I was talking with a friend the other day and found out that at his job it's his responsibility to pay off the yakuza. Yakuza are Japanese organized crime syndicates. He meets regularly with one of the yakuza gang leaders to hand over the payment for the company's "protection."
Actually, it works out well for him in a way. He's developed a "good" relationship with the man, who likes our friend and takes him to lunch and dinner at nice places. He gets to hear yakuza stories along with his sushi and unagi or whatever. I don't know if I should share the one story he shared, because I can imagine it coming full circle back to haunt me -- the yakuza was left in an embarassing situation at the end.
Getting back to my friend's job, I asked if he's able to save money, since he's working six or seven days a week, putting in 12 hours or more a day, and seems to have an important position. But he said, "no." Why, I asked. It turns out that my friend's job involves finding new contracts for his company in the industry that he's in. The problem is...
...that in order to get these contracts, he has to make under the table payments, or kickbacks, to the people that he meets with. Although this is considered normal in his situation, there can't be any money trail of pay offs leading back to the company. The company simply 'doesn't pay kickbacks.' So it's up to my friend to come up with the payments himself, out of pocket. So far, his record payment has been about $10,000 (US equivalent).
All this is to say that there is much about Japanese society, the way business is carried out here, about economics and politics that is generally known but unseen. My friend's life is one example. You might wonder why he keeps the job. Why spend most of his waking hours working at a job that succeeds because he gives his own money away for the sake of the company? I don't know. He's loyal. He's needed. He's a worker there (it's in his identity). He's just a good guy (doing some bad things).
One way that I make peace with living in Japan is to stop trying to figure everything out, though I believe most things would make sense with more information. Most mysteries have answers, but not all people are in position to see them. As for my friend, he doesn't "like" his job and has decided to quit--in two years. He figures he owes the company that much... I'll be rooting for him to find something better when the time comes. He really is a great guy and could do better, I think.
========================
Originally posted at Japan Window
The last time I moved overseas I needed only my passport. Before the Czech Republic joined the E.U., all that most of us had to do was leave the country every 90 days and re-enter to get our passports stamped again. If I had found a job, then I would have been able to get an official work/residency permit that would be good for a year before renewal, but considering I had all of Europe to go to for quick trips — lunch in Germany, anyone? — it wasn't a big deal to do the 3-month thing. If you have a U.S. passport and are visiting Australia, they also require you can't stay more than 3 months at a time for the duration of a year, but to leave the country and come back means flying a few hours out to New Zealand or Singapore or wherever, not quite as cheap or easy.
Now that I'm going to school in Australia, though, I've got to get an official student visa. From what I've been told by Aussies, The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) is about as popular as the East German Stasi, and not quite as cuddly. So I'm making sure to cross my ts and dot my is, or I run the risk of deportation and never being allowed to return, plus possibly even torture — I hear they make obstinate suspects listen to the theme song of Neighbours played on an endless loop to get them to cooperate.
You can fill out the application form online — secure server takes credit cards and everything — but then there was also the matter of the medical exam and chest x-ray that I'd have to get and have sent in. Being an island nation, Australia is very leery of what people bring in with them, whether it's animals, plants, or bacteria — they've had big problems in the past by people introducing foreign species that played havoc with the ecological system, e.g. rabbits, foxes, cane toads, etc. So anyone who wants to emigrate there has to submit their blood and urine tests (for Hepatitis, HIV, etc.) and chest x-rays (for tuberculosis), although tourists don't have to (probably because there's little chance they'd end up working in healthcare or food preparation, etc.). I suppose they also want to make sure someone isn't moving to Oz purely to take advantage of the healthcare system to treat some complicated disease.
So I finished the application, paid the fee — A$410, or about $312 US — and then went to the page with instructions for the medical exam. Turns out that you can only go to one of their listed "panel" doctors, and there were 3 listed in Manhattan. One was too far downtown, so I called the other two. "Do you take United Healthcare?" I asked. Turns out you can't put the exams on your health insurance, since it's elective; I don't think I could put in a claim saying, "I'm being forced to move to Australia because my president is a fuckwit and I don't want to live here anymore".
One office wanted $550 for the exam and x-ray; the other one wanted $350. Nice little racket they've got going there — anyone in the NYC area who wants to emigrate in Australia has to go to them and drop a few hundred bucks out of pocket. I got all of 15 minutes of the doctor's time before being sent to an exam room to have my blood taken by an assistant and directed to the bathroom to produce a urine sample. Then I had to walk over to the radiology office a few blocks away to get the x-rays taken, then wait for the film to be developed, then walk it back to the doctor's office so they could send it off with the test results when those come back in a few days.
