Fukuro wa irimasen

I came to Japan having never ever taken any formal classes in Japanese. All I had was about half a year’s effort in reading my wife’s Japanese textbook and watching One Punch man with subs. I was quite confident, to be honest. I can read Hiragana and Katakana characters and I could make out some Kanji characters with my Chinese. I was pretty much mistaken immediately when I arrived in Tokyo. I couldn’t understand what the lady in the ramen shop said when I ordered.

Throughout my 3 weeks here in Oita, it has been a struggle to fill up forms, transfer money and ask for things like the bill. My wife also sent me to find Ibuprofen and print some things today. That was a challenge. Oh and I mentioned I knew Kanji right, well let’s just say reading it and listening to it in speech is very different. And in Japanese, the same Kanji can have more than 3 very different ways to say it, unlike in Chinese. So painful…..

After countless trips to Don Quijote (sometimes more than twice a day), I finally manage to say “I don’t need a bag” to the counter staff. Small victory. Also, it seems that the Japanese people are really patient when you try to speak to them, especially the service staff. I’m more used to impatient looks and people telling me to hurry up. Feels less stressful for a change. Now on to the next thing… getting a haircut.

Gaijin

Moving to Japan was a crazy thing, especially since my previous life in Singapore was very comfortable and I have never actually learnt Japanese. Also I’m newly married, yup. My wife teaches English in Singapore and now she is on the JET program (which is a Japanese program to hire English teachers globally). People usually ask me what I’m going to do when she is working. “Work in Family Mart or Lawson’s”, “Cook and wash clothes”, “Dunno”. No plans.

Leaving wasn’t difficult, but it was strange. I lived in England for three years before, but that was for university and I knew I was coming back. This time, there were no plans beyond one year. Would we really enjoy life in Japan as a Gaijin? Who knows.

The three days in Tokyo were generally uneventful. There was a small earthquake which was casually shrugged off by the introductory speaker, 5 mins after arriving at the hotel. “Small earthquake, no problem!” she said to a bunch of worried faces. And I met an old friend who was on exchange in Waseda University. Pretty interesting and tough when you are not just there as a tourist.

And so we are here in Oita. Being here after a few days, my first thoughts were that we haven’t really left Singapore. It’s summer so the temperature is >30deg, it’s still a city so there are lots of cars, some things are cheaper but mostly still around SG prices. UNTIL WE WENT TO THE BANK, SUPERMARKET AND PROPERTY AGENT… lots of gesturing and saying ‘sumimasen‘ (excuse me). Loads of things work differently here in ways I couldn’t imagine. Like needing a hanko/inkan (personal seal) for some official papers, having NO gas stove and needing to buy one and THE TRASH SYSTEM :0 We don’t have to just separate paper, plastics, etc., we separate the different paper items and plastic ones as well. Then there is the collection schedule. Not everything is collected at once. Plastics every Fri, paper and glass every 2 weeks, metal items once a month and so on. The one that I can’t get used to is collection of food scraps and combustibles every Mon and Thu. Oh the smell of semi-rotting food and pests that come :0

However, the experience here was very pleasant despite the very different ways of doing things. For one, the people here are very polite and helpful; And cycling is a big thing here so either the pavements are wide to accommodate bike lanes or the road have lines for bike lanes. Plus, you get Japanese products way cheaper here than in Singapore. Still, there are a lot more sights to see, things to try and food to eat so I’ll save my opinions on Oita and Japan for later. For now, I’ll be improving my Japanese, finding an arubaito and exploring the Island of Kyushu.

またね!