Perils of Foreign Beauracracies

I've been in Taiwa-cho a full week now. And I haven't updated the blog although I have had lots that I want to tell because I've been completely cut off. I actually got on the computer once at the Board of Education and wrote an entire entry, but couldn't post it because the page was blocked by the same thing that wouldn't let me get on to gmail (but facebook worked for some reason).

Trying to get internet and a mobile phone have been (and continue to be) huge ordeals. First Nathan (my counterpart in Taiwa) and I were told by our supervisors that we would not be able to get internet or phones until we get our Alien Registration Cards, which won't come until the week after next. But other JETs have everything set up already and were exchanging numbers when we got together in Sendai on Sunday.

It turns out that we can get by with certificates that we got when we filled out the paperwork for the Alien cards. Our supervisor took those certificates at the time. Nathan found them in a random stack of papers at the Board of Education.

So yesterday, armed with my bilingual dictionary, Nathan's moderate Japanese ability, and all the documents we need, the two of us walk to the cell phone store. Luckily the rain abated during this time and the store was not far from my house. Then we hit a wall. No meaninful communication occurred with the sales-lady. No matter how many times Nathan asked her to speak slower, she continued her rapid-fire Japanes...to me. We gave up and left. We called Jenny, a third year ALT in town who's been super-awesome as our senoir, and whose Japanese is up to snuff to handle these kinds of situations. So Jenny meets us back at the cell phone store and discusses the deals and plans and all that kind of stuff with the sales woman. Everything seems to be looking up...until it turns out that the store has no phones in stock!

This afternoon we get one of our supervisors, Nakajima-sensei, to take us to the electronics store that is too far to walk in order to get some internet and phones. Internet is the greater priority, but we start with phones. After three hours and lots of confusion and frustration, we finally have phones. With our phones came complimentary plastic fans (that every company gives out as advertisements), quite a few travel packs of tissues, a roll of toilet paper, and a diseased-looking houseplant.

With the phones finally worked out, we went to another part of the store to see about some internet. We were not too optimistic at this point. Especially because Nakajima-sensei said that he had to be back to the office after half an hour. After spending some time talking to those guys, it turns out that we need to have permission from whoever originally set up our land-lines in order to get internet installed. So that won't happen for a few days.

This evening I managed to hitchhike on someone's wireless and I called Nathan on our new phones to share my good fortune. When I get some internet of my own, I'll share all about my huge house and my problems with illiteracy as well as crazy karaoke nights.