UPDATE 01/2/15:

Between February and September, I mailed descriptions of all the laws Mrs. Otani violated as employer, president, and owner of Hello Institute to several addresses, including but not limited to Fukui Labour Standards Inspections Office and after no responses and further research of the kinds of stimuli (ie red tape, kinda) it takes for responses to those kinds of offices, I mailed another English letter with Japanese translation to Fukui Labour Standards Office in September. FINALLY, I got responses via mail with content to the effect of they received my letters, but they can't understand them in English and they can't understand the google-translation to Japanese [but we still love you, Google-translate]. But the Fukui Labour Inspections Office FINALLY gave me the chance to be heard I had been looking for. I followed their procedure to describe unpaid wages in English, to be translated into Japanese for the Fukui Labour Bureau Inspector. To my pleasant surprise, they were willing to hear my case and do as much as they could about. Behind the scenes, I don't know exactly what or when the Fukui Labour Bureau Inspector or Mrs. Otani actually did or discussed. But, somehow or another they decided upon the amount of ¥30,000 to be paid to me by Mrs. Otani/ Hello Institute. That is far, far lower than the amount required by law, even only considering unpaid wages, excluding contracted transportation, sick leave, housing-assistance/ temporary housing provided, excluding interest owed by Law in Ordinance for Enforcement of Labour Standards Act, and entirely ignoring the volatile inflation. Wages only, the absolute minimum should have been ¥150,000 per month, at least 2.5 months, according to contract.

I stayed for 2.5 months, only leaving because she hadn't completed my visa application. I agreed to save her face by telling students I was leaving because I was sick, which had been true that I was sick in Fukui just before, but I was recovered by the time I told them that. I didn't have an employment visa, and I did have a student visa, all along, despite my extreme efforts to apply for the employment visa in the immigration office, not only on two occasions when I had a fever and/or sore throat, but also more than a month after starting "employment," delayed by her consistent "Oh, we didn't get to that today and the students are here now, so we'll do it tomorrow." All along she said she was getting the visa, doing some kind of task to get the employment visa, but it took until the first complete month of "employment" until I found out that those claims about visa progress were not true and nothing had been done by her as employer for my employment visa application. Thinking I might recover from the illness, which lasted a month because of the continued stress upon me due to her statutorily illegal negligence, my lack of affordability for food, etc. as a direct result of her failure to pay, the uncertainty in expected working conditions, etc due to her failure to present contract (Failure to describe work conditions is a statutory violation of law), and because of time wasted, instead of resting or unpacking/moving, while I waited for her to showed up over an hour late for "training, presenting contract (also daily excuses for "we didn't get to that today, we'll get to it tomorrow"), discussing/applying for visa," (and she told me "We don't want to keep them [students] waiting and waiting," but in fact she hypocritically kept me waiting an average of an hour for any/every appointment that she set for an important discussion, visa- or contract- or training-related, among other topics ) etc -- even if I recovered from illness, I still couldn't be in Japan past that point without a visa according to my internet-research and the deadlines Immigration officers who were handling my visa application, surprised that my employer wasn't with me to submit the required documents.

I left Fukui, after having been sick with an extensively long cold, but not at all because I wanted to leave Japan or wanted to go home; on the contrary, I wanted to stay in Japan as long as I could and make it work. But by that point, "employment," without being paid beyond ¥76,000 or without employer providing completed employer-part documents of the visa application by deadline, after everything else visa-related was submitted, was what I left from, as I saw it. Upon my departure, Mrs. Otani said that all remaining due amounts will be paid to my account within a week. I asked her why not now while I'm here, instead of making it inconvenient because, as she insisted and I tried to defy, it would be paid to my account in Japan, the country which I'm having to leave because of failures of hers to submit the employer-part of the visa application or get a visa on employee's behalf altogether. i wouldn't be in Japan and wouldn't be able to get or monitor my payment a week after I leave Fukui, as I told her. Since she refused to pay to my account that is accessible to me, I finally agreed to accept it at all, although highly inaccessible. So I couldn't check it, but I took her word for it, until I found out much later, that she hadn't paid at all.

So as far as I understand, by this point, Mrs. Otani paid to my account ¥29282. The total that she has paid is ¥105,282 for about 2.5 months of work. If we consider all that as principle, she hasn't paid any interest, sick leave, transportation, negligence-penalty, visa-failure-penalty. The monthly wage stated in contract is ¥150,000. She hasn't even paid one full month's worth of work, and I worked statutory overtime the first month, by her demand. I let inflation go, even though the yen-value has significantly declined against the dollar and I was thoroughly ripped off by the costs I paid on behalf of Hello Institute for transportation to get to Fukui, hotels to stay in Fukui while waiting for apartment availability or contract-guaranteed housing-seeking assistance which in practice she thoroughly failed to offer. Inflation is not covered in law, so even though it would make a difference, law doesn't cover it, so let karma handle that.

So even if there were no payments due for things like sick leave, employer canceling some of my work hours, like at least 40, whether due to student-cancel or due to employer-cancel, interest, housing, transportation, then the least she would owe for my work is about ¥150,000 * 2.5, which is 375,000. She's paid a total of ¥105,282. So I don't believe we are legally even at all.

However, this post is intended to be fair, and to give an accurate update. I have been underpaid for my work by legal violations of Mrs. Otani and Hello Institute. While it is true that I have received a second payment the first and only one since I left, I am still drastically underpaid by, for all of my work & effort on behalf of Hello Institute in Fukui, Japan.

But, beyond any truth I can say about my experience, the ultimate truth is, Karma is a much more powerful force than I am. Let karma bring the deserved justice to everyone involved, myself included. The best way for me to feel... even, I guess it is, is to have a good, successful life. So let karma be the catalyst to balance any equation!

On with my life of being confident in my work and skills and letting gooooo!!!!!