this country still is a paradise for us. Not like prewar years, of course. The Japs are cowards as individuals. You know they become bold and courageous once they get together and do unbelievable things. Like the last war. And they can't even play fair in sports. If a Jap is competing with a foreigner, mob psychology takes over. Did you know that boxing referees and judges hardly ever award decisions to foreign fighters? If a foreigner doesn't win by a knockout, he can't win at all. But individually, the Japs just can't get anything done. Chinks are different, though. There are plenty of them here in Yokohama but they do pretty well.
"Whenever an official comes from the local tax office to get my tax declaration form I just shout at him and off he goes. Never comes back again. They talk about enforcing tax collection more strictly from us foreigners but it never works. Their tax laws are full of loopholes; just like putting water in a bamboo basket.
"You are considered a resident if you lived here on December 31st each year and are liable to income tax payment. So I go away every year for a couple of days to Seoul or Taipei soon after Christmas. Most foreigners do that, you know. Doesn't cost much. Think of what you would have to pay in income tax if you stayed here on December 31 st.
"Their exchange control is kind of funny, too. You are supposed not to change yen into dollars beyond a very small amount. But there are a hundred and one ways of outsmarting the Japs. An American chap, now living in California, recently wanted me to buy his deposit certificate of ten million yen at a discount. I paid him in dollars. You can also take out a bundle of yen notes in a trunk. But be sure to go on a Japanese boat. Japs at this end and at the other end also do not fuss very much, if you are a foreigner."
Alice listened to this fat old man with mixed feelings, as he rambled on. She was married to a Japanese and, legally at any rate, was a Japanese citizen. The old man's abuse of her husband's people made her feel unpleasant, to say the least. But she also wondered if Tom Bowles's words did not contain some grain of truth.
One weekend during the next summer, Saburo took Alice to Karuizawa. This was the first time Saburo had gone out of the city with his wife. That summer was particularly hot and sultry, and the cool mountain air and beautiful pine groves were a welcome change from the sweltering heat of Tokyo and Yokohama.
Karuizawa, located some hundred miles north of Tokyo, was first developed as a summer resort by Alice's compatriot, a missionary named Shaw, sometime in the 1880's. His bronze statue still stood at the end of Main Street in Karuizawa. Alice had heard the history of this famed summer retreat and wondered why it was a countryman of hers, rather than a Japanese, who had discovered and developed the place. Now she remembered what Mrs. Hertz had told her about the Japanese lack of initiative.
Alice fell in love with Karuizawa. It was a delightful place. Though the town itself was small and often congested in the summer season, the surrounding countryside was spacious and Mount Asama, with its smoke-belching volcanic cone, stood out nobly over the area.
"Even today many Japanese come to Karuizawa because so many foreign residents have beautiful summer houses here, and the resort is sometimes called the St. Moritz of Japan," Saburo told Alice.
"A few years ago the Crown Prince spent one summer here and got to know his consort while playing tennis. Since that time, the resort has suddenly become very popular, especially among girls, who associate the place with romance and come here in large numbers."
In the afternoon the couple went for a long walk. In Yokohama Alice seldom went out for a walk, much as she would have liked to, for the streets were narrow and congested and the air polluted. There simply was no place for pedestrians. For the first time in several years, then, she really enjoyed walking in the
"Whenever an official comes from the local tax office to get my tax declaration form I just shout at him and off he goes. Never comes back again. They talk about enforcing tax collection more strictly from us foreigners but it never works. Their tax laws are full of loopholes; just like putting water in a bamboo basket.
"You are considered a resident if you lived here on December 31st each year and are liable to income tax payment. So I go away every year for a couple of days to Seoul or Taipei soon after Christmas. Most foreigners do that, you know. Doesn't cost much. Think of what you would have to pay in income tax if you stayed here on December 31 st.
"Their exchange control is kind of funny, too. You are supposed not to change yen into dollars beyond a very small amount. But there are a hundred and one ways of outsmarting the Japs. An American chap, now living in California, recently wanted me to buy his deposit certificate of ten million yen at a discount. I paid him in dollars. You can also take out a bundle of yen notes in a trunk. But be sure to go on a Japanese boat. Japs at this end and at the other end also do not fuss very much, if you are a foreigner."
Alice listened to this fat old man with mixed feelings, as he rambled on. She was married to a Japanese and, legally at any rate, was a Japanese citizen. The old man's abuse of her husband's people made her feel unpleasant, to say the least. But she also wondered if Tom Bowles's words did not contain some grain of truth.
One weekend during the next summer, Saburo took Alice to Karuizawa. This was the first time Saburo had gone out of the city with his wife. That summer was particularly hot and sultry, and the cool mountain air and beautiful pine groves were a welcome change from the sweltering heat of Tokyo and Yokohama.
Karuizawa, located some hundred miles north of Tokyo, was first developed as a summer resort by Alice's compatriot, a missionary named Shaw, sometime in the 1880's. His bronze statue still stood at the end of Main Street in Karuizawa. Alice had heard the history of this famed summer retreat and wondered why it was a countryman of hers, rather than a Japanese, who had discovered and developed the place. Now she remembered what Mrs. Hertz had told her about the Japanese lack of initiative.
Alice fell in love with Karuizawa. It was a delightful place. Though the town itself was small and often congested in the summer season, the surrounding countryside was spacious and Mount Asama, with its smoke-belching volcanic cone, stood out nobly over the area.
"Even today many Japanese come to Karuizawa because so many foreign residents have beautiful summer houses here, and the resort is sometimes called the St. Moritz of Japan," Saburo told Alice.
"A few years ago the Crown Prince spent one summer here and got to know his consort while playing tennis. Since that time, the resort has suddenly become very popular, especially among girls, who associate the place with romance and come here in large numbers."
In the afternoon the couple went for a long walk. In Yokohama Alice seldom went out for a walk, much as she would have liked to, for the streets were narrow and congested and the air polluted. There simply was no place for pedestrians. For the first time in several years, then, she really enjoyed walking in the
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