My Gulag Part IV: The Hungarian Hottie

Guest post by Net Pariah

Whereas the former two volumes were writ and sent as a means of expulsion (if not outright exorcism) of the Ugly Spirit, I sit now at my desk a the homestead with all this behind me, a wiser and saner idiot-madman. I promise that there will be enough savagery, gentle reader, to sustain you. And the Hungarian Hottie. And a great one about the Tandai's former president's TRAGIC fall from grace. Note: as the situation at the tandai has imploded, what follows below is a carelessly pieced together collection of fragments written to myself, No-gnads, or cuts from personal e-mails. By far the worst writing I've ever done. Rough and hackneyed even more so than usual, but I have lost touch with the subject matter and at some points reality at this point and do not care to delve into it again. You may wonder where this is all going anyway. Well, from the beginning of the second installment, I have planned to post a trimmed down version of this on several prominent blacklists of schools to avoid working for. Also plan to post it on a site to be titled "Incident at E__________ Point," which will come up any time anybody runs a search including the words K_______, Tanki, Tandai, E__________ etc. etc. Yes, looking for trouble.

As you may recall, The Sad Bastard was sipping a strong martini mixed with rainwater as he sat under the carport outside his home in a typhoon, pondering the chances of his getting a teaching position at K__N____ in somewhat nearby T_______. Great care had been taken with every aspect of the application and other paperwork he'd mailed in. And considering that his letter of recommendation had been written by his next-door-neighbor/ landlord/friend of five years who was an influential principal of an I_______ high school AND an alumni of K__N____, it seemed that all I need do was wait patiently for the letter saying, "C'mone." But.

First, the letter did not come by the date they'd said it would; then it was two weeks late, then three, then three-and-a-half. Eri and I had been out buying Christmas tree lights to string around the woodworking of the tatami room downstairs (for when we gets loc'd and loony) and had just gotten home. It was about 2:00 p.m. There it was in the mailbox, the letter from K__N____. But I could tell that it wasn't good news from the envelope. A letter of acceptance would have been in a large envelope. This one was just a standard sized one. Inside, Eri opened the letter and looked over the contents briefly. "Sorry, N_______." I walked upstairs, stepped out of my clothes and crawled into bed. I slept for over four hours and awoke an all the more indentured servant to K_____ Tanki. At this late date, in late November, it was a certainty that I'd be unable to find a job elsewhere and that I'd soon be signing a contract for a second year in hell. Or not and go five months w/o pay before returning to I_______ Board of Education as an A.L.T. BLEAH!

VISA HASSLE

(This one was banged out in a state of great agitation. Afterwards I left it on No-gnads's desk. When he saw me later that day, he told me "your attitude is a little irritating to me."

Three-and-a-half-weeks ago: Mr. Foreign Instructor informs his superiors that his Visa renewal is coming due. He asks his supervisors if anything is needed from K_______ Tanki's office. They shrug their shoulders and say they don't know. No one bothers to call and ask. Everyone is too busy with the 100th Anniversary Ceremony to worry about such unimportant matters.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago: Mr. Foreign Instructor goes to the T_______ Immigration office. There he is told by the officials that he needs papers from K_______ Tanki Daigaku. The officials give him a small green card which lists the necessary forms. At the bottom of the form is the phone number of the information center which one can call if there are any questions. The next day Mr. Foreign Instructor sends the small green card by FAX to Mr. Ass-Head, so that the paperwork can be started as soon as possible.

The next day, Mr. Foreign Instructor asks one of the secretaries if the paperwork has been started yet. She replies that Mr. Ass-Head didn't understand the information on the card (written in his native language). Did he call the information center to try to understand what was needed? No. Does he pass the fax along to Mr. Dead Goat-Head? I doubt it. Everyone is too busy with the 100th Anniversary Ceremony to worry about such unimportant matters.

