...oh well 10 months, dozens of adventures, scores of new friends, one too many nights out, several destinations, hundreds of mornings learning Japanaese, birthdays, relationships, love, sorrow and everything else that would include to a life far away from home with people from all over the globe. So I came, I saw but did I conquer?
Lets start with the Shit. Japanese society is a obligation society where everything has its place this includes the gaijin that really doesn´t have a place in this society. We´re the odd balls that can be seen every now and then, here and there. But the barriers between us and normal folk can be quite high. Of course not to generalise too much I would say that its the system that more against us than the people. Most Japanese I met were a really heartful bunch and helped always when I asked help. Still all in all cant really say that if I would live here for 20 years that I could say that I`m Japanese.
Well then comes the obvious and not so obvious. The obviously shitty
parts are the bureacrazt and civil servants obsessive desire to stick to the rules. That even reached to our dorm where young people were really stuck up with something so trivial as visitors rule (that outsiders need to leave at 23.00). So irritating that I couldn´t trust the people that lived here not rat me out to the caretakers, etc, if I had a friend over for the night, or smthng. Frustrating. Also many aspects of our studies were too school like and not really reaching to my academic standards.The bit less obvious but immensly irritating bits were Japanese cellphone system and banking. My God how the hell such an advanced civilization as Japan survive with such medieval systems. The banking was similar to 80s Finland and the cell phone system, though are technologically most advanced in the world, but the service was horrendous. It costed like shit, was super complicated (even to fluent speakers) and the waiting times on the shops were something that I couldn´t understand as a business student. So a basic cellphone opening lasted about 2h. And if a worker works 8h/day he can open 4 new contracts per day. Not very effective if I might say. It should be 5 min for opening it and 2 min to close it. Hopefully in the future some foreign cellphone company comes to Japanese market and shows how its done... and by doing so rapes Docomo, softbank and others to death!
Well those things really bugged me. Now we can move on. Some really interesting feature of Japan comparing to Finland is that there are people everywhere. Yes, I know. Shocking! But I mean that there are people working everywhere. Like in parking lots, trainstations and constructions sites have scores of people showing people the way (though it useless bc there is a wall and u couldn´t go there anyway). So the those peoples titles are "a sign" or a "traffic light" or something similar. Seems the most boring job ever... and most useless.
There are dozens of similar weird things, irritating things, incomprehensible things, and so on. Still taken everything into account these were a huge nuisance but still where ever you are there is always somethign that bugs you. Thats unavoidable so better to concentrate what matters: Karaokes, Izakayas, pot lucks,
all night roaming in Shinjuku/Shibya axel! Thats why I`m in Japan. And also the great feeling when I can approach Japanese people and talk with them in Japanese.So this last writing was just random collection of thoughts and perceptions that have bugged me or things that I have enjoyed. Next I`ll finish up my packing and do some travel planing for my Germany, Poland and Lithuanian tour. After that Boomis summer party and Finland.
I`ll see you in the flip side,
Tuomas
