All Posts from the Daily life Category
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Neighbourhood cleanup
This morning (Sunday morning) the loudspeakers went off at 7:10 a.m. And that’s an important cultural difference right there: in Australia you’re not allowed to mow the lawn or make noise until 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning because people like to sleep in, but in the land where Nobody Sleeps In there’s no such thing as Sunday morning.
The announcement was a call to arms for neighbourhood cleanup day, and we dutifully trooped out to do our bit to beautify our little section of Sunami Heights. It was almost exclusively older people — I reckon I was the only person there under 50 — because Sunami is rapidly growing older as all the children who grew up leave and only their parents remain. Of course, Japan as a nation is growing older but I suspect it’s happening faster in our patch. However it didn’t matter in terms of the cleanup because Japanese old people are outrageously fit and healthy and active. Much is made of longevity and the Japanese diet, but I think it has more to do with the way they whip themselves into shape from an early age (starting with having to trudge to school every day with ridiculously heavy bags and drink bottles) and just never let up. They certainly don’t sleep in. Our friend Yumi from Okayama, who has young children like us, reckons that she gets up at five every morning and often goes to bed after midnight. She couldn’t believe it when she heard that we like to sleep for eight hours or so. “What a waste!” she cried, and she has a point. But I do love my sleep.
Anyway within an hour and a quarter we had all the grass mowed, the tops of the embankments cleared and the rubbish stuffed into bags, and I got to feel virtuous and community-minded in the process. Here’s us working hard at the high embankment right in front of our house:
This week has been a bit of a bleah week, as they say. Ruby’s great friend Tess left on Monday after an action-packed two weeks of fun and giggling, so it all seemed a bit sad and lonely for a while there. In addition to visiting Universal Studios we made sure to drag Tess around the full program of Sunami delights such as ferry trips, karaoke, shopping for cute girly things and clothes with silly English written on them, and weird and wonderful Japanese foods. Here’s some evidence:
Tragically it was all over too soon and we had to send Tess back home, clutching her favourite pillow, from the bustling international terminal at Okayama airport:
That was Monday morning. On Monday night the concert ticket people rang to say that Avril Lavigne had stood us up by cancelling her concert the following week, thus throwing our planned three-day trip to the southern island of Kyushu into disarray. Then we had three days of constant rain and constant temperatures — top of 21 and overnight low of 19 sort of thing — making everything rather warm and muggy, a little reminder of summer, not that we need reminding. And to top it all off, the four of us managed to catch a nasty cold and are still feeling sick and pathetic as I write (which makes my heroics at the cleanup this morning even more impressive).
But as it turns out, Avril did us a huge favour: what with all the trips we’ve been doing recently, not to mention the aforementioned colds and feeling pathetic and run down, it was time for a little break. The Parents are officially Most Relieved. Anyway we have Katy Perry next week to look forward to (Ruby and I and Ruby’s friend Rio making yet another quick dash up to Osaka). Speaking of concerts, our PJO brass band has been very active recently: we did a concert up at Sera in the mountains last week while Tess was here, the highlight of which was getting spectacularly lost on the way back from the flower garden where we ate lunch and arriving at the concert hall with just minutes to spare, plus the Rose Festival yesterday in nearby Fukuyama, plus we have yet another concert today at some sort of local festival in town. And another big one in June! At this rate the band will suffer from overexposure and we’ll risk losing our fan base. Better have a quiet word to the manager.
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And now for something completely different
Just to prove that life goes on as usual, Eleni and I went skiing on Thursday.
Actually it wasn’t to prove anything at all; it was just a wonderful coincidence that both of us had a free day. In my case, the domestic translation industry had decided to have a little lie down for a moment, while Eleni, amazingly, had no cultural extension activities — no flower arranging, no traditional drumming and no tai chi classes — nor any English lessons in the kitchen on that day. As it happened I’d been toying with the idea of going up the slopes one last time but was about to quietly give up for the year. Eleni, meanwhile, had been forced to miss the entire season after injuring her face during a freak sporting accident in December. So the Serendipitous Day Off seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Thus it was that we packed Felix off to school at 7:05, gave Ruby a key with strict instructions to lock the door on the way out, and shot off up the highway leaving her there to finish her breakfast in the company of her beloved iPod.
