(Note: hilarious and wildly inaccurate reflections on Japan will begin next week. Please stand by for an important rant.)
I love hyperbole. It is, clearly, the greatest thing that has ever been invented by God or man, and it accounts for roughly 3000% of my daily speech. Among its many, many daily uses, hyperbole is good for adding melodrama to one's life, and what is life without melodrama? (Answer: boring. Life is boring without melodrama. Moving on.)
However, one subject I don't like to inflate too much is the persecution of myself by others. I don't really like to claim to be persecuted by anyone; again, to remind our readers, I, Harry Althoff, am a heterosexual white middle-class American man, which automatically makes me a member of the least persecuted group in history (though we are one of the most prone to complaining). Assuming that slights against me are the result of persecution by people who desire to make my life worse out of nothing more than sheer malice -- I have some friends who are of such an outlook, and it's almost like they have some kind of...I don't know, complex of some sort. Napoleonic complex? I'll come back to this.
Anyway, when life's little hiccups and bad turns come my way, I try my best to assume that no one has it in for me in particular, but that my own personal preferences and goals are just worth so little that they get trampled unnoticed in the great scrum that is the world. It's a personal philosophy born of equal parts Occam's Razor and low self-esteem; why would the world bother to waste their time and effort on a harmless chump like me?
And now, at long last, we get to:
The Point! (Fanfaaaaare!)
One of the less glamorous parts of the glamorous expat lifestyle is dealing with visa issues. There are many millions of forms and visa-related procedures that expats must wade through at regular intervals. Conveniently, there are a plethora of websites dealing with Japanese visa issues, none of which are applicable to you, and none of whom know who, if anyone, can answer your particular question. Whoever said "Bureaucracy is the deepest pit in hell" wasn't kidding around, and also he is probably very handsome (hint: it was me).
This guy.
In short (if that isn't too offensively incorrect by now), Jenn's visa lasts until the final day of her contract here on the JET Program, July 26th; basically, she is allowed to stay until her last day of work. The norm for JETs when they return to their country is to stay for another few weeks or so to tidy their affairs, carefully pack their goods, and ritualistically perform the time-honored gaijin tradition of selling their dirty, broken possessions and nasty furniture to the next gaijin to come off the boat. The JET Program even acknowledges that this is the case -- JETs are reimbursed for their ticket home as long as they leave within a month of their final day of work (please note that they are given 30 days, rather than 0 days, the alternative that some characters who shall appear later in this narrative will suggest). The only time this procedure is kinked up is when the JET in question leaves after three years of work: JET visas and visas issued to their spouses are good for three years from the date of entry into Japan, at which point JETs who plan to stay for longer must apply at the Immigration Office to extend their term of stay. A bureaucratic formality, all said, which requires a very straightforward filing of paperwork that is seldom if ever rejected or challenged.
Our situation, however, is far from straightforward, apparently. Having bought our tickets for August 22nd, about three weeks after Jenn's final day of work, we went about figuring out how to gain permission to extend our visas by an extra 30 days. First, Jenn utilized the resources available to her from the JET Program, the organization that had brought her to Japan, found her an apartment, offered a social and legal support system, and otherwise been a boon to our lives here. They told her, in a word, "Iunno." Or, in slightly more words, "Gee, yeah, that's hard. Only 3rd-year returnees need to worry about that. You should probably look into that."
Inspired by this complete lack of assistance, I called the Immigration Office directly. Summoning all of the facility I've earned by six long years of Japanese study, I asked if there was anyone there who spoke English. When the man told me that there was not, I proceeded to explain our situation in the most polite, respectful broken Japanese that I could muster. The man told me in rather obscure, technical Japanese that there was no such thing as a visa extension, and the best option would probably be to go fuck myself. Fair enough, I thought. There must be someone else to ask.
Looking through the pile of resources that Jenn was given when we first came here, I found (among a trove of useful information we accumulated about what to pack and what to do about Japanese foot fungus) an English-language help line for CLAIR, the organization that runs the JET Program. Giving them a call, an American explained to me that all we needed to do was apply to change our visas to a tanki taizai, a "short stay" visa that would cover us until our departure date.
Encouraged with a new vocabulary word, I tried Immigration again and was connected to the same employee. Once again I did my best, carefully explaining that we needed a couple of tanki taizai, and could we please have our tanki taizai already? The man considered for a moment, then replied that he had no idea what I was talking about. I explained again, using even simpler words that I was surer of. Also, I gestured a lot, though I don't think he saw it over the phone. Now he was clearly frustrated, and told me to call back when I had someone who could speak Japanese with me. I pleaded with him to let me try to explain one more time; now approaching tears, I threw up random information about our status, mostly implicating the JET Program in letting us believe that this was what was done. Finally, he grudgingly informed me that maybe we could apply for our tanki taizai maybe possibly, but he couldn't guarantee that the request would be accepted. He recommended that we wait until July to come in and apply. I thanked him copiously, grateful beyond words that I had won him to our side. I should note that I was about 70% confident that I understood his instructions, but I figured that asking for further clarification would probably infuriate him enough to get me deported.
