Country Life
Stephen Horowitz
January 05, 2001
My town is a small town of about 7000 people called Yayoi. It is located in Oita Prefecture in the northeastern part of Kyushu Island. In case any of you happen to know the area, it's right next to the city of Saiki. Although the JET Program pretends that the applicant has a choice of where he or she is going to wind up, the truth is that the program administrators pretty much decide for you. Thus, Yayoi. Despite it being small, I'm having a great time . . .
but I'm getting ahead of myself, so read on and find out.
Editor's Note: Stephen's column began last summer as an e-mail sent out to his friends. For its publication here, the columns have been slightly altered for mass consumption. In addition, some of the events he discusses (the summer months, the Olympics) are obviously not current, but the majority of the column concerns events and details for which the fact that it was written a few months ago is irrelevant. Enjoy!
Although at first I was disappointed at being placed in the boonies (or as the Japanese say, inaka), and although it does have its fair share of disadvantages, there is something to be said for living in the country. The following examples might help you to understand why.
When I arrived, I was slightly worried because I had not received an exact address or telephone number from my employers. However, I found out that it was because they had two different apartments for me to choose between. The first was a whole house (eat your heart out, one-room city dwellers!!), which could easily have fit a family of four and could maybe have fit a family of five if at least two of the children were still young. Anyway, it was slightly old and was much too large for just me, so I had to pass on it.
The second was a one-room apartment with a tiny kitchen and a tiny bathroom. Although they only gave me those two choices, I told them that I thought the first was too big and the second was too small. Well, it turns out that there was a third apartment which the current family was about to move out of, a two-room with a larger kitchen and bathroom. I told them that I thought that would be best and they said ok, but that it wouldn't be ready until the end of this week. In the meantime, they set me up with a home stay at a retired English teacher's place who, of course, spoiled me rotten.
My employer is paying $300 of each month's rent, none of which comes out of the salary they are paying me. Basically what that means is that I am paying $80/month in rent (in addition to utilities). My employer is also paying the dreaded "key money." For those of you who do not know, when you first begin renting an apartment in Japan you have to pay a huge sum of money which doesn't go towards anything save the landlord's well being. In most cases, this fee is usually equal to 2-4 months of rent. In my case, it was three months rent which was about $1100. My town is supplying my apartment with most necessities for free. Included are the refrigerator, heater, rice cooker, television, laundry machine, futon, cushions to sit on, a bicycle, bath towels and other linens, soap and shampoo, etc. Unfortunately, noticeably lacking are dishes, cooking supplies (like pots and pans), a VCR, a stereo, and an air conditioning unit. I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, though.
The "supermarkets" stock fresh vegetables and fish from the area which are ridiculously cheap, not to mention delicious. My section chief found out that I like Asahi Super-Dry beer and dropped off a 12-pack of the large bottles as well as about a kilogram of rice grown in his own rice paddy! A few days later, he stopped by again and dropped off another 2-3 kilograms!! I have enough rice for a while now, and I don't know how I'll ever eat anything but fresh rice again! If that weren't enough, my home-stay father keeps honeybees and has promised to keep me well stocked with fresh, just-out-of-the-hive honey.
Having been given all this food, it's fortunate that I enjoy cooking, which seems to surprise people here. The look of absolute shock and the feeling that you have just broken down all of someone's perceptions of how the world should be, as occurs whenever I tell someone that, not only can I cook (despite being male), but I can even cook Japanese food, is priceless.
The small town surroundings are beautiful, the air is (relatively) clean, and hawks and falcons regularly fly by overhead. My fears that everybody in the town was either going to be under the age of 16 or over the age of 60 were unfounded.
There are, of course, disadvantages to being in the country. I will almost definitely need a car which is an incredibly expensive endeavor in Japan. Cars themselves are, not surprisingly, pretty cheap if you buy a model that is even a year old, but insurance, gas, and inspection are killers. It just about makes up for all of the free stuff I am getting from my town.
The nearest thing resembling a major city is Fukuoka in northern Kyushu; about 3 hours by both express train or car (not to mention about $40 in tolls each way). From Fukuoka, it is at least 3 hours by bullet train (tickets are upwards of $100) to anywhere else I would want to go in Japan. Going anywhere, even the next town over (where there is a video store and, *gasp*, a department store), is a 10 minute drive.
But as I seem to have made clear, so far I am quite happy living here, and the pros so far outweigh the cons. I hope to continue to chronicle my experiences here regularly - as they say in Japanese "Gambarimasu" ("I'll try my best")!
