Japan | David Chart's Blog

September 2010
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Hikawa Shrine

Jul 232010

The entrance to the main shrine compound at Hikawa Shrine.

A few weeks ago, I visited Hikawa Shrine, the Ichi-no-Miya of Musashi-no-Kuni.

That sentence probably needs a bit of explanation. “Hikawa Shrine” is the name of the Shinto shrine I visited; there are several other shrines called that, but this is the main one, and it is located in Saitama City, the capital of Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo. Musashi-no-Kuni is one of the old (dating back to the seventh century or so) administrative divisions of Japan. They were all called “kuni”, using the Chinese character that is normally used for countries, and Musashi-no-Kuni covered the area of Tokyo, Saitama, and part of Kanagawa. The place where we live is within the boundaries of Musashi-no-Kuni.

“Ichi-no-Miya” means “Number One Shrine”. In the late Heian period (around the eleventh to twelfth centuries), the administrators of the kuni started formalising their duty to visit the shrines of their region. The most important shrine in the kuni became the Ichi-no-Miya, which was visited first, followed by the Ni-no-Miya (number two shrine), San-no-Miya (number three shrine), and so on. I’m not sure how low the numbers went, and it may well have varied by kuni, because this was not a centrally administrated system.

As a result of this devolution, there is some controversy in some areas over which shrine was actually the Ichi-no-Miya. Musashi is, in fact, one of the slightly controversial kuni, because at the “General Shrine”, where the kami from the main shrines were gathered to make things easy for the administrator, Hikawa Shrine is not the ichi-no-miya. However, the consensus is that Hikawa Shrine was the actual Ichi-no-Miya for the kuni.

A red-and-green open corridor, along the side of the main shrine complex at Hikawa Shrine

The cloister around the main shrine buildings

Visiting Hikawa Shrine was the first step in my plan to visit all of the Ichi-no-Miya in Japan. There were 68 kuni, so obviously this is a long-term plan. However, if I manage it, it will take me all over Japan, as well as exposing me to a wide variety of shrines. There were two reasons to start with Hikawa Shrine. The first is that, as noted above, it is the Ichi-no-Miya for the kuni where I live. The second, related to that, is that it is easy to get to. It was a short day trip, and the railway station, which is called “Big Shrine”, is close to the shrine.

The main shrine enshrines Susano-o, Inada-hime, his wife, and Ohnamuchi, his descendant (by how much depends on the legend) and the kami responsible for putting the finishing touches to Japan in legend. These kami are all originally from the Izumo area of western Japan, and it is thought that the name of the shrine comes from the Hi river (Hikawa) in that area, although it is not written with the same characters today.

I went on a Sunday, and the main shrine complex was quite busy, with lots of people having ceremonies done. I saw a lot of families with babies, doing their Hatsumiyamairi, and one wedding party. People who wanted ceremonies gave their names, and the nature of the ceremony, at the shrine office, and then waited until there were enough people to do a ceremony. Then everyone went into the hall of worship, and all the ceremonies were done at once.

I have to say that I much prefer the atmosphere at Shirahata-san, where you get an individual ceremony rather than having to share with lots of people, some of whom are having completely different prayers said. On the other hand, Hikawa Shrine is a famous shrine, and a lot of people want to have their ceremonies done at such a place. I suppose that’s a matter of taste. Of course, for some people Hikawa Shrine is their local shrine.

Like most large shrines, there are several shrines in the grounds, dedicated to various kami. These are divided into Sessha and Massha. Sessha enshrine kami who have some sort of close relationship with the main kami, while Massha enshrine those without such a relationship, at least in general. The Sessha at Hikawa Shrine enshrine Inada-hime’s parents, Susano-o’s daughters, and Sukunahikona, who is, in a sense that is rather obscure, a part of Ohnamuchi. The Massha include an Inari shrine, a shrine to Amaterasu, and a shrine to Sugawara no Michizane, all kami with no real connection to the main kami.

