Author: Zooks

読み方は、Zooks（ズークス）。 2017年〜2019年（2年）：タリン大学に通った後、当初の予定通りに修士号を取得。 2018年～2020年（約2年半）：Timbeter勤務。 2021年1月からはエストニアの別の企業に勤めます。 卒業を機に（情報がごちゃまぜになって個人的に嫌なので）以前のサイトから移動しました。 学校に関することはそちらをまずご覧ください。 ご連絡はどちらからでも構いません。

Zooks Gets (Japanese) Voting Certificate in Estonia.

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Tere!

This time I’m going to talk about voting for elections in Japan.

Four years ago, I heard that those who live in foreign countries can have a voting certificate, so I went to the Embassy of Japan in Estonia, but they told me that I needed to lose my certificate of residence. Therefore, I did not apply for it. At that time I was still a student, and I was not sure if I would go back to Japan.

Then in Autumn 2021 when the Prime MInister in Japan changed, there was a election of House of Councillors.

I didn’t really let Liberal Democratic Party win, so I wanted to vote. For this reason I applied for the voting certificate.

I emailed the Embassy of Japan in Tallinn, and they said that I would have needed to wait for the certificate for about two months.






Freaking too long.




However, it’s better than nothing, and elections might happen in the future as well, so I applied for it.

I asked the staff of the Embassy, and made an appointment. (This is a necessary step to apply for the certificate.)

In order to apply for the certificate, you will need a passport. Since I had not submitted a notification of residence, I also brought a contract for the flat. (This is used to prove my residence in Estonia.) The application form is available at the Embassy, hence you do not need to worry.

Then I went to the Embassy, and I filled out the form, in which I needed to write a place where I waived the certificate of residence in Japan as well as the date when I did. I had never made any changes in the certificate of residence in Japan, so the place was definitely Tanabe. On the contrary, I did not know when I waived. I asked the staff in the Embassy, and he said:






A rough date is fine




So lax.

Overall it took around 30 minutes to complete the procedure.

Then on the 30th of November 2021, I received an email from the Embassy that I could receive the voting certificate. I had a day off the following day, so I had an appointment at 10.

When I went to the Embassy, a staff member asked me:

Do you have your passport?

What? I hadn’t heard of such a thing…

However, she said something to prove myself, so I passed the TRP card, and waited for a while, after which I got some documents.

These documents are the ones I need for voting at elections.

Honestly I don’t know when I can join elections next time, and there is an online strike to make online voting possible, but anyways, I’m glad that I can finally join the elections.

★Zooks Votes for an Upper House election in July, 2022

Between the end of June and the 1st of July in 2022, the Embassy of Japan in Estonia had accepted votes for the Upper House election, and I went there on the last day. (Because the reception started while I was travelling in Ireland, that was the only day I could go.)

If a Japanese resident in a foreign country has an overseas vote, they also have an option to vote by mail to the Embassy, but since I live in Tallinn where the Embassy of Japan is, I travelled there. 

In Japan now they can obtain the voting right when they turn 18 years old, but in my generation it was 20 years old. Since then this is merely the second time for me to vote for an election. That day, since I had work at noon, I wanted to visit the Embassy of Japan before that, so I asked them how long it would take to complete the voting process, by email. Then they said it would usually take 20 to 30 minutes. (I honestly thought “That long!?”)

The reason why it takes such a (long) time for the process is probably because of the situation. When we vote in Japan, we must vote where we have our residence registry. When it comes to voting overseas (especially for a Constituency election), there are other Japanese citizens from other prefectures, so the voting destinations are different. (For example, in my case, when I was a university student in Kyoto, living there, my residence registry was still in Wakayama, so I was not able to vote for the candidates in Wakayama from Kyoto.) Moreover, we need instructions from the Embassy when voting overseas, which takes time. (It’s not like just writing the Party’s name or the candidate’s name.)

Hence, I booked an appointment in the late morning so that I could go to work straight after that. (As I lived in Ireland, I never asked the Embassy of Japan for anything, so I don’t know in the case of Ireland, but) in the Embassy of Japan in Estonia, we must make an appointment in advance. I asked them if I could visit there on Friday, 11th of July at 11.30.

When voting at the Embassy, we need a certificate of the overseas voting right. That proves that “I am eligible to participate in elections in Japan”. In the process of voting at the Embassy, representatives of the Embassy will give us a stamp of the participation. (Also, for voting overseas the voting certificate number is required, which is written in that certificate.)

