My $100 sushi dinner

or “Japan is expensive after all”

No doubt you’ve heard that Japan is one of the most expensive countries to live in. Up until recently, Tokyo held the distinction of being the most pricey city in the world. Former JETs warned me that since I’m in what you could call the “greater Tokyo area” my funds would be spent quickly after I earned them. When I came here, I was a bit worried that my hope of paying off my college debt would be impossible due to the supposedly ridiculous price of everything.

However, these cautionary tales of over-price-dom have not been realized by me. My rent is subsidized, but even if it was twice as much, it would be reasonable. My utility bills are all comparable to home, my internet and cellphone are actually cheaper, and my complete lack of interest in Japanese TV has left me without a pricey cable bill. It does cost me $9 round trip to get to the nearest good-sized city, and twice that to get to Tokyo, but having no car pretty much offsets that cost. Food is more expensive, I suppose, but probably because I indulge my Western-ness and get the more costly items like cereal and spaghetti sauce. If I stuck to a more Japanese diet, it would likely be less. Dining out is also not as expensive as I expected. You’re never too far away from a decent noodle shop that will give you a very filling bowl for anywhere between 500-700 yen.

Just when I was thinking Japan was not living up to it’s pricey reputation, I finally encountered what makes Japan so damn expensive. This is a warning to those who are penny-pinchers but also want to be entertained on a regular basis, Japan is not the country for you.

Take my weekend, for example. I started off the day seeing the Japanese-language version of “The Lion King.” The price? 11,500yen, or about (at current rates) $110. Yeah, it’s a popular Broadway show and all, but when I saw it in New York in very similar seats, tickets were $90. Afterwards, we headed to Urawa to a “famous” sushi shop. The first order of business was for everyone to pony-up 10,000yen, or nearly $100. Of course it was delicious, the octopus wasn’t chewy (it’s possible!) and the sushi that’s usually a bit dodgy in cheaper establishment, like squid or sea-urchin, was super tasty. A hundred-bucks tasty? Probably not, but still very tasty.

This all made me realize that entertainment in this country is not cheap. Here are a few of the other outrageously priced items in Japan. (For conversion, $1US varies from 105-115 yen, though right now it’s 103yen to a dollar)

Impossible Questions: Irregularity

As you know, the only tangible thing you need to qualify for JET is a Bachelor’s degree. In anything. Therefore, not many of us ALTs have degrees in linguistics. Despite this, I am often asked questions about our ridiculously complicated language (I’m happy I was born into it, because it would be a bitch to learn otherwise) that I simply don’t know. I often feel like the mom to the kid who just keeps asking why until the mom breaks down and says “Because I said so!” I call these the “impossible questions.”

Today’s impossible question: Rooren-sensei, how did you learn all the irregular past-tense forms of verbs?

The 1st years (7th-graders) are finally learning about the past tense. They seems to like it so far since it’s a bit more regular than other forms (I cook, he cooks) and doesn’t bother with “am, are, is”. Too bad so many common verbs have an irregular past-tense form (go – went, buy – bought). Hell, I mess up all the time; I tried to use the word “bidded” with my mom yesterday. So, when my JTE asks me how did I learn all these forms, I replied I learned from speaking and being corrected by the adults around me, then refining it in school. The JTE seemed a bit unsatisfied with the answer, saying, “so you have to be taught all this is in school”, indicating we have written drills on past tense or something. I said kind of, but I think most English speakers get it by just using it. Then I mentioned spelling tests, and we spent the rest of the time talking about that.

It is possible I did have drills on irregular past tense form in elementary school that I just blocked out due to trauma. I remember “Daily oral language” being the worst part of my day.

The almighty piece of paper, part ni

Last time, I covered the first unspoken rule of paper in Japan (never throw any piece of paper you get in Japan away). This second rule is also unspoken and is possibly more important that the first

2. If it’s an ALTs word against a piece of paper, paper trumps ALT, always.

It really doesn’t matter how unofficial the piece of paper is. It could be something drunkenly scrawled on a napkin, but if the ALT says something that contradicts what’s written on a piece of paper, by God, that piece of paper will win. This isn’t a hard tested theory yet, but I am constantly collecting proof that ALT < piece of paper.

Ah, I’ve been looking for one of these

I wish I could take credit for this gem of an Engrish find, but it was the other ALT in town who spotted this in the conference room of one of our junior highs. I just wish I knew what these guys were going for. Is it possibly because the brand is “Peacock” and they wanted to use one syllable, but decided “double pea” didn’t roll off the tongue as well? Whatever happened, the result is hilarious.

One for you, and one for your friend!

A word to those reJEcTed

Apparently the US interview notification came out yesterday, and before I post part ni of my paper rules, I thought I’d give those of you who didn’t make it past the interview stage this year some words of wisdom or encouragement or at least condolences.

