Category Archives: Personal

International Financial Speculation on a Small Scale

3 Replies

Note to family and friends: With a weak yen, it’s a great time to visit Japan.

Every country, for the most part, is trying to ruin their currency. Unfortunately Japan has momentarily succeeded.

First you have to understand that when you move to a foreign country you are given a handful of funny looking bits of paper they call “local currency”. The problem is, you have no frame of reference for it and your brain immediately defaults to your home currency. I remember during our orientation in Tokyo that speakers would describe something as 20,000 yen and we newbies would be like “whaaasat?” and they’d say that’s about 180 dollars and then the people from the British Isles and/or Australia would be like “whaaasat?”

Once you learn the money, it becomes second nature and then you give a talk to newbies and they go “whaaasat?” when you mention a computer costs 90,000 yen. However, except for that case, you don’t even think much about the dollar or pound value. You just live and use the local currency.

However, if your goal is to send money back to your home country, you immediately become a minor currency speculator. You analyze whether or not you should send your 200,000 yen home now when it’s worth 1,800 dollars or wait and risk the yen weakening and your 200,000 being worth only 1,700 dollars. But if the yen strengthens, your 200,000 yen is worth 1,900 dollars.

This is important because your salary never changes but its value in your home currency can change a lot, as can your bragging rights. When I first came to Japan I had a 300,000 yen per month or 3,600,000 yen per year salary that didn’t change for three years. This is how the value in dollars changed each year. (I’m including the value when I finished that job in 1999.)

1996: $34,286 per year
1997: $30,000 per year
1998: $27,692 per year
1999: $35,643 per year

Just three years ago that same salary would have been $47,368.

The other thing you become aware of is why countries are trying to ruin their currencies: Stuff. By weakening your currency you increase exports (albeit by driving up inflation and making your country a crappy place to do business but at least someone’s getting rich).

As an expatriate, though, you get really good at price comparisons and adding in tax and shipping to decide if buying local is better or if importing is worth the money, the effort and the wait. For example, three years ago if you wanted to buy a laptop and the price was $1,000 in the USA and 100,000 yen in Japan, it would be worth the time, effort and wait to import to Japan because $1,000=75,000 yen, a savings of 25,000 yen or $328.

Now, however, that same $1,000 laptop would be 115,000 yen to import but only 100,000 yen to buy in Japan.

A couple years ago, I purchased a couple bags from an online retailer here in Japan. Soon after I made the order the yen started to get weak and the retailer cancelled most of my order. I suspect they were importing products from the USA and taking advantage of the margin they got by selling in yen. Then, suddenly the margin disappeared along with my order.

Confused? Welcome to my world.

Edited on 11/8-2014 for clarity.

International Bring the Pain Month

3 Replies

This month, because I don’t have enough to do, I’ve decided to write a novel. I only have 30 days.

This month, for the uninitiated is National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). The goal is to produce at least 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. This is not to be confused with Movember, where men get paid to grow mustaches for charity or the 3-Day Novel Contest where the goal is for masochists to produce a 100 page novel in 72 hours. (This is the equivalent of “Black Friday” for the caffeinated beverages/energy drinks industry.)

This means I have to write at least 1,667 words a day until November 30th.

Now, if you’re keeping score:
1) I have a day job and winter, er, exams are coming;
2) I’ve committed to write at least 300 words a day on this blog;
3) I occasionally am expected to speak with the members of my family;
4) I’m now writing about 6-7 typed pages of text a day.

The good thing about the challenge (which given the international participation should be called IntNoWriMo) is that it requires the participants to write without thinking–I recognize that look so shut up–and learn to use free time to meet the daily quota. The idea is that the rapid pace required shuts down all internal editors (ha, as if) and the participants just generate words.

In my case I’m what’s known as a NaNoWriMo rebel. I’m finishing a project rather than starting a new one. I still have to produce 50,000 words to “win” and I’m only allowed to submit the words written in November. This was something only recently allowed as the true spirit of the event is to start from scratch and produce 50,000 words. I’ve heard of writers who finished one project and then started another and somehow got to 50,000 words. (To give you a sense of the size of this project, my current novel is at 17,227 words–7,925 written in the last four days–and is 80 pages long.)

After everyone is finished, there used to be a follow up event called National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo) but it appears to be on temporary hiatus.

Wish me luck. I already feel the madness setting in…

Halloween is Gone Before It’s Even Past But It’s Fun

Leave a reply

Today was Halloween and yesterday I looked around for some potential costumes. I was already too late.

I’ve mentioned before how the Japanese recognize Halloween but don’t really celebrate it. In the school where I work, a handful of us decided to go in costume to just to do something different and because one of your high school projects has the students developing their own cartoon supervillains.

