taxing sexless nights!

there are three things one can do when one becomes an adult; get a driver's licence, have great sex and pay tax. the right to suffrage counts but not in my list.

two weeks ago i received a notice regarding my municipal tax payable. that amount was for 45,000 yen. then, a few days after, i received my annual tax payable schedule and i realized that the 45,000 yen was only for one quarter. all in all, i have to pay an accumulated tax of 180,000 yen, approximately 2,000 usd, a round trip plane ticket to australia! don't forget that the amount is only for municipal tax, this is apart from my monthly national tax deduction! 180,000 yen maybe affordable to foreigners who are only in japan to fend for themselves BUT for me, me who works for my beloved people back home, 180,000 yen unplanned expenditure is a big nightmare smudge in my budget!

i can console myself and say that at least i am not living in sweden where i have to pay about 35% income tax while bitching about the severely cold winter. however, i also think of income tax free havens like bahrain and brunei and that gets me back in the slump! in dubai, if a foreign resident converts to islam, the government exempts the convert from personal tax. i do not know if i am willing to go THAT far BUT it is definitely tempting.

i hate taxes! if there is any one whom i do not like, i will start referring to that person as TAX.
it is more wrenching to think that, even with only three months left in this country, i HAVE to pay the damn thing because i am applying for a tax exemption and refund from the exemption as head of the family. this might be a light at the end of this gloomy bureaucratic tunnel as the refund can be quite substantial BUT the glitch is that processing takes more than three months. so, by the time the government releases my refund, i will already be out of the country.

my head is really spinning. last week i got a toothache that refuses to go away, and since last friday, i have had diarrhea every single morning. my diagnosis; this is the physicall stress response to my tax payable!

this worry about taxes makes me realize that i am not a child anymore! i am definitely an adult now- one who can not drive,and more so, one who is having sexless nights but still have to pay taxes. tell me, where is the joy in that?

tanned and discriminated

riding a bike for almost an hour under the scorching summer kofu sun every single day is all what paris hilton should do to get the perfect tan. of course, she has to ride in a skimpy bikini to avoid the unsightly tan lines. that would be some sight, the traffic jam she would cause, Not the tan lines. i have done exactly this since summer started this year, RIDING my bike for an hour, and decently dressed. so now, i am at least three shades darker than my natural golden brown skin,and can be described as toasted. no matter how american my accent is, I can never be mistaken for anything else other than a national of a third world country.

i was riding my bike back home one night last week after work when i was stopped by a police car. when they asked me what i was doing riding my bike late at night, i faked a sheepish grin and replied in english, "i'm sorry i can't speak japanese." the highly testosteroned policewoman, far fiercer than the male policeman, continued to speak to me in japanes while i continued to smile and spoke to her in wnglish. she asked for my alien registration card which luckily, i brought with me that day. she asked me questions about my civil status, about my address, about my bike, about my work, about how to write my boss's name, about why i have three names (she was referring to my first name, my middle name and my last name), about why i rode my bike so late and other countless stupid questions which made hilton's antics more intellectually thought out. the fact that she was constantly frowning at me didn't help me to warm up to her. i honestly think that anyone could ever warm up to her. i pity her male partner. after about 20 minutes of japanese-english Q and A, the male policeman apologized for his lack of english to communicate with me, bid me goodnight and then they drove off leaving me baffled, indignant, nervous and relieved!

RACIST! when i asked them if there was any problem why they stopped me, the woman jsut said that they stop late night riders. she said it so casually and with so much "fake" written all over her face even when at least 3 riders rode past us when she interrogated me. if she had just told me that they stopped me because i was brown skinned and she was just being a pig, i would have soothed her and told her that she didnt look THAT bad. aaaaaarrrrgggghhh. if i had been white i am certain that she would really try her darnest to talk to me in english, splattering her sentences with apologies! heck if i had been white, she wouldn't have had stopped me at all.

i know there are many illegal filipinos, thais or indonesians workers in japan but, if the police force wants to crack down on bad bicycle riding people, they should do it across the board and not pick on brown skinned, or toasted skinned people for that matter, ONLY. when i told my boss about it, he jokingly said that he would not hire a filipina anymore as it might cause him trouble trying to save the filipino from the police. i didn't find it funny! this is exactly how prejudice is bred!! it starts out with stopping brown skinned bike riders then the next thing you know, employers all over would have skin tone preferences. how can such a country who boasts of very highly modern technology can still have such a medieval mind frame!!?? really!

