to Smiley, was that the Australian government only accepts ‘high-level’ people. By this I think he meant that it is difficult to obtain a visa. Though it was nice to hear them praise my home country, I felt inclined to put it down to salesmanship. But when Smiley’s colleague, whom I shall refer to as True Blue from here on, returned from his workstation, having found what he had been looking for, he handed me two envelopes full of photos. Having a look, I found most of them were of him and friends in Bondi, where he had lived for five months in 2000. Some of the photos were taken more recently; during this year’s world cup in fact, on the night that Australia played Japan. They showed him and some friends wearing Socceroos jerseys. “Osutolarian desu.” I’m Australian, he said, smiling and tapping his chest.

Leaving True Blue at the office, Tomoki, myself, and Smiley, went out to look at the apartments they had chosen. We took the real estate company’s car; again my insistence on wearing my seatbelt in the back caused a stir, and, as usual, I had to coax Tomoki into wearing hers.

The first few places we looked at were not that good. They were a bit bigger than Sugar’s apartment, but they were also more expensive and in a less convenient spot, being further from the city centre of Hakata. Eventually, though, we found a place that was pretty much perfect. From the very tiny street outside the apartment, however, it hadn’t looked like it was the perfect place. It looked the same as all the others we had checked out. Once inside the building, climbing the stairs to the second level, things didn’t look any better. It was clean and freshly painted, but it felt sterile. The hallways were wide, with pale yellow walls, and the large steel doors of the apartments were mauve. It felt and looked much like an old psychiatric hospital (or at least what I imagine the inside of an old psychiatric hospital to look and feel like). Inside the apartment room, though, was a different story altogether. As I entered the apartment I felt like I was passing into a completely different building. Unlike all the other apartments, once inside the door, I did not find myself immediately in a tiny kitchenette. Instead there was a space, which I'm going to have to call the shoe space because, as you've probably guessed, this is where you’re supposed to keep your shoes; and umbrellas. There was even a shoe cupboard against one of the walls. Just beyond this space, and to the side, was the toilet, on the other side the bathroom and laundry. Then came the kitchen, which was the biggest kitchen I had yet seen in a single-person apartment in Japan. This in turn opened up into the room that would be my bedroom, dining room, and living room all in one. And again it was the biggest room I’d seen in a single person apartment in Japan. I had, it seemed, hit the jackpot. Everything looked brand new; all the surfaces, bathroom and kitchen fittings, doors and drawers, even the air conditioner. Smiley, who was as surprised as us, checked his notes and found that the place had been owned, until recently, by some company to provide accommodation for employees who had been transferred from out of town. The company had sold the building, and the new owners had completely renovated the interior. Hence, the fresh paint in the hallways, and the brand new feel of the room. It was more expensive than the other places we had seen, but this I was willing to cop given the size and newness of the place. Also, it was only a short walk to Hakata station and work. In fact, it was just around the corner from Sugar’s place. In my mind I was already drafting the email to tell him that the deal was off.

Even though my mind was pretty much made up, we kept our appointments with the other two real estate agencies.

The first of these agencies was the exact opposite to Smiley and True Blue’s operation. The office was bare, but felt disorderly and chaotic. In the centre of the room were several tables that formed an L-shape. Filing cabinets lined one of the walls. We sat at one of the tables and a nervously friendly guy attended to us; by that I mean he acknowledged my presence with a quick bow and then proceeded to talk, very quietly, to Tomoki. We were waiting for a car to become available. The guy’s shirt was creased and had a large ink stain on the pocket. His tie was also stained. He looked as though he had not slept for several days. In short, he was struggling, and, going by appearances alone, I assumed that he and his company really needed our business. From here on I shall refer to him as Battler-san.

Another couple, in the office at the same time as us, began smoking (Japan’s smoking regulations are somewhat lax and the regulations they do have are often ignored). It looked as if the couple were trying to decide if they wanted to do business with the agency. I could feel the tension in the air. Nobody talked as the couple sat, smoking, staring at what I presumed to be a catalogue on the table in front of them. The agency’s employees were tiptoeing around them, as though they were afraid that any sudden noise or movement would scare the couple away, never to return. Unfortunately, for them, the smoke started to get to me, and reflexively, innocently, I coughed. The tension in the room went up a notch. The agency staff exchanged a few nervous looks. It was like I had walked up to the couple and demanded that they take their smokes outside. Much to everyone’s relief our car soon arrived and we left with Battler-san to go and see the apartments. Tomoki had already seen these apartments yesterday while I had been at work. Now she wanted me to see them. There was one apartment in particular that she wanted me to see, and she told me that Battler-san had been really nice and helpful and, at Tomoki’s insistence, had spoken to the apartment owner several times to ask for a discount in the rent. And he had succeeded.

Tomoki and Battler-san had planned our tour of the apartments so that we would see the best place last. But, as I had expected, none of them were any match for the place we had found with Smiley.