However, one of the Massha enshrines Ohnamuchi and Sukunahikona. This is a little peculiar; you would have thought that that qualified as a close relationship. I don’t know what the reason is, but I can offer an hypothesis. The shrine in question is “Mitake Jinja” (or possibly “Ontake”; both readings are used). This is a completely separate Shinto tradition from Hikawa, centring on a mountain in the Japan Alps. I’m pretty sure that it was heavily influenced by Buddhism, and the nature of the Shinto kami may not have been properly defined before the Meiji period. Thus, the shrine might have been established as a Massha at a time when the kami were not thought to be connected to the main kami of Hikawa, and then, when its status was fixed, the kami were changed to actually be one of the main kami. This is only a guess, however.

It was an interesting visit, and the normal rules applied. The main shrine compound was very busy, but if you wandered around to visit the other shrines in the precincts, things were much quieter. The shrine grounds are quite nice, with several ponds and, of course, a lot of trees, but they aren’t extensive enough to find anywhere really quiet, at least not on a pleasant Sunday.

One thing that I realised again on this visit is that I’m still working out what I want to know about the shrines I visit. That’s another reason for visiting Hikawa Shrine early in my program of visiting the Ichi-no-Miya; I can go back when I’ve worked out what I’m doing.

Negative Evidence

Japan, Shinto No Responses »

Jul 182010

If you look around on the net, you can find a lot of anecdotes about how the Japanese exclude foreigners, along with generalised statements that don’t even include anecdotes to back them up. I’d like to provide some anecdotes on the other side. They’re still just anecdotes, and the vast majority are only significant because of the prevalence of the opposite anecdote, but they were notable inversions of the common story. I’ve been in Japan for nearly seven years now, and while that’s not long enough to become an expert on Japanese culture, it is quite long enough for the novelty to wear off.

Japanese People Won’t Speak Japanese to Foreigners

I’ve had to go to the dentist recently. At my first appointment, the dentist asked me, in Japanese, “Are you OK with Japanese?”. When I said yes, he replied, “That’s a relief. I’d hate to have to rely on my English; it’s really rusty,” still in Japanese, and then went on talking to me in Japanese. He did use a couple of English words, to translate Japanese dentistry terms into English for me, so he clearly could have tried to speak English to me. Nevertheless, he spoke Japanese to me, and judging from what I could hear through the partitions, in exactly the same way as he spoke to Japanese patients.

Japanese People Won’t Sit Next to Foreigners on Crowded Trains

On my way to Shiobara a few weeks ago, the train was quite crowded. Someone got off soon after I got on, and there were about one and a half seats in front of me. I offered the seat to a Japanese lady standing next to me, and she took it, and then tried to make space for me to sit down. I thanked her, but told her it was too narrow. Some time later, the (Japanese) person sitting wide at the end of the seat got off. She moved up, and once again invited me to sit down next to her. By now the train was emptying out a bit, so I did. We didn’t talk on the train, but she did nod good bye as she got off.

Japanese People Don’t Like Foreigners in Their Hot Springs

At Shiobara, I went to quite a few hot springs, that being one of the main points of the area. The first time I went to the outside spring by the river, I was debating whether to go in. I’d only realised on getting there that the facilities consisted of just some shelves with a roof for your clothes, and that the towel I’d brought was not nearly large enough to dry myself efficiently. The Japanese people already in the pool, however, were enthusiastic about inviting me in, and when I explained about the towel problem, they told me not to worry about it; they lent me one at the end. Possibly notable is the fact that this was a mixed spring, and it was one of the women who was most enthusiastic about inviting me in, although it was one of the men who lent me a towel.