I minored in Japanese and first learned about the JET Program in my sophomore year. I was an art major with no cash and a very strict curriculum, so JET seemed like a great alternative to taking out loans for study abroad and pushing my graduation back at least a semester. Also my Japanese professor expected all of us Japanese minors to apply. Okay, “expected” is a strong word, more like strongly encouraged us to apply, and would purse her lips in slight disappointment if you talked about going to grad school, or even worse, just going straight into a non-Japanese related career.

At the end of November, 2005, I sent in my application for the 2006 JET Programme along with several of my classmates. As I stated in my first post, I thought I was a shoe-in. Well, at least everyone else talked to me like I was a shoe-in. I’m far too critical of myself to assume I’m a shoe-in for anything, which might have been the problem. Anyway, I was reasonably confident that I would easily make it to the interview stage. December and the holidays came and went, and finally it was late January, 2006. Several of my classmates received their notifications that they would be interviewed, but my email inbox was empty despite me refreshing the page every 2 minutes.

A couple days later I was sitting at work when an email from JET arrived. Finally, I thought to myself as I clicked to open it. But instead of a “congratulations” I read this sentence:

Unfortunately, we cannot offer you an interview for this year’s program.

Rejection in general sucks, but there was something especially stinging about being rejected for the interview. On the one hand, JET’s just another job, but on the other hand the application is so lengthy and the wait to hear on an interview is so long it’s hard not to get invested emotionally. Plus the fact that I knew several other applicants and that most of them were granted interviews made me feel even more dejected. And what’s perhaps the worst thing of all is JET doesn’t tell the rejected applicants what exactly they did wrong, so I was left wonder what exactly it was that earned me a “no interview” stamp.

So to those of you rejected for an interview: I was there, and I know it sucks. I was bummed out for a while and nothing made me feel better about it. Since I can’t magically change your results, I probably can’t make you feel better, but here are a few of the “upsides” of being rejected for an interview.

The almighty piece of paper, part ichi

If you know me at all, then you know my favorite TV show is “The Office”, a mockumentary about the struggles of a paper company in Pennsylvania trying to keep afloat in an increasingly paperless world. My solution for Dunder-Mifflin’s woes are simple; move to Japan.

Japan loves paper, be it tiny bags to individually wrap every little cellphone charm you purchase at a depaato, or tickets from a machine because even at the post office you have to take a number, or just the massive number of pamplets and handouts you will get at JET orientation and subsequent conferences, paper is still king in Japan.

And since paper is king, there are two important rules to remember about it. Today we’ll cover rule one:

1. You must never throw away any piece of paper you ever get, ever.

I had forgotten all the times my Japanese professor in college who would randomly ask us to pull out worksheets that she gave us maybe 2 semesters ago, but when I arrived in Japan, I quickly remembered this unspoken rule. When I arrived at my BOE in August, they had me sign my contract, fill out my gaijin card form and gave me a few random things, one of them being my electric bill. The next week, my supervisor was going to take me to a shopping center to get me a cell phone, so I arrived at the BOE, and the following conversation occured:

Supervisor (roughly translated from Japanese): Do you have your electric bill?

Me: Um, was I suppose to have it?

Supervisor: Since it a piece of paper that you received from a Japanese person, you must be able to randomly produce it at any given time.

Me: Oh, sorry, I’m still new here, you know.

Supervisor: Daijoubu, but seriously, where’s your electric bill, it’s imperative to have it before we go get your cellphone. I can’t tell you why, it just is.

Me: I think it’s at my house. Can I bring it Monday?

Supervisor: I have a better idea, we’ll drive to your house and wait outside while you desperately search for it.

Me: Okay desu.

A couple weeks after that my supervisor came to my school one day and I had this encounter:

Supervisor: Rooren, Hello

Me: S’up, supe

Supervisor: All JETs must sign this Accident Insurance paper, from this pamplet [shows pamplet I don't remember ever getting]

Me: [swinks eyes and tries to remember] Uh, yeah, I might have that.

Supervisor: ‘Might have it’?

Me: Yeah, I mean, it’s probably at my house with the small library of info I received at the JET orientation.

Supervisor: So . . . you don’t have it with you?

Me: Nope

Supervisor: You didn’t wake up this morning and just know that I would stop by and ask for this piece of paper so maybe you should bring it with you to school today?

Me: Well, you know I’m not Japanese . . . or clairvoyant.

Supervisor: No, I suppose you’re not.

Today’s lesson: Take that piece with of paper with both hands, bow, and make sure it never leaves your person for the length of your stay in Japan.

The Interview

The fact that I passed the application stage of the 2007 JET Programme was quite an accomplishment for me because that meant I was a step further than I was the previous year.

But it also caused me plenty of new stress. Now I actually had to met them face to face and show them why they should pick me. Now I knew that if I was rejected after this point, it would be because of me, not because of some piece of paper.

I received my interview notification on Jan. 25th that I would be interviewing in Denver on Feb. 20th. Of course the nerves didn’t really hit until the day of, and my mind was racing on the drive down to Denver and later in the office.

The Panel

The JET interview was panel style. My panel broke down like this.

