I just got back from Tokyo, where I slew the GMAT like the tyrannical beast it is, and also saw the first real metal concert I've seen in months, but that's only a lead-in, not the topic of this post. Nay, it's the last leg of my trip home that gets the limelight this time. On the day I returned I first had lunch with a friend, and then hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) for the 2.5 hour trip back north. This was uneventful, but when I arrived in Morioka I had to take a highway bus back to the Kosaka region, as no trains go that far out into the Great Unknown. This was planned; being a bit short on cash was not. "No problem," you say, right? "Just use a credit card." I tried that, and got shot down at the ticket window. Japan is not a big plastic payment society. Cash is the way of things, and everyone seems to carry enormous wads of it in their wallets; the almost complete lack of violent crime here makes that a common occurrence, if not one I'm always comfortable with. To put it in perspective, in a bad year you might need to count on toes to figure out the number of murders nationwide.
So anywho, what's your next thought here? Is it something like, "No problem, just go to an ATM?"
From an American point of view this seems like a viable option, and over here it almost is. They of course have ATMs, and in any civilized city it's not hard to find one compatible with your bank. Not all of them cooperate with every bank, but this is hardly the inconvenient part. No, the bitch of this situation is that ATMs close. Yes, just like stores run by living, breathing people, ATMs have hours of operation. Apparently the adorable computer image on the screen does in fact get exhausted after a long day of...being digital...and needs to go home for a hot meal, a bath, and bed. Or hell, maybe it prefers to unwind in a more lively fashion and is cruising the town for ale and whores in the evenings. Point is, it ain't where it should be. In Kosaka, my bank's ATMs close at 7pm on weekdays and 5pm on weekends (despite the lack of ale and whores, as far as I'm aware).
I arrived in Morioka around 5:30, saw that I didn't have enough cash for a bus ride home, and immediately hit up the ATM at the train station. No luck. It wouldn't say why, it just gave me a obnoxiously polite "Piss off, I'm not going to help you" message. It certainly wasn't closed; I was able to get as far as inserting my card, putting in my PIN, and requesting a cash amount before it told me this. Sigh.
Japan has a convenient solution to most problems like this. I stopped by the train station's koban (police box) to get some advice. Kobans are like mini police stations, and they are all over the place. There are usually one or two cops there, they know the area really well, they have maps, and, like I said, they're cops. If you ever find yourself in real trouble, you can also go there for emergency assistance. Anyway, the guy there helped me out by drawing me a map to an ATM that he thought would work with my bank, but alas, it did not. As before, this one was on, but when I asked for cash it told me to get bent.
Here's where I discovered that it's not just the individual machine that shuts down, though, it's the entire ATM-ing network across Japan. As I said, I had arrived at the station around 5:30. It was Saturday. If my bank's ATMs close at 5pm on Saturday, that means that no ATM in all of Japan can touch my money after 5pm on Saturday, no matter how late it stays open. Take some time to contemplate the inconvenience and utter flaming stupidity of this system before reading on.
So, back to the koban. This time the cop totally turns into a ninja. He gets on the phone, calls HQ, and basically does exhaustive research to find an ATM that will be willing to speak with my cash card. Five minutes later he's come up with a single 7-11 in the city that should work (I guess there are some ways to bypass most ATMs' convenience-proofing), but it's nowhere nearby. I've already explained my predicament, that all I need is a train ticket home and that acquiring cash isn't a necessity. Somewhere in all of this I communicate that I have a Visa card, and the relief on his face damn near lights up the room. I get the suspicion he may have been considering taking his own life were he to fail in his mission of getting me to Kosaka.
He leads me to a nearby ticket office inside the train station no more than 20 meters away (the previous one was outside, across the bus terminal) where he informs one clerk of my problem, tells her what we've tried so far, and in general is just an awesome guy. Once the clerk understands what bus I normally take and where I'm going, she is able to issue in short order a ticket that I can purchase with my Visa card. Less than a hour later I am homeward bound.
Stepping back from the details of this mess, the big picture looks something like this:
Morioka Station has a bus terminal. Right near the point where I board my bus home, there is an office selling tickets that only accepts cash. Less than a minute's walk away there is a well-lit indoor office that sells different (in appearance, anyway) tickets for the same bus, same schedule, etc. They have no problem with credit cards. Neither one advertises the existence of the other. This is mildly annoying but hardly the end of the world; I did, after all, get home.
I think I've already suitably expressed my rancor for the ATM situation, but the why of it totally eludes me. The usefulness of the ATM is severely diminished if one cannot actually use it much past normal bank hours. I can't imagine it's done to save power - like I said before, neither of the ATMs I visited were actually off, they just couldn't see my account because my bank had closed for the day. And really, if Japan wanted to save power then you wouldn't be able to find vending machines at absolutely any hour in the most isolated of locations, that serve not just cold but also hot beverages.