Japanese People Never Really Accept Foreigners

Today was the Summer Festival at Shirahata Hachiman, our local shrine, and the one I go to quite a lot. There are quite a few earlier entries about it, both in this blog and in my Japan Diary. It’s where we did Mayuki’s Hatsumiyamairi, and where I did the ceremony for my permanent residence. The main “event” part of the festival is the Negi Mai, a traditional masked dance performed by the chief priest of the shrine. The dance has reputedly been passed down in his family for about 400 years. However, before that there is a standard Shinto ceremony, where offerings are made to the kami and a norito is recited. Although the general public are invited into the haiden for the dance, only the shrine’s ujiko (a bit like the elders of an English church, I guess) are invited into the shrine for the preceding ceremony. I’ve been to four of the Summer Festivals (I think I’ve missed one since I’ve been in Kawasaki), and I try to turn up in time for the ceremony as well as the dance. Obviously, I stand outside during the ceremony.

Except that today the shrine’s priest came over to tell me that the chief priest had consulted with the head ujiko, and they had agreed to invite me to join the ujiko inside, and to offer a tamagushi (a sakaki branch with paper strips on it, the standard symbolic offering in a Shinto ceremony) during the ceremony. Most of the ujiko do not offer a tamagushi. In fact, only the chief priest and the officers of the ujiko (four people) normally do so; most of the ujiko bow and clap with the last of them to do so, but those who have offered tamagushi themselves do not. So, the chief ujiko, the sodai, led me in with the ujiko, and showed me to a seat near the centre of the front row. I was quite nervous when it was my turn to offer a tamagushi, but I managed it without any serious mistakes that I can remember. Certainly everyone was too polite to point them out if there were any.

Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I was second to last to offer my tamagushi. You offer tamagushi in order of status, normally, and I’m not one of the leaders of the ujiko, so I went later. On the other hand, I couldn’t go last, because all the ujiko need to bow and clap with the last person, so he needs to be representing them, and thus has to be one of the ujiko leaders. So, I guess, I was slipped in to the most sensible point in the ordering.

It is important to understand the significance of this festival. This is not a private ceremony, like the ones I have had before. It is one of the three main festivals in the shrine’s ritual year.

What’s more, the plan is for this to not be a one-off. The priest said that they would like me to offer a tamagushi at both the summer and main festivals from now on. (Presumably unless I do something to horribly upset them. I have no plans to do that, though.) One of the ujiko invited me to the ujiko gathering after the dance, as well, but Mayuki was impatient to go home, so I had to decline. I should try to organise around the main festival in September so that I can say yes if I get invited again.

This is, therefore, extremely good evidence that the people associated with Shirahata-san want me to be involved with the shrine. Obviously, I’m very happy about this, because I also want to be more involved with the shrine. I suppose the best way of putting it is this: Today’s invitation was a formal and public acknowledgement that they want me to be involved, and accepting it was similarly a formal and public acknowledgement that I want to be involved. It’s just another stage in a relationship that’s been developing over years, albeit a significant one. The only practical difference it will make in itself, I think, is that I’ll have to be careful not to be late for future festivals…

Yet More Preliminaries

Foreigners' Assembly No Responses »

Jul 112010

Today we had another meeting of the Kawasaki Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents. We are still working on the preliminaries, but we have, at least nearly finished.

Today’s job was to choose the topics we will discuss in detail over the rest of our term. My goal for my subcommittee was to have the whole list and order fixed, so that we could start actual discussions next time (which is not until September). We very, very nearly got there, deciding on the whole list and on the topics we would discuss first. Thus, next time, we will decide on the rest of the order at the beginning of the meeting, and then move on to proper discussions. I am optimistic that we will be able to decide on the order within thirty minutes, which should leave a substantial amount of time for real discussion.

As I proposed, we split the topics into things we could cover quickly, and things that would take longer. We decided on the order for the things we can cover quickly, and on the first of the longer topics, so there are only four longer topics to put in order. This is made a little more difficult by the fact that we almost certainly won’t get to the last of the longer topics, so that putting something down the order is equivalent to abandoning it. However, I think that the subcommittee will be amenable to deciding things within a relatively short space of time.

One thing I realised while we were discussing potential topics was that a lot of important topics are really about the national level. Immigration, pensions, rules on family names, voting rights: these are all important topics to foreign residents, but the amount the city of Kawasaki can do is very limited. I am trying to encourage the subcommittee to concentrate on topics that fall within the city’s competence, because that’s probably where we can achieve the most. If the national government has to deal with it, we can get Kawasaki to push for a particular decision, but that’s all. On the other hand, if it’s within Kawasaki’s competence, we can actually get it fixed.

