One of our fellow bloggers who also tends to talk quite a bit about Japan recently married a Japanese woman and came to Japan to live after completing university. He was concerned about debts from his education and getting them paid off as quickly as possible. I told him that my husband and I had managed to save nearly as much as his entire educational debt in the two years since I quit my former job so I was sure he could get those debts dealt with pretty quickly if he was careful with how he spent his money. (All the money we save, incidentally, has all gone into savings for when we're old and grey and can no longer work.)
You might assume that we make a lot of money. The truth is that we do not and our rent is pretty high (110,000 yen). The money we saved during those two years represented about 35% of our income. We don't make a small amount of money, mind you, but my CH isn't in a high-paying job and I only worked 5-10 hours a week from home during the two years in which we saved that amount of money. The way we save a fair bit is by not spending what we get. This isn't as hard as it may sound, but it does take awhile to reach a mindset where living well below your means doesn't feel like a burden or sacrifice. For us, it evolved naturally so we've never found ourselves pining for things. I consider us very fortunate in that regard.
I've come to understand that there are 3 cornerstones to reducing your spending:
1. Cook for yourself from real (whole) food ingredients (never pre-mixed, pre-bagged, or pre-made).
2. Don't buy new clothes or shoes unless you need them (never buy because they are attractive to you or you think you'll look good in them).
3. Never shop to entertain yourself or to mitigate unrest in your life.
If you follow these, your spending will be dramatically reduced. Most people waste their money on incidental items they rarely need or use, convenience, and the momentary "high" of obtaining something novel. If you scrutinize the pleasure your spending habits bring you, you'll likely see very few of the items bring long-term pleasure or fulfill recurring needs. Most of the pleasure you get is from looking at the items, considering buying them, making the purchase, and carrying the bag home. Once the item is in your possession, there is definitely a letdown for many purchases.
Most people can't get past the idea of "deserving" the reward of buying something they want so they justify wasteful spending as a way of making working worthwhile. They feel empowered by the freedom of obtaining what they want when they want it and choose the immediate small sense of freedom over the long term freedom that comes from financial stability and security. I won't say that, if you hate your job and have to placate yourself by buying junk, it's probably time to consider a different job which doesn't make you as miserable but may pay less because I know that's unrealistic for many people. However, it is worth considering.
I'm not judging anyone for their spending habits, mind you. We all make stupid decisions for short-term benefits because life is hard sometimes and some little tidbit can make us happy for awhile. However, if saving money is important to you, you have to change your entire mindset about shopping and the acquisition of possessions.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Cornerstones of Saving — Part 1
One of the reasons many people believe foreign folks come to Japan is to make big bucks. The general impression among Japanese folks is that we make a lot more money than they do. That's a half truth. If you're an underpaid Japanese office lady with a crappy job or a university student toiling at a convenience store or McDonald's for minimum wage, then that assertion is correct. If you do nearly any other full-time job which requires a university degree (and all us teaching types have to have degrees because we can't get a work visa without one), then it's probably not correct.
Most Japanese people calculate your wages based on what they pay to be taught by you, not on what you are paid. They assume you get a much bigger slice of the pie than you do. My referral agency charges students 4,900 yen an hour, but I get paid 2,800 yen an hour. I'm not complaining about the pay, mind you, but you can see how a student might think that I'm getting a great deal more than I am.
It isn't really how much you make but how you live which dictates how well you live here. One of my students is a nurse who makes less money than the average starting level foreign teacher salary of 250,000 yen. However, she also lives in a dorm provided by the hospital which only costs 22,000 yen a month and gets free meals at the hospital cafeteria. To put that in perspective, a super cheap accommodation in Tokyo for a teacher would be 50,000 yen a month for a shared place (gaijin house or shared apartment). If you want your own small place, you're likely paying 70,000 yen a month or more. In terms of food expenses saved, most people can't eat for much less than 30,000 yen a month unless they live on ramen. That means that the "perks" of my student's job as a nurse add to her salary to the tune of at least 70,000 yen each month.
My underpaid student who is a nurse told me that she spends 50,000 yen a month on clothes and she spends that much every month. She gives her old clothes away to friends and coworkers, but she has a constant revolving door on her wardrobe closet. She also goes to concerts and bars with friends at least once a week. Despite having a low income, she's certainly not hurting for discretionary funds.
After you live here for awhile, you understand that Japanese society is different from Western society in that jobs tend to take the average life circumstances of a person into account when deciding how much to pay. Most women who work as nurses are single and child-less because married women with children can't put in the sorts of hours required or be on call. Most office ladies are either married and working for spare cash or are still living with their parents so they aren't paying rent or shouldering the burden of supporting a family. Men who marry get raises compared to single men and men whose wives give birth to new people also often get raises.
Since life circumstances dictate how Japanese folks tend to be paid, but not how foreigners in usual foreigner jobs (teaching, translating, entertaining) get paid, it's hard to compare salaries. We are paid what the market will bear based on supply and demand. They are paid what their culture feels is appropriate based on their life circumstances in many cases (though certainly not all). Companies assume that you won't apply for a job which doesn't suit your needs and everyone "knows" that certain jobs are at a low pay level for students or housewives looking to support discretionary spending and no one expects adults who need to support a family to do them.
This is all my roundabout and tangent-heavy way of saying that how you live is more important than what you make in many cases when it comes to money. In Japan, the wages tend to reflect how they expect someone doing that job to be living. That's not to say there aren't people who simply do not have enough money to live comfortably, even in Japan where unemployment stats are low and it is currently a market (on the Japanese side, not the foreigner side at present) which favors job seekers over job providers.