And of course what a bureaucracy be without forms and questions? I already had to show that I was "of good character", now I had to give a full accounting of my medical history going back to the womb.
Of course they ask if you've ever have an operation, high blood pressure, epilepsy, tuberculosis, etc., with space to list details and dates. But then it gets a bit more general. Have you ever had pain in the back, neck, or any joint? Well, sure, sometimes if I sleep in a funny position my lower back aches a bit, but do they really need to do know that? Would that actually keep me out of the country? "Sorry about that, mate, but none of us have any back pain, so you wouldn't fit in here." Have you ever had stomach pains, indigestion or heartburn? What, their national supply of TUMS is so low that they have to screen new immigrants for acid reflux? (Guess Ashlee Simpson's out.)
Once you get through a whole list of questions, they give you one last chance to fess up: Have you ever had any medical, physical, psychological or other treatment in the last 5 years?" Uh, gee, yeah I think I've seen a medical professional at some point in the last half decade. It gets you so paranoid you start wondering if you have to report that time you asked the pharmacist about extra-strength hydrocortisone for that little rash you had for 2 days three years ago. I was surprised they didn't ask for a list of all paper cuts I'd ever sustained over my lifetime, as well as the brands of elastic bandage used.
Then there are the behavior questions. Of course they ask how much you smoke, and how much alcohol you drink; this being Australia, a higher number might be considered more favorable — we're talking about a country whose former Prime Minister holds a world record in drinking. Then of course, Have you ever been addicted to a drug or taken drugs illegally? I wonder if anyone ever actually puts down a Yes for that one. "Yes, every kind on the books, and I'm looking forward to take drugs illegally there. Do you have a connection I could call, mate?"
Anyway, my test results should be back next week, and then they'll get FedExed off to the Washington embassy (at my expense, too, naturally), and then hopefully I should hear within a week or two. Since I leave for Australia in about 5 weeks, it'll be cutting it close, but I think I'm generally healthy enough to be approved for the visa.
Just do me a favor and don't tell anyone about the paper cuts. You never know who might be listening.
I've never bought a one-way ticket before. It has a very odd ring to it.
In that and just about every other way, this latest expatration of mine is completely different from my last one. Last time I knew almost nothing about the Czech Republic other than that the word "Prague" conjured up all sorts of romantic notions that seemed to fit perfectly the idea of life in Europe. I'd spent only about 4 days there, and that was about 4 years earlier. I spent almost a year saving up; read everything I could about on the poignant history of the Czechs; tackled the first half of the Teach Yourself Czech book (and tried to figure out whether it was easier to write the accent marks as I went or after I finished a word). I was going to live there not-quite-legally on a tourist visa, i.e. the stamp in my passport, which would simply mean a train ride out of the country every 3 months to get it restamped, no problem. What would I do with myself there? Why, live cheaply off my savings, sit around in cafes with the intelligentsia, work on my novel, journal and photograph and dream and all those quaint, artistic things a Lost Generation Xer is supposed to do. I had no idea whether I'd end up staying there ten weeks or ten years; all I knew was I was going.
Of course, then I got there and found that things weren't quite so cheap any more, unless of course you didn't mind living in a crumbling Communist apartment block out by the airport (I did); my newfound friends were all too busy working their jobs to sit around in cafes or write books (although there was always time for boozing up at night); and I had to find work myself to stanch the flow of koruny and the ever-falling dollar rate.
This time, on the other hand, I'm off to Australia after only 3 months of organization — to a place where I've already lived for 4 months out of last year. I already speak the language (well, sort of), I already know my way around Melbourne, and I'm already relatively familiar with Australian history, culture, customs, etc. Instead of lounging in cafes I'll be spending my (first?) 18 months there in school, dealing with term dates and assignments and getting good grades. And of course I need a proper visa this time, which so far has cost me more than my plane ticket. (And I'll have to pay another few bucks once I start school if I want to upgrade and be able to work part-time.) If I decide to stay, then I'll have to pay another wad of cash to get a proper work visa, but at least I'll be able to get a better jobs than I could've in Prague, and I'll be living and interacting with the native citizens, instead of only other expats.