Because it’s a Christian school, I decided to go as the devil and went to find a pair of devil’s horns. I started at a 100 yen shop and was surprised to find only a few decorations and little else. I couldn’t even find any masks. As a back up, I bought a toy pistol and planned to go as a police officer or a soldier.

Note: The video club at the school often run around with toy guns–I’ve even had to tell the boys 1) to never point them at me again and 2) proper stance–so I wasn’t worried about anyone freaking out.

In the end, I remembered that many years ago She Who Must Be Obeyed made a pair of devil’s horns for our youngest for Halloween. Because we still had them she lent them to me and I’m now the second generation of Lively’s to wear the devil’s horns. (Which is not necessarily a good thing, now that I think about it, and traditions are supposed to go down generations not up them. Oh, and father’s aren’t supposed to wear their toddler daughter’s clothes.)

The horns looked good on me (once again, that’s not necessarily a good thing) and I matched them with a red shirt and black slacks. My official story, when I got comments from teachers, was that on Halloween I reverted to my true form and if they were interested in being really rich or living forever or being famous blues musicians, I just happened to have a little contract they could sign.

The school priest had a great laugh and I regret not posing with him for a photo. (I also thought about going over the chapel and pretending I was blocked from going inside.)

Then, I got double use out of the horns for our annual, and now rather small, neighborhood trick-or-treat rounds. I met the kids at the door with the horns on my head and flashlight under my face.

Now I get to enjoy the leftover candy (you can have some, too. Just sign the little contract I send you…)

The Month Has Dragged You Down

1 Reply

The past few years I’ve noticed that something about October has been playing havoc with my psyche. Apparently I’m not the only one.

Last Sunday five of the six foreign teachers at the school where I work got together for the school festival and later we went for a couple drinks. I think we were all surprised how much we actually needed a drink and how much we ended up drinking.

One teacher described how he hadn’t been feeling like himself and lately we’ve all commented about how long even holiday shortened weeks have felt. This isn’t just the usual after summer grind; it’s something to do with the season.

Last October was when the full after-effects of my father’s death hit. Looking back over the past few years of diary entries, I seem to have a lot of “confusion journal” entries in October. I’ve also noticed that a lot of new habits and practices tend to fall apart in October and I revert back to my bad old ways.

I’m not sure why this is. It could be the changing weather and the frequent up and down temperatures, random typhoons and the periodic fits of humidity. It could also be because  weekends also tend to get busy with school events from three different schools.

I also wonder if it’s connected to the random days off we have in October making it hard to get a good life and teaching rhythm going. (Note to all bosses: I’m willing to keep experimenting with this if you’re willing to give more random days off.) I don’t mind not knowing what day it is because I’ve had a long weekend, but it does mess up my thinking sometimes.

That said, January and February have more random days off, but I never feel as off center then as I do in October.

November generally settles down and I feel a lot better. Even when I have my birthday.

 

 

 

A Business Run Like a Government Office Run by Committee

Leave a reply

Today I took She Who Must Be Obeyed and our youngest daughter to Tokyo Skytree to make up for not taking them back in August.

Although we had a great time, even with a foggy view, and I even walked across the dangerous death glass floor twice, the trip was complicated because Tokyo Skytree is run suspiciously like a government office with half-nods to high tech but nothing that could be described as a full-nod.

First, we decided to see if we could reserve tickets on Sunday night for Monday. It turns out that all reservations have to be made three days in advance or they can’t be made. In the era of the internet, I do not fully understand the reasoning behind this.  Because it’s off season, every day for the next two months shows a circle, which means there are lots of tickets available, however, rather than providing a convenience, the Powers What Are at Skytree would rather have you stand in line.

This brings out something else I don’t understand: reserved tickets are 500 yen more than non-reserved. By shutting down the computer reservations, the Powers What Are at Skytree are actually losing money. Adding to the fun, reservations can only be made with Japanese issued credit cards meaning the tens of thousands of foreign visitors arriving every year have to stand in line.

Once we got in line, there was another odd thing I didn’t understand. Although the “maze” started as the usual narrow path, it suddenly opened up to four or five people across before eventually squeezing back down to a narrow path. This allowed people who’d got in line later to cut the line with the full blessing of the Powers What Are at Tokyo Skytree.

Imagine a Department of Motor Vehicles line that suddenly opened up and let people cut the line. It wouldn’t end pretty.