Most Japanese people calculate your wages based on what they pay to be taught by you, not on what you are paid. They assume you get a much bigger slice of the pie than you do. My referral agency charges students 4,900 yen an hour, but I get paid 2,800 yen an hour. I'm not complaining about the pay, mind you, but you can see how a student might think that I'm getting a great deal more than I am.
It isn't really how much you make but how you live which dictates how well you live here. One of my students is a nurse who makes less money than the average starting level foreign teacher salary of 250,000 yen. However, she also lives in a dorm provided by the hospital which only costs 22,000 yen a month and gets free meals at the hospital cafeteria. To put that in perspective, a super cheap accommodation in Tokyo for a teacher would be 50,000 yen a month for a shared place (gaijin house or shared apartment). If you want your own small place, you're likely paying 70,000 yen a month or more. In terms of food expenses saved, most people can't eat for much less than 30,000 yen a month unless they live on ramen. That means that the "perks" of my student's job as a nurse add to her salary to the tune of at least 70,000 yen each month.
My underpaid student who is a nurse told me that she spends 50,000 yen a month on clothes and she spends that much every month. She gives her old clothes away to friends and coworkers, but she has a constant revolving door on her wardrobe closet. She also goes to concerts and bars with friends at least once a week. Despite having a low income, she's certainly not hurting for discretionary funds.
After you live here for awhile, you understand that Japanese society is different from Western society in that jobs tend to take the average life circumstances of a person into account when deciding how much to pay. Most women who work as nurses are single and child-less because married women with children can't put in the sorts of hours required or be on call. Most office ladies are either married and working for spare cash or are still living with their parents so they aren't paying rent or shouldering the burden of supporting a family. Men who marry get raises compared to single men and men whose wives give birth to new people also often get raises.
Since life circumstances dictate how Japanese folks tend to be paid, but not how foreigners in usual foreigner jobs (teaching, translating, entertaining) get paid, it's hard to compare salaries. We are paid what the market will bear based on supply and demand. They are paid what their culture feels is appropriate based on their life circumstances in many cases (though certainly not all). Companies assume that you won't apply for a job which doesn't suit your needs and everyone "knows" that certain jobs are at a low pay level for students or housewives looking to support discretionary spending and no one expects adults who need to support a family to do them.
This is all my roundabout and tangent-heavy way of saying that how you live is more important than what you make in many cases when it comes to money. In Japan, the wages tend to reflect how they expect someone doing that job to be living. That's not to say there aren't people who simply do not have enough money to live comfortably, even in Japan where unemployment stats are low and it is currently a market (on the Japanese side, not the foreigner side at present) which favors job seekers over job providers.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Refried Beany Goodness
I've often pondered whether or not I could become a vegetarian if I really tried and I'm pretty sure I could if my husband could as well. One thing about being in charge of the vittles for two is that you really don't have the time, energy, or motivation to cook two separate meals (and the CH working 48 hours a week and my working 10-15 hours most weeks means I very much do not expect him to cook for himself). I do the two separate meals thing on occasion when he has a steak. I hate steak and can never understand the appeal of a big, bloody slab of it.
For me, the path to vegetarianism is blocked mainly by the prospect of double labor and losing the possibility of eating chicken. I really like chicken. In fact, I daresay that in the ultimate test of whether you're a hypocrite about meat eating, dealing with chickens would be a test I could pass. To me, that test is whether you would be able to do the dirty work yourself to eat the meat you enjoy or if you're only able to consume it as long as someone else snuffs the animal, cleans it up and offers it to you in convenient packaging. I'm probably less squeamish about dealing with birds because my family had chickens at one point and Henny Penny and her rooster boyfriends occasionally went on the chopping block so I saw their demise on occasion. Of course, I also saw deer butchered during hunting season and had the misfortune of eating squirrel and rabbit when times were hard. Poor folks have to do what they have to do to get by.
Getting back to vegetarianism, I do tend to eat vegetarian meals for lunch when I have the ingredients and the time to prepare them. Since the CH is usually chowing down on sandwiches of ham or the radioactive pink "fancy salami" (really, baloney) I can buy at a local markets, I'm free to leave a lesser impact on the environment and to leave some poor animal spend another day among the living. Often, I grill up a cheese sandwich because that's quicker than a more elaborate dish. It's also always a winner with a side of tomatoes and some nutritionally suspect Japanese powdered corn soup.
The makings of tasty, beany goodness.
If I'm really ambitious and have chick peas around, a far better deal is Chana Masala (on Mallika's excellent Quick Indian Cooking site), but garbanzo beans can only be purchased at shops that carry certain imports and I keep forgetting to have the CH check for them at Costco (where he can get a whole case). What I have remembered to have him pick up a case of, however, is refried beans and there's a really fast and easy way to make them into a nice lunch that takes them from having a canned taste and smelling like dog food to being fresh and tasty.
A long while ago, I had a get-together with a few co-workers and I served up some Tex-Mex including beans prepared in this style. One of my co-workers said he always hated refried beans before he tried them done up this way. The main point of this is to get some fresh vegetables in there to undercut the overly beany nature. This isn't so much a "recipe" as just a form of preparation. You need a food processor, hand mixer (everyone should have a hand mixer!) or blender of some sort, or be willing to mash and mix stuff with your own powerful arms.