One-and-a-half weeks ago: Mr. Foreign Instructor 's wife calls the T_______ Immigration Office herself. She learns what papers are needed from K_______ Tanki Daigaku. She calls K_______ Tanki Daigaku and leaves a message (a list of the necessary papers, which is identical to the list on the green card sent to Mr. Ass-Head, which he could not understand). Mr. Foreign Instructor approaches Mr. Dead Goat-Head in the office hands him the list and asks him to please begin the paperwork. Mr. Dead Goat-Head looks at the list and tells Mr. P______ that none of those papers are the responsibility of the office. Mr. Foreign Instructor informs him that in fact the T_______ Immigration officials told him and told his wife that the school must provide the papers. Mr. Dead Goat-Head insists that, no, the papers are not the responsibility of the school. Mr. Foreign Instructor reiterates that both he and his wife were told by the T_______ Immigration Office that it IS the responsibility of K_______ Tanki Daigaku, but Mr. Dead Goat-head doesn't thinks so. The matter is quickly forgotten because everyone is too busy with the 100th Anniversary Ceremony to worry about such unimportant matters.

Several days ago: Although everyone is too busy with the 100th Anniversary Ceremony to worry about such unimportant matters, Mr. Foreign Instructor , in a state of despair and frustration asks AGAIN for the paperwork to be started. He is told this "this will take time." Mr. Dead Goat-head asks him to please ask for the paperwork sooner next time.

This week: Mr. Foreign Instructor and his wife visit the T_______ Immigration office, where the officials are unhappy with the fact that the papers needed from K_______ Tanki Daigaku are not yet ready. Mr. Foreign Instructor apologizes for the fact that he will be unable to meet the deadline of November 11th. He is concerned that as a result of being late that he will not qualify for the 3-year Visa, and will only be given the 1 year Visa again. Below is the telephone number of the Immigration Office in T_______ . . .

At one point in the ordeal over the table at a ramen ya near our home I mentioned the impending deadline to my wife and had the stupidity to blurt out "Why have you waited until the last minute???" I almost took her fucking head off. God love her for how she took care of me and put up with me those sick-miserable months, that was not one of her more brilliant moments. She ended up cleaning ramen splatters off her shirt. An involuntary throat reflex . . . It was the "cruelest cut of all," to have Eri even hint at taking their side especially after my having just outlined the whole situation to her.

The truth is that we were not getting along at all, and on a number of occasions I had almost told her to go back to live with her parents because I thought I might break her neck and I knew there was something fucked up with that shit as I have never hit a person in my life (except for the time the school bully was about to push me into the cistern), but she had the uncanny ability and willingness at times it seemed to say the perfect hurtful thing which acting in concert with the work situation had brought me to the brink of saying, "You know honey, I think I'm better off without you."

ENTER THE Hungarian Hottie (and more visa hassles, but not my own)

Coming into work one October morning I noticed in the waiting area the back of a distinctly non-Asian head. A young dark-complexioned woman. Mysterious Eastern-European. After putting on my sandals I walking through pretending not to notice her as I wondered if perhaps she was not here to take my job. Then I did a 180, turned back and saw that she was young, noting that she was probably too young to have an M.A. and therefore no threat as she was unqualified to teach college. (mindset of paranoia comes from swimming with the sharks) Also noting that no one of any importance was around the office window, I stepped over and we exchanged introductions. C. Hungarian Hottie, 25, was from B________, Hungary and had been culled out and invited by none other than Riji-cho herself in order that the two Hungarian high-school students, who were on the track and field team could move out of the coach O_______'s home where they had been staying and live with one of their own. She was also hired as an interpreter and translator and for these duties she had more than ample qualifications having studied Japanese at a special liberal arts high school and having reached the level 2 (second to highest) in the Japanese national proficiency test. She had also been studying American English for just as long and though her accent was a little Eastern European her command of English was excellent.

