WHEN I’m not blatantly ripping off opening lines from The Doctor and The Colonel, I’m musing on life in Miura, Japan. And defrosting the freezer; damn thing won’t do it by itself.
It's been about a month since my first blog, and though I’m sure that my four avid readers have been waiting with baited breathe for the next installment (hi Mum!!!!), I didn’t really know what to write about... as I sit down to write this I find that the common theme on most of the stand-out moments in the past month have centred on one undeniable fact: Here, I am illiterate.
Now, if you were moving to another country, you would probably endeavour to learn some of the language before arrival, right? All three alphabets of it? The nuances of formal, informal modern use and colloquial terms? Wrong, you wouldn’t. IT’S HARD. And despite an intensive smash course of Japanese, for all intents and purposes I am still virtually illiterate.
I cannot tell you how confronting this is. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, capable of dealing with the challenges life throws my way with good humour and grace. I have traveled extensively and in a pinch, I will charade the shit out of something I cannot communicate verbally. However, my illiteracy in this country has lead to some odd occurrences over the past month... for example, a battle royale with an ATM.
"Oh silly girl," I hear you say. "Surely ATM’s are designed to be used as easily by foreigners abroad as they are here in Australia - how much stress or frustration could this cause?" I hear you wonder. Hell, I can even use them in various states of inebriation when them garlic chicken balls are a-callin'. Everyone knows the universal law of ATM function is that the card goes in, you are expected to interact with the keypad when the super computer inside the machine asks for numbers to be inputted, and money is produced for you to take on your merry way, simple really. To all of this I say: "Take your drunken garlic-stinkin' ass to Japan and see how you go there!" The foreign alphabet strikes again!
My first attempt to use my spanking new cash card (which in itself was quite an ordeal to obtain) resulted in the ATM at the post office informing the unsuspecting me VERY LOUDLY in two languages that what I was attempting was indeed WRONG and not to be done here. I took deep breathes, I maintained my calm in the face of the very shouty ATM. Go back over the steps… card in (check), mash the keypad and enter pin (check), but again comes forth a VERY LOUD VOICE from within the machine shouting at me… hmmm… bad. Mind you, this is happening in front of a small crowd waiting to use the same ATM that was shouting at me, so after a hasty assessment of my current situation I did the mature thing and retrieved my card from the ATM (physically) got in my car and drove away. You win this round, ATM.
Round 2, rematch; this time at the ATM's home ground, the Yokohama Bank. Card goes in – check… the ATM clearly wants information from me, I’m assuming a pin number as this is the order it happens in Australia but I am extremely unsure because I can’t read these crazy picture words these people call an alphabet. (For some reason I’d also assumed that after a change of location I may have suddenly, magically been able to read kanji. I’m really not all that bright.) Japanese ATM’s are actually very technologically advanced, and are capable of far more than their Australian cousins. As a Japanese friend said, "You can do so much with them! Pay bills, transfer funds, and its so simple... if you can read Japanese." Yes. I look forward to making use of the technological awesomeness right after I learn your three alphabets.
After pawing at the touch screen in vain for a while and feeling like a bit of a nut bag I conceded after the ATM started asking for my passbook; round two also goes to the ATM. Round two however is not a complete loss… after extensive research I can safely report that these so-called super computers do not respond to humans shouting, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME???????!!!!!!!!!"
Round 3 – failure is not an option!! Mostly because I prefer to eat actual food rather than fantasy food and I find actual petrol works better than fantasy petrol (FYI: The petrol stations also have an ATM-like machine that allows one to purchase petrol to fuel one's car, needless to say I am also unable to operate these presently). Armed with a Kanji (Japanese alphabet) to English translation of helpful words like "withdraw" and "money" I returned and am sincerely glad to report that after approximately 20 minutes carefully examining the kanji I managed to withdraw some money from the inside of the ATM to refill my wallet without resorting to violence. I felt like I’d single-handedly built Apollo 11, flown it to the moon and gravity danced the night away. I literally strutted out of the bank. A small step for most ordinary, literate humans but a giant leap for this awkward gaijin.
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