For example, of the two short themes we are hoping to look at next time, one concerns immigration. Foreign residents of Japan can’t bring their parents over as dependents, and for people from a lot of cultures, that is a problem. I’d also like to be able to offer my mother accommodation in her old age, when she gets there, although whether she’d want to come to Japan is a different question. However, this is a matter for immigration law. All we can ask the city to do is to petition the central government.

On the other hand, the other one concerns the ability to carry out administrative procedures at the weekend. Kawasaki already provides facilities for Japanese residents to do the paperwork for moving in and out of Kawasaki at weekends, but foreign residents cannot. We will discuss what we’d like the city to do about that. And, of course, the city can actually take action on what we recommend, because making administrative services available on weekends is something the city can decide to do all by itself.

Thus, if we decide to make recommendations on both issues, I would expect to see results on the second much more quickly than on the first, and so I think that, as far as possible, it is better to spend our time discussing issues of the second sort.

Even more fundamental than that, however, is that we actually start spending our time discussing. I really hope that we can get the rest of the topics into order quickly next time.

Welcome to Japan

Japan, Shinto 1 Response »

Jun 282010

Yesterday, the three of us went to Shirahata Hachiman Daijin, our local shrine, to have a ceremony performed to mark my getting permanent resident status. I wanted to mark it in some way, because otherwise it would just be a matter of going and getting the sticker in my passport, and it really ought to be more significant than that. So, I booked it a week ago, for 9:30 in the morning, as there were other ceremonies booked from 10. We managed to get dressed up in smart clothes and get there by 9:40, but that was fine. With it being a local shrine, they don’t work to tightly regulated schedules aimed to get hundreds of people through.

The shrine family had obviously decided that getting permanent residence was a big deal, which it is. After all, that’s why I wanted to mark it.

First, the chief priest’s wife had written a norito (Shinto prayer) especially for the occasion. The basic collection of example norito issued by the Association of Shinto Shrines doesn’t have one for permanent residence, and I suspect that the large collections of norito written by famous National Learning scholars also fail to cover this possibility. So, she wrote one for us, and it was very good, at least as far as I could judge. It asked the kami that I become friendly with the people of “Taira, Miyamae-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, and Japan”, thus working out in size of regions, and included Yuriko and Mayuki’s names as well, praying for health and prosperity for all of us. (As I may have mentioned before, she wrote a good norito for when I joined the Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents, as well.)

Then, there were the items we received after the ceremony. You always get stuff after a formal shrine visit: typically an o-fuda (shrine tablet), some sake, and some food. The food is normally dried bonito flakes, but this time we got a very nice baumkuchen. O-fuda also come in various sizes, and at most shrines you get a bigger o-fuda when you offer more money. Shirahata-san is normally the same; you can receive larger o-fuda for larger offerings at New Year’s. However, I got a bigger o-fuda than normal at this ceremony, and since at the point they were making it they probably guessed, correctly, that I was going to offer the normal 5,000 yen (that’s the starting price for a ceremony), the size has to reflect their judgement of the significance of the occasion.

Finally, the chief priest, who wasn’t doing the ceremony, came to the waiting room beforehand to congratulate us. At that point, he gave us a noshi-bukuro with “O-Iwai”, “Congratulations”, written on it. Noshi-bukuro are exclusively used for gifts of money, so that was a real surprise. It was even more of a surprise when I got home and opened it. (It’s rude to open it on the spot.) The envelope contained 10,000 yen. Not only that, but it was a Shotoku Taishi 10,000 yen note. (The lower picture on this page.) I’d never seen a real one before, although I’d seen pictures, and if I read the Bank of Japan site correctly, they stopped circulating them in January 1986. (The successor note went into circulation in November 1984, so they probably stopped printing them then.) Notwithstanding that, the note was in new condition. This is normal for these sorts of gifts, and with current notes you can just go to a bank and ask for new notes. However, with one that’s been out of circulation for 25 years, I imagine you really have to have kept a stock of them. Obviously, I have no plans to actually spend this note.