It’s so late in the season now that most ski resorts have closed, but Mizuho Highland is further up the mountain and still has plenty of snow. You have to catch a gondola from the carpark up the first bit (2.6 km) and then another lift up from there. It’s seriously high up and the views are excellent.
And because it’s so late in the season, the lift tickets are discounted and they give you the skis and snowboards for free! As if skiing in Japan wasn’t cheap enough already.
Plus, there was a snowfall the very day before so we got to slide around on (or in my case fall over on) lovely soft fresh white stuff which makes that glorious squeaky sound as you zoom over it. As you can see, I’m quite smitten with the whole idea of snow. It’s probably just as well that we didn’t end up living up in northern Japan because the record snowfalls this year would have completely turned me off snow. (Not to mention the earthquakes, power cuts, fuel shortages and lack of train services that are causing endless frustration to people who live well inland and nowhere near the tsunami-affected areas.)
In other exciting news, Ruby finally managed to make good her escape from the all-consuming after-school brass band, the one that goes until 5:30 every night after school and often on the weekends too, and sometimes in the mornings before school, and all through the “holidays” as well. She had been pestering her teacher for months and months until finally a meeting was arranged with the principal who gave his official blessing. Apparently you can be excused if you are involved in other extra-curricular activities.
Or if you’re a foreigner with an annoying Dad who perhaps rocks the boat just a bit too much. I suspect that I’m in danger of turning into one of those stubborn foreigners who refuses to accept the Natural Order of Things in their adopted country. I so desperately wanted not to be not like that, not like the supremely arrogant expats that I came across in Italy. But when it comes to all those ridiculous regulations, such as preventing the kids from taking drinks breaks during sports classes in the height of summer as a result of which they’re fainting all over the place and having to be carted off to hospital with heatstroke (this actually happened last summer), I figure that the Japanese school system could do with a bit of friendly outside advice every now and again.
In any case, Ruby is now completely, gloriously free. School now finishes at four o’clock, there’s no more nasty surprise practice sessions ruining our weekend plans, and no more traipsing up to school every day during the holidays. She felt a bit bad about leaving the band, and I’m sure it was hard to make the announcement on her last day on Thursday (coincidentally while her parents were off frolicking in the snow) but I’m proud that she was brave enough and tenacious enough to see it through. And without any intervention from me.
And now we are back to the familiar parenting model of shuttling the kids back and forth between a succession of stimulating activities: soccer three or four times per week, piano on a Monday and swing band on a Sunday and perhaps karate on a Wednesday starting next term — and that’s just Ruby. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Incidentally school has finished for the year as of Friday (the Japanese school year runs from April to March). We are now in the school holiday period, which you won’t be surprised to hear is just eleven days. (Although sometimes I think that this might actually be sufficient. There’s nothing quite so scary as a couple of bored kids in the house when you’ve got work to do.) Ruby naturally has a mountain of homework to complete before starting Year 8, although Felix happily seems to have been spared, unless he’s secretly hiding it all from us. I’m looking forward to next year because Ruby will no longer be the lowest in the pecking order at junior high, while Felix will now be one of the big kids at primary school: the grade five-sixes. Also, as a Grade 5, his soccer practice time on Wednesday nights moves to the later slot of 7:30 – 8:30, closer to Ruby’s match time of 8:00 – 9:00 which means that I won’t have to trek back and forth across town twice in the same night any more.