This was her fourth trip to Japan although her first time to take up residency here. The reason I mention her here is to demonstrate just how unethical and unprofessional and just plain crass the tandai was in their treatment of their guests. C. was to be employed 6 days a week on a full-time schedule but was to be paid 100,000 yen/month less than my 300,000. I say "was to be paid" because she was for the time being only being given an allowance of a meager 100,000 until her work visa could be processed. I say "could be" sardonically because an employee's visa "should be" prepared BEFORE he or she arrives. And because she had only a tourist visa she was unable to qualify for either the school's insurance program nor for city health insurance. In Japan 70% of a person's medical costs are paid for through insurance and 30% by the individual. Therefore should she have gotten sick (as foreigners often do when they first come to Japan encountering strange viruses, stress and unfamiliar diet) or had a accident while riding the long, narrow and heavily trafficked road to work on her granny-bike every morning and evening, her medical costs would have been more than double that of anyone else's. In a country where everyone rushes to the hospital or clinic at the slightest sign of a common cold, the tandai's guest was completely without coverage. Also, all full-time employees are assisted in paying their rent to the tune of 50%. But this assistance never seemed to materialize for Ms. Hungarian Hottie.

In addition to this, I also learned that the new Hungarian high school girl, Maria, was also without health coverage, absolute madness considering that she is in an athletic program and therefore more likely to injure herself in a fall so shocking treatment for the niece of an Olympic athlete. I also found that the she was only even old enough to be in the high school. In addition to that, whereas any Japanese working 6 days a week have half of their rent paid by the school, C. 's was not. Pathetic, considering that, living with the two girls that she is basically working 7 days a week.

After a couple of days of getting to know her we went out for drinks at the izakaiya near the high school one evening after work and I filled her in on my experience as well as D________'s.

D________'s story. Around this time I made my first visit to see Babs KY in the International Section of K_______ City Hall. It was from Babs that I first began realizing just how screwy the tandai is. Babs listened to my account of the many infractions and then went through each case showing me in the books outlining national policy for all workers. She also told me an interesting story about D________. Upon beginning her job at the preschool, she was also approached by members of city hall and asked if she wouldn't teach some of the city officers basic travelling English during a five month course on Wednesdays, her day off.

The remuneration was so low that the work could almost be seen as volunteer community service. Yet when Riji-cho "found out" that D________ was teaching another class on her day off, she went nuts and dragged D________ down to city hall and demanded that she be released from the city hall class contract. This is where Babs and Riji-cho went head to head but Babs didn't blink. Finally, they reached the agreement that it was okay for D________ to teach the class as long at she didn't have any special duties on her otherwise free day. Then Riji-cho began making sure that there was some reason for D________ to be at the preschool so often that she ended up actually only teaching about 20 percent of the classes she'd promised to at city hall. A Japanese English teacher had to be brought in to apologetically teach to a group of understandably disappointed students who'd expected to study with a native speaker.

In her Eastern accent, which conjured thoughts of espionage and mistrust so typical of her countries recent revolutionary past, she said, "Well, you know, I'm just staying here now and I will have to find out and see for myself what it is like here." Oh, you will, don't worry," I told her.

So far I have seen her attitude deteriorate and have seen her returning from one meeting in tears. The subject of that meeting: her insurance. Thanks to No-gnads who waited until the last day to prepare the paperwork (one more day and she would have been illegal, and the immigration office he DOES take overstaying seriously) a contract was stuck under her nose and she was cajoled into signing it just before boarding her plane on a flight that had to be quickly booked, due to another of No-gnads's incompetence. Before December she had been STRONGLY DISCOURAGED from returning home for Christmas (discouraged by people claiming to be her employers, even though she hadn't yet signed a contract. Anybody in No-gnads's position should know that in order to change one's visa status from tourist to work, one has to leave the country. In fact, MOST people who have any dealings with foreigners know this. Nevertheless, No-gnads insisted up until three days before her tourist visa expired that it could all be taken care of in Japan. Then he just sent her there with the P.E. teacher figuring the situation would all take care of itself. It didn't and C. had to leave the country immediately. And she signed the contract that was hurriedly shoved under her face. She had to stay in Hungary for nearly a month-and-a-half while the paperwork was processed at Immigration.