Everything made me feel that they were really pleased that I was staying in Japan. In short, I felt very welcome. It was definitely well worth having the ceremony.

Still More Preliminary Discussions

Foreigners' Assembly, Kawasaki 2 Responses »

Jun 162010

On Sunday, we had another meeting of the representative assembly. This week, the main task was to establish sub-committees, and decide on the general topics they would discuss.

The first question was whether we would have any sub-committees at all. As the full committee has 26 members, I said that I thought it would be impossible to properly discuss issues without splitting, and other people then chimed in to agree with me. The motion to establish sub-committees was passed unanimously. Then there was the question of how many sub-committees to set up. I thought we should have three, because even 13 is a bit big for proper discussions, but this time the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of just having two committees. (It wasn’t only me in favour of three, but it wasn’t a close vote.)

So, then we had to decide what each committee would discuss. We had thirteen broad topics that the secretariat had distilled from the points we raised at the previous meeting, and the discussion got a bit complex, partly due to me misunderstanding a proposal, and partly due to a process that made it look like the rejected proposal was going to be implemented. The initial choice was between broadly splitting the sub-committees into “education” and “social issues”, and assigning each of the 13 topics individually to a group. I voted for the first, purely because I thought it would take too long to assign the topics individually, and the first option won.

Then someone pointed out that we needed to decide which topics were going to be on each committee, so that people knew which committee they wanted to be on.

Actually, that wasn’t the same as the rejected proposal, because most of the topics on the list obviously belonged to one or the other. The “education” topic, for instance, would go to the “education” sub-committee, while the “pensions” topic would go to the “society” committee. In the end, we were able to decide the broad spread quite quickly, and then people said which committee they wanted to be on. There were two absences, and we got a 14-10 split, which is close enough to half and half to not require any changes, so that stage was quick.

We then had the first sub-committee meetings, where we had to choose a chair, vice-chair, and name. I joined the society committee, and, of the people nominated, I was the only one who didn’t pull out. The chairs of the sub-committees have to attend weekday preparatory meetings, which makes it difficult for a lot of people, so in the end we didn’t have an election. Everyone just put their hands up to approve me as chair.

There was a real election for vice-chair, because the vice-chair only has to do things on the normal meeting days, so we got two candidates. Fortunately, that didn’t take long either. Choosing the committee’s name was also easy. One member proposed using the same name as last session, another member agreed, and then everyone voted in favour. Thus, we are the “Society and Lifestyle Sub-committee”.

That actually left us a few minutes to discuss what we would discuss, but we didn’t get very far. However, we did make a little bit of progress: there are “deep” issues, and “shallow” issues. A shallow issue is one where there isn’t really a lot for us to discuss or investigate, so we might be able to deal with quite a few of them, as well as with one or two deep issues. I’m certainly going to propose splitting it that way next time. In any event, next time will take us to one quarter of our term, so I really want to finish deciding the topics then.

It has taken a long time to get through the preliminaries, but I can’t really see how it could have been done much more quickly. Everything has to be done in the meetings, and the constitution of the assembly means that we have to decide just about everything for ourselves. People have to be given the chance to make their opinions heard. So, there’s probably nothing that can be done about it. Extending the assembly’s term to three years would reduce the proportion of time spent on preliminaries, but it would require revising the city ordinances, and people who could commit for two years might not be able to commit for three. In the end, I suspect that this is a necessary evil.

On the bright side, quite a few people are participating, and things are going fairly smoothly, so once we do get onto actual topics I think that we will make progress. I’ll just have to do my best to get my sub-committee there as quickly as possible.

