cellphones
Cell phones are a more important part of life here in Japan than in
the US. THey are called handy phones and they ARE that. THey are
everywhere, much more prevasive than in the US. It seems that about 60
percent of the people have them and about 90 percent of the young people.
You can see people using them while riding bikes, while driving, while
walking with their boyfriends and girlfriends. Part of the reason for
this
is that it is very expensive to order a new phone line here, around $600
just to get it installed. So it seems much cheaper to get a free cell
phone and pay $20 to $30 a month for that. However the costs mount
quickly. My company gives me the first 60 minutes free and then charges
1
yen ( about a penny ) per second. Most people end up paying about $100 a
month. However the phones in some ways are far more sophisticated than
the
US phones. Although they are cheap looking and smaller than the phones
Ive
seen (about the size and half the width of a small remote controll device
,
they do a lot more. You can make voice memos to yourself, you can make
an
address book, there is a calculator,there are games, you can keep your
schedule including memos (and have alarms go off at certain times to
remind
you ) and things to do for months or years in advance, and you can send
and receive email. If someone calls you and you dont pick it up , you
can
store their number and call it later or put it in your personalized phone
book. Ive observed young men and women meeting and as a way of
exchanging
phone numbers, one will call the other, push push and they have it
stored.
Its like electronic intercourse. TO do email each number has 3 or 4 or
5
possibilities. So the number 2 would be A, b, and C. to type a B you
just
hit it twice . to type a c you hit it three times. Ive watched people
on
bikes and motorcycles staring at their little screens (about 1 inch
square
and feverishly poking at buttons. And we complain about people driving
while talking. Believe me this is much scarier.
I decided to dive into this phenomena. I took the plunge. the only
problem is that the instruction book is in japanese which i cant read or
even if I could I wouldnt understand. But one of the sons of one of the
women at work helped me with the basics. I now can turn it on, receive
calls, make calls, and get messages. However the message center message
is
in Japanese. So I basically have to guess which number to push. I think
1
means save, 2 delete, and 3 go to next message. but actually im not sure
about that, so if you call and leave a message, and i dont call you back,
dont assume that i am angry with you or am too busy for you. Its
probably
that i just haven`t learned how to use my handy phone yet. Maybe I`m justold fashioned but i think I`ll stick to good old email.
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