Today I woke up at 6:40 am. I went back to sleep and got up
at 8:15am. I got ready, opened my windows, and ate my onigiri. It was about
9am, so I attempted to use the radio again. The left speaker thudded as before,
but as I left it on and experimented with the settings and stations, the
thudding changed speed, getting slightly faster and weaker, and then going away
all together. It was strange, because at first the right speaker seemed to be
working, but after I plugged in my headphones and took them out to see if that
made the thudding stop (it did), the right speaker stopped making noise. The
left speaker worked though, once it worked away the thudding. I found a
Japanese music station, a Japanese Western oldies station, a classical music
station, and a Sendai news station. There seemed to be much fewer stations than
in America. I only found about 5-6 six stations total out of the AM and FM
settings.
I left my room at about 10am. I should’ve bought a bottle of
water before going to the bank. It took a very long time, and my mouth was
parched. I was trying to get the stamp that connects my bank account with Kobe
University removed, but it turns out that I need to live in Japan for 6
consecutive months before it can be removed. I succeeded in updating my address
and phone number, though. The employee also kindly explained that I should pay
by rental insurance bills and rent bills at the banks where the accounts are
registered.
While I was at the bank waiting, I thought about random
things. I remembered the recent scandal caused by the hacking of the cloud
accounts of several female celebrities and the acquisition of their nude
photos. Why were they all female, I wondered. Would anyone waste their energy
hacking to get nude photos of a male celebrity? Would it be a big media splash
if they did? Perhaps the sexualization of the female body is so extreme in
comparison to the male body that nobody gets so excited they want to steal
photos of a man. But the thought of seeing past the clothes of a woman is
strong enough to lead to action, and to media headlines. If the female body
wasn’t so sexualized, no one would care if they saw a celebrity naked. It would
be just like seeing a male celebrity naked. Maybe a little surprise, but not a
big deal.
After the bank, I stopped at the 7-11 next door and bought a
bottle of water and a green tea ice cream bar with red beans in it. It tried to
eat it, but it was frozen solid; my teeth couldn’t penetrate. I decided to go
to 77 bank (read “shichi juu shichi ginkou) to give it time to melt. The main
branch was right across the street. I found the door that led to the ATMs and
got in line. I went to an open ATM. There was no English option, so I did my
best with the Japanese. There was a line waiting, so I felt pressured to be
quick, but I gave up on that halfway through. On the screen that asked me to
choose the branch of the bank where the account my rent would be paid to belonged,
I had difficulty. I couldn’t read the buttons on the screen, and I couldn’t
read the name of the branch on the paper I had that detailed the account
information. Knowing that staring at the paper wouldn’t help me, I asked the
person next in line to read the bank’s name to me. He did, and I tried to put
it in. Somehow, I couldn’t get the correct name to come up, so it took me 4 or
5 tries before the right kanji finally appeared. After that things were smooth
until it was time to put in the cash. There was an ATM charge, which made the
change uneven, and I hadn’t prepped it beforehand. The machine kept taking my
money and counting it as soon as I put it in, so I had to add it in parts,
since my hands were full of my belongings and instructions and money.
After the money was in, at the end of the transaction was an
option that surprised me. It offered to create a card so that next time I pay
to this account, I just insert the card; I won’t need to input the bank name
and account number and all that information. I wasn’t quite sure if that was
actually what the Japanese said, but I thought, hell yeah! I don’t want to go
through all this again. I had my tutor check it later that day, and he
confirmed what it was.
I was going to go to the post office next, but first, ice
cream. I leaned against a wall, as I stared at my map eating ice cream.
According to my map, there was a post office right around the corner from 77
bank, but I couldn’t see it. After I finished my ice cream, I ended up walking
around a block to find it. Fortunately, the university had given me a sheet of
instructions, so it was easier this time. However, I guess I took too long
entering and checking the 18-digit customer number, because the ATM timed out
on me and I had to start all over. Other than that, I had no problem with
paying this bill.
Then I walked to campus. In the Economics building, I went
to the room where I think exchange and interaction are supposed to take place.
My tutor was there, sitting right across from the door, so I noticed his
haircut right away. I sat down across from him and organized my papers. I was
tired out from the walk and the lack of real lunch, which I didn’t notice until
I got hungry around 3pm. I asked my tutor how to connect to the internet, and
he connected me to a pocket wireless device. I turned in my receipt for paying
my rental insurance bill, and I confirmed that I needed a bank account with
100,000 yen ($1000) in it to prove I could pay my rent. The office said I could
wait till I got my professor’s signature for a different form to show my proof
of money as well. I borrowed a copy of the economics classes, which was book
full of syllabuses. I looked at the classes my professor was teaching, and
realized that these were the exact class I wanted/needed to take for my
research. I returned the copy to the office.
The tutor and some of the other Japanese students in the
room were all busy working on homework and presentations due that afternoon. My
tutor finished his at about 4:30pm, and one of the staff members drove him to
his destination in one of the other staff member’s car. Her own car had been
lent to someone else, which she had forgotten until they were about to leave.
