This Journal entry was sent in early July, 1995.
Japan Journal #7
As many of you know, I am not a morning person. (This is akin to saying Brian Mulroney was disliked by Canadians, China did not appreciate Taiwan's president being allowed into the United States, and The Blues Brothers is a good movie.) For five days a week, I get up at the insane time of 6:15 in order to get to work by 8:30. (I suspect that being forced to wake at such an hour is a violation of my fundamental human rights, but the local chapter of Amnesty International does not seem to agree. I may review my continuing membership to that organization.)
Thus, on those two days remaining in every week, I take it as a sacred duty to rise from slumber only at a reasonable hour. As a consequence, though, I find it difficult to get to sleep until rather late on Sunday evenings. When my alarm goes off 6:15 Monday morning, my first thought (if the various random firings of synapses, which is all that occurs in my brain first thing in the morning, can accurately be called "thought”) is, You’ve got to be kidding.
All of this is just a roundabout way of saying, "I'm tired".
Do the Corporate Shuffle
I work in a very large room which holds our entire department (I would guess close to 80 people or so). Everyone has their own desk and computer, but the whole room is very open. The space is divided into sections, with four desks, one in each corner, per section, and a walkway through the middle. The walls around each section are only about four feet high, so by standing I can see everything in the room.
Teranaka-san is very friendly, speaks good English, and is curious about a number of things. We often talk about lots of different subjects, me about life in Canada, my interests, hobbies, and weekend activities, and him about his wife, family, life in Japan, and weekend activities.
Once a year every Japanese corporation announces the organizational changes that are going to take place. Usually these changes take effect almost immediately, and there will be few further reassignments until the next announcement the following year.
(And yes, I will tie together these three ideas. Wait for it.)
On Friday, MF announced its reorganization plans for the coming year. Teranaka-san, who sits across from me, was reading them over and explaining to me much of what I just wrote about. (See? I told you.) He was very upset about what he saw.
Ho pointed out a few names (everything was written in Japanese. of course, so it looked like so much gobbledygook, but I nodded and acted like I understood anyway). One of them, apparently, was a good friend of his. They often spent time together after work or going golfing on weekends. He (Teranaka-san's friend) had just been reassigned to a branch in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. Teranaka-san was very upset by this, as it meant, for all practical purposes, and end to the close nature of their friendship. I really felt hr him. I’m used to moving every few months, and saying goodbye to all my new friends and starting again more or less from scratch each time. But to have to go through that once a year, every year, even when you’re 40 and beyond... yikes. I'm not sure I could handle it.
What I hadn’t realized at the time was that Teranaka-san was reading these pages not only to find out where his friends would be working, but whether or not HE was being moved. As it turns out, he's staying here in the Yokosuka Research Lab, but think about that for a minute. Here is an intelligent, dedicated worker, just turned 40 (that’s a guesstimate, and I’m notoriously bad at that– see a previous Journal entry), with a wife, a couple kids-- and he's reading this document to find out whether he has to move to some other city over the course of the next couple weeks.
I'm not sure how much consultation goes on, how much choice individuals have in these reassignments, and whether there’s an "appeal" system of any kind, but while I do believe in corporate loyalty (from the perspective both as an employee to a company and as a company to its employees), I think that this process, at least from what I've seen of it, is unfairly demanding, and apparently arbitrary, on the workers.
Such are my impressions, anyway. I intend to ask a few questions and find out a few more facts about how this annual reorganization works. If anyone is trying to understand Japan through these Journals, forget it- you're getting whatever crosses my mind when I sit down to write. And that's a series of impressions, experiences, and personal thoughts; not a researched paper based on facts, general truths, and accurate summarizations.
Am I doing this right?
Such thoughts led me to wonder: Am I truly getting the most out of my experience here in Japan? I really don't have any insights into Japanese society, culture, way of life, or anything as deep or romantic as that. (In fairness, I am learning a heck of a lot about myself.) Is there something crucial that I'm missing? After all, my life consists of wake up, go to work, return to dorm, go to sleep, repeat cycle. Weekends I do something different.
And I realized-- that this *is* the typical Japanese life. It's not the adventure and danger of the old samurai. It's not the brutal discipline of the strictest of martial arts. It's not an impenetrable, infinitely obscure, incredibly abstract view on life that cannot possibly be understood by foreigners. (Though each of these views probably has its adherents.) Most wake up in the morning, go to work, and come home in time to go to sleep. It's different, yes, but not entirely alien.
Now, if only I could get the language down...