After seeing the last apartment we got back into the car to return to the office. Battler-san was obviously disappointed, and Tomoki and I both felt really sorry for him. We sat in the car, Tomoki and I in the back, Battler-san at the wheel. Tomoki tried to let him down gently, saying that I could not give him an answer yet because I still had other apartments to see. We would let him know tomorrow. Battler-san, like a man who’d heard it all before, seemed to take little comfort from this. He had not yet started the car, and we were sitting in silence. Naturally, I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. What’s he waiting for? I thought. Tomoki, however, was a picture of calm. To look at her, one would think that to sit in uncomfortable silence without explanation was par for the course.

I could see his face in the rear-view mirror from where I sat in the back. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something in the distance, visible only to himself, his brow slightly furrowed. He looked like a man who’d had all the fight taken out of him, his spirit broken. His thoughts were all but written across that furrowed brow of his, and for my part I imagined him to be thinking something along the lines of, ‘How am I going to tell the boss that I’ve failed again? How am I going to explain to the owner that I have again failed to secure a tenant for them, even after they agreed to numerous rent reductions?’ I almost felt like agreeing to take the apartment out of pity for him.

We had been sitting in the car for what seemed a good five minutes, in silence. I was no longer sure that I wanted Battler-san to start the car. Perhaps we, Tomoki and I, had been the last straw, or straws. I was having visions of him ploughing us head first into traffic, or driving us off a bridge, when suddenly Battler-san unbuckled his belt, got out of the car without a word, and disappeared around a corner. Well this is it, I thought. That’s the last we’ll see of Battler-san . . . Tomoki had a much more sensible reaction. “He’s probably just call to the owner,” she said.

Thankfully, Tomoki was right and Battler-san returned to the car after a few minutes. His mood seemed to have improved, and he drove us back to the office without incident (I made certain that Tomoki wore her seatbelt). Once back at the office, Tomoki and I left Battler-san, with much bowing and arigato-ing, and headed off for our third and final appointment for the day.

No hidden gems of rental property were uncovered in our last appointment and tour of the day. In fact, one of the places we looked at we had been through earlier in the day with Smiley. Upon hearing that I was Australian, the young agent, like Smiley and True Blue before him, claimed to want to live in Australia forever. Though unlike True Blue, he had no tangible proof of this. Thus, I wrote him off as a mere flatterer. If nothing else, I came away from this last meeting with the knowledge that I had at last seen all there was on offer; or at least the best of what was on offer.

Now all that was left to do was to choose the place I wanted and have all the paperwork taken care of. In my mind the choice was obvious: Smiley’s place. However, my final decision was much tougher than I had anticipated. This was due largely to Tomoki, who, in her typical thoroughness, had lined up one more apartment for me to look at the following weekend. This place was newish, clean, very cheap, and in the same area as Smiley’s place. The only downside was that it was a bit small. Going on those things alone I would still choose Smiley’s place with little cognitive dissonance. However, to sweeten the deal they were offering free Internet, and when it came to decision time I was having difficulty making up my mind. I was still leaning heavily towards Smiley’s place, but I was acutely aware that the sensible and financially sound choice may be this other place that was offering free Internet. Smiley’s place was bigger, especially the kitchen, but did I really need that extra space? On the other hand, I would definitely need the Internet, and this other place was about $50/month cheaper.

Would this decision set the trend for the rest of my life? If I took Smiley’s place would I be set on a course for financial ruin, following one bad financial decision after another? Conversely, if I decided against taking Smiley’s place would I end up living an unhappy life because I had always been afraid to take what I really wanted? I’ve no idea why in my mind I had attached so much weight to this decision, but those are the kind of thoughts that were going through my head. Adding to my woes was Tomoki who, God bless her, had chosen this of all moments to do her best Eddie McGuire impersonation.

“So . . . which place?” Tomoki asked.
“I don’t know.” At this point the abovementioned thoughts were racing around my head.
“Place A or free Internet?” Tomoki had taken to calling Smiley’s place ‘Place A’ because it had clearly been my favourite.
“OK. Place A.” I said, trying hard to sound decisive.
“Are you sure?” she asked with a wry smile. “Free Internet . . .” And my moment of decisiveness vanished.
“Free Internet . . .” I parroted. My brain cramped up with indecision once more.

We continued on in this vain for some time until finally I made my choice. Taking into consideration the length of time that has passed since my last post or email, you can probably guess as to what my choice was. That’s right, financial prudence be dammed; I went with Smiley’s place. And I’m very happy that I did so. The apartment is in a great spot. Better even than I first realised. But more on that in another post.

Initially, I had approached apartment hunting much like I shop for clothes: Find something that fits, isn’t too expensive, looks half decent, and leave. No messing about. This approach has its merits, but occasionally it results in a questionable purchase. With Tomoki’s guidance I changed my approach: We browsed. We compared prices. We (she, actually) asked numerous questions. We took our time and had fun. I really took a liking to being chauffeured around town to inspect the different places (with the exception of the Battler-san incident). Who knows? (Actually, it’s a pretty safe bet) If it hadn’t been for Tomoki I may have gone with Sugar’s apartment. And that would have definitely gone down as a questionable “purchase”.