And to celebrate the school holidays, next week we’re off on another of our legendary Road Trips in the Eggbeater, to Kyoto and Nagoya. We’ve actually been to Kyoto twice before, the first time last summer when it was too hot to move, and again in November for the Geisha dress-up experience. Since Ruby got to have all the fun last time, we figure that now it’s Felix’s turn. Thus it is that we will be visiting the flash new just-opened-two-weeks-ago maglev railway museum in Nagoya as well as a ninja action park in the mountains of Mie prefecture on the way home. Meanwhile our friend Miyuki has promised to take Ruby out for a bit of big-city shopping action at Nagoya; Eleni is keen to ride on the scenic train at Arashiyama gorge in Kyoto; and as for me…. I’m just looking forward to popping in to one of the freeway service areas on the way up for a Starbucks caffe late.
And to be honest, I suspect I’m quite looking forward to the train museum too.
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The Joy of Tax
Had a great visit to the tax office the other day.
And it’s not that often that you hear someone say that, now is it?
Despite being a small provincial city with a population of only 100,000, Mihara has its very own tax office. At tax return time (ie now), the entire office staff is out in force, milling around helping people fill in the forms, and there are even a couple of accountants from the Hiroshima Prefecture Society of Accountants or some such who sit behind a desk dispensing free advice all day long to anyone who turns up. It’s all very civilised and helpful. What’s more, they punch the figures into the computer right then and there and it spits out a form and you don’t have to sit at home waiting for months for the dreaded Tax Advice letter to turn up in the mailbox.
I’ve been contributing 10% tax throughout the year, which is deducted from my salary automatically by my translation companies, but I was fully expecting to have to cough up a bit more at tax time. Fair enough, I thought; ten or so percent is still pretty reasonable compared to 30% or 40% or whatever it is in Australia. So imagine my surprise and jubilation when I discovered that the Japanese government reckons I’ve paid too much tax and wants to give me some back! Can you believe that there is a country where you only pay 10% tax and then get given some of it back?
I should point out in the interests of journalistic integrity that the public health care system in Japan is separate to income tax. So now I’m waiting for the dreaded Health Care Advice letter to turn up in the mailbox, and fully expecting that I’ll have to cough up a few thousand dollars worth of health care contributions. But even taking these into account, I’ll be way ahead of what I’d be paying in Australia. Plus with any luck my shiny new tax refund will just about cover the health care payments anyway and I’ll end up paying not much more than ten percent for the lot. Incredible. No wonder Japan has such high personal savings rates.
I think I’ve found yet another reason to like Japan. I wonder if Ruby would let us stay a few more years…
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Hay fever is back, and this time it’s angry
I’d never had hay fever before I came to Japan in the 1990s, and quite frankly could never understand what all the fuss was about. But Japanese pollen must be especially potent stuff, because it wasn’t long before my immune system gave up the fight and I joined the ranks of the sneezing, snuffling, bleary-eyed sufferers of this most useless of diseases. And only then did I truly understand what all the fuss was about. Because hay fever is just so debilitating: a sustained bout of sneezing can wipe out your energy for the entire day.
Hay fever strikes me as one of those stupid hangovers from an earlier age, like tonsils or an appendix. I mean, what possible purpose does it serve? Pollen flying around through the air is central to Life and Reproduction of Flora and all of that, so why make people allergic to it?
Anyway, hay fever is back in Japan. And the good news this year is that the record heat and lack of rain have apparently created ideal conditions for pollen and there are dire predictions of terrible times ahead for those with the dreaded allergy. Last weekend was the opening salvo, caused by cedar pollen I believe, reducing yours truly to a pathetic snivelling mess. By the end of the weekend I’d already gone through my entire supply of handkerchiefs.
However I’m happy to report that things have since calmed down a bit, and I even saw a report on the news that our area of Japan is mercifully to be spared, in the sense that the pollen count this year will be about average, meaning that hay fever symptoms will “only” as bad as normal. Here’s hoping!
Although there’s always plenty of other species of pollen to look forward to later in the year.
