It feels like nothing particularly interesting has actually happened for me over the last week. This would appear to be because I'm getting used to the slightly weird life I am living (which seems to include bumping into Visual Kei bands in the middle of Harajuku...), rather than because nothing interesting has actually happened.
Firstly, finals week. I think I mentioned this at the end of my last post, so I'm sure you are desperate to hear what happened. Well, there were exams. And I went to them. That's about all, really...
Okay, not quite all. So, I don't think I've talked about the way exams work in Japan yet. Actually, I'm not sure if this is how all exams are. My Japanese language exams are the same as they were in England, and only one of my other modules had an exam. However, my International Relations exams seem to me to be the way exams work here. Basically, the exam consisted of somewhere between 25 and 50 multiple choice questions, and then a 1-2 page essay. For this, I had about two hours. Needless to say, I was out of the room in under half an hour. I am much more used to having two hours to write two or three essays, of three or four pages each. However, most of the people taking the course are Japanese students, so I guess it's difficult enough for them to understand the questions let alone answer them - I had trouble understanding the weird wording of some of the multiple choice questions after all.
What am I complaining about then, with such easy exams? To begin with, I don't actually recall complaining so far in this post... But any ways, the thing is that the pass mark here is a LOT higher than in England. So, English universities have 40% as the lowest passmark. 70% is the lowest mark you need to get the highest grade possible. Not so in this university! Here you need to get 70% to just get a C grade. This strikes me as terribly confusing and unfair... Anyways, now that I have actually complained about that, I will move on.
Now, with the end of term exams over, it is currently holiday - November break. Term will start again at the beginning of December, just in time to break up again for two weeks for Christmas... I seriously have no idea who came up with this 'logic'. Anyways, with the holiday approaching, I thought it might be nice to go someplace. Unfortunately, travel in Japan is a bit more pricey than in England, and I spent a considerable amount on bills at the start of the month. So in hope of earning enough to go visit friends in other parts of Japan, I did something I had never wanted to do. I have started tutoring English. Now, I like teaching some things. Archery, for example. However, I have very little patience to be a really effective teacher. But, there was no other option. There are websites which facilitate meetings between students and teachers, so I signed up to one of them. It appears having an English accent is quite a lure to some people, so I have had a bit of interest, and have had a couple of lessons. This seems to involve meeting some random Japanese person, usually a businessman, in some random coffee shop, and having awkward conversation for an hour, then being given however much money I decided in advance I would charge and trying not to grin too happily at the money... Then ending up spending most of it on groceries...
Needless to say, I have not saved up enough to go someplace. I haven't even really even earned enough to go someplace, even if I had saved all of it. However, the money I got made some things nicer, like the fact I was able to go to an all you can eat pizza place with my friends who had been begging me to go with them for weeks. I was a little unnerved to see that some of the pizza was topped in chocolate sauce and bananas, or in apple and cinnamon, but it was actually quite tasty. As was the unlimited tiramisu which was included in the whole thing. I did feel quite ill on leaving the restaurant though. And one of my friends seemed to have some strange problem of hearing jazz music in the restaurant, even though none was playing...
So, to continue in the, frankly disgustingly capitalist tone of this post, I would like to talk about money. Specifically money in Japan. See, I am always surprised, and a little irritated, by how much of a 'cash culture' Japan has. Now, I don't mean to say they don't use credit and debit cards. Lots of shops accept them, but I have rarely seen anyone actually use them, except for really big purchases. Japan is, as a lot of people are aware, one of the safest countries from petty crime, but still...
Firstly, finals week. I think I mentioned this at the end of my last post, so I'm sure you are desperate to hear what happened. Well, there were exams. And I went to them. That's about all, really...
Okay, not quite all. So, I don't think I've talked about the way exams work in Japan yet. Actually, I'm not sure if this is how all exams are. My Japanese language exams are the same as they were in England, and only one of my other modules had an exam. However, my International Relations exams seem to me to be the way exams work here. Basically, the exam consisted of somewhere between 25 and 50 multiple choice questions, and then a 1-2 page essay. For this, I had about two hours. Needless to say, I was out of the room in under half an hour. I am much more used to having two hours to write two or three essays, of three or four pages each. However, most of the people taking the course are Japanese students, so I guess it's difficult enough for them to understand the questions let alone answer them - I had trouble understanding the weird wording of some of the multiple choice questions after all.
