by Anna Kunnecke
Last week I was at the city ward office. It is time to renew some of the documents that allow me to live here, and I needed to collect papers to prove that I had paid my taxes. This shouldn't have been hard, because I had in fact dutifully paid all my taxes and was already in possession of quite the stack of documents to prove it. (In duplicate. With official stamps on them. That had already been filed once with the tax office.) But what I required was a totally different set of papers that would prove it for the immigration bureau.
So I found the right section, grabbed my slip of paper from the little ticker-tape machine, and waited for the 17 people ahead of me to get served. Then when my number was called, I went up, handed in my filled-out form, and took another number. Twenty minutes later the kindly woman called me up. My papers were there; I could see them on the counter; but there was a problem. You see, it was my name. It was too long.
It was so long that when printed out on the fancy official city office stationary, the final three letters of my middle name, Elizabeth, were cut off. Perhaps, I suggested, since the last, first, and majority of my middle name were intact, it would do just as it was? Oh no. Perhaps they could simply do away with the middle name? Heavens no. But Japanese people usually don't even have middle names, so.... No no no no. Okay, I sighed, could you just write it in Japanese instead of in romaji? But I already knew the answer.
So I went up a floor to repeat the process.
Another number, another ten minutes, another set of forms. Then I waited twenty more minutes for their big printers to spit out another official document that, yet again, named me as Kunnecke, Anna Elizab. I longed to simply snatch them and run. But since I'd like to continue living in this country, I didn't.
There was a lot of hemming and hawing. This was a big problem.
Ever resourceful, however, they figured out a way to fix it that would not displease the document gods. They took a black ballpoint pen and wrote the letters 'e' and 't' at the end of my name. By hand. They handed the papers over.
I looked at them for a long moment.
And then, in spite of all my smarter, savvier, better instincts, some obedient schoolgirl part of me felt compelled to point out that unfortunately there was still an 'h' missing.
WHY?!???
I do not know. I could have just written it in myself.
Instead, they took the papers away again and were gone for several days, weeks, and months that probably really lasted only ten minutes or so. Then they brought them back. The 'h' had been penned in. I was free to go.
So, in this quest to continue doing exactly what I have been doing, which is live here and contribute to society, I have one government office down; four more to go. It's going to be a long week.
Last week I was at the city ward office. It is time to renew some of the documents that allow me to live here, and I needed to collect papers to prove that I had paid my taxes. This shouldn't have been hard, because I had in fact dutifully paid all my taxes and was already in possession of quite the stack of documents to prove it. (In duplicate. With official stamps on them. That had already been filed once with the tax office.) But what I required was a totally different set of papers that would prove it for the immigration bureau.
So I found the right section, grabbed my slip of paper from the little ticker-tape machine, and waited for the 17 people ahead of me to get served. Then when my number was called, I went up, handed in my filled-out form, and took another number. Twenty minutes later the kindly woman called me up. My papers were there; I could see them on the counter; but there was a problem. You see, it was my name. It was too long.
It was so long that when printed out on the fancy official city office stationary, the final three letters of my middle name, Elizabeth, were cut off. Perhaps, I suggested, since the last, first, and majority of my middle name were intact, it would do just as it was? Oh no. Perhaps they could simply do away with the middle name? Heavens no. But Japanese people usually don't even have middle names, so.... No no no no. Okay, I sighed, could you just write it in Japanese instead of in romaji? But I already knew the answer.
So I went up a floor to repeat the process.
Another number, another ten minutes, another set of forms. Then I waited twenty more minutes for their big printers to spit out another official document that, yet again, named me as Kunnecke, Anna Elizab. I longed to simply snatch them and run. But since I'd like to continue living in this country, I didn't.
There was a lot of hemming and hawing. This was a big problem.
Ever resourceful, however, they figured out a way to fix it that would not displease the document gods. They took a black ballpoint pen and wrote the letters 'e' and 't' at the end of my name. By hand. They handed the papers over.
I looked at them for a long moment.
And then, in spite of all my smarter, savvier, better instincts, some obedient schoolgirl part of me felt compelled to point out that unfortunately there was still an 'h' missing.
WHY?!???
I do not know. I could have just written it in myself.
Instead, they took the papers away again and were gone for several days, weeks, and months that probably really lasted only ten minutes or so. Then they brought them back. The 'h' had been penned in. I was free to go.
So, in this quest to continue doing exactly what I have been doing, which is live here and contribute to society, I have one government office down; four more to go. It's going to be a long week.
Too good you're not Latin American!
You see, we carry with us a first and middle names, as well as TWO last names (one from each parent).
Full names in Spanish are usually longer than 25 characters.
I know because I too live in Japan.
Sight...