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Weekend wrap
For Ruby, the weekend started on Thursday, when she was sent home for two days because about a third of her class was away with flu. Such excitement! So much time to hang around and do nothing! Until we discovered that the school is planning to deduct two days from the holidays to compensate. We’re hoping they’ll decide to tack them onto the end of the term rather than the start of next term, because Ruby’s bestest friend Tess is coming to visit on the last day of school and Ruby’s already decided that she’s not going back to school come what may. Whereas if the extra days are at the start of next term it will be harder to morally reconcile not going. So she enjoyed her time off although there’s only so much iPodding, blogging, scrolling endlessly through FaceBook and looking up random things on YouTube before the dreaded boredom starts to set in, testing the patience of any parents in the vicinity, and it was with some sense of relief that we were finally able to push her out the door this morning (Monday).
On Friday, I took Felix snowboarding for the day. I had forgotten to formally ask his teacher the day before but apparently he told her himself and she didn’t bat an eyelid so I guess it was OK. Haven’t had a call from the school yet anyway. The place we went had cheap lessons so I decided to enrol us both but Felix was dead against the idea. In the end however there were no other students for the afternoon session and the cheery instructors were so desperate to teach someone that they offered to give us a dedicated lesson each, and furthermore to refund Felix’s fee if he didn’t like it after half an hour. Well we could hardly refuse an offer like that, and Felix ended up having a great time, not least because the instructors both agreed to a snowfight at the end of the lesson, much to his delight.
On the way back from the slopes we witnessed the most exciting event to take place in our sleepy hamlet for the last six months, ever since the minor collision on the main road during the morning peak that backed up traffic for miles and made all the teachers late for school. I’m talking of course about the OPENING OF THE NEW SEVEN-ELEVEN IN TOWN. Now I hardly need remind you (but if you do need reminding read this) that convenience stores in Japan are amazing things, combining about fifteen different stores in one handy location with a multitude of services. More importantly, they carry a wide range of sandwiches and bentos and sushi packs and all sorts of goodies. I’m especially pleased that we’ve scored a 7-11, which carries my favourite steamed cheesecakes that you can’t get at other convenience stores. It’s so much better than the old Poplar convenience store that closed down last September. So lunchtime is now looking extra good at Sushi on a Stick HQ.
Saturday was soccer training for Felix’s young team, and this week I was on duty for the parent roster, which involves setting up a little tent with a camp table and chairs and laying out all the drinks and biscuits you’ve thoughtfully purchased during the week along with one of those dinky push-button hot water pots (a glorified thermos) and tea and coffee and whatnot. Then when the other parents turn up you take them all cups of coffee on a tray with a selection of biscuits and milk and sugar and little spoons to stir it with and everything. When the coaches wander over you have to zoom out with coffees too to show how much you appreciate their hard work. It’s all so very civilized, I’m thinking I should introduce something along these lines back in Australia. (I’d love to call it “ladies bring a plate” but I don’t think that’d go down too well.)
Sunday saw the Old Man and his Bass up on stage at the Mihara Community Center for some sort of international festival dedicated to the Philippines and Thailand (presumably because there are a few Filipino and Thai people in Japan, although I never did quite work out the reasoning behind it). The band was just cobbled together at the last minute (literally; we had all of 15 minutes’ rehearsal) and they must have been lacking a bass player so Yanagi-san the nice saxophonist guy from the Poporo brass band asked if I’d help out. Then the drummer asked me afterwards if I’d be able to do a few more gigs so it looks like my career has finally taken off, at the tender age of 45.
And to top it off, the Mihara Community Center is right opposite Mr Donuts so we all popped in for a celebratory round thing afterwards.
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Past the half-way mark
Here we are on the brink of March already, which means just ten months left in Japan.
It’s funny how the simple act of getting past the half-way mark seems to change everything. When we first arrived we had two whole years stretching out ahead of us. It seemed like an eternity; there was plenty of time to see, do, eat and visit everything that we could think of, not to mention all the things that we didn’t yet know about. But now, with less than a year to go, our remaining time here becomes measurable. You can tick off the months off one by one. Which means that unless we get organised and make a conscious effort to rise above the daily routine of school and meals and soccer practice and band rehearsal and going out for okonomiyaki, before we know it it’ll be time to pack those suitcases and we’ll be left with a long list of unticked boxes.