One of the other students was working on a short essay assignment he needed to
submit online by 5pm. He was busy going through a box of tissues and applying
Blistex to his nose since he refused to take medicine for his hay fever. He
turned out to be from Kobe, and the staff commented on how his accent would be
familiar to me.
When my tutor left, he apparently took the pocket wifi with
him, because I suddenly found the internet connection severed. I transferred my
activities to the open Mac computer. After I registered for the JLPT, I
gathered my stuff to leave. Several people returned to the office, but I left
soon after.
The people in that room were always talking about eating and
doing stuff together, but I could never overhear enough details to feel
confident asking about their plans. I thought about calling the exchange students,
but I wanted to hang out with Japanese people, not with English speakers. So I
walked from campus to Daiei.
I was very hungry at this point, so as soon I got to Daiei,
I went to floor B1 to the little food court. I got a burger with mystery meat,
egg, green onion, and teriyaki sauce, and then I ate a “fresh fruits and
custard” crepe. I thought about eating at the noodle place, but even though it
was only 6 or 7pm, it somehow seemed closed. As I was eating, I couldn’t avoid
noticing the very loud and energetic old people at the table on the opposite
side of the seating area. There was one man in particular whose voice was the
loudest, and then one of the women with him would pipe up with a question or
comment in a less audible voice, and he would reply.
I went up to throw my trash away before I left. As I was
putting my trash away, I heard them say phrases like “I wonder if she’s
American” and “is she a student?” and I realized they were talking about me. I
turned to them in surprise. They looked excited and engaged me in conversation,
offering me a seat. I sat down and talked to them. The loud man turned out to
be wheelchair-bound. He and the man sitting next to him both wore baseball
caps. The outspoken woman sat next to the loud man and had a large purse which
seemed to contain everything she needed. She had a pretty sparkly pink pen, and
she took it out to write on the back of receipts. She wrote her name. She shook
my hand several times, which caused the loud man to make fun of her. They all
had it wrong about the hand shaking, since they kept giving me their left hands
instead of their rights. She tried to get the quieter, pointy faced woman next
to her to interact with me, but she was hesitant.
The conversation turned to how I came to Daiei. When I told
them I walked, they were shocked. It’s so far! they exclaimed. And you’re a
girl, and it’s nighttime, the man added. Then he offered to give me his old
bike for free, since he couldn’t use it anymore. They all became excited about
this, including the quieter woman. They repeated how convenient it would be to
get a free bike, since bikes are expensive. I couldn’t refuse, since I would
like a free bike, and I didn’t want to be rude. I was worried what kind of
condition the bike would be in, though. The man was middle-aged, young compared
to the others, but he didn’t look like he had ridden a bike in quite a while. We
agreed to meet again next Monday so he could give me the bike. It seemed that
the old people came pretty often to Daiei. The louder woman used her pink pen
to write down a reminder for me to come.
Then a younger middle-aged man (who had a tired, fragile
look) came out of the elevator carrying a couple of black tote bags. He seemed
intimidated by my presence among his acquaintances, but soon we started
talking. We had to talk over the older people’s conversation. The older people
were enthusiastically explaining how much they appreciated a nice American like
me who was so good at Japanese. It turned out that this new man had actually
seen me a few days earlier when I ate at Daiei with the English-speaking
exchange students.
Then another old woman came, but she was too intimidated to
talk to me, and the space at the two tables we were sitting at was full. We
exchanged a few nods, but she ended up sitting with the other man. A little
while after that, I got up my courage to say goodbye. I went back to my table,
gathered up my stuff, and went to the 6th floor to do my shopping. I
bought a blanket that was way cheaper than all the others for some reason
(maybe because it was Aeon brand?), and a storage box that doubles as a chair,
which was recommended to me by A-san.
Then I took the escalator down to the 3rd floor,
where I stopped to look at the clothes. I ended up buying a skirt, since all
the walking I was doing made my legs sweat in my jeans. Then I walked home. I
decided to take a route through the shopping streets. It was about 8pm. The
bleached-brunette young adults were out advertising their restaurants and other
nighttime businesses. Almost all of them had bleached their hair brown. Their
uniform consisted of black clothes and ankle-lengths waist aprons. I had seen
this before, and I had walked the main streets, so for variety, I decided to
take the side streets that were littered with bright signs. Immediately
everything got shadier. There were more salarymen walking. There were taxicabs
cruising around. I passed bars and buildings with women in high heels and
costumes standing in front of them. There were groups of employees or men in
suits (who may have been employees of some sort) standing in groups of three.
They gave me funny looks as I walked by with my arms full of my shopping. I had
been thinking of “downtown” as a business district, but I had only been
thinking of the daytime businesses. At night, Kokubunmachi was full of
less-talked-about business activity. I was glad when I got out of that area.
The storage box was very heavy, so by the time I got back to
my apartment, my arm muscles kept shaking when I tried to hold or pick up
anything, no matter how light.
The people in one of the nearby apartments were loud today.
I heard stomping and voices for the first time.
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