Although part of me still wishes I could live in another country that was, I don't know, more exotic seeming. I don't mean that as a put-down on Australians, of course; one of the things I like about Australia is how it's different enough to be another country but familiar enough to make living there much more comfortable. And it will be a big relief to not have to struggle with technical business words in another language (as you find when signing leases and ordering utility services), and to be understood easily in stores, in class, etc. (Even if I do have a funny American accent.) But one of the reasons I always wanted to live abroad was to become fluent in something besides English, and Australians, like Americans, don't generally have the real need to know another language. And of course, Europe will always be, well, Europe to me, a mysterious land of densely-packed cities and medieval buildings and a million languages, where every shopkeeper is a philosopher and every streetscene an oil painting. Then again, in Australia I can get vegetarian food and nice weather and friendly smiles from strangers, so in many ways life will be more pleasant, anyway.
So, I've got a ticket. On July 4th, almost 2 years to the day since I left for Prague, I'll be off again — missing my family and friends but with a new country and a new life. Call it a coincidence, or call me sentimental, perhaps, but I guess you can also call it my second Independence Day.
I was going to write about VE day and how I still feel its significance today
but after reading wildsoda's post today I simply have to write about my own repat experiences
I moved back to my birthplace after 4 years in the big wide world
that was 10 years ago
almost needless to mention I moved there for romantic reasons
it took me 9 years to give in to the fact that I couldn't live there
when I first returned to this medium sized German town I remember walking around town noticing nothing but bleakness
there was just nothing happening there
life was easy, healthy, sometimes even beautiful
but I just kept seeing grumpy faces
in the beginning I called it "my little corner of the world"
while this sounds like a loving description, for me the stress was on "corner"
I couldn't stop thinking life was going on elsewhere
in London or New York I would be bombarded with so many impressions when just crossing a street
I kept forcing myself to actively look for inspiration
and I kept blaming myself for the lethargy I was overcome with for years
I began to think whether I could die of boredom
at one point I honestly became convinced I could
I was so starved of intellectual stimulation
with time my friends' priorities began to shift
they started having babies and affordable flats and practical shoes and leased cars
they suddenly didn't mind holidays stuffed in grey places with hundreds of grumpy pensioners as long as there were enough facilities for the child
they looked at me uncomprehending when I went to India, voluntarily
maybe it took these examples for me to realise I am different
I don't mind children or practical shoes
what I minded was the boredom that they seemed to enforce in my friends
how could they be contend with a life dictated by practicality when they had all once been creative people with wild ideas
when I now return they look at me like I have descended from a small far away planet
and I do not know how to explain why I now live in an overpriced room in a shared house in one of the less safe areas of London
As the poet said, What happens to a dream deferred? A dream by definition is not reality, and yet most would say that our only true goal in life is — should be — to make them so. A dream is our attempt to construct the future; reality exists only in the present, and our past is built of memory. So what happens when you defer the future? Most, if not all, of the writers on this site had, at one point, a dream, a future to be realized: a when that we could imagine only in conjunction with a where — an elsewhere.
So, to recast the question: what happens to an expat repatriated?
I can’t speak for all, but this one in particular sagged under a heavy load, indeed. I still cannot quite wrap my head around the notion that it’s been more than one full year since I returned from living abroad, probably because if I try it’s simply too depressing. Especially when I consider why.
It’s the oldest story in the book, of course. To recap: girl moves to Europe, girl meets foreign boy, girl spends over a year preparing to move to boy’s country, girl loses boy. An entire revolution around the sun spent living (again) in the one place I had wanted most to leave; working a job I hated; two (!) long-haul overseas trips taken to bridge the tyranny of distance for a few weeks; countless phone calls and emails and photos; grad schools applied to for the purpose of retraining and relocating; all towards the future of moving to Australia and start a new life with the boy I loved. And now he’s met someone else.
As another poet said: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
When I joined this site, Mig mentioned that sometimes its writers just disappeared. Well, he was right, I did disappear: not in the physical sense, but the figurative. Returning to New York dried me up, rather like a raisin in the…well, you know. How could I write about being an expat when I was, for the present, so miserably, so unwillingly, a repat? All my life, I dreamed of living in Europe: London, Paris, any city big enough to need only a first name. After three decades I finally made it happen in Prague, and it lasted all of six months before I put it aside for another dream. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
When I got the phone call two weeks ago (the nausea-inducing one that always starts with “we have to talk”), I have to admit it wasn’t my finest hour. I yelled. I cried. I panicked. Why? Mainly: I was trapped. I’d closed one door behind me to prop open the one ahead; now that one was swinging shut. I’d only come back to move away again, and if I couldn’t do that, that left me…still here. Not there. A future of being stuck between destinations, a lifetime of hallways. The dream, permanently deferred. Would I explode?
