Thursday, October 20th: The Prodigal Daughter
I am a self-proclaimed spend-a-holic. My family, friends, professors and local neighborhood kids will admit to it. I Kristin White cannot budget. Its simply not in my genes (actually it is, my father has a Ph.D. in mathematics but I can barely count to 10). So when my grant organization gave me a chunk of change the first week I landed on Honshu island, my eyes immediately opened as wide as saucers and I had to hold my hands over my eyelids to keep them from popping out of my head.
This of course comes from a girl who loves to clothes shop, treat her friends out and this leads to bizarre circumstances. I am on a first-name basis with all my banks (note the plural), am often on congenial terms with the shopping stores I frequent, and have even sunk to the level when I got my first delinquency notice from Dominos pizza. And I don’t eve like Dominos.
So when you tempt a fashion-savvy foreigner with the shopoholic culture of Osaka, where clothing is just as, if not more important than food, it creates I tad of a problem.Of course having an inkling to spend in a nation where banks are frequented every day and the average citizen carries around $1,000 with them is not easy for me to take. Surmount that with the fact that key money, or non-refundable housing deposits, reach up into the thousands, clothing in shockingly expensive (and small) and food can cost you an arm and a leg….you begin to feel as though you could drown in a sea of financial sorrows.
Throughout the past month I watched my bank account dwindle further and further down until zeros were being left off bank statements and I needed to carry around a paper bag to breathe properly. Particularly discouraging is the fact that my bank has an ATM on campus, right next to the co-op I frequent every day. If God is testing me, he is doing an excellent job.
So how do I save money? Why go to my favorite bar with friends where we can all talk about how poor researchers are! The Humming Bird is a quaint reggae bar right next to campus, complete with black lights, Bob Marley memorabilia and great people. The bar owner is a former New Yorker who, after living in Japan for several years, tried to make a semblance of a life back in the US’s largest city, and found he missed Japan so much he moved right back to Osaka. Even without the free drinks, food, and lively banter he provides, I have found it so enjoyable to sit with friends and hear stories about their home countries.
From Italian stories about Matteo’s German-speaking, Italian-born grandmother to rants on Gorbechev and the fall of communism by the Russian-Orthodox Dmitri, I have spent countless hours at “my bar” trying to solve the world’s problems with friends and drowning our own with good drink. The most wonderful thing about it is that I am living in more of a melting pot of Japanese, Italian, Chinese, French, Russian and so many more cultures here than I ever had in my small hometown or quaint liberal arts college. And the only way all of us can communicate? Why Japanese of course! Of course I am always missing jokes and my default word is “nani,” or “what?” Over kanpais (the equivalent to "cheers" in the States and the clinking of the glasse) our language bobbles only makes us laugh all the more and realize how truly lucky we are to have the opportunity to research in Japan!
I am a self-proclaimed spend-a-holic. My family, friends, professors and local neighborhood kids will admit to it. I Kristin White cannot budget. Its simply not in my genes (actually it is, my father has a Ph.D. in mathematics but I can barely count to 10). So when my grant organization gave me a chunk of change the first week I landed on Honshu island, my eyes immediately opened as wide as saucers and I had to hold my hands over my eyelids to keep them from popping out of my head.
This of course comes from a girl who loves to clothes shop, treat her friends out and this leads to bizarre circumstances. I am on a first-name basis with all my banks (note the plural), am often on congenial terms with the shopping stores I frequent, and have even sunk to the level when I got my first delinquency notice from Dominos pizza. And I don’t eve like Dominos.
So when you tempt a fashion-savvy foreigner with the shopoholic culture of Osaka, where clothing is just as, if not more important than food, it creates I tad of a problem.Of course having an inkling to spend in a nation where banks are frequented every day and the average citizen carries around $1,000 with them is not easy for me to take. Surmount that with the fact that key money, or non-refundable housing deposits, reach up into the thousands, clothing in shockingly expensive (and small) and food can cost you an arm and a leg….you begin to feel as though you could drown in a sea of financial sorrows.
Throughout the past month I watched my bank account dwindle further and further down until zeros were being left off bank statements and I needed to carry around a paper bag to breathe properly. Particularly discouraging is the fact that my bank has an ATM on campus, right next to the co-op I frequent every day. If God is testing me, he is doing an excellent job.
So how do I save money? Why go to my favorite bar with friends where we can all talk about how poor researchers are! The Humming Bird is a quaint reggae bar right next to campus, complete with black lights, Bob Marley memorabilia and great people. The bar owner is a former New Yorker who, after living in Japan for several years, tried to make a semblance of a life back in the US’s largest city, and found he missed Japan so much he moved right back to Osaka. Even without the free drinks, food, and lively banter he provides, I have found it so enjoyable to sit with friends and hear stories about their home countries.
From Italian stories about Matteo’s German-speaking, Italian-born grandmother to rants on Gorbechev and the fall of communism by the Russian-Orthodox Dmitri, I have spent countless hours at “my bar” trying to solve the world’s problems with friends and drowning our own with good drink. The most wonderful thing about it is that I am living in more of a melting pot of Japanese, Italian, Chinese, French, Russian and so many more cultures here than I ever had in my small hometown or quaint liberal arts college. And the only way all of us can communicate? Why Japanese of course! Of course I am always missing jokes and my default word is “nani,” or “what?” Over kanpais (the equivalent to "cheers" in the States and the clinking of the glasse) our language bobbles only makes us laugh all the more and realize how truly lucky we are to have the opportunity to research in Japan!
posted by Kristin at 3:41 PM
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