It has been 5 months
since I came in Japan. The first place I stepped my feet on in Japan was Akita
Airport. Beforehand, I was so nervous to fly from Indonesia to Akita alone for
about 13 hours including transit hours. I had my transit in Incheon Airport,
South Korea and no one I know there. What worse, was that I don’t speak
any korean.
However, so many surprises I
got soon after I was done with my trip. These all were started from, when I
arrived at Akita Airport, completing all arrival procedures, and then entered
the airport lounge to meet someone whom was arranged by Akita university to
pick me up. Not so long after I saw her face then we greeted each other.
But suddenly, a young man came to us, introducing his self briefly in a polite
way. It was getting strange when he showed me,
from his wallet,
something that made me a bit shocked, his identitiy card as a police officer! I
asked myself, did I break some rules? or probably it was just because I looked
like a suspicious stranger with my muslim dress? However I tried to answer his
questions serenely. He asked me some questions, about my destination, if it was
my first time to come to Japan, how long I will stay here, have I ever made any
crime before (of course, my answer for this question was “Never”), and
those all intimidating questions were finished by saying “ Arigatou
gozaimasu”. Even now, I still have no idea why I had to be asked some
offensive questions by a policeman? Does every foreigner get the same treat
like me? (Or it was just because I came to Japan from Akita Prefecture, not
from Narita International airport that it used to be.
After a month spending my time in Akita,
the suffering came over me. Some frustating things were happening around,
for instance, the problem about I can’t have a phone cellular because it
required alien resident card to have contract with the provider (and nothing I
can do for because I would get that card one month after my arrival). Having no
mobile phone made my communication with foreigner friends and with my tutor so
difficult. In one month I had to call them by public phone which is relatively
expensive. Sometimes the phone was cut off during the conversation
because I ran out of coins, and I was too lazy to get some other small changes.
There was a time when I missed a trip just because my friends were not
able to reach me by phone when they wanted to invite me. I felt I was like
living in my own world in a strange planet, eventhough I can speak Japanese a
little bit. The worst thing was, during my first two weeks here I coudn’t
access internet connection from my room eventhough I plugged the cable into my
laptop, and another problem was : my laptop’s plug doesn’t fit well with
japanese electric power socket. It means that I would spend most of my nights
and weekend alone and it’s like a proverb “my world totally was just like a
little bird in her cage”. Lacking of money and having not so many friends
to talk to made it much worse.
But I have to admit that
during my troubles happened around there were so many pleasing things I’ve
found, like facilities I‘ve got in Akita. The public service is the best so far
I’ve known. For example, when I and my tutor went to ward office to do some
immigration procedures, they gave me very excellent service. I didn’t need to
wait for the process for hours and it costed not so expensive. It‘s so
different from my country where we have to be extra-patient to wait for them to
get all done for days, event for 1 or 2 weeks!
It’s surprising when only old people here are friendly to
me. During my time having no bicycle, some old Japanese ( most of them are
male) were greeting me and giving me supports to live here when I was on the
way to campus. Of course young people here are nice but not as warm
as old people with foreigner. There’s something in young Japanese which I never
understand. It’s like we have completely different worlds, and there is a wall
between them that separates us and it seems it makes them to hold back
theirself to get into my life too much. Or probably am I the one who restrains
myself from them? I don’t know. But I hope someday we can tear down the wall so
that we can welcome each other to our own worlds, despite of our differences.
The difficulties are still around me since not so many muslims live in akita,
even it can be said that muslim is rare here. I have not found any Muslim
Communty yet, not also mosque, even there is no Halal Store in the city
that makes me should cook my own meal. By the way, in Arabic, the word halal
means permitted or lawful. Halal foods are foods that are allowed under Islamic
dietary guidelines. According to these guidelines gathered from the Qu'ran (
QS.Almaidah: 3-6), Muslim followers cannot consume the following:
- pork or pork by products
- animals that were dead prior to slaughtering
- animals not slaughtered properly or not slaughtered in the name of Allah
- blood and blood by products
- alcohol, sake, mirin
- carnivorous animals
- birds of prey
- land animals without external ears
These prohibited foods
and ingredients are called haram in arabic, which means forbidden.
Well, as a muslim I have
so many restricted foods, but the good this is I have to cook my own meal,
which means, it helps me to save more my money. ( And as to halal food, some of
my friends have suggested me to buy it by online, and I think thats not
bad.) Moreover, consuming home-made seafood meals everyday is quite cheap and
good for my health.
I have faced many difficulties here. And I felt some of them are obstacle to
me. Some are enlighting, but some even really hit me down. Somehow I’ve still
been strugling to adapt my new life here and have been trying some
efforts to make many new friends, and of course, to learn more about Japanese
people and its society.
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