if the government wants to catch the bad foreigners in this country, i think they should be looking into the statistics of japanese women who have shed a thousand tears because of a broken heart from their bastard of a white men boyfriends.

time

i am not okay. weeks after the phone call i still turn my neck whenever a yellow car passes by, hoping that it was his, coming to pick me up; my heart still skips a beat whenever i hear a car revved, i still sleep on my side as if he is beside me hugging me to sleep. i still use his coffee cups, i still drink with his glasses, take photos with his camera, listen to his music. people tell me i should throw away these things so that forgetting would come easier. i can't. he was a part of me. he made me happy until it ended. throwing away the things he gave me seems to me that the sadness weighs more than the happiness i had with him. so i hang on to the remnants of pain and bliss.

people tell me too that time heal all wounds, that one day i will not dream of him anymore, that i will stop analyzing how it could had been better. this i truly believe in but how long will i stay this way?i believe that i have to wallow in my sadness so that i can wash it away clean. just when that washing will come, i still don't know. time, may time be merciful on me and come sooner. may it lick my wounds close, but may it leave me with my scars that i may not forget.

it's not in the age

it is 6.30 in the morning and my tranquil morning coffee time is disturbed by the ringing of the bells of the local jinja. an announcement in japanese then came on (i didn't fully understand the announcement but it somehow went like this) ;

"Ms. So and so has been missing since yesterday afternoon. She went out for a walk at around X time. She has gray hair, 130 cm tall, X kg. She was wearing a green X, brown pants, and a hat. If anyone has seen her, please call Mr.X at X number..."

when i heard this kind of announcement for the first time sometime back in 2006, i was immensely surprised. how could a family just let their old walk about alone? it would never happen in the philippines! how busy can a family be that none of them could be left home to look after the elderly? how lonely the elderly must feel; spending their days in dreadful routine of eating and walking about with no one to talk to and nothing else to do.

every time i see an ojiji (an old man) or an obaba (an old woman), with backs so hunched low because of osteoporosis, crossing a road or a street alone, my heart always goes out to them! once, i went to a burger place where the staff's uniform was green shorts, light green shirt and white sneakers, i was attended to by an old woman who could be older than my mother, and my mom' already 63! i couldn't help but notice how her fingers were so wrinkled when she punched in my order.

if only i could speak japanese, i would volunteer to talk to these lonely old people. they are fun to talk to. once i walked to work instead of riding my bicycle and this obaba who was from a place 30 minutes train ride away (that's what she told me) walked with me and we started to chat. although it was clear to both of us that we couldn't understand each other, we just kept on blabbing away! i wondered if she ever made it back home!

i used to want to rush to the elderly and help them until one day, i saw an obaba beating a younger woman who was just trying to help her stood up when she fell. japan has very strong and independent obabas and ojijis.

but strong as these old people may be, they must be terribly lonely with nothing else to look forward to, not even the yearly short visit that their children or grandchildren pay them with, not even the quiet kocha time in the afternoon when they can go back to the memories of their younger days; a past which will slowly fade away in time. nothing to look forward to but the coming of death. death which mercilessly doesn't come along until they are around 93. when they are eating away vitamins and supplements instead of food. when they are already so sick and alone.

my boss is 56 years old. he is single and basically lives in the office already. he goes to the office at 10 a.m. and leaves at around 4 in the morning the following day. he rarely goes out with friends and made nissin cup ramen his daily staple. when he got sick, i made him soup and would sometimes buy him take out just so he wouldn't have to eat the concoction of msgs and poor semblance of food. i would always stay behind for at least 10 minutes at the end of the day to talk to him about anything just so he wouldn't feel so lonely. whenever i go out of the office door, i would always remind him not to stay up so late and not to smoke. he would smile to me and say, "thank you" in almost a whisper. then, i would close the door, make my 30 minutes bike ride home, open my door to my empty apartment, tired, alone, no weekends to look forward to; i would mumble to myself, "loneliness doesn't choose it's prey."