I live in Arai-chou which is kind of like the suburbs of Melbourne.

It is close to the city of Hamamatsu which used to be a big city, but many of the people have left so now it feels quite empty. This has lessened Arai-chou's reason for existence, since it used to provide cheaper housing yet still close access to a big city. Thus lots of the young people are leaving Arai-chou for greener pastures.

This means that there are a lot of old people around me and Japan already has one of the greatest proportions of people over 60 already.

It is kind of cool at times.

In Japan, except for Tokyo and I imagine other big cities, houses are divided into groups, which are subdivided again into subgroups. Each group and subgroup has, for want of a better word, a leader. The idea is that we help each other out.

So say one of the people in my group has a death in the family and they have lots of work to do for a funeral or something, I and the rest of the group help them. There is also a folder that is passed around that contains information that I can't read, but would probably be useful if I could. It contains information such as community activities or the latest on Arai-chou and such. I have to pay 20 dollars every 2 months though which I believe is largely saved and used to help out a group member who might need it.

There are also meetings, which I have the first of tomorrow. I imagine it will go something like this...

Leader: So regarding the allocation of funds to assist Mary with her money troubles, I open the table to discussion. Alistair, what do you think?

Alistair thinks: Fuck, Shit! I didn't understand any of that, quick say something otherwise they will think you are weird. You have to rise about the bottom rung of this group otherwise they will just give you all the shitty jobs. Ok.. think back to my study...

Alistair says: I like cats!

Alistair thinks: Genius!

Leader: Ooookaaay... Look Alistair! It's a ball! Do you think you can bounce it?

And so on..

The leader changes every year and there are only 5 people in my group, so if I stay here for 5 years I get to be the leader one day. I hope I don't go mad with power.

It's kind of cool though. Say I have a complaint or a suggestion, I can raise it to the leader who can then raise it at the meetings of all the subgroup leaders. Should my suggestion be pert I get 5 saviour points. If we get enough points we get taken to the promised land. They don't tell us how many points we need, but I get the feeling I am really close!

In my group I can't remember the people's names so I think of them as their most outstanding characteristic. We have:

The Leader
Purple Glasses Lady
Weird Old Lady (She's 93. Really hard to end a conversation with her.. I feel kind of sorry for her though, she seems lonely and yet she still freaks me out)
Friendly Lady (I gotta think of something better)

And myself whom I think of as:

The Foreigner

I like to think we are a superhero group and solve crimes, but then again I am pretty lonely.

I have a barbecue as part of the school I work for on Sunday. All the kids and their friends will come and stare at me for about 2 hours. A good time will be had by all.

I am playing futsal every 2 weeks now with some badass Japanese players and have made friends with some of them. They are scary good.