Time passed. We worked, we played music, we ate okonomiyaki, we saw the worst, campiest performance of Romeo and Juliet I'd ever seen in my life. Finally, on July 5th, the day that we had planned to take off from work to go into Immigration, it hit me at about 6 in the morning: how bad an idea was it to apply for something as complex as a visa change with only three weeks to go on our visas? I was a wreck that day until we got to Immigration: I photocopied every document we owned, I printed out three copies of our plane tickets, I called CLAIR twice and spoke to a different employee who gave me radically different information -- apparently now we didn't want tanki taizai, we wanted to apply to extend our visas, and that was what all 3rd-year returnees did. There is no metric that can fully capture the sweat stains that I had worn into my clothes by the time we got to Immigration.
When we got to the office, we sat down at the information desk for a consultation. The man instantly understood our situation, and he politely, carefully explained in simple Japanese that we would have to fill out a form to apply, after all, for tanki taizai. Another man, a foreigner full of smiles, answered some questions we had about the forms. We turned in the paperwork, took a number, and sat down to wait for it to be processed. I was relieved beyond measure at this point. As far as I was concerned, we had won the day, and it was all smiles and rainbows and unicorn farts until August 22nd.
Which is why it came as such a blow when we were called to another consultation after turning in our paperwork and waiting for our number to be called. This man, a hard, middle-aged businessman-type who looked exactly like I had imagined the man I spoke to on the phone would look, spoke to us at length in some high-level, technical -- nay, sesquipedalian -- Japanese. We both gave him shocked looks, mine of non-comprehension of his words, Jenn's of disbelief.
"Do you understand what I just told you?" he asked, and I shook my head as Jenn nodded. He sighed, then repeated in English: "You have to leave Japan before July 26th, you can't extend your visas or stay any longer than that date. You must change your plane tickets to leave before July 26th." My various internal organs shrank and emitted whimpering sounds. The rainbows and unicorns disintegrated. Now, we were looking at losing thousands of dollars or being thrown in jail. I was now almost positive that this was the same man I had spoken to on the phone.
Jenn protested that her contract required her to be at work until the 26th, so leaving would be impossible. She then explained that the JET Program told her that getting a tanki taizai was SOP for their returnees. The man, so put out that he looked like he might catch fire, rose and told us to follow him. We rushed after him across the waiting room, dodging biracial children and cheek-kissing women, and he led us back to the information desk where everything had seemed so bright and clear. After some silent rummaging through drawers, he gave Jenn a sheet of lined paper and told her to write the reason for our application.
"Can I write in English?" she asked.
"Can't you do it in Japanese?"
"No."
He grimaced and walked away, which we took as a reluctant assent to we pitiable wretches' plea to write in a language that we could use to express complex ideas. Jenn stated our case plainly but urgently, and we turned in our form and took another number. As we sat and waited for our number to be up, we seethed and discussed what Mister Fucking Important's problem was. Evidently his strategy for petitioners was to tell them that what they wanted was impossible, and only under protest let them know that their request actually is possible, but you have to fill out a thing. If we hadn't fought with him, our lives and our plans would take a serious hit. For someone who seemed to so clearly dislike foreigners, this guy, this toad, this asshole had certainly chosen an odd profession.
When we were called to the desk again, a different employee explained to us that the application would take three weeks to process, at which time we'd have to come in again to (presumably) get our updated visas. We pointed out that we only had three weeks exactly until our visas expired, realizing only at that point just how badly the asshat at the other desk had screwed us over by telling us to come in in July. She reassured us that it would probably be fine.
Aaaaaaaand that about brings us up to speed. We're now two weeks and six days away from either getting our new visas or going to jail and making several dozen new friends with tattoos and missing fingers. If we haven't heard from them by July 25th, we'll have to make a run for the border that is even less fun than one that involves Taco Bell; if we go to Korea and stay for 24 hours, rumor has it, we can come back to Japan on a tourist visa that will cover us until our departure date. For now, our futures rest on whether or not that Dickhead Who Shall Not Be Names intercepts our applications and, I don't know, sets them on fire or something. I'm taking it a little personally, if you can't tell.
I was going to conclude this account with something profound about the immigrant's experience, about how all of the yelling and politics about immigration always overlooks the personal toll that the bureaucracy takes on immigrants who follow the system, about how bureaucracy allows for a lone douchebag who's having a bad day to sabotage a family's hopes and dreams at a whim. Yeah. Guess I blew that one.
Next week: either Japan Recap Part One or Gaijin Go To Jail!