At the Embassy, a staff member told me the representatives will instruct and explain to me, so I waited for them. Then two representatives came, and told me how to vote overseas.

This time there was a Proportional representation election and a Constituency election. The documents I needed to fill out were not only the papers for voting itself but also a paper to show which election/s I wanted to vote for. When I voted last time after coming back to Japan from Ireland, there was only a Proportional representation election, but this time there were two elections. I asked one of the representatives, and he said some people voted for one of them, others voted for both.

At one moment, “Maybe just one of them?”, but the idea “that one vote would change” came up to me, so I voted for both elections.

Before visiting the Embassy, I saw one web service where I could check which Party my way of thinking is similar to on Twitter, and I tested. As a result, there was no remarkable answer saying “This party is definitely closest to your way of thinking!” but it was a good reference.

Furthermore, I checked the candidates from my prefecture beforehand. (At the Embassy there is a list, but it contains only the candidates’ names, so it was good to check in advance.)

Voting overseas is very strict. Once I wrote a Party’s name or a candidate’s name in respective papers, I put the paper in a smaller envelope, and glued it to close. After that, I put that envelope containing the voting paper in a bigger envelope with an address, and glued it to close again. Once I glued the envelopes for both elections, I passed them on to the representative at the EMbassy. They checked, and it was completed with their OK.

I know in Estonia they can vote for an election online. The problem in Japan regarding voting is that not everyone changes the resident registry after graduating from high school or universities, living in other prefectures, so such people cannot vote from where they live, and they must vote from the prefectures where they have resident registry. When I lived in Kyoto, it cost at least 3000 JPY (approx. 25 EUR) for a one-way bus trip to my hometown. Why would I pay that much every time? I believe if we were able to vote online, the percentage of voting would be increased. I have thought for years that the voting system should be changed.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Finds Gift Product Shop in Estonia.

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Tere!

Around November in 2021, I was looking for a small cardboard box.

As I could not go to Japan, I wanted to send some gifts to my family. In order to do so, I needed a cardboard box, but the ones available at a post office were not good size and slightly expensive. No supermarkets have, so I googled and it said

Pakendikeskus is good

Searching the location, I found a few in Tallinn. I chose the one in Mustamäe tee, and found they have paper products for outdoor activities, party products and lots of gift bags! Of course, there were lots of sizes of cardboard boxes!!!

I scrutinised all the sizes, and found one that absolutely fitted for a box of coffee grounds.

I like Löfbergs (Swedish) coffee, and my mum loves coffee too, so I wanted her to try it. That is why I was looking for a cardboard box in the best size.

It cost only dozens of cents. So cheap!

Of course they sell tapes, but I recommend you not to buy Pakendikeskus’s original tape.

The adhesive force is really weak.

I failed in that sense, but it wasn’t that useless, so it wasn’t a big issue.

In Estonia, it is really difficult to get gift products other than Flying Tiger, I believe. Maybe party shops have some, but I don’t know. So it could be almost nowhere.

However, this time as I found Pakendikeskus, I would go there when gifting to someone from next time.

I’ve lived in Estonia more than four years, but there are still lots of findings.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Takes Estonian A2 Exam.

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Tere!

Do you have any motivation when studying or learning something? From my own experience, taking an exam can be a good motivation (at least in my case), relevant to which it is also important to set the goal. I believe people in Japan can easily set goals as there are many qualifications and certificates in a language or accounting, from technology to art.

When learning a foreign language, setting a goal is crucial, and a language exam can be one of the goals.

In Estonia, language exams occur four times a year for non-Estonians who live in Estonia. (This is a language proficiency exam which is different from the one to get citizenship. This seems to happen every month.)

I thought I can’t acquire the language in this slow pace in a good way or lazily in a bad way, so I set the goal which was to pass the Estonian A2 exam.

★How to register for the exam

In order to take an Estonian language proficiency exam, you need to register online, by email or via mail, but of course doing online was faster. It seems you can register from the national portal site, but I felt it was faster and easier to register directly from the exam portal. This exam portal is available only in Estonian and Russian by the way.

On Innove’s web page, there is a PDF file which explains how to register an exam from the exam portal, but

selection of how to receive the exam result

was no longer available as of September 2021. They said once I register the exam online, the result will be automatically sent to the registered email address. (I contacted Innove a lot to ask how to receive the result.)