I may going out on a bit of a limb here, but this strikes me as representative of a larger issue in Japan, that of covering for big problems instead of fixing them at their root. Now, maybe there is a good reason why ATMs (and their respective networks) close at a given time, but even from asking Japanese coworkers I've not gotten any good answers. We even had a laugh over this recently, how the ubiquitous sells-anything vending machine drains a tremendous amount of power keeping some beverages hot and some cold, all within the same unit, but finding a working ATM in the evening, especially in rural areas, practically requires an act of God.
Anyway, it is far from the first time I've encountered a situation like this, where significant issues/inconveniences are covered up with little fixes here and there, but the source of the problem is never addressed. I'm not going to go into any more detail here, but I'm thinking of a post related to this that I hope to get around to in the next week or so.
I'll leave you with a quote I picked up not too long ago that hit this nail right on the head:
"Japan - the only country in the world where the ATMs get more time off than the salarymen."
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
My Japanese heat
No, "Japanese heat" is not a euphemism for getting some hot Asian lovin' - I actually am talking about the process of warming enclosed domiciles to the point where one can exist in them comfortably. This process is largely a sacred mystery to the Japanese.
Japan is a nation that prides itself on the beauty of its four seasons. Aside from the southernmost parts, every prefecture in Japan experiences the four distinct seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Shockingly enough, winter is even colder than summer here, just like the rest of the world. Unlike the rest of the world, though, Japan has an odd approach to dealing with this phenomenon. Japan (or more specifically, Akita prefecture) may not be ass-freezing cold like Minnesota - the lowest temperature I've seen here is -12°C/10°F - but artificial heating is certainly still a necessity. Everything about this country, though, from architecture to everyday practices, seems to violently oppose the efficacy of this.
Take walls, for example. One would think that the people of any region that gets an actual winter with snow would build houses with thicker walls, insulation, etc. Not so much, here. The prevailing attitude here is that such insulation is a wasteful indulgence. I'm lucky in that my apartment is a stout concrete building that holds in heat reasonably well, but wooden houses 'round these parts can suck most heinously.
This leads into the issue of central heating - if you're going to heat an entire house for the winter, you need some sort of energy-efficient barrier to keep the heat in, right? The Japanese approach here is a complete lack of central heating. Houses are generally designed to be easily partitioned off, and space heaters are used to warm only the areas presently in use. This system...works, mostly. The big, obvious drawback is that when you enter a room not previously in use, it's effing cold.
As serene as a crisp winter morning can be in this region, there's still something about it...something just not quite right. A friend of mine put it best when he said, "Isn't it charming how we wake in the morning, crawl out from underneath the electric blanket, inhale that clean mountain air, and the first thing we see is...our breath?"
Oh but wait, it gets better! I'm one of the lucky ones who has an entirely electric heater in my apartment. So long as I keep the sliding doors to my bedroom shut, it keeps the main living area comfortable. Better still, my school even has a crude approximation of central heating! Of course, they turn it off in any room not presently in use, but it still kicks the shit out of the alternative...the kerosene space heater, which many of my fellow JETs deal within both the home and the workplace. There actually are good and evil kerosene heaters, but the evil vastly outnumber the good, just like in any decent epic fantasy.
Good: (more or less) Permanent, built in structures that you simply fill up and turn on, and they vent their waste products to the outside, through some sort of hose-vent technology I haven't bothered to explore further.
Evil: Mobile units that you fill up and plug in wherever you see fit, so that you may enjoy carbony gassy bi-products in any corner of your house. To avoid death, occasionally open a window and let in fresh air. Yes, in the dead of winter. I'm not even going to bother going into how counterproductive this seems.
My favorite Evil story came from another JET here, whose school office is heated by these monsters. They mentioned to fellow staff how there was a bit of a smell in the air and asked off-hand whether that was safe. The answer: "Well...maybe not totally safe...but definitely cheap!"
Hear that? That was the sound of my palm striking my forehead.
All is not unwell, though. The cold I'm totally accustomed to, but the cold + bucketloads of snow + actual mountains = opportunities I've never had before - particularly snowboarding. I was a little apprehensive
about getting into this, as the last time I tried (when I previously lived in Japan) I screwed my ankle so hard I couldn't walk correctly for two months. But what the hell, if everyone's doing it...
It actually went remarkably well. The place we went to was huge! The 10 or so minute gondola ride to the top began to put it in perspective, and...well, I'll let my pictures do the talking.
Mind you, these are only small portions of one of the courses, the longest of which was 5.5km. My, what precious memories I will have...
Engrish never ceases to make me giggle.
In other news, my students are still bastards, but they're cute bastards who make me laugh.
Student (to me, in English): What's up!
Me: 'Sup.
Other teacher (to student, in Japanese): What'd you say?
S: What's up!