Permission for Permanent Residence

Japan 2 Responses »

Jun 072010

Today, I went to the Kawasaki Immigration Office and picked up my Permission for Permanent Residence (that’s the official English title on the sticker in my passport). Unlike my previous visas, which were “signed” by the head of the Tokyo Immigration Office, this one is “signed” by the Minister of Justice. This is obviously a much bigger deal.

So, I’ve lived in Japan for just over six years and eight months, have been married to a Japanese citizen for little less than four years and seven months, and have a two-year-old Japanese (and British) daughter. The application seems to have gone through the system in the normal length of time, so it would appear that these are standard conditions for permanent residence.

One thing that stands out is how cheap the process is here. It costs $90 here, and you pay when your application is successful. By comparison, it costs $930 in the USA, about $1000 in Canada (as far as I can tell), and about $1200 in the UK, and in all cases you pay on application, and it isn’t refundable. Even if you include all the previous visas I had to have to tot up the required length of residence, it only comes to about $400, maximum. On the other hand, the required times of residence are shorter in the UK (although not by much), and Canada and the USA don’t seem to require residence at all. If you I don’t know about the decision times in other countries, but since the UK keeps your passport until they decide, I rather hope it’s less than the ten months they took here (which was normal, from what the staff in the office said to me).

The application process, as well as being cheap, was painless. The only slightly difficult bit was getting the information for all my close relatives in my complicated family, and even that only took a couple of days of waiting for the people in the appropriate countries to ask the people who knew. I went to the immigration office more often than necessary, to hand over documents in person, but I could have posted them.

Now, I’ve heard people describing the immigration procedure for such immigrant havens as the USA and Canada, and it sounds a lot more hassle than what I’ve had to go through. On the other hand, the chances of success don’t seem to change much; if you really are genuinely married to a US citizen, you really will get a green card, for example.

Thinking about it now, the best way to capture my impression is this. The immigration office in Japan goes out of its way to make the process easier for immigrants.

The application forms here are bilingual in English and Japanese, for example. Some of the forms are also available in other non-Japanese languages, particularly the re-entry permit forms. If the Japanese immigration office find a problem in your application, they write to ask you for additional information, or tell you to go away and gather what you need before applying. (Yes, if you go in person, the staff check that your application is complete, free of charge.) The fees aren’t payable until you’ve succeeded, and they’ve checked that everything is in order. They don’t even make you prove that you are obeying certain Japanese laws, such as the ones requiring you to join the national pension scheme and national health insurance scheme. You do have to prove you’re paying taxes, although the immigration office asks for the cheap, easy-to-get official bit of paper, unlike the bank that gave me my mortgage, who wanted the expensive, more complicated one.

A couple of concrete examples from my experience. When I applied to renew my marriage visa this time, I took in a document proving Yuriko’s income (nothing), because that’s what the website asked for. Not entirely to my surprise, the staff told me I needed the document proving my income. They told me what it was, and told me to bring it along when I came to pick the visa up. No point having me make a special journey…

Similarly, when we moved part way through my permanent residence application, they called me to check I was still living with my wife, and then sent me a letter telling me which documents to send them. I did have to send those at the time, though. (I took them personally, to be sure they made it, although post would have been acceptable.)

Based on my completely unscientific sample, I think that the Japanese immigration officers are as concerned to ensure that the people who do qualify do get the visas as they are to ensure that people who are not qualified don’t. From my perspective, this is an unalloyed good, because it meant that they have decided to let me stay for the rest of my life.

Shiobara Onsen

Japan, Travel No Responses »

Jun 052010

Last weekend (from Sunday to Wednesday) I took a trip by myself, to Shiobara Onsen. The idea was to recharge, and it seems to have worked.

Shiobara is in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, a little north of Tokyo. It takes about four hours on “normal” trains, but it’s not expensive, and you only have to change trains once going from our flat. It might take a while, but it’s no hassle. While Shiobara is a tourist town, drawing people to the hot springs, it’s not on the normal foreign visitor itinerary, so most of the tourists are Japanese. I did see a handful of other foreigners, but only a few.