I especially enjoy this over Tex-Mex style fried rice with jalepeno sauce instead of salsa (like Tabasco only green and distilled from a different pepper), though it is incredibly filling with rice, and decidedly more effort because you've also got to make rice. For lunch, I usually just have it with Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips which we tend to have around for the CH's lunch boxes.
Those in Japan can get refried beans in Japanese stores that stock other Mexican food items, but they're a lot cheaper at Costco or through the Foreign Buyer's Club. You can also pick up a big canister of organic taco seasoning at Costco (which will last you ages, but cost less than a handful of the packet stuff at a Japanese store). You can top it with Japanese mixed (real) cheese, but it's better with a nice cheddar.
For me, the path to vegetarianism is blocked mainly by the prospect of double labor and losing the possibility of eating chicken. I really like chicken. In fact, I daresay that in the ultimate test of whether you're a hypocrite about meat eating, dealing with chickens would be a test I could pass. To me, that test is whether you would be able to do the dirty work yourself to eat the meat you enjoy or if you're only able to consume it as long as someone else snuffs the animal, cleans it up and offers it to you in convenient packaging. I'm probably less squeamish about dealing with birds because my family had chickens at one point and Henny Penny and her rooster boyfriends occasionally went on the chopping block so I saw their demise on occasion. Of course, I also saw deer butchered during hunting season and had the misfortune of eating squirrel and rabbit when times were hard. Poor folks have to do what they have to do to get by.
Getting back to vegetarianism, I do tend to eat vegetarian meals for lunch when I have the ingredients and the time to prepare them. Since the CH is usually chowing down on sandwiches of ham or the radioactive pink "fancy salami" (really, baloney) I can buy at a local markets, I'm free to leave a lesser impact on the environment and to leave some poor animal spend another day among the living. Often, I grill up a cheese sandwich because that's quicker than a more elaborate dish. It's also always a winner with a side of tomatoes and some nutritionally suspect Japanese powdered corn soup.
The makings of tasty, beany goodness. If I'm really ambitious and have chick peas around, a far better deal is Chana Masala (on Mallika's excellent Quick Indian Cooking site), but garbanzo beans can only be purchased at shops that carry certain imports and I keep forgetting to have the CH check for them at Costco (where he can get a whole case). What I have remembered to have him pick up a case of, however, is refried beans and there's a really fast and easy way to make them into a nice lunch that takes them from having a canned taste and smelling like dog food to being fresh and tasty.
A long while ago, I had a get-together with a few co-workers and I served up some Tex-Mex including beans prepared in this style. One of my co-workers said he always hated refried beans before he tried them done up this way. The main point of this is to get some fresh vegetables in there to undercut the overly beany nature. This isn't so much a "recipe" as just a form of preparation. You need a food processor, hand mixer (everyone should have a hand mixer!) or blender of some sort, or be willing to mash and mix stuff with your own powerful arms.
- 1 can refried beans
- 1 tomato
- 1/4 white onion
- 1/2-2 tbsp. of taco seasoning (to taste)
- salsa (to taste)
- shredded cheese (optional)
- chopped green onions (optional)
I especially enjoy this over Tex-Mex style fried rice with jalepeno sauce instead of salsa (like Tabasco only green and distilled from a different pepper), though it is incredibly filling with rice, and decidedly more effort because you've also got to make rice. For lunch, I usually just have it with Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips which we tend to have around for the CH's lunch boxes.
Those in Japan can get refried beans in Japanese stores that stock other Mexican food items, but they're a lot cheaper at Costco or through the Foreign Buyer's Club. You can also pick up a big canister of organic taco seasoning at Costco (which will last you ages, but cost less than a handful of the packet stuff at a Japanese store). You can top it with Japanese mixed (real) cheese, but it's better with a nice cheddar.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Rosetta World
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of commercials on Japanese cable television for "Rosetta World" software. If you don't know about Rosetta, better known as "Rosetta Stone" in America, it's software which teaches you languages through "dynamic immersion." That is, they attempt to teach you through pairing words and phrases with pictures rather than translation. The idea is to simulate the way we learn our native language rather than laboriously learn to translate our native language into a new one.
Seeing commercials for language learning software or programs is certainly not a new experience. I've seen one for something called a "chatty parrot" for awhile which is a type of recorder which you listen to and record yourself back into in order to learn English. The commercial for that particular product was singularly unimpressive as the woman they used to display her prowess spoke in grammatically incorrect ways and often in heavily accented English. This is what happens when you don't bring in a native speaker to evaluate the actor's ability and rely on the perceptions of Japanese people who can't tell when someone speaks well or not.
The reason that the Rosetta World commercials caught my attention was that the ads are new to me and their timing is coincidental with an experience I have had lately with the Amazon Vine program. For those who don't know, the Amazon Vine sends some people free items in exchange for reviews. I'm one of those lucky people who has the opportunity to take part in the program. Recently, I was even more grateful because the Vine was offering up a plethora of Rosetta Stone software including Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian and French. Since the software costs somewhere on the order of $500 to buy, anyone who wants to learn a language and can get it for free is in for an unparalleled treat.
At the time that the software was offered, I was shocked because of it being such a high value item. Now, I rather wonder if the Rosetta company is pushing to increase brand awareness and create positive buzz about their product. The infusion of commercials along with the generous parceling out of their software to Vine members seems quite coincidental if they aren't working on increasing their name recognition.
