Well needless to say things got testy to say the least between Ba-Chan, Oyaji, my wife, and myself too. It was decided in the interest of keeping some semblance of peace that we should move out of the house.
I also changed jobs too. Working at the Conversation school also entailed doing sales work and the guy I worked for was not a bad guy by any means but expected me to work like a Japanese person, all dedicated to work and home life came second. We parted ways and in retrospect it was probably for the best as his business was failing and bills were mounting for him and he was having a hard time making ends meet.
I had made some new friends and one of the guys worked for the international telephone company in Japan and they needed an English speaking foreigner to assist with sales work with the US Military. Okinawa has one of the highest concentrations of US Military bases anywhere in the world. Leftover's from WWII. I will get into that discussion on a different post.
Anyway, so we moved, I got a new job, my wife got a new job too working at a women's clothing boutique on the main shopping street in a large retail sales orientated building in Naha. I could walk to work, it only took about 5 minutes, so it made it very convenient. Our daughter was still going to preschool and things settled into a different routine.
During this time, the latter part of the 1980's the Japanese economy was in what was called the "Bubble Economy" and Japan was the leading "Asian Tiger" in Asia economic wise. Our income was stable and things were looking good but that ride ended all too soon as the "bubble" burst and I was soon out of a job as were all the other contracted employees. The same was happening all throughout Japan.
I was busy, nearly everyday from the start of work at 8:30 AM until at least 7:00 or 8:00 PM weekdays I was either in the office or out on sales calls on the military bases. I assisted with installation of international telephones and telephone booths on those bases and ran and assisted with sales campaigns on all the military installations on Okinawa. The days were long, but the work was a lot of fun and I learned a lot too.
But along the way I picked up some pretty bad "Japanese" habits as well. Here is Japan after work it is common and pretty much expected for coworkers to go out to a pub and have a few drinks and then maybe go to a bar or karaoke afterwards. This happened roughly 3 or 4 times a week, and it seemed like I was not getting home until 10PM or later.
You can criticize all you want yet for myself and many other foreigners that I know here one goes through different stages of existence while here. I think it's pretty normal for anyone moving to and living in a foreign country and it doesnt excuse my actions but it is an explanation of sorts. You go through a period where you want to be accepted as "one of them". You do everything "they" do, you try to consciously and sub-consciously want and feel a need to be accepted and following along and doing what everyone else does is a part of that. I can say this now in retrospect, but while it was going on it wasn't something that I was aware of myself.
How some of this manifested itself was at home. I started expecting my wife to do more to take care of our daughter during the week. On weekends, since she worked I typically took care of her, but weekdays MY job came first, and this caused plenty of tension between us. We both became more focused on our jobs and the people we worked with and started spending less and less time together. I took our daughter to school in the AM, and often times she was at the preschool until late at night. I wanted her to be more of a "Japanese" wife and I regret ever putting her through what happened between us at that time.
As a family because of our work schedules we were pulling each other apart. It actually got worse when Oyaji started picking up his granddaughter from school every Friday and keeping her over the weekend at home. Suddenly I found myself free on Fridays, Saturday's and Sunday's. and had too much free time. Oyaji loved his new grand-daughter so much that for her 3rd birthday he bought her a piano! We had the piano moved into our condo and then starting taking her to piano lessons a few times a week after school and on weekends. That piano still sits in her room now.
I spent a lot of that time out at night with friends drinking and having fun. My wife wasn't home as she worked late nearly every night, finishing often times after 11PM or later. Things got pretty bad between us.
This is also the time that I picked up my nickname here in Okinawa that I am using here; Hachiro Miyagi. I started going to a bar near the building my wife worked at and I became friends with the bartender/owner. One evening he told me while we were drinking that if I was going to be living here in Japan I HAD to have a Japanese name. Over the course of the night of drinking and with talking with the other customers the conclusion that came about was that since my wife's family name is Miyagi my last name would be Miyagi. I got the first name "Hachiro" because here in Japan siblings are "counted" as 1st son, 2nd son, 1st daughter, 2nd daughter (長男、chounan 次男、jinan 三男 san nan......長女、choujo 次女、jijo 三女 san jo..)but in the States we typically count our siblings by order of birth regardless of sex. So since I am the 8th sibling the name they gave me was "Hachiro". It started as a joke, but the name has stuck. Even to this day there a a few places here that I could go to that they still call me "Hachiro" or "Ha-chan" (a nickname within a nickname) and I have used it ever since. People get a laugh out of it, but it's easier on my ears than being called Po-lu, as the name Paul is pronounced in Japanese.
As I mentioned earlier after a few years the bubble burst and I lost my job. I started collecting unemployment insurance pay, which at the time was HUGE. I was making roughly 80% of my former pay, tax free, for 6 months. There was little incentive to look for work, but eventually I met a guy who needed someone to drive for him. This guy had the Japanese equivalent of a caddy limo. I took the job without thinking about what he did too much, and ended up getting involved on the fringes with the Japanese yakuza.
The condo that we lived in had an interesting character living there, he was a 20's something guy, like me at the time, with a huge black labrador which he used to take out for walks every night. We became friends and often times went out drinking together at night. He took me to some of the seedier places in Okinawa but I thought nothing of it because I have ALWAYS felt safe here. I can still to this day walk ANYWHERE on this island at anytime day or night and never fear for my safety. So seedier is a word I use in retrospect. I still was in a huge learning process, my language skills were getting better but I still only spoke broken Japanese at the time. This guy introduced me to to the guy who gave me a job as his driver. He gave me the car too for use privately. All I had to do was pick him up in the morning, take him to his "office", pick him up and take him different places around the city a couple times a day and then drop him off at his favorite watering hole at night. I was free on the weekends for the most part and was getting paid nearly $3000.00 per month. The money was great, in cash, and nearly every night never paid a dime to eat or drink in bars, clubs, or restaurants. How naive I was.
About 1/4 mile from out condo was a yakuza jimsho or Japanese mafia office. While we were living there there was a war going on in Okinawa between different factions and there were two murders that occurred near our condo at the same time. The police were all over the place. They called in reinforcements from all over Japan and their presence in Okinawa was in the news for months. There were roadblocks all around the neighborhood and I got stopped countless numbers of times because of the car I was driving. They checked it countless times and passed me on. Me in ignorant bliss at the time about the "why". But I was learning and my eyes opened fully after my "boss" took me to Tokyo and Osaka for a "business trip".
I stayed in one of the classiest hotels in Tokyo and Osaka, never spent a dime and went places that I would never have been able to afford. One place in particular was a club where it cost $1000.00 per person just to sit down in the place. (One of the most boring experiences I ever had) I met and saw people that I hope, even to this day, that I never meet or see again in this lifetime or any other lifetime. I never got into anything illegal and I am ever grateful that my "senses" returned to me, but it was just another experience that opened my eyes a bit more about what Japan is like.
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