Money-gatari

(Spring 2005 Issue)

Money is a constant theme of JET life.  What did we do with our money?  How did it affect our lives?  Read on.

To make some money on the side, I tutored one guy on the Bible. He wanted to read and review the Bible out loud. At one
point he couldn’t get some pronunciation correct and I asked him to feel the vibration by touching my neck at which point he
asked if I wanted to make love to him?!??!!? Craziness.

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Without a doubt, one of the best investments I ever made was my Suzuki Intruder motorcycle.  I bought it at the beginning
of my second year in Oita, Kyushu. They called me “Easy Rider” at the high school.  Instant cred pulling up at the junior
high schools in front of all the chugakusei.  And it was the best way to see Kyushu.  Took that thing all over the place.  I felt
a little buyer’s guilt at first, but that evaporated quickly in the wind rushing by me as I was flying through the mountains and
rice paddies, and along the sea.  It was worth it without a doubt.  You only live once, right?

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Largest stupid expenditure…During my second or third year, I was moonlighting as a DJ in Roppongi and often started after
1 in the morning, so sometimes I would go to other parties nearer to home in Saitama, and catch a late train to Tokyo. One
evening I stayed later than I expected at a party in Kawagoe. I missed the last trains from Kawagoe to the city, so I grabbed
a cab knowing that I might be able to grab a train from a station a bit further down the line towards Tokyo. As it looked as if
I would be cutting it too close time-wise, I said “Screw it, just take me to Roppongi crossing.” The cabbie laughed and off
we went.  About an hour later and about 50,000 yen lighter, I got to work.

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Well, my biggest expense – ah, the bliss of being young and foolish with all that money – was my phone bill. I made enough
long-distance calls to my boyfriend at the time to earn two trans-Atlantic plane tickets with the reward points that came with the
account. Each month I probably spent about $600. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Then, some companies in Japan came
up with the prepaid plan. I took advantage of that during the last 3-4 months I was there.

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I was in Japan ’94-’96, so the exchange rate was great from yen into dollars.  It got to be that the first thing I would do every
morning without fail, upon rising from my futon, was to check the exchange rate to see how much money I had.  This is
before doing ANYTHING!  And this is from someone who, before, would never have known what an exchange rate was!
Sad, but true:  I managed to save about $12,000 dollars on JET and spent it all in one year on living expenses in NYC while
going to law school.

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During my first Golden Week, I went hitchhiking with two  friends. While on Shikoku, we discovered that between the three
of us, we had a total of about 10,000 yen to last us three days until the banks reopened.  We bought beer.

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Back in the early 90’s when I was on JET I went out one night with my cousin (I requested my mom’s town) to a yatai. While
sucking down some noodles, an older gentleman started up a conversation with us.  After I told him what I was doing in Japan, he asked if I would be interested in giving his office workers some English lessons for an hour once a week. It turned out he was a bigwig for JAL and I wound up “teaching” 5 JAL employees every Friday night. They were some of the coolest people I met while on JET. I think I was there more as a “cultural curiosity” than as an English teacher. They did the usual, testing my o-hashi ability by making me pick up a single bean, or quizzing my Japanese knowledge by having me name all 9 prefectures of Kyuushu or discussing topics that you’d NEVER find in any English textbook! (Use your imagination here.)  Anyway, back to the money part…the first two weeks, I was never paid but I never said anything because this group was a blast to be around.  The following week they handed me an envelope with 50,000 yen. I thought
this was for two weeks pay until I received the following week’s envelope with the same amount!  Here I was getting paid $500 an hour to literally “hang out!!” Of course our sessions lasted longer than an hour and sometimes we actually DID study English (we even got textbooks.)  Eventually, the bubble burst and the company had to cut down on expenditures so the company couldn’t pay anymore. The group decided to pay out of pocket but I couldn’t take any money from them so we met out for a few weeks after that. Unfortunately, the company hammer came down on them all and their workload increased and we met less frequently each month until we just lost contact.  So…moral of the story is….you never know where and when a money-making (and friend-making) networking opportunity may arise so get out there!!!

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For many of you who have the ability to communicate in Japanese, live in or are returning to Japan, you may want to
consider taking your speaking abilities to the next level.  For three years, I found a better way to improve my Japanese and
made more money compared to moonlighting as a part-time English teacher.

My secret was public speaking in Japanese.  Considering that most of the exposure to gaijin the Japanese have in
Inaka-Mura or Nanimonai-Shi is either a Hollywood movie, sill Japanese primetime shows or local farm help, speaking
events in these little towns proved extremely successful.

Be aware that most people want to hear about how much you love Japan,  your ability to eat with Chopsticks and your
admiration for nato and  tofu.    Tailor any speech to incorporate any of the above mentioned and chances are they
request that you come and talk again.  For further information on how to go about becoming an inaka-gaijinToni Robinzu,
please feel free to contact me at ohayokurinton@hotmail.com.

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I had more money than I could possibly spend.  The interest rates were virtually zero, and back then even the ATM’s had
bankers’ hours (i.e., 9am-5pm).  I didn’t want to keep all my money under my mattress, so I had my dad set up a mutual
fund back home, and once a month I’d go to the bank and go through a whole rigamarole of fillilng out some form I couldn’t
understand and that didn’t seem to have fields to fit all the info they needed.  But it got my money back home safe in the
end.

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I decided to go hitchhiking whenever I had vacation time, in part to save money and in part fo the challenge of seeing how
far I could get.  But the unanticipated benefit turned out to be that not only would people give me rides to my next
destination (while explaining to me that hitchhiking doesn’t work in Japan), but they would also often buy me a meal.  One
family with two elementary school kids picked me up and then bought me a steak lunch.  Wish I could track everyone down and
thank them again.