moving, pt 2

Today I moved to Watanabe-san’s house. It’s weird to move right as I adjust, but that’s just the way things go with homestays in Japan it seems. My room here is really big, has a TV, old manga and children’s books (yay!) and lots of shelf/drawer space to put my stuff in. There’s no Internet for me to connect my computer to (although there is a dial-up connection on the PC downstairs), but I have a nice connection at work so I can deal with this for a week.

 

Yesterday, I found out I had an interview scheduled for today. It’s a little short-notice, but I’ve survived an interview for publication at the company before and knew I could stumble through it. I really wish I would’ve asked more about the nature of this interview though because after the two newspaper reporters arrived in the meeting room, I found out I was supposed to be asking the questions. Whoops. I was able to think of a few questions on my own and ask them in Japanese the best I could, but there was still a lot of awkward silence and answers from the reporters I just didn’t really understand. I found out that if I wanted to do journalism-related work in Japan, the best route would be pursuing anアルバイト (arubaito; part-time job) translating Japanese newspaper articles to English, or be a foreign correspondent for an English-speaking news outlet. As I expected, foreigners don’t really get bilingual journalism jobs in Japan. I could tell one of the reporters was getting frustrated with how little I could understand by the end of the interview because he would say things like, “well she probably doesn’t understand right now, so please explain it to her later,” and “I don’t think she could do a public relations job.” Ironically, I understood those bits and pieces.

 

After the interview I went back to the Yoshida’s to wait until my luggage could be picked up. Noriko gave me a tea lesson before I left, and that was fun. I’m always so impressed with people who study sado, Japanese tea ceremony, because there are SO many little details to remember.

 

Tomorrow I get up early to leave by 6:45 a.m. with Watanabe-san. She usually doesn’t leave this early, but because there’s a special meeting tomorrow she has to arrive early to help prepare for it and make tea. LOTS of tea-making goes on at all Japanese workplaces it seems. Most of the time it’s prepared by the female employees. The only time guys have tea duty is when the women aren’t around.

 

Watanabe-san and I talked a little bit about what we might do this weekend. Saturday’s schedule was decided my first week at work when she invited me to see kabuki (Japanese theater). We’re also going to see fireworks after that. On Sunday we’re kicking around the idea of going sightseeing in Odaiba or Yokohama. She has family in Yokohama so if they’re free we might go sightseeing with them.

 

I really want to make a post about the baseball game and Fuji-san from this weekend because both were really fun ^^ 時間があれば、ね。

 

 

 

moving

I'm moving to a new homestay family today. For some reason I don't have to be at work until 10:30a.m., so I'm hanging out and writing while Noriko takes care of the usual day-to-day business around the house. I try to help if I can, but a lot of the time it's just best if I sit back. For example, this morning I had gathered all of my trash from the last week and sorted it accordingly to burnable items, non-burnable items, and then my plastic bottles. I thought up until this point I had an OK handle on how the Japanese trash works, but, as usual, the Japanese way of doing things is not as simple as expected.

I went to help Noriko take out the trash, and went to empty the non-burnable trash into a bag. She stopped me and told me today was only for the burnable trash. She started taking the magazines I had placed in the burnable trash and said they would go out tomorrow with the newspapers as part of the "paper" trash. My plastic bottles would be put with the glass bottles and cans would go out on their appointed twice-a-month date. No wonder she has this written out on the calendar.

My moving date is also scribbled in on the calendar here. I've finished packing, and realized that I have WAY more souvenirs at this point than I thought I would. I also thought I'd have less money, too, but I've been pretty well taken care of in that respect. I already know I can't thank these people enough.

When I do go into work today I'm supposed to have an interview and lunch with two people from a Japanese newspaper. I found out about this yesterday, and although it'll probably be fun, I'm not looking forward to feeling dumb when I don't know what they're asking. The last interview I did was with someone from Bushu Gas, and he used a lot of words that I didn't know, but were synonyms for words I did know (i.e. different words for "study," "experience," etc.). He also had the worst kata-kana-ized English ever, so when we were talking about American actors or movies he would have to repeat the name or title a bunch before I could actually make the connection. I can't even count how many times he said "Eddie Murphy" before I realized what he was talking about. Maybe this will go better, though. And afterwards I don't really have anything scheduled I don't think, so I'll probably do the same thing I do everyday--try to figure out how I'm going to get back to Japan again.

busy busy busy

NO FREE TIME HERE! EVER!

But at least it's tons of fun. :3

It's coming up on my last night with the Yoshida's, and they've just been awesome so far. This weekend we went to Mt. Fuji (and other surrounding places) and a baseball game, which I've been wanting to see since my time at Chubu University.

Details and pictures later hopefully!

It`s only 8:30 a.m. and two embarassing things have happened already. The article from the interview I had on Tuesday was not only published but sent to the entire company through e-mail, and the husband in the homestay family told the two people who work with me about my skin condition. Yay, privacy!

 

bright and early

I was up at the crack of 6:00 a.m. The sun here gets up well before me though... it wakes up at about 4:30 a.m. and is shining at full bore by the time I`m awake. Sort of like the Japanese people, I guess.

