DAY #5: CONTRACT!

Well, it's been a slow week, unpacking in my spacious apartment a 20-min. walk from Kangaku (KGU) campus. I arrived Monday evening, August 31 (see previous post). Each day has been small ventures out on foot into the neighborhood to explore nearby amenities and shop for basics.

Friday was the first really official day: contract signing (with one other new EFL teacher from Ohio U) at 9:45, then introductions at the first staff meeting of the Language Center EFL instructors. They seem like a nice - if a bit young - group. A couple of Canadians have somehow slipped in the mainly American staff.

The contract signing was interesting. This is a very JAPANESE university. All the signs, formal papers, the boards outside the ENGLISH program - even instructions on the hot water pot - are in exclusively Japanese characters. The tall HR man who handed out our contracts in Japanese and English spoke only Japanese, and although we obviously spoke little Japanese, he helpfully talked on and on about contract details - IN JAPANESE. Our English-speaking Language Center assistants could barely get a translation in edgewise! He could have saved everyone lots of time by just having us read the translations and ask questions via our interpreter.

The next two HR people were two young women with documents from Social Services (our health insurance etc.) and pension. If we leave Japan after three years, we get most of our pension back, but if we stay longer, we lose it all unless we stay 25 years! We are exempt from Japanese taxes for two years, but then get hit in year #3 if we stay. Our contracts extend automatically from Year 1 into Year 2 (unless we get arrested for burglary or some other major infraction!) We can stay up to 4 years at the institution - max. Under those circumstances, two years sounds like the best of all possible plans.

Some interesting cross-cultural oddities:

- At the bank where I changed my $85 into yen, to get a 1000 yen note ($10) that they had just given me broken into smaller denominations, I had to fill out yet another form!

- Everything is wrapped. You can buy one banana in a sealed plastic bag! Individual cookies in a box are individually wrapped.

- As in Britain, cars (and pedestrians) hold to the left. When meeting an oncoming stranger, you each veer to the left.

- Homes don't use driers. Clothes are hung out, not on lines, but on poles with hangers.

- People refold and re-cover used items. On ANA flying to Japan, my Japanese seatmates would recover every container on their tray, fold the hot towel, etc. when they were done. Even waste should be neat and tidy! Nor surprisingly, the Japanese word that means 'beautiful' [kirei] also means 'neat'/'clean'.

And I could go on, but it's Friday after work hours, and I need to eat!

So ... Ja mata!