Already I can feel myself starting to think about going home. I must say I have mixed feelings about returning. Australia is obviously home, especially as far as the kids are concerned, but after more than a year in our little corner of Japan I’m pretty well settled. (Eleni also is having a great time and would like to stay on for another year; Ruby is singularly unimpressed with this proposal, and Felix says he’s happy either way.) Nor am I looking forward to Australian prices; Japan is a wonderfully cheap place to live at the moment, particularly when it comes to my great weakness: going out for dinner with the family. No cheap ‘n’ cheerful Okonomiyaki to be had in Melbourne, tragically. And there is a certain sense of finality about going home. Life will return to normal, whatever that is.
It certainly won’t be interesting and different any more, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing; perhaps I’m getting a bit old for these cultural challenges, as I wrote the other day.
All this introspection sometimes makes me feel a bit nostalgic, as if we were leaving next month. Already I’m starting to think about all the things I’m going to miss. Not surprisingly, they’re all food-related: okonomiyaki, those fabulous lunchtime bento boxes, the legendary Japanese bakeries, those massive apples, cream caramel desserts from the supermarket…. And right at the moment it’s the season for mikan, which are kind of like a cross between an orange and a mandarine (some people call them tangerines). Mikans are great, I can’t get enough of them, and… this is the last time I’ll be eating them for a while (sob sob).
You might think that it’s ridiculous to be getting all teary and nostalgic at this stage of proceedings, and you’d be right. But it’s all part of my grand master plan to ensure that when I do go home that I remember all the things that I love about Japan, just in case I’m tempted to get bogged down in negativity about things like:
• The stupid school system
• Having to get up at 6:30 in the morning to get Felix off in time for the hour-long trudge over the mountain to school
• The absence of bench space in the kitchen
• The freezing toilet and bathroom in winterActually when I think about it, it’s only really the school system that upsets me about this country. Everything else is perfectly bearable.
And this year has been particularly good because I’ve been able to indulge in my new passion for snowboarding. So far I’ve been out on the slopes no less than seven times and I hope to get a couple more in before the end of the season. I’ve found a ski resort that’s just an hour and three-quarters door to door and cheap to boot. (I only wish I’d discovered it last year.)
So there’s yet another thing to get all teary and nostalgic about. I suspect there’s going to be a few more posts like this in the months to come.
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Culture fail
You know how I said last week there was no way I was going to miss the Naked Man festival?
Guess what happened.
It wasn’t my fault, honest. There I was all set to head up into the mountains for an evening of culture only to discover that Eleni was busy until late with drumming practice, Ruby wasn’t the slightest bit interested (not that she’s interested on anything these days other than her iPod), and even Felix was proving difficult to motivate (“I’ll go if you want me to I guess”). In the face of this wall of apathy, the cultural ambassador of the Sushi on a Stick household was forced into a highly ignominious backdown. Seems that nobody cares about Culture around here any more.
Although, if the truth be known, maybe I didn’t really mind that much. That’s because I’d spent Friday up at a local ski resort continuing with my fruitless quest to master the art of snowboarding, and spent the best part of the day finding new and ever more painful ways to fall over in the snow, so that the entire weekend I’ve been feeling stiff and sore and not really in a festival-going frame of mind.
And because I love pain, next Wednesday I’m off to do it all again. This year’s ski season has barely a month left to go, and it’s my last chance to take advantage of the wonderfully cheap skiing in Japan, and though I should by rights be sitting at my desk toiling away for the good of the family and all that, I’m determined that I’m not going to leave this country until I’ve learned how to turn around properly on a snowboard. This time Felix is taking the day off school and coming along, so we can bond together manfully while falling over and getting lots of lovely bruises.
So anyway, apologies once again for the paucity of exciting cultural information on this blog. These days I seem to be more interested in seeking out new cafes and bakeries than in discovering new festivals and cultural events. Maybe I’m just too used to Japan…
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Language
One of the great things about coming to Japan is that I don’t have to speak Japanese to the kids any more. Which probably sounds a bit odd, given that the whole family speaks Japanese. So let me provide some background.