★Exam consultation

The exam consultation was held at the high school (?) where the exam would also take place. I arrived a bit early, and one staff member asked me

Eksam? (Exam?)

so I answered yes, and then he guided me to one of the classrooms.

After waiting for a while outside the classroom, other staff members checked our ID and the COVID certificates. Then they told me to find my name and sign the paper, but I could not find any. I also found that one elderly lady was in the same situation, and they told us to wait until everyone will be checked. However, suddenly they asked us

“Consultation?”

and the lady and I said yes. Then they explained that the A2 consultation took place in another room, and it seemed that where we were was the exam room.






I thougth it was about only the consultation as I had no idea if the real exam would also take place.




We went to another room and attended the consultation.

In the email that I received, it was written that it would take up to 6 hours, which was unbelievable, but in fact it finished in 90 minutes.

★Exam

Before the exam, I had received some emails about the exam, and they said that it was good to arrive at the venue 10 to 20 minutes before the exam started. I went to the same school, and found several papers on the wall in which there were examinees’ names and the classrooms. I checked mine, and a staff member told me where to go.

I went to the classroom but was not allowed to enter until the examiner would come. This seemed not only because of checking the COVID certificate but also checking the ID. The spot in the classroom was random but we had to sit just behind the front examinee/s. (I guess it was to prevent cheating. It made sense as if we sat behind but diagonally, we could have seen the front people’s answers.)

The brief exam explanation was in Estonian, and as for the speaking part, the schedule was not written on the blackboard so I wondered when, but the exam started without asking.

At the exam we all had the exam numbers, but we did not need to worry because the examiner told us the numbers while we were working on the writing tasks.

The first part was writing. It had two tasks and took up to 30 minutes. After that there was the listening part for 30 minutes as well as the reading part for 50 minutes.When writing the answers, we had to use black or blue pens. No pencils were allowed.

This time the task 1 for the writing was to describe the business card of a kindergarten in more than 25 words, and the task 2 was about the invitation to a friend to a water park (veekeskus) in more than 30 words.

Personally I has slight difficulty in writing in the second task about the water park






as I had never been there for more than four years since I came to Estonia.




Anyway, I had to write so I imagined and wrote “I want to swim in a pool”, “There is a sauna”, etc. (It sounds real, doesn’t it?)

Then we had the listening part. It ended while I was even not sure if I understood or not. (I’m sure the result will be bad.)

However the reading part seemed better although I don’t remember anything anymore.

After writing or answering the reading test, even before the end of the parts, we could submit if we thought it was all fine. I checked twice or three, and thought it would be okay, so I submitted, and finally could go outside of the classroom.

Outside the classroom, there was a list of the examinees in that room beside the door. They divided us into four pairs. In each pair there were two examinees. I was in the third pair, and this pairing was the order of the speaking part.

At the speaking part, the examiner recorded, and before the real tasks (?), she asked me and my speaking partner some basic information such as how old I was, where I was from, and where I worked. I was a bit nervous, and made a mistake that I don’t usually make. (I literally thought “Oh no”, but after that I concentrated on the speaking part so I didn’t care that much.)

The first task was to describe what we could see from a picture. The theme was sweets, and in my picture there were three people and their pieces of cakes on a table.

I had to speak for some seconds, but I could only said

  • They are eating cakes
  • They seem to be in a cafe
  • This woman/man wears a XX coloured shirt/jumper

However, my speaking partner had a better picture in which there was a woman and her kid in a park, eating sweets. He could talk about the weather, clothes, a place, and what kind of sweets they ate.

He had much more information.

The second task was the same theme, and the examiner asked us several questions.

She asked me how often I eat sweets, which I like to buy sweets or make sweets and so on. My fault was to have used the same grammatical sentences, but I could understand her questions. On the other hand, my speaking partner seemed to have difficulty.

I don’t remember if it was the final task or not anymore, but it was about nine pictures, so we had to ask questions to each other. I was not sure how to conduct that task, but after understanding it was alright.

My questions theme was clothes to wear in winter, and the questions from my speaking partner was about activities.

After the speaking session, I could go home.

The result will come in about one month.

★Result

On the 13th of December 2021, exactly one month after the exam, I received an email with the result.

  • Writing – very good (91~100%)
  • Listening – satisfactory (60~75%)
  • Reading – very good (91~100%)
  • Speaking – good (76~90%)

The total score was 86%, and I passed!

I will take a B1 exam next summer. (But I’m not sure if I will write about it here.)

Aitäh! 🙂