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Hello again from J-List! I've made the hop from
California back to Japan, and have once again slipped into my
"Japan self." As usual, there was a day or so of
culture shock as I got used to being in Japan again -- at Narita
I found myself staring at the tiny rear ends of the stylish
Tokyo girls walking in front of me, wondering how they could sit
on something so small. Yep, I'm back in Japan now!
I've lived in Japan since 1991, a very long
time indeed. After you've lived here a certain number of years
it's possible for foreigners to apply for permanent residence
status (the equivalent of a green card), which I obtained in
2001. Some gaijin who love living in Japan opt to go all the way
and apply for Japanese citizenship, but I've decided that this
path isn't for me -- it's more fun being an American who can
speak Japanese than to be a blonde Japanese who talks kind of
funny. Every time I go to through Narita I encounter two of my
pet peeves, though. The first is the little card visa holders
have to fill out when going through immigration: "Reason
for returning to Japan?" Since I consider Japan to be my
true home, having to write a "reason" is always
annoying, and I leave it blank on purpose every time. The second
minor annoyance are the Japanese signs that say Okarinasai
(oh-KA-eh-ree-na-SAI), which means "welcome home,"
next to English signs that say "Welcome to Japan." The
unwritten implication is that only Japanese people live in
Japan, whereas anyone who speaks English as his native language
is just visiting here, which is always mildly offensive to
me.
While going through the airport I was reminded
again of how much Japan takes its cues from the United States.
When going through customs, you're required to declare any cash
amount over US$10,000, just as when entering the U.S., and the
amounts of how much wine, tobacco and coffee you can bring in
without paying duties are also very close to the rules that
apply in America. Compared to Japan, it seems that Europe is a
lot more comfortable with breaking with the U.S., as seen in the
recent "no" vote on software patents (which I
cheered).
I'm happy to be back in Japan, but I'm happy
for another reason as well: today is "D Day" for our
hikari fiber (fiber optic) Internet line, which was installed
this morning. It's taken us five years of hard lobbying
including involving our city's mayor, but we finally have a
decent Internet connection at J-List, with a maximum speed of
100 Mbps. J-List is located in a small city that's not exactly
known for its tech companies, and what's worse, we're in the
middle of the agricultural part of town (our office is
surrounded by rice paddies), so it's been a lot of work getting
NTT to bring fast internet to us. But our patience has finally
paid off, and things are much faster now!
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