Tomorrow is the scheduled Yodogawa Fireworks Festival in Osaka.
Last week, I asked in our newly created class WhatsApp group whether anyone wanted to go, but no one responded at all.
Before class ended today, I asked some of the other younger Taiwanese classmates whether they wanted to go. Only then did one of them tell me that the younger Dutch classmate had apparently already asked everyone else in private.
As the person who was skipped over, I suppose I should examine myself and ask why I was skipped over at all⋯⋯
Of course, perhaps I simply chose the wrong messaging app from the beginning.
Still, being left outside the social circle of younger people made me feel deeply awkward.
😓
The occasion did at least give me a chance to chat with one of the younger Taiwanese classmates. She studies art, which is related to my field in a certain sense, and I also have friends who belong to that world.
Listening to her talk about the feedback she had received and the realities she had encountered throughout her education and within the school system, I found myself mostly surprised.
The fixation on academic credentials does not seem to have eased at all. It has even spread into creative circles.
All I can say is:
When we are inside a structure, it is very difficult for us to change that structure.
So run from it.
Save yourself first. Do not let the structure swallow you.
Yet I imagine that most of the teachers at their school are around my age, or perhaps a little older.
People of my generation, people already old enough to be teachers, are actually educating the next generation of young people this way. The responsibility should lie with our generation, and the question we ought to ask is: how did we become adults like this?
Today, dealing with an Amazon return sent me to two Lawson stores in succession.
My previous experience with returns had been very simple. After requesting a return, I went to a convenience store, scanned a QR code, and the whole thing was taken care of with no trouble at all.
This time, however, the parcel was larger, so when I requested the return, Amazon instructed me to leave it in a place where it could be collected at the designated time, and an Amazon driver would come to pick it up.
For some reason, though, the driver did not notify me on the scheduled collection date. Or was the driver unable to reach me because I did not have a Japanese mobile number? The app simply began displaying “pickup delayed” without warning.
After the collection was delayed twice, I honestly could not tell whether a real person had to be present when the driver arrived, and whether a contactless collection was impossible.
So I requested a change to the return method and decided to take the item to a convenience store myself.
I did not have a printer, however, so I could not print the barcode. Following the instructions, I copied the barcode number onto a sheet of paper instead.
That was how I ended up carrying a parcel that was not heavy, but was rather bulky, to Lawson.
Perhaps because of its size, the staff did not know how to handle it either. They tried again and again and scanned the barcode many times, but the return system simply refused to accept it.
The staff at Lawson A therefore asked me to take the parcel to Lawson B by the next subway station. They said that store was larger and even had a dedicated Amazon shipping point.
I walked and walked with the parcel, passing a Taiwanese restaurant along the way. Walking farther does at least allow me to become more familiar with the scenery along the road.
When I reached that Lawson, the staff there did not know how to handle it either.
I began to feel a little afraid. Was I really going to be bounced back and forth between the staff of two stores, only to carry the parcel home again in silence with nothing accomplished?
Fortunately, one female employee used a parcel shipping form. She had me fill in the shipping information by hand, then accepted my parcel.
I was a little moved at that moment. At least I had not been passed around like a human ball.
The staff in both Lawson stores really were all non-Japanese faces.
What was even more remarkable was that every one of them spoke only Japanese to me, never English.
But I very obviously do not understand Japanese! (pulling my hair～～)
At the same time, I found these foreign workers deeply conscientious. Every one of them was extremely polite, and to my ears, their Japanese sounded excellent.
At that moment, I felt it with extraordinary force: these people were working so hard to become part of Japanese society.
Those who exploit the system make the earnest, hardworking people pay the price.
Once again, I felt a powerful sense of “collective karma.”
讀者留言