I've been using the Rosetta software for language learning for nearly 2 months now and I really like the way in which it teaches you. In fact, I have found it considerably more effective than other types of study including face-to-face teaching. Part of this is the immersion, but part of it is also the repetition and structuring of the content. As a language teacher, I can really appreciate the effort they made to program in reinforcement and timed review of past lessons. In particular, I think it really helps you get into a language's basics if you're one of those sorts who feels uncomfortable flailing around in front of others trying to stutter out a few words.
While I wouldn't say it's a complete solution as I think the software can only take you so far, I'm happy to see that they're marketing in Japan as I have greater faith in their teaching method than I do in most other software techniques I've seen for English study. I also believe that most young people would be a lot better off using the software than learning from a Japanese English teacher as I used to teach such teachers at Nova and most of them were very poor at English and taught incorrect grammar and pronunciation. The errors they teach people at a young age become so ingrained in students that we can rarely get them "unstuck". If you've every taught a student who said, "I have ever been to (name of place)," you've experienced the fall-out from one of these teachers who taught their students that "ever" and "never" are opposites.
One of my students is actually taking the on-line version of the courses which you can do for a certain duration (3 months for 30,000 yen). I recommended it to her because I think the technique might help address some of her persistent problems with grammar and sentence structure. One good thing about such software is one is encouraged to say it again and again until one gets it right. If a face-to-face teacher does that, the student can become embarrassed or frustrated, but the software doesn't carry any sort of fear of judgment.
Seeing commercials for language learning software or programs is certainly not a new experience. I've seen one for something called a "chatty parrot" for awhile which is a type of recorder which you listen to and record yourself back into in order to learn English. The commercial for that particular product was singularly unimpressive as the woman they used to display her prowess spoke in grammatically incorrect ways and often in heavily accented English. This is what happens when you don't bring in a native speaker to evaluate the actor's ability and rely on the perceptions of Japanese people who can't tell when someone speaks well or not.
The reason that the Rosetta World commercials caught my attention was that the ads are new to me and their timing is coincidental with an experience I have had lately with the Amazon Vine program. For those who don't know, the Amazon Vine sends some people free items in exchange for reviews. I'm one of those lucky people who has the opportunity to take part in the program. Recently, I was even more grateful because the Vine was offering up a plethora of Rosetta Stone software including Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian and French. Since the software costs somewhere on the order of $500 to buy, anyone who wants to learn a language and can get it for free is in for an unparalleled treat.
At the time that the software was offered, I was shocked because of it being such a high value item. Now, I rather wonder if the Rosetta company is pushing to increase brand awareness and create positive buzz about their product. The infusion of commercials along with the generous parceling out of their software to Vine members seems quite coincidental if they aren't working on increasing their name recognition.
I've been using the Rosetta software for language learning for nearly 2 months now and I really like the way in which it teaches you. In fact, I have found it considerably more effective than other types of study including face-to-face teaching. Part of this is the immersion, but part of it is also the repetition and structuring of the content. As a language teacher, I can really appreciate the effort they made to program in reinforcement and timed review of past lessons. In particular, I think it really helps you get into a language's basics if you're one of those sorts who feels uncomfortable flailing around in front of others trying to stutter out a few words.
While I wouldn't say it's a complete solution as I think the software can only take you so far, I'm happy to see that they're marketing in Japan as I have greater faith in their teaching method than I do in most other software techniques I've seen for English study. I also believe that most young people would be a lot better off using the software than learning from a Japanese English teacher as I used to teach such teachers at Nova and most of them were very poor at English and taught incorrect grammar and pronunciation. The errors they teach people at a young age become so ingrained in students that we can rarely get them "unstuck". If you've every taught a student who said, "I have ever been to (name of place)," you've experienced the fall-out from one of these teachers who taught their students that "ever" and "never" are opposites.
One of my students is actually taking the on-line version of the courses which you can do for a certain duration (3 months for 30,000 yen). I recommended it to her because I think the technique might help address some of her persistent problems with grammar and sentence structure. One good thing about such software is one is encouraged to say it again and again until one gets it right. If a face-to-face teacher does that, the student can become embarrassed or frustrated, but the software doesn't carry any sort of fear of judgment.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
There are three types of marital status situations in Japan for foreign females. Single, married to a Japanese person, and married to a foreign person. The first two make up the vast majority of foreign women in Japan, at least outside of the posh gaijin ghettos. Those lucky women, who tend to live a life similar to that in the U.S. with cars, foreign grocery shops and expense accounts, generally aren't here for a long time because they move back home when their husband's work here is done.
I am most definitely in the minority when it comes to being foreign, female, married to another foreigner, and having lived here for a long time. This sort of makes me wonder if no foreign woman in her right mind would live here for so long if she didn't have to, but that sort of indicates that I'm very much not in my right mind (which may already be obvious to some of you).
Japan can be a very hard place for foreign women because the culture is still male-centric. Even if your husband is a perfect specimen of equality, the world around you and very likely your Japanese in-laws will not be (if you've got a Japanese hubby). I have often said that I could never have married a Japanese man because there are so many issues. One of them is the mother-in-law issue can be much worse here than the bad in-law situations back home. The main reason for that is exemplified in something one of my (still single and in her 40's) student told me. We were talking about relationships and she said she never wanted to marry. When I asked her why, she said that her mother was "bullied" by her paternal grandmother and aunt and she saw the stress and difficulty that put on her mother. I asked her what they criticized her mother about and she said 'anything and everything.' She went on to say that she believed it was the "custom" in Japan for female in-laws to rag on the wife of their darling son or brother.