A steep river valley in the early morning

The valley of the Hoki River in the morning, with the sunlight just touching the top of Tengu Rock, in the centre of the picture.

Shiobara has eleven hot springs, and is strung along the valley of the Hoki River, surrounded by forested mountains. Near the centre of the town, Tengu Rock rises a hundred metres from the valley floor. The hot springs are reputed to have been discovered about 1200 years ago, and the area has been a tourist attraction for centuries. As a result, it has a lot of hotels and ryokan, some old, some much newer.

I stayed at a ryokan called Myogaya, which is located on the steep sides of the gorge through which one of the tributaries of the Hoki flows. It’s a medium-size ryokan, serving standard ryokan food. The selling point is the hot spring baths. These are down ninety or so steps, at the bottom of the gorge, cut into a rock at the side of the river. While enjoying the water, you can watch and listen to the flow of the river, or enjoy the sunlight filtering through the trees. I enjoyed the baths several times, in the day, at dawn, in the evening, and at night, and it was always extremely relaxing.

I also found another very nice hot spring bath, near the Hoki River, called Fudo no Yu. In the valley of another, smaller, tributary, it sits next to a small waterfall, with views of the all around. The bath is completely open air, and the changing area only has one wall and a small roof.

Both baths are traditional Japanese hot spring baths, in that they are for both sexes, and you do not wear anything while bathing. I did see women in both, but there was a bias towards men, and towards older people. However, the latter bias is at least partly to do with the fact that I was there during the day on weekdays; most younger people were in work or school. I chatted to several people, and apparently Fudo no Yu is very full at the weekend, which I suspect does not improve the experience.

Arayufuji, which I climbed, beyond the marsh

My original plan was to spend most of my time at the ryokan, reading and taking baths. However, once I arrived and saw the scenery, I decided that would be a waste. Add to that the near-perfect walking weather, and I spent the whole of Tuesday seeing the area. First, I walked along the Shiobara “Nature Trail”. An English nature trail is aimed at children, and is an easy walk through pleasant natural scenery. The natural scenery was there. However, the trail was eight kilometres long, and went straight over the top of a mountain with a 1180m peak. If it was in Scotland, it would be a Munro.

It was a very nice walk, and, apart from around a marsh which had its own car park, I saw no-one. Large areas of Japan are not crowded at all, unlike the impression you might get if you just visit Tokyo and the main tourist destinations. The nature trail ended at another hot spring, where I was able to have another bath, which seemed to do my legs good, at least; they weren’t sore the next day.

I then walked back to the ryokan, via the main town of Shiobara. In total, I think I walked about 25km on Tuesday, including over the top of the mountain, so I was quite tired that night, but it was a good walk through gorgeous scenery. Only my body got tired.

I definitely want to go back to Shiobara, with Yuriko and Mayuki. They wouldn’t be able to do the walk, but there are plenty of places in the town I didn’t visit, so we wouldn’t be short of things to do. Now we just have to find time to do it.

Permanent Residence Notification

Japan 2 Responses »

Jun 042010

Today I received a postcard from immigration, telling me that I had to go there to be told the result of my application for permanent residence. Oh, and to make sure to take my passport and the $90 fee for a permanent residence visa. I wonder what the result might be?

Of course, this postcard is the one to indicate that your application has been approved. I’ll have to go to immigration on Monday to pick my visa up.

Discussing What To Discuss

Foreigners' Assembly No Responses »

May 282010

It’s nearly two weeks since we had the second meeting of the Foreigners’ Assembly, and I’ve still not written about it. So, I’d better rectify that. (There are quite a few things I ought to write about on this blog but haven’t yet, I’m afraid.)

As I predicted last time, we did not finish early. In fact, we had to extend the meeting by fifteen minutes to get everything done. Somewhat surprisingly, however, it wasn’t the discussion of topics for discussion that held us up. We split into two groups for that, and in our group we first went round the room, with everyone getting five minutes to say what they wanted to discuss. Everyone had topics to bring up, and everyone stayed within the allotted time, and on point while they were speaking. I was impressed; with twelve or so people in the room, I’d expected at least one person to not be good at meetings. We then had a short discussion, which gave me an idea of who the talkative people are. I’m going to have to be assertive if I want to get a word in edgeways. (Unusually, the most assertive and vocal people were all women.)

