Job Discussion Forums

[Like a Rolling Stone]

I think i will just hide! But this hasn't happened recently maybe they dont do it anymore??? Thanks for the advice everyone. It looks like noone is going to pay if they can but what happens to NHK? Will they go bankrupt or make low quality progrmas if noone pays

[markle]

We got the knock on the door when we were staying in a Leo Palace for the first couple weeks. We spoke a lot of English and smiled and told him to come back tomorrow. Our teacher liason said that she just tells the guy that she doesn't watch NHK so she doesn't have to pay the fee.

[Gordon]

First off, take the NHK sticker off your doorway, that does seem to help, can't hurt.

[Chris21]

Usually I just say that I can't understand Japanese, so I don't watch Japanese TV. Normally that satisfies them , but last time it wasn't enough. As a previous poster pointed out, now they have a brochure with translations that they'll give you if you claim to not understand (although he didn't seem to realize that I was saying my lack of Japanese prevented me from watching NHK, not understanding his request for payment).

Anyway, I mentioned that I don't watch NHK and only watch SkyPerfect TV, and this seemed to immediately placate him (not sure why). I haven't been bothered since.

[Willy_In_Japan]

Technically, if you have a device that can read TV signals,.....ie a TV....you ahve to pay the NHK fee by law. In fact, the fee for sattelite dishes is MUCH more than just straight TV, so I am surprised that he left you alone.

Saying you don't watch NHK isnt a valid excuse. Only not owning a TV. So, if you have a Sattelite dish outside, expect to be harrassed.

[alexrocks]

We watch a number of shows on NHK, so I don't mind paying. It's better than the other Japanese network channels, in my opinion. Depends on what you like, though.

[womblingfree]

Just don't answer the door unless you're expecting someone. Even if an unannounced guest appears they'll have your phone number. The NHK man will soon bugger off.

Actually I think NHK has some pretty decent programming. I think it was based on the BBC model?

[cafebleu]

There is some good advice on this thread but you are forgetting one thing - NHK collection thrives in the inaka (countryside for newbies) because the local women put pressure on the residents around them to pay the fee. Something that I found a bit despicable.

Foreigners who live in the Japanese inaka are often subjected to intrusive/invasive behaviour by their women neighbours. The men have better things to do - ie they work and if they are retired they usually have a life outside gossiping and spying.

When I lived in inaka by myself (I moved in with my partner to another area after my lease expired) I would hear my neighbours telling the NHK man I had a tv. When he came I explained I didn't watch NHK (true), didn't want to pay (certainly), and the law provided no penalties for non payment (correct). He went away.

However, I had a couple of neighbours in my face telling me to pay up. Not an isolated incident but on and on. These were women over 50, loud voiced, privacy invading of the type that is not unusual in Japan.

I told them it was my business (politely) but they had clearly watched my movements and would tell the NHk men when it was likely I was home. At one stage I was extremely stressed as I could not relax on my days off or in free time between classes and there was an inevitable knock at my door a few days a week.

I then had a visit from my landagent who told me I had to pay. I wanted to say "Up yours" but I didn't need this woman also spying on me and hassling me.

I gave in but then became angry at how I had been railroaded. When I moved, my partner told the NHK man we wouldn't be paying. By then we had moved in an apartment (not a house) and our neighbours were all under 40. They couldn't have cared less about us not paying NHK.

Bottom line - the Japanese have no right to hassle foreigners to pay NHK when a significant number of Japanese people have never paid and never will. I still get a bad feeling when I think of the old nasties in my first neighbourhood in Japan. I wish a genuinely aggressive foreigner would move in there and teach them a lesson!

[luckyloser700]

[cafebleu]

My, for somebody whose information showed you just joined the cafe this year you certainly don't let your lack of experience with this forum and lack of knowledge about posters who were here long before you started posting, interfere with your notion you have to put other posters in their place.

Maybe the 'loser' part of your handle is the correct one.

Please note a few facts - I lived in the Japanese countryside as I said. For a while I lived by myself as a foreign woman. I know what my experiences as a foreign woman in an inaka neighbourhood teeming with middle aged plus women, most of whom didn't work, with a lot of free time on their hands was like. I experienced it - not you.

No, there is no comparison with the UK. That's why I didn't mention my home country or its people in my post. In my home country of the UK living as a woman in the countryside or anywhere else does not entitle neighbours to monitor whether I pay the BBC tv fee. That's what the BBC employees are paid for. As with the NHK ones in Japan. Note - NHK employees.

You may be male, you may be female. Whatever you are, you don't understand the fundamental difference between life in Japan and life in the UK, Europe, US, Australia, NZ etc. In Japan particularly in the countryside areas, neighbours feel it is their right to check up on other neighbours, especially foreigners. If you tell me this is not true about Japan then you have limited experience either in the country itself or the countryside.

I spent longer than 5 and a half years in Japan. The foreigners I knew who lived in inaka had the same basic observation to make about life there, especially in regard to nosey neighbours. Being bailed up by middle aged women trying to tell you how to live your life is not unusual if you are a woman.

If you have a partner staying the night they can and will tell your landagent. It's happened to people I knew in Japan. There does not have to be any element of disturbance in what you do or noise or other inconvenience to your neighbours - telling your neighbours what to do is a bit of a pastime among certain wome in the Japanese inaka.

Whether that's telling you to pay the NHK fee and ratting on you if you don't, complaining to other neighbours and to your landagent that a koibito comes to your house sometimes, or bitching about how you have too many shrubbery obscuring your house.

Those all happened to me. The bitch about the shrubbery had much to do with the fact my 50 something and up neighbours couldn't see what was going on in my place. That was the purpose.

They tend to leave men alone - but as a few posters on this board could tell you, in some places they don't and interfering older Japanese women can make life hellish especially with their false accusations agains the gaijin disturbing the wa.

Getting back to NHK - in inaka often there is a lot of pressure from neighbours to pay the fee. I give no apologies for thinking it's none of their damn business, especially when they are so ready to treat the "gaijin" as unequal in everything except for the payment of fees that any number of Japanese don't pay anyway.

Not very hard to understand - and it wasn't in the first place. Then again, when I joined the cafe I didn't jump into such discussions dismissing other posters. I also didn't assume I had lived in Japan longer than them, either.

[JimDunlop2]

[luckyloser700]

[cafebleu]

Not unexpectedly you ignored the points made in my second post and then referred to my first post again.

I'm glad to see this as it means you can't refute the information I gave in my second post so hark back to the first one. An acknowledgement of defeat although no doubt you'll hotly contest that.

Please do - I generally don't waste time these days with posters who keep ignoring rational points made to support one's viewpoint. I will say that I stand by my comment about my neighbours from some time back needing a foreigner who DOES refuse to tolerate their petty aggression to come to their neighbourhood.

That way maybe they might learn that it's NOT their prerogative to watch over the gaijin in the neighbourhood and gripe about the said person wanting some privacy. Thsose who make unreasonable demands on others (ie the situations I referred to) need a lesson in curbing those ways. Sadly I didn't give it to them but there's no harm in hoping they will find somebody more assertive moving into their neighbourhood.

Oh and as you're an expert on foreigner-Japanese relations, maybe I'll introduce you to my husband one day. He is a Chinese man who speaks Japanese fluently and worked for a Jp company until we both left Japan. He could give you a nice reality check about your attitude towards foreigners who tell their experiences as they were - but why would he bother?

[luckyloser700]