OT: WTF does that mean?
S: You wouldn't get it, you're too old.
OT: *smacks kid on back of head*
Me: *laughing this whole time*
or
Student: What does the "up" in "what's up" mean?
Me: It means something that is currently happening, generally in the life of the person you are asking.
S: Really, 'cause I thought it meant to have an erection.
Me: ...
Mind you, I just taught my students "What's up?" no more than a few months ago. They mostly don't have a clue as to the etymology of this expression; they just know the pronunciation and the fact that it's a greeting used by English-speaking youth. I wash my hands of all blame; they took it to where it's gone entirely on their own.
Japan is a nation that prides itself on the beauty of its four seasons. Aside from the southernmost parts, every prefecture in Japan experiences the four distinct seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Shockingly enough, winter is even colder than summer here, just like the rest of the world. Unlike the rest of the world, though, Japan has an odd approach to dealing with this phenomenon. Japan (or more specifically, Akita prefecture) may not be ass-freezing cold like Minnesota - the lowest temperature I've seen here is -12°C/10°F - but artificial heating is certainly still a necessity. Everything about this country, though, from architecture to everyday practices, seems to violently oppose the efficacy of this.
Take walls, for example. One would think that the people of any region that gets an actual winter with snow would build houses with thicker walls, insulation, etc. Not so much, here. The prevailing attitude here is that such insulation is a wasteful indulgence. I'm lucky in that my apartment is a stout concrete building that holds in heat reasonably well, but wooden houses 'round these parts can suck most heinously.
This leads into the issue of central heating - if you're going to heat an entire house for the winter, you need some sort of energy-efficient barrier to keep the heat in, right? The Japanese approach here is a complete lack of central heating. Houses are generally designed to be easily partitioned off, and space heaters are used to warm only the areas presently in use. This system...works, mostly. The big, obvious drawback is that when you enter a room not previously in use, it's effing cold.
As serene as a crisp winter morning can be in this region, there's still something about it...something just not quite right. A friend of mine put it best when he said, "Isn't it charming how we wake in the morning, crawl out from underneath the electric blanket, inhale that clean mountain air, and the first thing we see is...our breath?"
Oh but wait, it gets better! I'm one of the lucky ones who has an entirely electric heater in my apartment. So long as I keep the sliding doors to my bedroom shut, it keeps the main living area comfortable. Better still, my school even has a crude approximation of central heating! Of course, they turn it off in any room not presently in use, but it still kicks the shit out of the alternative...the kerosene space heater, which many of my fellow JETs deal within both the home and the workplace. There actually are good and evil kerosene heaters, but the evil vastly outnumber the good, just like in any decent epic fantasy.
Good: (more or less) Permanent, built in structures that you simply fill up and turn on, and they vent their waste products to the outside, through some sort of hose-vent technology I haven't bothered to explore further.
Evil: Mobile units that you fill up and plug in wherever you see fit, so that you may enjoy carbony gassy bi-products in any corner of your house. To avoid death, occasionally open a window and let in fresh air. Yes, in the dead of winter. I'm not even going to bother going into how counterproductive this seems.
My favorite Evil story came from another JET here, whose school office is heated by these monsters. They mentioned to fellow staff how there was a bit of a smell in the air and asked off-hand whether that was safe. The answer: "Well...maybe not totally safe...but definitely cheap!"
Hear that? That was the sound of my palm striking my forehead.
All is not unwell, though. The cold I'm totally accustomed to, but the cold + bucketloads of snow + actual mountains = opportunities I've never had before - particularly snowboarding. I was a little apprehensive
about getting into this, as the last time I tried (when I previously lived in Japan) I screwed my ankle so hard I couldn't walk correctly for two months. But what the hell, if everyone's doing it...It actually went remarkably well. The place we went to was huge! The 10 or so minute gondola ride to the top began to put it in perspective, and...well, I'll let my pictures do the talking.
Mind you, these are only small portions of one of the courses, the longest of which was 5.5km. My, what precious memories I will have...
Engrish never ceases to make me giggle.
In other news, my students are still bastards, but they're cute bastards who make me laugh.
Student (to me, in English): What's up!
Me: 'Sup.
Other teacher (to student, in Japanese): What'd you say?
S: What's up!
OT: WTF does that mean?
S: You wouldn't get it, you're too old.
OT: *smacks kid on back of head*
Me: *laughing this whole time*
or
Student: What does the "up" in "what's up" mean?
Me: It means something that is currently happening, generally in the life of the person you are asking.
S: Really, 'cause I thought it meant to have an erection.
Me: ...
Mind you, I just taught my students "What's up?" no more than a few months ago. They mostly don't have a clue as to the etymology of this expression; they just know the pronunciation and the fact that it's a greeting used by English-speaking youth. I wash my hands of all blame; they took it to where it's gone entirely on their own.
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