Friday 19/6:
I would like to write a little bit about dating in Japan. Not a manual or something like that, just a little bit about what Kojiro and me have been doing on our free time together lately, the little time we have together at least.
It’s not that I am to busy, being a exchange student is really a nice deal, and you are expected to take your time to travel and get to know the culture, something I have excelled at : P
But Kojiro became a fourth grade student from this spring, and at Tokyo Tech that mean no more time for play and getting serious about school again. You join a lab, and have to quit all your extracurricular activities, like Wander Vogel for example. I don’t like the system, but it is all part of the Japanese work ethics I guess. And Kojiro is truly Japanese in that way, very busy and hard working! Just how hard he works, I don’t think any Norwegian student can imagine.
First, there is school, which is not so bad actually. His lab has eight hours mandatory work, five times a week, no flexi time. You show up at 10 o’clock and leave at 6, lunch hour’s starts at 12 if you are lucky, and ends strictly at 1 o’clock. They even had a punishing system for the people that were late, even if it was just by a few minutes they had to bye ice cream for the whole lab. I think they got sick and tired of ice cream because they don’t do it anymore : P
Every lab here is different, and the rules are decided solely by the ruling professor. My lab for example has flexi time, and no set rules. The higher up in the grades you are, the more busy you are and the longer you stay. Also, everyone tends to come in late, and stay to very late at night, so they have a completely different hour than Kojiro’s lab. Also, they might tend to work long days, but then maybe not come in at all at other days, exception being a few of the busy senpais that are always there.
Other labs have for example mandatory work every Saturday. Like for example Bea’s lab, also a YSEP student. It scared her a lot when she found out, but she solved it quickly by simply asking if she could get Saturdays off, which she could, so they are nice to foreign students here, don’t worry.
So anyway, the regular work hours at Kojiros lab made it possible for him to continue his part time work before and after school. That is, working at a bakery early in the mornings and working at an izakaya at nights. Not everyday of course, but close to it.
I don’t know how much money they can borrow for they education, or what kind of scholarships they can get, but it is not even close to what we get in Norway. In Norway everyone get a 40 % scholarship, 60 % loan of about 88 000 kr a year. That is about 1 370 000 yen, 14 500 dollar or 10 000 euro right now, keep in mind the current economical crises when comparing. In addition all education is free, so the money is only meant for living expenses. If you live at home the whole amount is a loan, so you are meant to move out. Or at least they don’t want to discriminate against student that can’t live at home, the result is anyway that most people move out when they start studying.
In Japan, the students are not that economically independent, and I think the norm is for the parents to pay the school money while the students take care of their own living expanses, while living at home in most of the cases of course. Renting for your self in Tokyo is crazy expensive, and dormitories with strict rules and regulations are probably a reasonable alternative. Seeing how things are here I have gotten a more thankful view of the freedom I enjoy at home.
So, Kojiro was studying 8 hours a day at school, plus mornings and nights were used for the two part time jobs, izakaya and bakery. Often he stayed the night, sleeping in the clubroom at school, to avoid having to wake to early in the morning for the bakery job, which is at Ookayama. The izakaya job takes him fare into Tokyo, ends late and have about one hour of commute time back plus plus, so he often sleeps at school at those nights also.
And then, since he has decided to study abroad next year, he needs to save up money for that, so he ends up with two new jobs in addition to everything else! The new jobs are teaching at a cram school night-time, and guide at Mt. Fuji for weekends and summer vacation. Luckily for me he is only doing the cram school job now, but it is still three jobs!
But I am not complaining. Spite being so busy we have a lot of fun weekends together, and lately I am quite busy with school myself so not having that much time together on weekdays doesn’t matter that much.
So that’s the time aspect of dating a Japanese guy, now over to the actual dating. In Norway it would be weird calling what we are doing dating, since we are actually a couple. Couples don’t date in Norway, you have dates with the people you are interested in, and when you end up as a couple you stop dating and end up “doing stuff together” instead.
In Japan the phrase kind of fits actually. Since most young people live at home with their family, or at dormitories with strict rules or roommates, or in tiny apartments, just hanging out at home isn’t really that tempting.
In Norway we do a lot more of that. With dark, cold and long winters the home is an important place where we spend a lot of time. Watching movies, playing games, making food together, just having friends over talking and so one. In Japan you don’t have friends over in the same way as we do, so when you want to have fun with you friends or girlfriend you go out.
Classical dating activities are amusement parks, shopping, going to the movies, driving trips… so nothing unusual, except the driving thing maybe.
So taking the third weekend of June for example. After Friday school, we went to something called nothing less than “neo stall village hold super night”, not quite knowing what to expect, I soon learned that this was an area in Tokyo known for having food booths, and that tonight they had an international theme sponsored by Heineken most likely as there was lots of delicious cheep Heineken beer to be bought.
The food was lovely, and we ate everything from Jamaican to Spanish. There was also an interesting building close by that we took a tour of, pretty interesting for Kojiro I would guess, since he is an architect student.
Ok, I think I have to cut the post short, but the next two posts will be about sex and drinking in Japan, of all things, so don’t miss them.
