When we were in Japan before, we had dial-up service for our internet connection which made it very hard to send out newsletters containing pictures or to download pictures that friends and family wanted to send us. Knowing that we didn’t want that again, we asked around and were told that J-COM was a good company, and that they had the same type of setup as the States where we could bundle our phone, Internet and TV. We called and a man came out to take our application, and fortunately he spoke very good English.
For various reasons, we were unable to include the phone but got high speed Internet and cable TV and agreed to a minimum six-month term. About a week later the installer came (who didn’t speak English), and a friend of ours was able to be here and do some translating. The remote and manual were both in Japanese, so even though they explained various functions to us, we failed to take notes and soon forgot.
We did remember how to use the remote to turn things on, so everything worked fine until one day Daisy watched a video in the VCR connected to our television. After that, we could no longer get many of the cable channels we’d gotten before, but strangely enough we were still able to get some channels whether or not the J-COM box was turned on!
I called J-COM and asked for an English-speaking person but was told that they would call me back. After various intervals of time, I talked to two different people who had no idea what the problem might be, so they said they would need to call back to schedule an engineer to come to our house. Finally an engineer and interpreter were scheduled to come sometime Friday morning Oct 10.
Friday morning the phone rang and Daisy answered. An unusually jolly Japanese man’s voice said, “Hello, this is Nishioka. I want to come to your house in 30 or 40 minutes. Is it okay?” Daisy was startled and said, “I guess so. Who did you say this is?” “Just call me ‘Nori,” the man said. “It means ‘seaweed!” he added with a rather loud laugh. Daisy hung up with a puzzled expression and told me, “Someone named ‘Seaweed’ is coming to our house, but I have no idea why!” I assumed it must be J-COM since we weren’t expecting anyone else.
Around 10:00 they arrived, the two we knew about and a third in a separate car who was there for the purpose of traffic control (we live in a walled-in campus which has no outside traffic). After about 2 hours of a lot of Japanese and our interpreter saying, “he says…,” they had determined that the problem was in our VCR, which was needed as the TV is an older model which doesn’t have the game inputs that could have been tied directly to their box. So their solution was that we would need to buy a new VCR or buy a newer model TV. Since we didn’t want to do that, we tried to ask whether we could drop the cable but still keep the internet, and therefore meet the six-month agreement. Our interpreter was having trouble with our question, so he made a phone call and then told us that the original person who had signed us up (Tetsuko Tatemichi) would stop later that day to talk to us. They finally left about 12:15.
After they left we discussed our options. Buying a new VCR or TV was not a good option as they are very expensive, and we really haven’t been watching much TV. There are American movies but they aren’t edited at all for language or content, so most of the ones we have started to watch, we gave up on early in the movie. I do watch some sports but we decided that if we could drop the cable portion we would.
Daisy left for class which I was also supposed to help teach, but we didn’t know when Tetsuko was coming and we wanted to get this resolved (rescheduling takes forever). He soon showed up and he knew about our problem, so I asked if we still kept the internet could we drop the cable—he shook his head. I thought that maybe he could tell me in English what each of the remote buttons did, but he quickly said that there was an English version of the manual that he would be glad to provide.
Then (and we’re finally getting to the “only in Japan” part) Tetsuko said he would be glad to go home (about 50 minutes round trip) and bring us a TV that he wasn’t using that had the necessary inputs. It’s rather small but will work fine until we decide what to do when our six-month agreement is up. I’m convinced that in America the person would have said “Sorry, maybe Walmart is having a sale,” and they would have been gone.
For various reasons, we were unable to include the phone but got high speed Internet and cable TV and agreed to a minimum six-month term. About a week later the installer came (who didn’t speak English), and a friend of ours was able to be here and do some translating. The remote and manual were both in Japanese, so even though they explained various functions to us, we failed to take notes and soon forgot.
We did remember how to use the remote to turn things on, so everything worked fine until one day Daisy watched a video in the VCR connected to our television. After that, we could no longer get many of the cable channels we’d gotten before, but strangely enough we were still able to get some channels whether or not the J-COM box was turned on!
I called J-COM and asked for an English-speaking person but was told that they would call me back. After various intervals of time, I talked to two different people who had no idea what the problem might be, so they said they would need to call back to schedule an engineer to come to our house. Finally an engineer and interpreter were scheduled to come sometime Friday morning Oct 10.
Friday morning the phone rang and Daisy answered. An unusually jolly Japanese man’s voice said, “Hello, this is Nishioka. I want to come to your house in 30 or 40 minutes. Is it okay?” Daisy was startled and said, “I guess so. Who did you say this is?” “Just call me ‘Nori,” the man said. “It means ‘seaweed!” he added with a rather loud laugh. Daisy hung up with a puzzled expression and told me, “Someone named ‘Seaweed’ is coming to our house, but I have no idea why!” I assumed it must be J-COM since we weren’t expecting anyone else.
Around 10:00 they arrived, the two we knew about and a third in a separate car who was there for the purpose of traffic control (we live in a walled-in campus which has no outside traffic). After about 2 hours of a lot of Japanese and our interpreter saying, “he says…,” they had determined that the problem was in our VCR, which was needed as the TV is an older model which doesn’t have the game inputs that could have been tied directly to their box. So their solution was that we would need to buy a new VCR or buy a newer model TV. Since we didn’t want to do that, we tried to ask whether we could drop the cable but still keep the internet, and therefore meet the six-month agreement. Our interpreter was having trouble with our question, so he made a phone call and then told us that the original person who had signed us up (Tetsuko Tatemichi) would stop later that day to talk to us. They finally left about 12:15.
After they left we discussed our options. Buying a new VCR or TV was not a good option as they are very expensive, and we really haven’t been watching much TV. There are American movies but they aren’t edited at all for language or content, so most of the ones we have started to watch, we gave up on early in the movie. I do watch some sports but we decided that if we could drop the cable portion we would.
Daisy left for class which I was also supposed to help teach, but we didn’t know when Tetsuko was coming and we wanted to get this resolved (rescheduling takes forever). He soon showed up and he knew about our problem, so I asked if we still kept the internet could we drop the cable—he shook his head. I thought that maybe he could tell me in English what each of the remote buttons did, but he quickly said that there was an English version of the manual that he would be glad to provide.
Then (and we’re finally getting to the “only in Japan” part) Tetsuko said he would be glad to go home (about 50 minutes round trip) and bring us a TV that he wasn’t using that had the necessary inputs. It’s rather small but will work fine until we decide what to do when our six-month agreement is up. I’m convinced that in America the person would have said “Sorry, maybe Walmart is having a sale,” and they would have been gone.
We have no idea if all customers are treated this way, but we are thankful for the kindness of so many Japanese people whether or not they know us. I hope that foreigners receive the same kindness in America but…
Cockroach update:
Two more dead, one living but walking with a severe limp.
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