While I'm certain that this situation is not the case for everyone, I'm also sure that there are status issues at play and a different role for in-laws in Japanese culture. In my absolutely anecdotal and statistically invalid experience, about 30% of married Japanese women have no or few in-law issues and the rest find it to be one of the most onerous aspects of marriage. These in-law problems don't tend to extend to foreign men who marry Japanese women though since the culture doesn't have a "custom" of criticizing and interfering with husbands like it does with wives.
Wives have the unfortunate burden of having to prove themselves on multiple levels (in all cultures, but more so in Japan in my opinion). They have to cook, clean, give birth to and raise kids, and, if necessary, work part-time to contribute to the family income. Men essentially have to be healthy and work. Mainly, they have to work full-time and make enough money to support the family. Being a successful Japanese housewife and mother can be a pretty high bar to get your chin up to in the eyes of a mother-in-law and Japanese society. I'm guessing this is why marriage rates are dropping in Japan and women are marrying later. Now that many women can work and have careers in Japan, they're not so keen to toss it all aside for the burdens of marriage.
Several weeks ago, I was recommended a blog written by a foreign wife of a Japanese man through Google Reader. If you don't use this function, I recommend you do as it'll point you to blogs similar to ones to which you're already subscribed. If you subscribe to your own blog, you can get ones similar to your type of writing as well. It's an excellent way to find new content of the type which you already enjoy.
Getting back to the point though, this woman is living my worst image of what life would be like with a Japanese husband. Please don't get me wrong. I don't think that there aren't women who have problems with foreign husbands, but just that your options are different in a relationship with a Japanese person because of cultural issues and different expectations. If you're married to a foreign fellow and he's a jerk, you have a support network that believes he is also a jerk because they have the same values as you when it comes to marital roles. When you're married to a Japanese man, you get less support when he is slack about doing his part with housework or kids because you are perceived as a failure as a wife. He is not likely to be perceived as a failure as a husband if he works full-time and is seen as making a decent living.
This morning, I read a piece by this woman and she was attempting to put together one of those elaborate bento chock full of fully-cooked little tidbits elegantly arranged in a bento box which Japanese wives are supposed to do without difficulty or complaint. All she asked was that her husband lend a hand with their kids in the morning while she tried to whip up his requested lunch box (which he was taking along on community event, he wasn't working). He shirked the responsibility he agreed to by running off to the toilet five times and generally finding ways not to take care of the kids for a short time.
Now, this stood in exceptionally sharp contrast to my morning where I slept in 20 minutes later than my CH and woke up with a backache. This isn't unusual for me these days as I tend to have back pain every morning but it wears off in about 15-30 minutes and I usually wake up before the CH so it passes and I take care of business before he heads off to work. Keep in mind that the CH works full-time from Wednesday to Sunday so he's got a full day of work and a commute ahead of him whereas I've got just 4 hours of private lessons in the apartment. Because I have a backache, he prepares his own coffee, gets his own lunch together, and serves me my coffee in the 15 minutes he's got before he has to rush out the door.
I can't help but compare the other woman's harried morning to my morning occurring in the same time frame. Hers ends with a big fight and a cathartic blog post. Mine ends with me eating a chestnut pastry that the CH picked up especially for me last night on his way home from work along with the coffee he served me (including microwaving milk for the coffee to just the right temperature). I can't help but think that I'm living a life which is a dream and she's living my nightmare.
I am most definitely in the minority when it comes to being foreign, female, married to another foreigner, and having lived here for a long time. This sort of makes me wonder if no foreign woman in her right mind would live here for so long if she didn't have to, but that sort of indicates that I'm very much not in my right mind (which may already be obvious to some of you).
Japan can be a very hard place for foreign women because the culture is still male-centric. Even if your husband is a perfect specimen of equality, the world around you and very likely your Japanese in-laws will not be (if you've got a Japanese hubby). I have often said that I could never have married a Japanese man because there are so many issues. One of them is the mother-in-law issue can be much worse here than the bad in-law situations back home. The main reason for that is exemplified in something one of my (still single and in her 40's) student told me. We were talking about relationships and she said she never wanted to marry. When I asked her why, she said that her mother was "bullied" by her paternal grandmother and aunt and she saw the stress and difficulty that put on her mother. I asked her what they criticized her mother about and she said 'anything and everything.' She went on to say that she believed it was the "custom" in Japan for female in-laws to rag on the wife of their darling son or brother.
While I'm certain that this situation is not the case for everyone, I'm also sure that there are status issues at play and a different role for in-laws in Japanese culture. In my absolutely anecdotal and statistically invalid experience, about 30% of married Japanese women have no or few in-law issues and the rest find it to be one of the most onerous aspects of marriage. These in-law problems don't tend to extend to foreign men who marry Japanese women though since the culture doesn't have a "custom" of criticizing and interfering with husbands like it does with wives.
Wives have the unfortunate burden of having to prove themselves on multiple levels (in all cultures, but more so in Japan in my opinion). They have to cook, clean, give birth to and raise kids, and, if necessary, work part-time to contribute to the family income. Men essentially have to be healthy and work. Mainly, they have to work full-time and make enough money to support the family. Being a successful Japanese housewife and mother can be a pretty high bar to get your chin up to in the eyes of a mother-in-law and Japanese society. I'm guessing this is why marriage rates are dropping in Japan and women are marrying later. Now that many women can work and have careers in Japan, they're not so keen to toss it all aside for the burdens of marriage.