I suspect this is because Tokyo Skytree’s main purpose is to broadcast terrestrial digital television not to provide entertainment for tourists, especially those from outside Japan. Tokyo Skytree was funded by Tobu Railway (who I’m guessing provided the property) and a coalition of six television networks headed by NHK. It’s the NHK connection that I think is telling. NHK is a “publicly owned” and “independent” corporation that everyone is technically, sort of, supposed to support via fees that are technically, sort of mandatory. Its annual budget has to be approved by the government.

This means there’s no real interest in making Tokyo Skytree user friendly. It will continue to exist even if no one visits it. And, in defense of the Powers What Are, a lot of people visit it every year despite the annoyances.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and Listened Once

Leave a reply

I started dating She Who Must Be Obeyed by accident. In fact, it’s fair to say she chose me long before I chose her.

I’ve already described our less than impressive first meeting and mentioned how we accidentally started dating after a night of karaoke that was also, sort of, an accident.

A few months after that first meeting/public temper tantrum She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed joined my Thursday night adult class. At that time, I still thought she was cute but love at second sight also hadn’t happened. During one of our class Christmas gift exchanges (where we put in a slip of paper with our name and desired present on it and then drew names) I joked that I’d put my list in.

She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed suddenly went “List?! List?!” I didn’t think much of it, other than she was the only student actually listening to what I’d said. Somewhere in the back of my head I heard my mother’s voice telling me stop chasing and start looking around for who was looking at me.

I, of course, immediately ignored that maternal advice as my usual form of pursuit was to pretty much hang out near a woman I was interested in until she mistook me for a helpless puppy and took me back to her house and had sex with me. I eventually realized, though, that a woman who would do that isn’t the kind of woman you want to take home to mother, especially if your mother has pets.

A few months later, after the night of karaoke, as She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed and I were sharing a back seat on the ride back to Nou Machi, the conversation somehow turned to dating. I remember mentioning to She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed that if we were dating, or serious or something, I’d cook if she’d do the dishes.

I didn’t think much of it but she took it as an opening because the next morning, without any warning, she called and told me she was coming over. I had two reactions: 1) What have I done? and 2) Why does it look like a bear lives here? I cleaned the house up and she arrived and actually started to do dishes (because I hadn’t for a while).

I told her she didn’t have to do the dishes and took her to a restaurant in a nearby town. We kept dating after that.

 

 

Homecoming Parades and Artistic Disasters

1 Reply

My first chance at creating public art ended in an unrecognizable disaster.

About a thousand years ago when I was a freshman at Hayden High School–or perhaps I was a sophomore–the entire class was gathered together to design our homecoming float for the annual homecoming parade. This was a bad thing for my class.

For some reason the class of 1985–at both HHS and later at Southeast of Saline HS where I would eventually graduate–had an intense dislike of planning such spectacles. I don’t know if this is because we lacked a leader or because, as I suspect, to a person we couldn’t have cared less about the parade. When asked to come up with designs we just kind of stared at each other and went “you decide”.

Eventually, someone, I think his name was Randy, suggested we just have a float with a giant fist in the center and nothing else. Because no one hated the idea, that became our plan. The next step was to find someone to design the float. Because I was interested in drawing random things, everyone looked at me and I was chosen.

If you are keeping score: for sports I was chosen last; for bullshit jobs I was chosen first.

I had no clue what I was doing but managed to produce a sketch of a fist made with chicken wire and we all met at someone’s house to build the float and “pomp” it. For the uninitiated, pomping involves twisting bits of paper and tissue into chicken wire to give the design “shape” and “color” and “life”. It is also one of those jobs where no matter how long you do it, you never seem to make any progress. In fact, it’s the closest you can get to Purgatory without experiencing physical death.

Things became complicated when our faculty adviser (I don’t remember his name) decided that the float needed more than just a fist. In fact, he decided, the fist should be punching the mascot of Whatever The Hell It Was High School (not a real school). This prompted a redesign and pretty much all my effort was ignored as all my designs were thrown out the window. (Many years later I’d read The Fountainhead and realize what I should have done to protect my vision. I could have even given a sixty page speech at my trial.)

For reasons I don’t remember, I wasn’t able to go pomping more than once. Apparently neither was anyone else in my class. The final float looked half finished and no one understood what it was supposed to be. We finished last in the judging. I don’t remember anyone caring much about that.

Once Upon a Time a Blatherer

1 Reply

One of the joys of being a Dad is being able to use Daddy Phrases. The more ridiculous the Daddy Phrase the better.

You grow up hearing these phrases. What you don’t realize is how much fun they are to use. You also don’t realize that they are a kind of test to see not only if you can hear, but also if you’re actually listening.

The old standbys are especially fun. “If you fall down and split your head open, you’re not getting dessert.” (For the record, this is factually correct.)

“If you break your leg, you’re getting a spanking.” (The trick here is leaving off the “eventually”.)