Canada Day in Japan
I was invited by Kishida-san (more on him later), a co-worker who lives at the Tomioka dorm with me, to a party on Saturday night. His former English teacher, Matt, was returning to Canada on the second so he was holding a farewell pally for him on the first. We would meet in Yokohama at 5:30. Great.
I decided that I wouldn't drink anything alcoholic, because 1) 1 wasn't particularly in the mood and 2) if u-as so damn expensive I might as well save a considerable bundle. We met at 5:30 in Yokohama.
There were about 20 of us, 7 or so Canadians and the rest Japanese folks. Kishida-san led us to the place of the party, an English style pub called The Tavern. Kishida-san had made a deal with the manager of The Tavern. Leslie did not know that Kishida-san had done anything beyond making a reservation at the Tavern. When Leslie discovered Kishida-san's arrangement, Leslie’s initial plans about the consumption of intoxicating substances was entirely blown out of the water.
You see, by showing up at The Tavern, I was going to be charged 3000 yen. This included all the munchies I could eat, and all I could drink. Yes, that's not a typo, all I could consume. They gave us potato chips (you know, I never realized that a such large portion of the university student's diet is composed of potato chips until I came here), chicken wings (they weren’t Duffs, and actually they were quite poor, but they're the first I've had in over two months so they were a godsend), pizza, nachos, other munchables, and a drink list of 14 drinks that we could order from.
For two hours. We arrived at The Tavern at 6:00, and had to leave by 8:00. I was sitting with Matt, and he seemed pretty intent (as well as a pretty fun guy), and somehow we reached an agreement to each sample at least one of every type of drink offered on the drink menu. I started with a Kahlua and milk, moved on to the Gin Tonic, and so on right down the line. I finished my last drink just as we had to leave the Tavern, successfully rising to the challenge. Matt only made it through 12. Hah.
So we end up at a Karaoke Bar. Matt is sitting somewhere else this time, and I think he's talking about me, because people from his table stole the occasional glance at me, then back, then they would steal mv glass from me, fill it up with whiskey and water, and return it. And silly me, I kept drinking. And participating in rather poor renditions of familiar songs such as O Canada, We Are the World, and Great Balls of Fire.
Eventually, the evening came to an end, and I now figure that if I was in Canada, I would be eligible for the automaton defense for any of my actions for the remainder of the night. As a matter of fact, that's what I plead.
You see, I fell asleep on the train back to the dorm. (Someone giving a more uncharitable account may say that I passed out. ) When I awake, I'm at Kanazawa-bunko, a few stops from my dorm at Keikyu-Tomioka, and there are no more trains until 5 am. Ooops.
So I exit the station, find a bench, and pass out for five hours. Yep, Leslie Rosenblood, Canada’s ambassador to Japan, spent our nation’s birthday sleeping in the streets. I woke up, took the first train back to my dorm, and passed out again. I was very, very quiet for most of Sunday. I listened to classical music, quietly. I read Shakespeare.
On Sunday afternoon, Kishida-san finds me and asks me what happened after we got separated. (I hadn't realized that we had until that point– I wasn't thinking too clearly Saturday night.) He had a present for me. He has a full stereo system in his room, you see, so he doesn't need this beautiful CD-double cassette ghetto blaster. And he gave me a few CDs of his to listen to.
He doesn’t know it yet, but I am going to marry Kishida-san.
Oh Baby, The Earth Moved
So I'm sitting at my desk yesterday morning, and I just barely feel my keyboard shake. I stand up and look around, but no one else seems to notice anything. I return to my desk. and then the whole room sways about a foot from side to side. No mistaking it.
The feeling was intriguing. I thought, "Okay, I'm in an earthquake. Hopefully not a bad one, but there's no way to tell until it's over." I stand and look around. Just in front of me are stacks of books, where documentation and other stuff are kept in tall cabinets. Step out of range in case they fall. Look up, make sure there's nothing that will fall on me that will cause permanent damage. Look around, don’t get caught underneath something that may fall or collapse. Then it ended.
The whole thing lasted maybe a minute. I read in the paper today that it measured 5.6 on the Richter scale. Apparently this sort of quake is commonplace is Japan. I rather liked it, actually.
Ones and Zeroes don’t cut it
A number of people have asked for my snailmail address. I love to receive physical mail, since it gives me something to do when I come back to my dorm. So here it is:
Leslie Rosenblood
MT Tomioka Daiichi
Dokushin-ryou #D-204
9-2-12 Sugita, Tsogo-ku
Yokohama, Kanagawa 235
Japan
I know, it's long and impossible to memorize, but it will fit on the front of an envelope (or back of a postcard). Feel flee to share with friends, neighbours, inlaws and outlaws.
Until next time,
Leslie