When the kids were born, we decided to try to raise them as bilingual, just for a bit of fun. To avoid confusion in their tiny little developing brains I was the nominated Japanese-speaking parent and Eleni was the English-speaking parent. (It turns out that we needn’t have done it that way; kids’ brains are apparently perfectly capable of sorting out different languages.) This all worked swimmingly for the first few years while the kids were mostly at home, but once they started school Japanese became less and less relevant to them and English started creeping in to our conversations.
At the same time, I was starting to tire of speaking Japanese for a number of reasons:
(a) it was getting to be an effort to use a foreign language all day long
(b) I was starting to sense the limitations of my Japanese vocabulary, particularly with regards to child-rearing (and home discipline!)
(c) I was feeling a bit self-conscious about speaking Japanese to the kids in public
(d) the novelty was beginning to wear off.However the kids were still attending Japanese school on Saturdays and the ultimate aim, inasmuch as we had one, was for them become bilingual, so I felt duty bound to keep practicing Japanese at home. But by about 2008 I was starting to get thoroughly fed up with the whole idea. So when we decided to move to Japan for a couple of years it was a huge relief: finally I could palm off my language duties to the schools.
And I’m happy to report that it’s all panned out beautifully. These days I use Japanese occasionally at home, but with no sense of compulsion or duty. At last I have the freedom to speak in English without feeling guilty. It turns out that I probably needn’t have bothered with the Japanese over the last couple of years in Australia anyway; the kids are already fluent, especially Felix, who has mastered the local Hiroshima dialect superbly. Indeed, if getting the kids up to speed in Japanese were our only aim, a year in Japan probably would have been enough (but don’t tell Ruby that).
In any case I’m not sure we ever really knew what we were trying to do with this whole bilingual caper; it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it was to broaden their outlook, maybe it was to expand their brains, maybe it was to turn them into good internationally-minded citizens. Probably a bit of everything. If nothing else, it means that the kids will be able to take Japanese subjects at high school back in Australia without having to do any study. High school Japanese in Australia is pretty tame; Felix as of Year 4 has already covered the entire curriculum. (Whether he can retain it for the next seven years is another matter of course.)
Who knows, maybe one day the kids will deign to follow their father into the honourable profession of translating. Which isn’t such a bad caper; it may be boring at times, but you can work anywhere in the world so long as you have a power point and a phone line. So far we’ve spent time living in Italy and now Japan, and I wouldn’t mind trying out a few more countries before I get too old for this sort of thing. We’ve already decided that next up will be Norway, by the way.
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From the vaults
Avid readers of these pages will recall the terrible tragedy that occurred on Christmas Day 2010, namely, the loss of Felix’s favourite soccer ball into the murky depths of the Seto Inland Sea.
Well, we’ve recently come across dramatic footage of that very moment and the aftermath, captured for posterity by Ruby with her new Christmas present.
I’m thinking of submitting this to the National Archives as I’ve no doubt that one day it will have massive historical significance. Meanwhile you can relive the moment right here right now.
Warning: contains graphic scenes of childhood angst.
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Annual report card
Time flies when you’ve having fun, and already one whole year has passed since our arrival here at Japan-by-the-Sea. Which means it’s now time to bring you the much-anticipated annual report card.
The first thing to say is that the situation hasn’t really changed much since the half-yearly report in July. Eleni is still doing ancient traditional drumming and flower arranging classes and has also added tai-chi (not actually Japanese but ancient and traditional nonetheless), and is teaching three English classes per week at home as well as two per month down at the community centre along with her proofreading work. In other words, she’s keeping busy, just like a local would.