What am I complaining about then, with such easy exams? To begin with, I don't actually recall complaining so far in this post... But any ways, the thing is that the pass mark here is a LOT higher than in England. So, English universities have 40% as the lowest passmark. 70% is the lowest mark you need to get the highest grade possible. Not so in this university! Here you need to get 70% to just get a C grade. This strikes me as terribly confusing and unfair... Anyways, now that I have actually complained about that, I will move on.
Now, with the end of term exams over, it is currently holiday - November break. Term will start again at the beginning of December, just in time to break up again for two weeks for Christmas... I seriously have no idea who came up with this 'logic'. Anyways, with the holiday approaching, I thought it might be nice to go someplace. Unfortunately, travel in Japan is a bit more pricey than in England, and I spent a considerable amount on bills at the start of the month. So in hope of earning enough to go visit friends in other parts of Japan, I did something I had never wanted to do. I have started tutoring English. Now, I like teaching some things. Archery, for example. However, I have very little patience to be a really effective teacher. But, there was no other option. There are websites which facilitate meetings between students and teachers, so I signed up to one of them. It appears having an English accent is quite a lure to some people, so I have had a bit of interest, and have had a couple of lessons. This seems to involve meeting some random Japanese person, usually a businessman, in some random coffee shop, and having awkward conversation for an hour, then being given however much money I decided in advance I would charge and trying not to grin too happily at the money... Then ending up spending most of it on groceries...
Needless to say, I have not saved up enough to go someplace. I haven't even really even earned enough to go someplace, even if I had saved all of it. However, the money I got made some things nicer, like the fact I was able to go to an all you can eat pizza place with my friends who had been begging me to go with them for weeks. I was a little unnerved to see that some of the pizza was topped in chocolate sauce and bananas, or in apple and cinnamon, but it was actually quite tasty. As was the unlimited tiramisu which was included in the whole thing. I did feel quite ill on leaving the restaurant though. And one of my friends seemed to have some strange problem of hearing jazz music in the restaurant, even though none was playing...
So, to continue in the, frankly disgustingly capitalist tone of this post, I would like to talk about money. Specifically money in Japan. See, I am always surprised, and a little irritated, by how much of a 'cash culture' Japan has. Now, I don't mean to say they don't use credit and debit cards. Lots of shops accept them, but I have rarely seen anyone actually use them, except for really big purchases. Japan is, as a lot of people are aware, one of the safest countries from petty crime, but still...
I will give you an example – bills. I have had to pay a depressingly large number of these since arriving. The fees for the dorm I'm living in, my mobile phone bill, my health insurance bill... The thing about all of these is that you pay them in cash. You can pay most of them at any convenience store, or post office, and conveniently, we have a post office right in the middle of our campus. Some people tried to pay by card, especially for the dorm fee, which was almost £2000 at the time due to horrible exchange rates but were told they had to pay in cash. No one wants to carry around that much money. Most banks wont even let you withdraw that much at one time. Still, cash it had to be.
In England, if you work in a shop and someone tries to pay for something with a £50 note, often what you are meant to do is call your manager, who will assess whether the note is real, or tell the customer that they don't accept £50s. That's because a £50 is much more likely to be fake. The only people who use £50s are tourists, and I really pity them for the trouble they will find trying to use one.
In Japan, the highest note I have seen is the 10,000 yen note, which right now is about £70. These are accepted everywhere. Even in a hundred yen shop, where you are only buying one thing, and want all that change back. Personally, I think they prefer that to when I go in and buy one thing with one hundred and five one yen coins (100 yen shops are actually 105 yen shops, after tax).
One yen coins are possibly the most useless thing ever. They are worth less than a penny and are made of recycled drinks cans. They are also the bane of everyone's wallet and the reason why cash based societies are always stressed. Although, there are special boxes you can buy to keep your 1 yen coins in. You can fit fifty in a box, and I've already filled one and am on my way through a second. Because you can't actually use these stupid pieces of fake metal anywhere, except the occasional shop where someone feels like being nice to you and pretending for a moment that they are anything other than a waste of everyone's space, time and drinks cans.
Anyways, I'll end here. Sorry for the lack of photos. I kinda forgot to take any over the last week, so busy with doing the incredible amount of revision I did. I really, really hope I'll end up doing something of interest over the next week, but probably all I'll do is sew plushies and try desperately to finish my 50,000 word novel by the end of November...
Anyways, I'll end here. Sorry for the lack of photos. I kinda forgot to take any over the last week, so busy with doing the incredible amount of revision I did. I really, really hope I'll end up doing something of interest over the next week, but probably all I'll do is sew plushies and try desperately to finish my 50,000 word novel by the end of November...
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