The Demise of Nova and a Trip to Okinawa

What the hell have you been doing? you ask.

Let me tell you. NOVA, the 英会話 (= eikawa = English conversation…yes I’m showing off because I’ve just learned how to use—intentionally—Japanese script on my computer) company I work for is now insolvent and about to collapse. It all started earlier this year with the media reporting (not falsely) that there had been a huge number of student complaints since last year about not being able to book lessons as easily as sales staff had promised them. Consequently, a lot of students quit and demanded refunds. NOVA said they were not entitled to a refund—and so it went to court. The court ruled in favour of the ex-students and NOVA was forced to pay up. Not long after that NOVA was again back in the courts. Why? Two reasons: they were being sued for (1) the dishonest way in which they calculated some of the refunds and (2) in some cases ignoring the earlier court ruling and giving no refund at all. Then the government stepped in and penalized NOVA by ordering a partial suspension of operations. Since June NOVA has not been allowed to sign-up any new students for packages of more than one year. So expenditures have soared while revenue has dried up. NOVA has stopped making scheduled bank payments. They have stopped paying rent for schools. They have stopped paying rent for instructor accommodation (resulting in a lot of instructors being evicted from their apartments, in some cases with less than a week’s notice). They were late in paying the Japanese staff a couple months running. Then last month they were late paying teachers (while the Japanese staff got nothing). They were of course late again this month. And so now, according to some, I’m eligible to collect unemployment insurance. I just have to wait for the company to officially go bankrupt. According to others, I can quit now and still be eligible for UI because it’s the second month they’ve been late with my pay. That’s the problem. There’s so much conflicting information out there I don’t really know what to do. So now I’m on unpaid leave and am just kind of waiting around for some kind of resolution. In a word: it SUX. Whatever happens I’ve decided to give English teaching a rest.

What’s next?

Farm stays. Obviously. It’s like this: I travel around Japan, living and working with Japanese farming families. I harvest some rice here, pick some radishes there, and maybe even herd a bit of Kobe beef. It has ADVENTURE written all over it. Plus it’s a good opportunity to take my Nihongo to the next level. Which after three years has yet to advance beyond BEGINNER, owing to my lousy job of “teaching” English all day, everyday.

Anyway, that’s enough ranting for one post. Time for something more pleasant:

That's me with my girlfriend, Emiko. We've been together for about four months now. Yes, a lot has happened since last December...

Anyway, in August, about a week after my birthday, we flew to Okinawa for three glorious days.

Day I

'Twas an onimous start. This is the scene that greeted us at Okinawa's airport. This plane had exploded upon landing just the day before. Amazingly, if memory serves me correctly, there were few, if any, casualties.

Emiko's friend met us at the airport and then drove us around so that we could see a few of the sights.
Our first stop was Ryuku Village. It's a place where you can get a taste of what life was like in Okinawa, in the old days before the Japanese took it over. No, that is not Emiko's friend in the photo with us. Whoever she is, she got skills!

That's Emiko's friend. Her name's Akiko. Unfortunately, here in this photo she looks mentally handicapped.

The habu centre! Snake centre in layman's terms.

I didn't even know they had mongooses in Japan.

The local brew: Orion. 'Tweren't half bad, let me tell you.

Jammin' away on some shamisens. The ojisan (old dude) sitting next to Emiko has a pretty sweet gig. Far as I can tell he gets paid to sit around drinking sake, play a few tunes on the shamisen, and chat to tourists like us. Maybe after I'm through with my farm stays...

Buyin' some sake!

The next place we went to was...well I forget the name, but anyway, that rock formation to Emiko's right is supposed to resemble an elephant.

It was a lovely and peaceful spot. That is with the exception of...

...the nearby U.S. military base where they kept detonating things, as is their wont.

But not even they could ruin the sunset.

Did someone say more shamisens please?

Our final stop for the first day was a little bar/restaurant on Kokusai-dori, the main street of Naha. We had a few drinks and were treated to some live music, performed by...

...this man. Here he's teaching Emiko a few chords to one of the songs. She picked it up really quickly, I guess she has some kind of untapped musical genius. When I, however, attempted the same feat I was unable to get my fumbling fingers to produce anything that could be called music, even by the most generous of observers. FYI: Okinawan music rocks!

Day II

Our second day in Okinawa was a sombre affair. Not that we didn't enjoy ourselves. It's just that the places we went to were all about WWII and the battle of Okinawa.

Our first stop was to the Himeyuri War Memorial and the Himeyuri Peace Museum. Both were built in honour of 194 schoolgirls and 17 teachers who served as nurses assistants during some of the most intense fighting. Only five survived.

This is one of the caves in which they worked

These are thousands of little folded paper cranes. They symbolize a wish for peace.

Next stop: The Peace Park. This is where the last of the fighting took place.

It looks like a lighthouse, but it's actually an exhibition hall. Inside is a huge statue of Budda. I tried to take a photo but it was too dark.