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” (Even I don’t get to talk to your mother like that.)

My favorites are still “You can have that when you have a job and can pay for it yourself.” Eventually the child gets the money and you say “You can’t have that in my house. When you have your own house you can have anything in it you want.”

That dialogue leads to “Do you want a spanking?” Now, this one is tricky, because although the obvious answer is “no”, it often tricks Tweens and Teens into sarcastically saying “Yeah” and the results are, well, the results. This ends with me saying “Don’t say I never give you what you want.”

And the final classic: “You’ll never be too big to get a spanking.”

It’s also fun to invent your own phrases. When our oldest was learning to walk, we dedicated certain dangerous areas as forbidden zones. When she stumbled into one, my phrase was “That’s a forbidden zone, Oldest. You what that means? It means it’s forbidden.”

Once again, this is a factual statement that still manages to confuse children. That’s the most fun, especially if it means they are actually listening to you.

In the end, what I like about Daddy Phrases is I get to play the fool (which I am disturbingly good at). Then, when I suddenly reveal that I know everything my girls have been up to, it makes me seem kind of psychic.

The Slow Train to Anywhere

Leave a reply

Twice in my life I’ve ridden Amtrak. It’s an experience I hope to never repeat now that I’ve actually repeated it.

The first train I rode was the train they call the City of New Orleans on a trip to New Orleans. New Orleans was great and very much worth the trip. The train they call the City of New Orleans was not. It was slow and at some point stopped completely after it hit a truck or a truck hit it or the driver went on strike or something. The only good thing was that I was traveling with my then girlfriend (a relationship that would not end so well) and I got to read a lot.

I tried to enjoy the scenery at times, but since the train moved slowly before it stopped, I got tired of staring at the same tree.

The next time I rode Amtrak I got suckered by low prices. I decided to go visit some Peace Corps friends of mine in Vermont and New York City. After careful research, I discovered that, because of a price special, a train ticket to New York was cheaper than a plane ticket to New York.

Forgetting my past experience, I bought the ticket and hopped the train to Chicago, at 2 a.m. or something like that, from an ill-kempt station in Memphis that reminded me of my one train trip in Albania. Several hours after I started I finally arrived in Chicago. Along the way I made friends/temporary travel companions with a Swedish lass (Svensk tjej?) named Marie who remained a long time pen pal, even after I moved to Japan.

I then took the next leg from Chicago to New York which involved a brief stay in either Purgatory or Buffalo, I’m still not sure which. At some point I arrived in New York, saw my friend there and then took a bus to Vermont to see my other friend. Eventually I ended up back on the train and ended up back in Memphis.

It’s no exaggeration to say I could have got to Tokyo and back in the time it took me to get to New York and back on the train. And I’d at least have been able to watch a movie.

The lesson learned from all this was that when the song says “I’ll be gone 500 miles when the day is done” it actually means “I’ll have abandoned the 19th century toy and hopped on an airplane”.

Enjoy the ride.

Me One Me Happy One Me Seventh Wheel

Leave a reply

I had the unusual experience of being a lowly fifth level black belt in a group of experts today.

In addition to my sensei (an 8th dan) and the assistant teacher (a 6th dan) we were joined by an extra 8th dan and three extra sixth dans. They were all visiting our dojo/gym to practice for tournament that’s taking place in two weeks. Since it’s for sixth dans and higher I’m not invited which means I was at practice today to, well, pretty much take up space.

I mostly practiced basic moves and katas and then played practice dummy for one of the sixth dans. Basically I got to hold a sword vertically in front of him as if I were a killer taking time to explain that my victim should be honored to be split in two with an original Hattori Hanzo sword that is so sharp God will be cut. While I’m talking the defender does a couple simple moves with his arms that block me from cutting him. He pushes me back and then pretty much avoids my next three swings with different techniques. The entire sequence ends with me at his mercy.

I got to try the sequence a few times and did okay, although was making some small mistakes. The temptation is to push with your arms but the trick is to push from your stomach and legs. We are instructed to make life as difficult as possible for the defender. When he forgot to use his right hand to control my arms, I stepped left and showed him I could elbow his face and then remove his head or a good portion of his internal organs. When I tried using my arms to push, he stood fast and didn’t go anywhere.

Later, I got to watch the high level experts practice. They were doing one defender versus two swordsmen routines. The only rules are you have to do at least five moves and can’t repeat a defensive technique; you have to be aware of both attackers at the same time because they can slash you if they have a chance; and the attackers can’t help you by pretending you pulled them down. If one of the sensei’s thinks you’re just faking, they will replace you and see if the defender can still do the techniques.

it was interesting to watch. The problem is they make it look easy.