• First there’s someone who works for the Consulate. In some cases it might be your future JET Coordinator. Mine was a Japanese woman who I believe was playing the role of ‘bad cop’; she kind of glared at me the whole time, and never smiled.
• Next there a JET Alum. The one on my panel was a former CIR who actually went to my university. She was being the ‘good cop’; acting friendly, smiling, and telling me it was okay when I stumbled on a question.
• Last was a member of the local Japanese community. His role seemed to be ‘no talking cop’. He smiled at a couple of my answers, but stayed relatively quiet.

The Interview

After the panel members introduced themselves, they started to ask me questions. They each had a copy of my application in front of them, and as near as I could tell a list of questions. All the questions I was asked are out there on message boards like IThinkImLost.com, so none of the questions really surpised me.

The JET Journey

There are any number of people on the JET Programme who apply during their senior year of college, are granted interviews with no problem, and receive the good news in April that they will be heading to the Land of the Rising Sun 3 months after their graduation.

This was sadly not my story.

In 2005 I was in my final year as a Fine Arts Major/Japanese minor in Colorado. I, along with several of my Japanese classmates, sent in my application for the JET Programme at the end of November. Frankly, I assumed I was a shoe-in; good grades, reasonably involved in school, very involved in the Japanese Program, they had to want me, right?

Wrong, in January of 2006 I received a brief email informing me that I was not granted an interview. My journey to be part of JET 2006 was done. It was frustrating as hell to watch several of my classmates go on to the interviews, to tell them I was happy for them when really I was angry that it wasn’t me. More than a few tears were shed. The dreaded “What are your plans after college” question was answered with an “I don’t know.” My final semester flew by, my graduation came and went, and in July I bid farewell to a few of my good friends as I watched them go off to Japan without me.

In August, 2006, school started up and for the first time since I was 4 years old I wasn’t a “student”. A bit of a quarter-life-crisis set in as I applied for a few jobs, but I didn’t really pursue anything seriously. I helped my dad move to Canada, tried to help out my mother and grandfather, mostly I ended up hanging out with college buddies playing video games and watching movies. After I didn’t get an interview, I didn’t want anything to do with the JET Programme, but I had relaxed my stance over the months and determined that if application time rolled around and I wasn’t gainfully employed, I would apply once again.

Before I knew it, it was late October, I turned 24, and the only bright spot in my employment search was one call back from Barnes and Noble. That pesky JET Programme application came online, promising to whisk me away to Japan, make me a multi-millionaire (in yen, that is), and give me an experience few people have the chance to have. All I had to do was subject myself to the complicated, time-consuming, at-least-6-month-long application process once again.

It was a bit of deja-vu to apply again. I asked for letters of recommendation from the same two people who wrote them for me the previous year. Other than a few tweaked sentances, I sent in the same Statement of Purpose essay. I even mailed my application from the same Kinkos-FedEx location. To be honest, I was almost testing JET, to see if practically the same app. that didn’t get me an interview last year would get me in this year, so I could prove how random the whole process is!

In January, 2007, the interview announcements were out. Apparently adding the word “internationalization” to my SoP and listing my recent trip to Toronto, Canada as “inter-cultural experience” worked because I landed an interview. A few weeks later, I went before a panel at the Denver Japanese Consulate and had what I’d call an okay interview. I was nervous beyond belief (even though a lot of people told me I was pretty calm) and I completely bombed one question, but I wasn’t crying or anything.

Another six weeks passed (Everything JET does is roughly measured in 6 weeks increments) and I received my email from the Consulate in early April. With my mom holding my hand, I opened it up to read this:

It is our great pleasure to inform you that you have successfully passed the 2nd stage of the screening process for the 2007 JET Program and have been selected as an alternate Assistant Language Teacher.

What?! Alternate? What.the.eff? Even more egregious was the email saying that I could be upgraded as late as October. Much like the previous year, everyone I knew that applied was shortlisted (i.e. they were in) and I was put in a position that was in some ways worst than simply being rejected. I tried to remain positive, a good percentage of JET alternates are eventually upgraded, but whenever I thought of JET, it depressed me. What did I do this time, why am I not freakin’ good enough for this program? My former classmates made their preparations as April ended, and then May. No word from JET.

In mid-June, my mom and I were driving to Estas Park when I started to cry, talking about how depressed the JET situation was making me. She told me she didn’t want me to go, and I said that that was it, I wasn’t going to wait around for the JET program anymore. So that was that, no more JET.

That same day we went to this Native American shop where this woman a few years older than me was working. We got to talking and it turned out she had been working and living in Japan for the last 5 years, married a Japanese man and had a super adorable son (who just happened to have the same name as this guy from my Japanese class that I had had a terrible crush on). I didn’t want to think too much of it, but it sure felt like one of those classic “signs”.

That happened on a Friday, the following Tuesday, I was mowing the lawn when my mom came out to tell me a Denver number was calling my cell. A moment later the home phone rang; it was the JET coordinator calling to ask if I was still interesting in being on the JET program. “I think so,” was all I could manage.

And that was it, 20 months after my first application to JET, I was finally heading to Japan. Now the fun would truly begin.