Foreign Student Discount

Foreign Student Discount

Rules rule Japan, and that’s no good. Don’t get me wrong – I do understand that there’s some basic-primordial-let’s-make-our-society-a-better-society need for rules. Yet, everyday life in Japan forces me to think that when it comes to rules less is more. Strike the biblical ten, and get the Buddhist five: don’t kill; don’t steal; don’t cheat; don’t lie; don’t take crazy drugs. That’s all, Japan. You don’t need more. There don’t have to be twenty-two-hundred-fifty-three regulations for recycling; people’s lives would be just fine even without the eight-thousand-twenty-nine requirements you need to fulfill to get a commuter’s pass. Seriously. Less is more.

I understand that somehow, someone, somewhere might benefit from imposing uber strict recycling rules on the entire Japanese Archipelago. I understand that having special cans for different colors of plastic bottle caps might play SOME role in preserving the Earth for future generations. I understand that although some rules seem ridiculously strict, they do serve some sort of purpose no matter how marginal it might be. I know I’m a stupid foreigner; an heir to the messy libertarianism of mother Europa and daddy America. Some rules, however, have nothing to do with cultural differences. Some rules are just dumb. And Japan is full of dumb rules.

Study case number one: entering a Yoga studio.

I cannot do any physical activity in Nagoya. It’s too polluted to go running. The school’s gym is the size of an average janitor’s closet at Yale, and you have to pass an intense physical exam to be even allowed in. The walls in our dorm are paper-thin, so every time I try to do pushups in my room, my flat mates think I’m doing something else.

So I decided to join a yoga studio. I used to do Bikram in America everyday. It made me feel good; it made me feel healthy. I found a Bikram studio in Nagoya’s trendy Sakae. I was just going to show up and get the membership on the spot. But then I realized that, being in Japan, I should probably call in advance. I called them and in the most polite Japanese asked whether I needed anything in particular to become a member…AND DEAR LORD, HALLELUJAH. I learned that I surely needed more than a towel and a yoga mat. I nearly fell of the chair when listening to the list of requirements to be fulfilled before one becomes a member of Sakae Bikram Yoga Studio. Voila, the list:

a. Japanese Health Insurance

b. Bank Account in Nagoya Bank

c. Alien Registration Card

d. Japanese Credit Card

e. Local Address

f. Japanese Cell-Phone

And these are just requirements. Even After all these have been fulfilled, my membership is still not guaranteed. I still have to fight for it. I must AUDIT three yoga classes to be approved but in order to be able to audit I need to wait for the studio to mail a confirmation that confirms that I can audit classes. Before auditing, however, I need to pre-register with a special number that comes on the auditing confirmation letter. When my pre-registration is approved, I’ll get a text message telling me when I can come – and if I cannot come on the specific date and time, I’ll have to do the whole process again. The common belief that Kafka was a German is an Angela Merkel conspiracy; he must have been Japanese. Go ahead, Japan, everyday you’re a step closer to a perfect Kafkaesque bureaucracy. And so I decided not to join the yoga studio. I think I’ll just stick to polluting my lungs; hopefully, by the end of the semester, I’ll be able to pass the test to get into the school’s benchpress-closet, I mean, the gym. And if not, I’ll just keep doing pushups in my room. Think what you want about my deep breathing.

Second case: Exchange Student Discount

Sick of fighting for my yoga membership, last weekend, I decided to go to movies. I needed some respite from the survival of the fittest bureaucrat. I was ready for some trashy H-wood B-buster, hoping for some sort of Musical 3D rendition of Pocahontas 4. I reached the cinema, looked at the prizing chart and couldn’t believe my eyes. DISCOUNT FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS. What?!? Impossible. This was the first time Japan was awarding me for being foreign. I asked the concierge if those kanjis really meant what I thought they meant. She nodded in positive. SERIOUSLY? My heart skipped a beat. I rejoiced. Bliss and Heaven. So, lighthearted and joyful, I approached the counter, where I demanded a foreign student ticket with a smile from ear to ear. BUT…

box-office-person: Welcome, dear customer! I’m sorry I’ve made you wait. I cannot apologize enough. (note: common Japanese phrases…)

Me: hey. What’s up. Can I have one foreign student ticket for Hanazami. Thanks!

box-office-person: I understood. You would like a foreign student ticket for Hanazami at 7:25, which opens at 7:20.

Me: yes.

box-office-person: wonderful! Can I please have your 1025-R?

me: 102..what?

bop: Can I please have your CONFIRMATION-OF-ENROLLMENT-FOR-FOREIGN-PEOPLE-AT-JAPANESE-UNIVERSITIES, in other words 1025-R?

me: Oh, you probably just mean my Nanzan University student ID right?....

So, I handed her my Japanese student ID. She politely looked at it and then said that wasn’t it. I grabbed it back, looked at it myself, and triumphantly pointed at large kanji characters that said “Foreign Student.” She apologized (bad bad bad sign), saying I needed 1025-R. My blood started boiling. My joy and bliss have long gone, and all that was left was anxiety and rage-against-the-machine. Here I was standing, as foreign and as studentish as we come, being told I could not obtain the foreign student discount. My very being has been denied – I wasn’t even a dirty foreign student. Instead, I was reduced to nobody. I’m not very proud of what followed…so please judge me leniently. I grabbed my foreign student id once again, held it with two hands and put it right in front of the poor box office person’s face:

me: please answer without much thinking.

bop: Excuse me?

me: what do you see here? (pointing at the id)

bop: A student id card?

me: good. What do you see here? (pointing at my face)

bop: what do you mean?

me: do you see a Japanese person?

bop: where?

me: exactly. So let me tell you what you see. Here you see a student id and here you see a white person’s face. Together they make a “foreign student.” So, please, give me that goddam foreign student discount right now!

The poor BOP got a bit scared and handed me a discounted ticket. It was five hundred yen less than a Japanese person would have paid. My adrenalin levels were still high, so I decided to quench my thirst for freedom from rules with a bottle of coke and my hunger for a lawless society with a pack of popcorn. Strangely, the same person who was selling the tickets was also selling concessions. She looked anxious, fearing that I was going to make a show out of unjustly priced food, as well. Instead, I tried to turn a previous encounter into a joke and asked her if I also needed 1025-R to get my bottle of coke. She, however, didn’t smile and just looked at me as if I was the wild-wild-west’s most wanted criminal. So, got into the role. When she started naming all the different flavors of popcorn, I just raised my hand and told her, in my huskiest voice, to stop. “Don’t bother with flavors. Like all foreign students, I like my food raw.” I grabbed my coke and popcorn and headed to see Avatar 3-3D-D. The poor Japanese box-office-lady stared at me in disbelief. I don’t think she’s ever gotten a 500-yen tip before.