Several weeks ago, I was recommended a blog written by a foreign wife of a Japanese man through Google Reader. If you don't use this function, I recommend you do as it'll point you to blogs similar to ones to which you're already subscribed. If you subscribe to your own blog, you can get ones similar to your type of writing as well. It's an excellent way to find new content of the type which you already enjoy.
Getting back to the point though, this woman is living my worst image of what life would be like with a Japanese husband. Please don't get me wrong. I don't think that there aren't women who have problems with foreign husbands, but just that your options are different in a relationship with a Japanese person because of cultural issues and different expectations. If you're married to a foreign fellow and he's a jerk, you have a support network that believes he is also a jerk because they have the same values as you when it comes to marital roles. When you're married to a Japanese man, you get less support when he is slack about doing his part with housework or kids because you are perceived as a failure as a wife. He is not likely to be perceived as a failure as a husband if he works full-time and is seen as making a decent living.
This morning, I read a piece by this woman and she was attempting to put together one of those elaborate bento chock full of fully-cooked little tidbits elegantly arranged in a bento box which Japanese wives are supposed to do without difficulty or complaint. All she asked was that her husband lend a hand with their kids in the morning while she tried to whip up his requested lunch box (which he was taking along on community event, he wasn't working). He shirked the responsibility he agreed to by running off to the toilet five times and generally finding ways not to take care of the kids for a short time.
Now, this stood in exceptionally sharp contrast to my morning where I slept in 20 minutes later than my CH and woke up with a backache. This isn't unusual for me these days as I tend to have back pain every morning but it wears off in about 15-30 minutes and I usually wake up before the CH so it passes and I take care of business before he heads off to work. Keep in mind that the CH works full-time from Wednesday to Sunday so he's got a full day of work and a commute ahead of him whereas I've got just 4 hours of private lessons in the apartment. Because I have a backache, he prepares his own coffee, gets his own lunch together, and serves me my coffee in the 15 minutes he's got before he has to rush out the door.
I can't help but compare the other woman's harried morning to my morning occurring in the same time frame. Hers ends with a big fight and a cathartic blog post. Mine ends with me eating a chestnut pastry that the CH picked up especially for me last night on his way home from work along with the coffee he served me (including microwaving milk for the coffee to just the right temperature). I can't help but think that I'm living a life which is a dream and she's living my nightmare.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Teeth
When my mother was in her mid to late 20's, she had beautiful, straight, white teeth. Before she turned 30, she had no teeth at all and was wearing dentures. She lost her teeth to what was called "Pyorrhea" at that time and is now more generally referred to as "periodontal disease."
Since her teeth were perfect, this came as quite a shock to her and it was very painful having all of her teeth removed and her jawbone scraped of disease all at once. She relayed a story on multiple occasions about how she kept her face frozen with ice packs after the procedure because she saw a woman who had had a similar unfortunate experience whose face was nearly unrecognizable because of the swelling.
You'd think that someone who had endured what she had would have reared her children to take very good care of their teeth since she knew the suffering one might endure if disease struck. As a matter of fact, the opposite was the case. As normal kids who dislike spending time pursuing any sort of hygiene routine, we resisted brushing our teeth and she quickly gave up and didn't enforce any sort of oral hygiene behavior. This resulted in two gaping holes in my lower jaw where the second molar from the back was ripped out on both sides because of cavities when I was about age 10 and 12. My family was too poor to go the rebuilding route, so they just told the dentist to take them out and damn the consequences to my oral health.
When I became a teenager, I worked out a few things on my own about taking care of my teeth and became pretty fastidious about brushing. To this day, I can't tolerate the idea of going to bed without clean teeth and generally have not had any issues since getting them cleaned up and having all the cavities drilled and filled in Japan early on during my stay. It's a sad statement on the health care situation in the U.S. that I worked two jobs simultaneously just after college (one full, one part-time) and had no dental care plan (nor did I have one from the job I held in California). I had to go to another country to find a system that would take care of my problems in an affordable manner.
Fortunately, after that initial sequence of drilling and filling, all has been well for many years. Two years ago, I went to the dentist for a check-up and cleaning and he looked at my teeth for all of 10 seconds and said they were still fine. The same system of socialized medicine in Japan that took care of my teeth also encourages doctors to offer thumbnail consultations for those on the national plan, unfortunately. However, it's certainly better than the nothing I had in the States.
About a year ago, I started waking up with a bad taste in my mouth. For a lot of people, I'm guessing this is probably not unusual if all the "morning breath" allusions are to be believed. For the record, I've never had that problem. It seems that I've reached the age where being careful with brushing isn't enough and I had to break down and start with the flossing. Yes, I know you're supposed to floss regularly all your life, but I didn't have any issues so I was slack. Also, my gums are sensitive and it gave me terrible headaches from referred pain to do it so I gave up. I'm going to forestall any reminders about how sensitive gums are the result of not flossing and you have to do it for awhile to get past that by saying I'm already aware of that. That being said, I haven't had any gum disease.
This particular change has been yet another reminder of the fact that there are all sorts of lapses in judgment about your health that you can get away with when you're younger that you can't allow as you get older. I can't tell you how many times I've recognized that a body in its 40's isn't going to recover as quickly or effortlessly from bad habits as one in its 20's. I don't mind a lot of things about getting older, but the fact that your body no longer (seemingly) effortlessly and transparently looks after itself when you don't apply meticulous care is one I definitely mind.