I really wish they hadn`t given me a guys uniform. Not that I`m complaining though--having a uniform means that I didn`t need to bring a weeks worth of business clothing in addition the casual clothes (mostly capris and t-shirts) I brought.

They just handed me the company principles. THere`s a meeting in 10 minutes. Gotta go.

homestay

I'm at the Masahiro's house tonight and they are *such* a nice couple. They're both very easy to talk to and have an interest in learning English. I always feel a little more comfortable when my host family is willing to learn English because I feel like I can give back to them a little more, instead of just giving them a small gift of American chocolates (even though Malleys is great stuff).

I asked why the government official had come by the office today, and Yoshida-san (the husband) explained that they had a stockholders meeting that morning. He said he thought it would be nice if Bushu interns could sit in on the meeting, which they have once a year, but the schedule usually doesn't work out.

We had katsu, tofu, rice, miso and salad at dinner, which was topped off with an tasty and adorable fruit and pudding cup for dessert. Delicious. Breakfast, however, is at 6:45 a.m. tomorrow. Yikes. After that, I'm supposed to bike with Yoshida-san to Bushu Gas. It's about a 10-minute bike ride. Another worker from Yoshida-san's section, Tobisawa-san, guided me on the bike ride to the Masahiro's house. Japanese streets are really small (about the size of an American road's lane), but you don't fully realize how small until you're riding your bike on it with all kinds of cars weaving past you. That was a little scary. The bike the company is letting me borrow is battery-powered though, so that's really cool.

So tomorrow I return to Bushu Gas for what I'm told will be a more general tour and orientation. I'll have my uniform ready (thanks to Watanabe-san, who hemmed my pants to a more fitting length, and to Fujimura-san, who found me a new pair of shoes because, although I gave the company my Japanese shoe size, the shoes they gave me were men's and not women's), and will go to the locker room to transform from regular gaijin to intern gaijin.

It's so late here now. おやすみ :D

blogging live from Bushu Gas Company

I`m now sitting at my own official desk at the Bushu Gas Company. Did not know I was going to end up here today, much less at my own desk, with my own computer, welcome sign, 3 newspapers (all Yomiuri Shinbun), with my own business cards (which is probably the biggest deal of them all... I remember learning that students such as myself really shouldn`t have their own meishi/business cards). It`s difficult typing on this Japanese keyboard.

OH, and I might be leaving soon with the person from my first homestay family by bike soon. Good thing I decided not to wear a skirt after all.

The weirdest thing is probably watching everybody work and sitting here and passing time by reading the paper, checking my mail and writing this. Everyone is genuinely busy and works at a very fast pace. From what I`ve learned today, I`m in the HR group right now. I`ll eventually study with all of the major groups in the company while I`m here. I keep feeling like I should ask for help, but I honestly know I would slow these fast-paced people down.

So, the person from my first homestay family, who is the boss of the group I`m currently with、just came over and gave me some really interesting news. "You`re a journalism major, right?" he asked. He explained Bushu Gas has no relation to journalism, but that he can try to introduce me to a newspaper, online radio and TV company in Saitama. I think he`s on the phone with them right now because he`s definitely talking about me. I keep hearing a lot of dates, days and "Sou desu ka?"s so we`ll see how it goes...

So today the internship finally started (obviously). I was told I`d be going to my homestay family`s house first, but didn`t know I`d be going to my company today. I found that out on the car ride there. Just like I didn`t find out my homestay family wasn`t at the welcome party until halfway through the party. I can definitely see what Mike, another intern, joked about with "gaijin telepathy," one of the few Gaijin Smash powers that the Japanese people think foreigners have, but don`t. Gaijin telepathy is where they assume we know some important details (like whether you`re going to the company today instead of tomorrow), so they don`t actually tell you, leaving you in a perpetual state of ignorance. Another good example for just this trip was that the program directors assumed we knew what days to where nice clothes or casual clothes and the required degree for dressing up. You learn to think of and ask about these details ahead of time, but it`s just another disconnect to watch out for in my still-awkward Japanese communication abilities. (By the way, if you have time, check out the above link for more of the gaijin powers... they`re pretty funny, and very true).

I got a pretty cool welcome from the company though. I pulled up in the car with two people from the HR division who I met at the welcome party (I have to remember to write about that, too), and was met with a small group of people in the Bushu Gas uniform. They were clapping enthusiastically and made me feel welcomed and embarassed. I was ushered to a small room upstairs to wait for further directions, which was a really silent, polar opposite to the welcoming chaos downstairs. While I was waiting this older man in a suit and a man in a Bushu uniform came to the doorway. I stood up thinking this was the company president and starting the usual greetings, but noticed his business card was not at all from Bushu Gas. As they were departing, the Bushu Gas worker mentioned he was from the "lower house," and I realized I met someone from the Japanese House of Representatives. Yikes. This Representative was the reason that everyone in Bushu Gas was so busy today.

I really need to start writing down some of the minor details from conversations I have throughout the day because by the time I get to a computer, I never remember them.