Felix has thoroughly ingratiated himself into Sunami Heights and spends lots of time with his new best friends swapping Mario Brothers tips and mastering rude expressions in the local lingo. He’s doing well at proper Japanese too — his teacher told me with some amazement that he’s become an expert on Japanese characters and is often called upon to help the other kids with their classwork. He’s also working hard to expand his collection of plastic trains, which are wonderfully cheap and therefore within his pocket money budget. Meanwhile we’re keeping him busy with soccer three times per week and the brass band on Sundays. Recently the band has suffered a minor exodus of trumpeters (possibly driven away by Felix’s endless chatting during rehearsal) and as a result he has been promoted up the order and has landed a solo part. He gets to strut his stuff at the major concert in February, which is very exciting.
Ruby, on the other hand, is not having such a great time in Japan; in fact, she is essentially counting down the days until our return to civilization as she knows it. Junior high school is hardly fun, as I’ve detailed extensively already on this page. But more significantly, after a year there still hasn’t been a breakthrough on the friendship front, at least not at school. During the holidays we managed to arrange a get-together with Rio, a friend from soccer, and Ruby also gets on well with Yumi’s daughter Chisato, but they both live some distance away.
I find this a bit upsetting, not least because of the parallels with my own school experience. Up until Grade 6 I was happy at school, popular with classmates and having lots of fun. Then in Year 7 my parents inexplicably decided to send me to boarding school an hour away (which might as well have been Japan back in those days). It was OK at first, but halfway through the first year I fell ill and spent several months in hospital, and when I eventually got back to school I found that it wasn’t the same at all. Things eventually got so unbearable that it was decided that I should move back to my old school. But when I got back there I found that, once again, things had changed, the old friendship groups had disappeared and people had moved on. All in all I never really enjoyed high school, right up to the moment I left.
So when Ruby was being teased early on (and even actively bullied at one point, which led to a couple of apologetic visits from the principal), I had a pretty good idea of what she was going through. Although things have improved since, it’s hard to see any genuine friendships forming from this point onward. Despite our soothing platitudes about building up resilience and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and the experience will be good for you, I feel bad sending her off to that school every day knowing that she’d undoubtedly be having a much better time back in Australia. This is not at all how I imagined it would be. Japan can be heaps of fun for kids, but Ruby has missed out to a large degree.
I have to say that I’m feeling a bit disappointed with Japan at the moment. Although I guess it’s not really Japan’s fault; kid stuff can happen anywhere. It’s just that I had these visions of my kids having a fantastic time here. Perhaps my expectations were too high? But there’s just something about the schools that really annoys me; the way they treat the kids just seems so very wrong.
To sum up, then, I think this country would be a fabulous place but for two things — the overbearing school system and the overblown work ethic. For me, the ultimate question is: would I want to stay here forever? Do I envy the Japanese? And my answers are no, and no. Which may sound strange from someone who’s spent nearly a quarter of his adult life in Japan. Don’t get me wrong, I love living here, but I realise now that it’s always been on my terms. In Tokyo I was young and therefore shielded from the constraints and requirements of adult life, and even now I’m a freelancer with considerable flexibility in my working life. It’s only recently that I’ve started to appreciate what the average Japanese has to put up with. And that’s why I admire those foreigners who marry and set up home here and willingly submit to the system, working crazy hours at the company and putting their kids through the school system. Having been brought up in Australia, I don’t think I could do that.
Anyway, Eleni and I have made it our mission to try to inject more fun into 2011 by packing in as many diversions as possible: the Katie Perry concert (April), a trip to Osaka to see Melbourne Victory (March), Universal Studios (TBC), a return trip to Akita (August), a stream of visits from friends and family throughout the year, healthy family pursuits such as bike riding across the islands in summer, and whatever other day trips and adventures we can dream up. Plus Ruby has courageously announced to her school that (shock, horror) she’ll be quitting the brass band as of the new school year in April, which means less time spent in the company of surly classmates. And I for one am thrilled about that.
Here’s to an action-packed 2011 in Japan!
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This blog is about the adventures of a family of Australian barbarians spending two years in the islands of southern Japan. Stay tuned for regular updates on the food, the culture, the earthquakes, the wacky festivals, the school system and more. 
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