Since her teeth were perfect, this came as quite a shock to her and it was very painful having all of her teeth removed and her jawbone scraped of disease all at once. She relayed a story on multiple occasions about how she kept her face frozen with ice packs after the procedure because she saw a woman who had had a similar unfortunate experience whose face was nearly unrecognizable because of the swelling.
You'd think that someone who had endured what she had would have reared her children to take very good care of their teeth since she knew the suffering one might endure if disease struck. As a matter of fact, the opposite was the case. As normal kids who dislike spending time pursuing any sort of hygiene routine, we resisted brushing our teeth and she quickly gave up and didn't enforce any sort of oral hygiene behavior. This resulted in two gaping holes in my lower jaw where the second molar from the back was ripped out on both sides because of cavities when I was about age 10 and 12. My family was too poor to go the rebuilding route, so they just told the dentist to take them out and damn the consequences to my oral health.
When I became a teenager, I worked out a few things on my own about taking care of my teeth and became pretty fastidious about brushing. To this day, I can't tolerate the idea of going to bed without clean teeth and generally have not had any issues since getting them cleaned up and having all the cavities drilled and filled in Japan early on during my stay. It's a sad statement on the health care situation in the U.S. that I worked two jobs simultaneously just after college (one full, one part-time) and had no dental care plan (nor did I have one from the job I held in California). I had to go to another country to find a system that would take care of my problems in an affordable manner.
Fortunately, after that initial sequence of drilling and filling, all has been well for many years. Two years ago, I went to the dentist for a check-up and cleaning and he looked at my teeth for all of 10 seconds and said they were still fine. The same system of socialized medicine in Japan that took care of my teeth also encourages doctors to offer thumbnail consultations for those on the national plan, unfortunately. However, it's certainly better than the nothing I had in the States.
About a year ago, I started waking up with a bad taste in my mouth. For a lot of people, I'm guessing this is probably not unusual if all the "morning breath" allusions are to be believed. For the record, I've never had that problem. It seems that I've reached the age where being careful with brushing isn't enough and I had to break down and start with the flossing. Yes, I know you're supposed to floss regularly all your life, but I didn't have any issues so I was slack. Also, my gums are sensitive and it gave me terrible headaches from referred pain to do it so I gave up. I'm going to forestall any reminders about how sensitive gums are the result of not flossing and you have to do it for awhile to get past that by saying I'm already aware of that. That being said, I haven't had any gum disease.
This particular change has been yet another reminder of the fact that there are all sorts of lapses in judgment about your health that you can get away with when you're younger that you can't allow as you get older. I can't tell you how many times I've recognized that a body in its 40's isn't going to recover as quickly or effortlessly from bad habits as one in its 20's. I don't mind a lot of things about getting older, but the fact that your body no longer (seemingly) effortlessly and transparently looks after itself when you don't apply meticulous care is one I definitely mind.
Friday, September 19, 2008
R.I.P. eMachine
The computer I mentioned was acting strangely in a previous post, has gone to computer heaven. Now that it's there, I'm sure it's sound card will play nothing but harp music and it'll rest on a cloud which is never too hot or too cold for optimal performance. It'll also never get dusty inside, which is a lot more than I can say for its earthly lifespan where carpets of dust lay inside of it's metal innards.
Since that computer was primarily a means to watch computer content on television, I didn't think or care much about replacing it, but my CH has said that he really would like to have a computer attached to the television for this purpose. In particular, he'd like to be able to watch streaming content like the Colbert Report or the Daily Show on the bigger screen regularly. This is not particularly convenient or mechanically possible from any of the 5 machines currently crammed into our tiny living room because only two have S-video outputs and both of those are workhorses that can't be surrendered to T.V. duty.
After discussing this, we decided that the next oldest machine, my current Mac Mini, is the best candidate for a move to semi-retirement. It's now 2 1/2 years old and has never been all that fast. I looked into Apple's current line-up and my desktop options are very limited (as they have been for ages due to Apple's limited line-up). I considered each of the following:
1. A Mac Pro tower
This would be ideal, but it's also too expensive. In Japan, the price is around $3,000 and it's more than I actually need (though I'm hungry for a better graphics processor than I get on a low end Macs). I just can't justify such an extravagant outlay of cash for more machine than I require.
2. An iMac
This looks good except for the fact that I don't need a display and it's $600 more than a Mini. It does have better video and other specs, but it's hard to justify it both because the monitor portion is not necessary and I really prefer not to clutter my (already too small) desk with another display. The funny thing about momentum is that it's rather hard to get off the merry-go-round once you're on it. I have a nice display and I have two computers that use it. Getting one that doesn't need it and has its own causes issues.
3. Another Mac Mini
Reluctantly, I believe this is the route I have to take. The video processor specs disappoint me greatly, though swapping to an Intel dual core processor should give me a great speed boost. I may also toss in some more RAM, but I haven't decided for certain yet. At the very least, I'm sure Photoshop and Rosetta Stone will run better.
Before deciding to take the plunge though, I checked out when the Minis were last updated by Apple. There's a very helpful buyer's guide at MacRumors which gives you dates of updates as well as recommendations about buying now or waiting. If you're in the market for a new Mac, this is your one-stop shop for considering whether to wait or buy now and possibly regret it in the near future because Apple released a new one right after you made your purchase. The Mini was last updated a little over a year ago and is overdue for a refresh. I'm hoping that Apple tries to roll something out in October or November (for Christmas) so we can pick up a new one when they come out. For now, we've decided to wait and see what Apple offers rather than take the plunge right away. In the mean time, we'll have to watch on the small screen rather than the big one when it comes to video.
