Today...

...was a fairly productive day.

I went to my local ward office and applied for both foreign registration and the national health insurance plan. I also finished prep work for next week's kanji drills: over 300 characters by week's end (although, they're almost entirely characters that I'm already familiar with).

My back is killing me from sitting at the desk all day.

The trip to the ward office was interesting. I expected the application procedure to be much more difficult than it was. They took my passport and photos, had me fill out one application form, and shuffled me into the line for health insurance when I expressed a desire to be enrolled. The health insurance application was even easier, as I was already in the ward office's computer system. I basically had only to make minimal notations on separate application form and collect my table of fees.

The fees threw me for a loop. I knew from what I'd read that they would be low. But I wasn't prepared for how low.

Six months of health care coverage is $80.

To put that number in perspective, the cost of a one-month train pass to go two stops on the Yokohama Subway Line is $80.

Six months of health insurance costs me as much as one month of commuting fees.

You can imagine, as an American, how shocked I was by this realization. But when the shock wore off, I warmed to the idea totally. You see, transportation is a for-profit business - health care is not. Or it shouldn't be, at any rate. If I can't afford the train commute (which I can't, really), I get a bike or I walk. No harm; no foul. If I can't afford to fix a broken arm (or a perforated ulcer, or whatever), they take care of me. It's the difference between need and want; between an essential and a luxury.

We Americans would do well to remember the difference and to get on with the business of reforming our totally bollocks-up health care system.

Not that expect much of Congress, though.

[sigh]

Your Daily WTF: Reprehensible Condom Photo Edition.

So, apparently, being photographed with a box of condoms can be ruinous for your career if you're a woman working on television in Japan. 25-year-old TV announcer Natsume Miku was fired after photos of her holding a box of condoms and smiling were published in a gossip rag. Supposedly, the reasoning for this was that her image was irreparably damaged in the minds of the Japanese housewives who were her majority demographic. Other commentators have voiced the opinion that Natsume's firing may have also been inspired by Japanese men's dislike of condoms and the freedom it affords Japanese women. Of course, that must be taken with a grain of salt. It's only what one commentator said, and I want to be clear that it is not necessarily an actual factor. My own experience of Japanese cultural attitudes to condoms is very limited.

Either way, however, it sucks. In scenario a) you have a bunch of housewives who clearly harbor outmoded and misogynistic views of female sexuality (which is always a shame); in the potential scenario b) you have a bunch of men who want to punish a woman for acting with the same freedom they themselves enjoy (an attitude that will probably be with us always in one form or another).

Lame.

Via.