Three days later, I received the news I’d been hoping to hear — an offer from my first-choice school in Melbourne. I guess it’s nice to be wanted by someone, even if you have to give them a credit card number. So now I had school, the visa application, the money saved up — everything I needed, except him. For the first few days, I was miserable. Without him, how could I move there? But then I realized, given that the alternative meant staying: how could I not?
Australia’s lovely, although not Europe and a hell of a lot further away than I’d intended to go. Moving there by myself (especially to my ex’s city) wouldn’t have been my first choice, but futures can only be constructed from the present. If my choice is between the old where and an elsewhere, it’s an easy one for me to make.
The dream, a bit shorter, a bit older — even limping a little — is back on. I’m done sitting around, biding my time, waiting for the future to arrive. I’ve festered here like a sore long enough.
Now I run.
My youngest daughter, Gamma, is eight and has recently complained she wants to be just one thing. Just Austrian. Or just American. But you're special, I tell her. But I don't want to be special, she answers. I just want to be me, I just want to be one thing. But you are you, I say. And think of all the advantages.
Such as? She asks.
Such as, I say, eh, massive visa advantages or something.
Advantages, I think. Advantages. This is just the way things turned out, kiddo. At school they split her class. All the normal, Austrian kids went into one class. The others ended up in the second, smaller class. Kids with learning problems, kids with behavioral problems, gifted kids and the foreigners. Gamma ended up in that one.
That turned out to be a stroke of luck: the teacher is a miracle and Gamma's doing great.
"Except she never speaks English in class," the teacher said, "when we do English."
That was the main advantage, right, of having an American father, I had always thought. Bilinguality. But Gamma doesn't want to stand out. So she pretends not to speak English. She speaks it with me, more than her (bilingual) older sister ever did. But how well does she actually speak it? How will she do with her relatives when she visits this summer?
Last night she read us a story at bedtime. A German children's book. Then we gave her an English book to read and held our breath. She sat there, book in lap, and just read it. With hardly any more mistakes than she had with the German book. We gave each other "thumbs up" signs behind her back. I guess she's doing fine.
Despite the fact that I just spent seven days at a seaside resort which caters to bored and spoiled housewives, surrounded by luscious gardens and fountains everywhere I turned, by a staff foaming at the mouth to coddle me, I am beat.
It was a quiet vacation, hours spent on pampered lawns under tropical pines, popping brewskies by the pool as we watched the children, frying my face off ( I kid you not : it is still falling, in flakes, onto my lap) by the sea, once again watching the children. Eating meal after meal at a small place we found, so close to the resort that we initially thought that it would be a dud, but ended up snarfing down one tasty dish after another, while the chatter around us most likely was the only ( well, almost only) portuguese that we heard during the trip.
It was lovely and sumptuous but I don't feel that we went to Portugal. Not in particular. It could have been anywhere, really, on this good earth. Some beautiful, ubiquitous place. Even Han said, as we drove yet again one evening on the N125, that this was the only place that we had ever gone to that he wasn't tempted to start day dreaming about, you know, looking into the price of homes.
We both missed the he- was- born- here stuff, the crumbling buildings ( which we did find, after much searching), the sense of age. The snarky Sue, whom I try to hide from you all- at least here ( by the way, nothing welcomed me home more than those bits of gossip sent along...yum !)- would love to peek out and say, well, shit, the oldest thing that we saw in Portugal was an English couple at the airport, three canes between them, when we were leaving. But I couldn't possibly say anything so...so...tasteless here, now could I ?
Here and there, I think we caught a glimpse of Portugal : the woman painting that pottery and her proud husband, the waiter's surprised reaction when we answered his polite and what did you do today question with, well, we went to Lagos and Monchique.
There was an odd tree there, with tiny, pale purple flowers and clusters of hanging fruits- looked like yellow cherries, I tell you- and it smelled intensely like lilac, probably is some version of lilac.
I brought a handful of the yellow berries home, seeds, wouldn't that be a fine memento of the trip, a tropical lilac ?
I sit with my father and try to give him a reason to put his life on hold, to take care of himself. Well, maybe you won't get hit by a bus next year. Maybe you will live to be one hundred years old, and find yourself shaking your head and saying that you should have listened to all of us, taken care of your leg, back then.
In the end, I cannot change his behavior. I can only cover him with an umbrella of my love and fill his head with dreams of future journeys.
In fact, I actually agreed to run the bulls in Pampalona with Mike some day in the distant future.
And I shall leave the details of that conversation up to your imaginations.
For, after all is said and done, while I prefer doers, I spend a lot of time around people who live to dream.