I raised three issues. First, I’d like to see the city conduct a formal survey of foreign residents’ experiences of discrimination, ideally using the same format as EU-MIDIS, so that we get comparative data. At the moment, we’re working with purely anecdotal data, so we don’t have a good idea of what the problems are. Second, although the assembly has discussed Japanese language education provision for children many times, it has never formally discussed provision for adults, and I think that would be a good idea. Finally, I’d like to talk about ways to help foreign residents get involved in local society, both to prevent them from becoming isolated, and to give Japanese residents more experience of their foreign neighbours. In the long term, I think it would help with a lot of the problems that foreigners seem to face.

There was some overlap with the points raised by other people, but points about children’s education came up a lot again. I just want to pick up on a few of the suggestions.

First, several people suggested that the city should help with providing education for children in their foreign parent’s (or parents’) language. They talked about “native language”, but the problem is that these children’s native language is Japanese, because that’s what they speak most of the time. Actually, I don’t think this is the city’s responsibility. I agree that it’s important — I’m trying to make sure that Mayuki can speak English, after all — but I think it’s something that we should do for ourselves. The city arguably has a responsibility to make it easy for foreigners to integrate into local society, but I don’t think that extends to supporting foreign language education.

Second, it seems that people are still having significant problems renting property. One problem is that landlords apparently often require a contact who is either a Japanese citizen or, at least, a permanent resident. This is obviously tricky for new immigrants. Another is that many landlords will apparently still not rent to foreigners. This is a problem that the assembly raised more than a decade ago, and Kawasaki passed an ordinance saying that landlords should rent to foreigners (and the disabled, and old people), and establishing a system that provides guarantors for such people. However, it would seem that that ordinance has not had as much effect as might have been hoped. (This is a place where proper statistics would be a really big help, but we don’t have them.) So, I think that we should discuss this issue again, and make a new recommendation. Perhaps the city should pass an ordinance with a penalty attached; I’m pretty sure Kawasaki has the authority to do that. (It’s a special city, with most of the powers of a prefecture; the largest cities in Japan all have this status, apart from Tokyo, which has a unique governmental structure.)

Anyway, that went very smoothly, and both groups reported back to the main meeting. Our secretariat will prepare an organised summary of the points for the next meeting, when we will actually pick topics.

The next bit took a bit longer. We had to decide whether to participate in city events (we did), and then split the members up between the committees that would plan our participation. I joined the editorial committee for the newsletter; it seemed like the obvious home for me.

So, we made some concrete progress this time, and the flow of the meeting boded very well for the future. My impression from the earlier meetings, that this would be a good group, was confirmed.

I hope that we can actually achieve something. We’ll have to work hard, and together.

Delayed Doll Festival

Japan No Responses »

May 062010

So I was a bit late.

Yesterday, I put Mayuki’s Hina Dolls up. You’re supposed to put them up some time in February, and take them down by March 3rd. However, regular readers of this blog may be able to remember why that wasn’t a very good time for us to put the dolls up. What’s more, there wasn’t really space in the old flat; we had to move the electric piano and television. So, they stayed in their boxes for a while.

However, I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to stay in the boxes all year round. For a start, it’s a real shame to not get them out; they only come out once a year in any case. Added to that, I don’t think it would be good for them to be in the boxes for two years. The damp could well get to them; last year the dolls had a bit of mould on their hair, so I took the box out and aired them three times over the course of the year, which seems to have worked. So, they’re out so that we can enjoy them, and so that they will stay in good condition.

I’ve put them up in the Japanese room, under the kamidana, and it’s a nice combination. Very, very Japanese, don’t you think. According to Japanese superstition, if you don’t put the dolls away by March 3rd, your daughter will marry late. I don’t know what this lateness means.

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