A small mishap (resolved)

It is a few days later and I am (amazingly) pretty much okay, just limping a bit. Our company is visited by an "Insurance Investigator", a very charismatic old bloke called Murayama. He exchanges business cards with everyone in the office, flatters my Japanese a bit and makes social chit-chat before asking some questions about the accident. Mitsui, the driver, not only refuses to accept responsibility for hitting me while driving on the wrong side of the road (and, I seem to recall without headlights on either), but actually expects me to pay for the damage to his windscreen!!! Anyway, Mr Murayama goes away fairly satisfied either that i wasn't at fault or that i'm just another sneaky gaijin who can't be trusted (the latter case can never be ruled out). I pay the hospital bill (which is about half of all the money I've saved in Japan, i.e. Y50,000=$800 or so) myself and retain and photocopy the receipt to claim on my travel insurance. Nishi, the TN Director who organised my traineeship insists on taking the receipt.

The following exchange is paraphrased from bad Japanese and Ingrish.

Nick: No, it doesn't matter about Mitsui. He's a bastard, but it'll be easier to claim on my own insurance.

Nishi: No, no! He will pay! His insurance will pay!

Nick: Look, I know he might pay, but that'll take ages. It'll be so much easier to just claim it on my travel insurance when I get home.

Nishi: No, not difficult. Mitsui-san, his insurance company will pay! Please give the receipt.

Nick: Okay, if you can guarantee that his insurance company will pay, I'll give it to you.

Nishi: Yes, yes! He will pay. (takes receipt)

Every time I see him for the next month I am in Japan, Nishi assures me that "wheels are in motion" re my insurance. Finally, it is time for me to leave. He promises to send me the money as soon as the company pays out. Two months after I arrive back in Australia, I still haven't heard anything, so I email him. He writes back:

Nishi's email:

"I checked about insurance and insurance company say it is very difficult. They say they need records from hospital. I call hospital but they say they can only give records to Nick only. Insurance company also say that they need proof that i will give money to Nick. so sorry. very difficult."

Nick doesn't give up that easily. I send him a signed letter authorising him to act on my behalf in collecting documents related to my insurance claim. Five weeks later, he writes again.

Nishi's next email:

"I show letter to insurance company but they say they can't be sure it is from Nick. I went to hospital too but they say they have to be careful to stop people commit crime. So sorry. i think very difficult."

What this means is that if Nick was a Japanese with a name like Tanaka, anyone could make up such a letter of authorisation with the help of a Y2500 ($30) hanko seal-stamp available from any newsagent and completely rort the whole system with no problem, but because Nick is a gaijin with a gaijin signature and Nishi is a known associate of gaijins, they naturally are subject to extreme suspicion.

Nick cuts a long story somewhat shorter...

Anyway, i finally got Nishi to send the receipt to me and sent it to my travel insurance company with a one-page application form carrying my (ultra-dubious) signature at the bottom.

They returned a cheque for $700 to me within one week. No explanations.No private investigators. No long phonecalls of 2% information transfer, 98% face-preserving pleasantries. No negotiations drawn out by chain-smoking and the inane small-talk which greases the cogs of Japanese communication. No hideous waste of paper in throwing business cards at everyone you have no intention of ever contacting again. No troubles in validating my documents with an oh-so-foreign written signature. No more hissing intakes of breath. No more "velly difficult" or "so sorry". My insurance company didn't even send me an accompanying letter, telling me how they are so "humbly grateful that their humble company has humbly maintained my honourable patronage". They didn't even send me a letter at all. Just a cheque, in a envelope.

It was all I ever wanted.

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