When she returned, to cut to the chase, the school told her that the insurance which she had been told by the International Section at City Hall should legally be no more than 9,000 yen a month, would be 12,000. When she later contested this, she was told that "someone" had in fact made a mistake. The rate would actually be 22,000 yen a month! She inquired at the school's main office as to how much it would cost her to simply take city insurance. Because insurance rates are determined by the preceding year's income and because her income for the preceding year (in Japan) was ZERO, except for the pittance the school had paid her illegally, the cost of city insurance would have been only 40,000 for the entire year. Amazed that no on had been kind enough to tell her this she naturally decided on the radically less expensive of the options.

But when Riji-cho heard that she planned not to take the company insurance policy, she "got mad" and sicked the dogs, Ass-Head, U_______ and Dead Goat-Head, on her and by the time her 2 hour and 15 minute meeting was over she had some pretty dark rings under her eyes. At one point, Ass-Head asked her, "Why did you come to this school?" Taken aback by such a weird and irrelevant question she answered "Because Riji-cho asked me to come work here." [C. never applied for the job. She was "found" by Riji-cho through a travel agency who provided her or her evil ministers with a list (probably a very short one) of young Hungarian ladies with high Japanese proficiency and experience living in Japan, willing to live with two teenage girls. Then it was time to meet Riji-cho. Ass-head got angry at her reply and rephrased the question: "Why do you want to work at K_______ Tanki."

This was a more difficult question since she had never been told what she was supposed to be doing, outside playing big sister to the two girls. She told him, "I want to help the girls and help the other students learn English." "No you don't. You don't put your heart into ANYTHINGyou do here!" and blah blah blah. more Gestapo tactics designed to wear down the spirit to the point of fear and compliance with any dictate no matter how unreasonable. According to C. Mrs. U_______, who has been very rude to her in the past, then grabbed her by the arm and tugged her into Riji-cho's office barking sharply Riji-cho ga kitmashita! Hayaku, aisatsu!" ("Riji-cho is here now. It is time to greet her-HURRY!" The outcome of the meeting was basically this: "If you want to work here, you will take the insurance we want you to take. If you don't want to work here, then you can take whatever kind of insurance you like. Oh and about your trip back to Europe this spring. If you leave the country, don't even think about coming back. Your job won't be waiting on you." Reason given. None. I assume that they were afraid that she wouldn't return.

Editorial Note: As for myself I continued to be sick. The prickly feeling that had used to only run up the back of my skull had begun working its way over the frontal lobe to my temples. It was as if some alien creature were daily stretching its tentacles further and tighter around my dome each day. I made an appointment at the hospital, even doing this on a work day was a hassle and you can be damned sure I did it on the pre-school day. My mission that day: to have a CAT SCAN or MRI as they call it here on my head to see if there was something wrong with my brain. The results were that my head was fine, which was a relief, but still left the doctor perplexed even though I told him I thought the problem then must be stress. "What can I do for you then?" he asked. Actually stooped over in the chair I told him, "Just make the pain stop." He gave me some pills and they did actually help.

For a few days I was walking around in a kind of drugged silly state just elated that the headaches had been substantially diminished. In fact, sometimes my head only hurt just a little bit and this was a great improvement. But after two weeks the medicine (muscle relaxants and painkillers) ran out. Once again I foolishly thought that now that I had a grip on myself that I could with willpower keep the headaches from returning. Instead they came on again with seemingly renewed vigor. Stopped at a video store with my wife one day and started to go in but as soon as I stepped out that withering out-of-control feeling hit. I tried to get past it but I didn't want Eri to know I was sick because she was subject to lose patience and blame. But inside the video shop, I found that I was unable to focus. The new release shelf was attacking me with its colors and repetitive images, the row with the already redundant Being John Malcovich reverberating like a bad acid trip (except I have never had one THIS bad.) I did not know if I would make it to the door. After 10 minutes or so in the car I tried to go back again, but this time I did not even make it to the door. Back to the hospital except this time in even worse shape. I dealt with the constant shrieking and shouting and singing and crashing sounds at the pre-school by rolling up balls of tissue paper and stuffing them into my ears. This worked for a while until one of the teachers saw me doing it and told me that I couldn't do that. "Why not?" I asked her. "Because it is against the rules," she told me. "Where is there such a rule written?" I demanded. "I want to see it."