This has been a surprisingly big year for us on computer purchases. I bought a new PC (maybe that's why my old eMachine died...it was sad that I got a new one for a whopping $300), the CH got a new MacBook, and, with any luck, there will be a new Mac desktop by the end of the year. I'm a little unhappy about buying all this new stuff, but gratified that our lifestyle is such that we can do so without impacting our budget much or without having to go into debt.
Since that computer was primarily a means to watch computer content on television, I didn't think or care much about replacing it, but my CH has said that he really would like to have a computer attached to the television for this purpose. In particular, he'd like to be able to watch streaming content like the Colbert Report or the Daily Show on the bigger screen regularly. This is not particularly convenient or mechanically possible from any of the 5 machines currently crammed into our tiny living room because only two have S-video outputs and both of those are workhorses that can't be surrendered to T.V. duty.
After discussing this, we decided that the next oldest machine, my current Mac Mini, is the best candidate for a move to semi-retirement. It's now 2 1/2 years old and has never been all that fast. I looked into Apple's current line-up and my desktop options are very limited (as they have been for ages due to Apple's limited line-up). I considered each of the following:
1. A Mac Pro tower
This would be ideal, but it's also too expensive. In Japan, the price is around $3,000 and it's more than I actually need (though I'm hungry for a better graphics processor than I get on a low end Macs). I just can't justify such an extravagant outlay of cash for more machine than I require.
2. An iMac
This looks good except for the fact that I don't need a display and it's $600 more than a Mini. It does have better video and other specs, but it's hard to justify it both because the monitor portion is not necessary and I really prefer not to clutter my (already too small) desk with another display. The funny thing about momentum is that it's rather hard to get off the merry-go-round once you're on it. I have a nice display and I have two computers that use it. Getting one that doesn't need it and has its own causes issues.
3. Another Mac Mini
Reluctantly, I believe this is the route I have to take. The video processor specs disappoint me greatly, though swapping to an Intel dual core processor should give me a great speed boost. I may also toss in some more RAM, but I haven't decided for certain yet. At the very least, I'm sure Photoshop and Rosetta Stone will run better.
Before deciding to take the plunge though, I checked out when the Minis were last updated by Apple. There's a very helpful buyer's guide at MacRumors which gives you dates of updates as well as recommendations about buying now or waiting. If you're in the market for a new Mac, this is your one-stop shop for considering whether to wait or buy now and possibly regret it in the near future because Apple released a new one right after you made your purchase. The Mini was last updated a little over a year ago and is overdue for a refresh. I'm hoping that Apple tries to roll something out in October or November (for Christmas) so we can pick up a new one when they come out. For now, we've decided to wait and see what Apple offers rather than take the plunge right away. In the mean time, we'll have to watch on the small screen rather than the big one when it comes to video.
This has been a surprisingly big year for us on computer purchases. I bought a new PC (maybe that's why my old eMachine died...it was sad that I got a new one for a whopping $300), the CH got a new MacBook, and, with any luck, there will be a new Mac desktop by the end of the year. I'm a little unhappy about buying all this new stuff, but gratified that our lifestyle is such that we can do so without impacting our budget much or without having to go into debt.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Old Pictures
Minnehaha Campfire girls (photo by Sammy Fischer and taken from the Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library collection - link to the full collection appears below)Have you ever stumbled across a stash or record of old photos and thought that it looked like those people lived in another world? Awhile ago, I set up a gallery for a collection of glass slides for a CD-ROM for the library at which my sister works. The collection is a fascinating set of photos taken by a man named Sammy Fischer who took the pictures around 1919 (this is one of the years written on one of the pictures).
The world shown in those pictures seems to little resemble the one we live in today. There are horse races on the fair grounds and old cars. There's a "water plant" which is little more than a rickety-looking water tower. Buildings all look inelegant and utilitarian. All of them are a bit shoddy-looking, but this was the norm of the day. There are people dressed in football, band, military, and scout uniforms that betray the times. I also noticed that few people are smiling in many of the group pictures and I wonder what that says about the zeitgeist they lived in. If you have some time, you might want to browse the pictures. They're both fascinating and haunting.
I have a lot of these sorts of old family photos but, unfortunately, many of them are damaged or of poor quality.Time passes for us all and we change as does the world around us. Recently, I was looking through a collection of my own family photos and I was profoundly struck by how our family pictures now appear to have been taken from another age. The picture above is my sister on a pony (my mother crouches behind the pony because she doesn't want her picture taken). The picture also shows the fact that there was a gas pump at the corner of our front lawn at that time. There was never a gas station there, but at some point in time, one could have a gas pump on their property, it seems.
It's sort of freaky to look back on these pictures and know that someone else will view them as being from "another age". I'm old enough to have grown up in a time which was markedly different from the world we now live in. You can see it in the way our house was built, the way our toys looked, and the fact that poor kids had ponies. This sort of freaks me out. I wish I could say I can be philosophical about it, but I really can't. It's not so much that I feel old (though I always do and have since my late teens), but more that the pace of change in the world gives me a sense of it hurtling forward purposelessly at breakneck speed and I'm really ready for it to slow down now (pretty please?).
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