The Peace Park's very own Peace Musuem. (There is no shortage of peace museums in Japan. Nor peace parks for that matter.) We actually didn't get to go inside because we took too long wandering around the grounds and by the time we got to it it had closed.

le Cornerstone of Peace

And then there was a hat...

This memorial was a gift from Fukuoka Prefecture where I live. Every prefecture has there own memorial here.

Later that night...

Snakes in alcohol! When we were back in the city we came across these in a souvenir shop on Kokusai-dori. The price tag says ￥68, 145. Which is roughly $700. So, much as I would have liked to I didn't get to try any.

Day III

First stop...

...world heritage listed Shurijo Castle.

Final stop:

Emiko attempting her first sand castle

Me showing her how it's done.

This is where the sand castle picture should be but...well, let's just say that Emiko was not impressed with my sand castle constructing ability.

Peace!!

誇りと偏見/ Pride & Prejudice

The life of a foreigner in Japan is at times a double-edged samurai sword. The Japanese, it must be said – and I’m sure it’s been noted by many others before me – are one of the most proud and prejudiced peoples in the modern world, and foreigners here, like foreigners elsewhere, will from time to time come up against some form of discrimination. Oddly enough foreigners from western countries often seem to be regarded as slightly more tolerable than those from Asian countries. At the end of the day, however, we are all more or less painted with the same old brush. Which is to say: we are dirty, and don’t know how to bathe properly; we are riddled with diseases such as HIV and Aids (our livestock are not much better); we are uncultured, evidenced by our fondness for imitating walruses by sticking chopsticks up our nostrils; and above all, we are not Japanese. Just ask those of Korean and Chinese descent who were born here and who have lived here all their lives but are not considered citizens and instead have special permanent residency visas.

We are not to be trusted. Consequently, things like renting apartments to us, or loaning us money, are very risky business. Earlier this year I made two separate applications for credit cards. Both were rejected simply because I’m a foreigner. “You do not have a credit history in Japan,” is what they told me. “Mighty tough to get a credit history without having first received some kind of credit,” I ventured. “Quite right, sir,” was what their response amounted to.

Last week I joined a gym. As part of the signing-up process I had to again apply for a credit card. As far as I could gather what’s supposed to happen is that I use the credit card to pay my gym fees and after that it’s up to me to repay the credit card company. The gym finds this preferable to simply withdrawing the money directly from my bank account. I asked my friend, who was with me at the time, why this was the case. What would happen, they pointed out, if suddenly there were no money in my account? “Why, they wouldn’t be able to get their monthly fees,” I answered helpfully. Bingo! said the look on my friend’s face said. “But,” I continued, “they could just cancel my membership.” The uncomprehending look that now came to my friend’s face suggested I had said something very unJapanese. Anyway, turns out it was just a mere formality. The staff member who was taking us through the paperwork said that as I was a foreigner I had Buckley’s chance of actually getting the credit card, and, as soon as that had been officially confirmed they would of course settle for the direct withdrawal method. This was Japanese bureaucracy at its finest.

Political correctness has yet to arrive in Japan. (This may or may not be a bad thing) I remember a conversation I had last year with a student (I’m a “teacher” at an English conversation school). We were talking about the soccer World Cup. The student said something like, “I don’t know any of the Australian players, they all look the same,” or something similarly arresting. I was too stunned to point out the irony of her comment. It was the kind of thing I’d expect to hear a bigot from back home to say about the Japanese team. Putting the wrongness of it aside, I’d actually be willing to accept her remark if say, for argument’s sake, the Australian side had consisted of only white-skinned, blonde hair, blue-eyed players. But that wasn’t the case. The Australian team that played at last years’ world cup was a very mixed bag with players of British, Greek, Croatian, Italian, and Aboriginal descent. They were black, white, and brindle. They were red-haired, blond-haired, brown-haired, black-haired and . . .well, you get the point.

In some ways it often seems as though this country is stuck back in the days when, fearing and loathing the foreign devils, they had voluntarily shut themselves off from the rest of the world (unwittingly missing out on the industrial revolution). Still today not a few have views and attitudes towards foreigners that would not have been out of place during the years leading up to the Second World War.

I recently read an article so completely outrageous that I could not help laughing. The article reported that in May this year “the All Japan High School Athletic Federation decided to ban foreign students from running the first leg of the All Japan High School Ekiden (a kind of marathon) Championships.” To find out why click here.

Now I did say that life here was a double-edged samurai sword. So presumably, one would think, I could rattle off a list of positive things about life in Japan that counterbalance and compensate for the kind of things I mentioned above, and which make living here a very rich and rewarding experience; and I can. But as it’s three in the morning that will have to wait for another post, forgive me.

Ja!
eyechan

PS: Today is my birthday. Ergo, for the next few days I will be in a drunken stupor. Ergo, no posting for a couple of days (not that there’s anything unusual about that).