A Marked Man. So the school festival at the tandai is coming up and the pre-school teachers are gearing up to take all the kiddies over there and parade them about. One of those slow afternoons after the kiddies have gone home and I was required to sit in the office with nothing to do but read Helter Skelter a book which became more and more of a daily inspiration. On this day I was asked to help with some of the decorations. This included a twelve-foot banner bearing the name of the pre-school I was first given the stencils to produce the nine-inch high kanji, which were to be outlined in gray marker. The name of the pre-school itself is pre-fixed by the word "fuzoku" which denotes that the preschool is attached to the tandai administratively. Having just recently added a new word to my slang vocabulary, I purposefully wrote the word as fuuzoku [note the two "u"s] which changed the meaning to "pink" as in "pink night-club," so that the banner read "The "PinkXXX K____ Tandai Preschool. After taking as much time as possible, with a feeling of great satisfaction I called in the head teacher and her assistants to come look at my work. They were none too pleased with what I had done but were too modest to explain the error. I played stupid and noted that it was now far too late in the day to start over, slinking back into my copy of Helter Skelter and visions of shotgunnings and decapitations.

Next week, after all the kiddies had returned home I found that the same job was awaiting me. They had left nothing to chance though and already done the stenciling. They said that all I had to do was color in the characters. I explained that since the fumes from markers can be quite strong and that since I'd already been suffering from serious headaches that maybe I wasn't the man for the job. The head teacher kindly suggested that I open the windows and turn on the fans. At least I could get out the damned office I thought. Head-Teacher led me into a room where the banner was waiting unfurled on a long banquet table. I noticed that there was nothing to color the characters in with and said something to the effect of "Don't you think it might be easier to do with a marker?" "Ah so desu neh," she said apparently further perturbed that she had forgotten something so basic to the process.

She returned a minute later with a marker, handed it to me saying "kore o tsukatte," and walked off. Imagine my surprise when I took the cap off and found myself staring incredulously at a medium-fine point marker! How the hell could I possibly work with something like this. I walked back into the office holding the marker up so that everyone could see the implement with which I'd been asked to work and asked if there were something a little thicker. They dug around in their desks for about thirty seconds and said that there were no markers and that I'd just have to do my best. I then said that the job could be done on a computer and would look much better, much slicker, and could be finished in about 15 minutes. The teachers all said that there was no computer in the building and that anyway they didn't know how to use one. I told them I could do it across the street at the high school and be back in twenty minutes. The head teacher then reminded me that I was not allowed to leave the building until the end of my workday. Well then why don't one of you do it at home and print it across the street yourselves or in fact I could do it this week on a day when I'm working over there. "Just do your best with the marker I gave you" head teacher said as if I were the one trying HER patience. I returned to the room with the banner and began (in earnest to try to color in these 15 or so fat-ass kanji, but I got the idea after about ten minutes that it was a futile endeavor and in frustration began scribbling in mean angry marks across the paper not even so much as bothering to stay within the lines. They would have done much better of they'd asked the 4-year-olds to do it with a bottle of India ink. I made sure to rip through the paper a few times too. In no time at all their banner looked like shite.

At the end of the day I rolled it up propped it in a corner and told them that it was finished as I was leaving. The next week, they did not mention it, did not ask me to do it again. Instead they started me on a new project. I was asked to make multi-colored chains out of short strips of construction paper. They wanted thousands and thousands of them it seemed. I had to cut the paper myself, then glue them link by link for four hours at a time. It was maddeningly boring and insulting considering I'd been hired to teach college, and yet rather than being able to use my time to interact with or help students at the tandai, here I was doing work that even mentally-handicapped persons would find tedious. I wondered if they did this every year and they told me yes. Why didn't they simply reuse last year's chains? Because they were sent home with the drooling pre-schoolers as a keepsake presumably to be ripped to shreds by the close of the day or even more likely thrown in the families trash. During my year there I was also asked to do other such retarded tasks many times.