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excited http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/36550
Police erroneously arrest 'Asian-looking' Japanese woman on immigration law breach
Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 07:01 EST
SAITAMA — The Saitama prefectural police on Monday arrested a Japanese woman on suspicion of violating the immigration law but later released her after discovering that she was a Japanese national, police officials said.
The police had judged that the unemployed woman, 28, was not Japanese because she looked like a foreigner of Asian descent and that she carried an envelope written in Portuguese, the officials said. The woman was questioned by a policeman around 7:40 p.m. on Saturday in Kawaguchi. She told the officer that she was Japanese, but stopped answering further questions, the officials said. The woman's family said she is not good at speaking with strangers.
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I've read alot of ridiculous stuff in Japan, but this quite possibly takes the cake. The reason being, it illustrates so many fucked up aspects of this fucked up country.
1. Police are so useless and bored. Last year there was this awesome footage of a thief chasing away two police men who were running in fear.
2. "Asian Looking Japanese Woman". I always amazes me how Japanese people like to identify themselves as something other than asian. People here love to think they can tell a Japanese person from, say, a Chinese person, but in practice they really can't. When I go out in a group of JET friends, there is typically one person who is of asian decent. Whether they be Chinese, Cambodian, Korean etc, the staff always look to them for instruction and Japanese etiquitte, even if some of the more typically foreign looking people around them speak much better Japanese. I also hear from my friends here who are of asian decent how the locals here think they are mentally challengedbeforethey ever think they aren't japanese.
3. The Portugese Letter. ONLY in Japan would carrying a letter written in a foreign language be grounds for arrest. In part to the assumptions that crime is a foreign product, but also because police here are so fucking bored they have nothing else to do but fester in their Police Boxes and work up ridiculous theories to justify the false belief that Japan is a dangerous country. On a related note, the government in considering finger-printing all foreigners entering the country over the age of 16. The reason being to avoid terrorism. However, the only terrorism that has occured within Japan has been conducted by Japanese terrorists.
4. "She is not good at speaking with strangers"... Sadly, this is all too commonin Japan. There are so many socially inept people in this country that it is actually a valid excuse for almost anything. I remember when I'd teach in Junior High classes, and we'd be going around the class, asking students some easy as fuck question, and we'd always come to the token shy kid. At this point, the Japanese teacher would just instintively skip those kids. Whenever I asked them why, the answer would always be just, "Oh, he/she is shy". As though that is a perfectly acceptable excuse. When I'd press and be like, "Well, do you think they should maybe sometimes try? Even if they just repeat some other students answer..." The reply would always be, "Oh...no no. He/she is shy." This article illustrates what happens to these kids. They don't change. They don't have to. Here, it's perfectly acceptable to grow up being so shy you can't interact with others...even to the point you can't get a job or explain yourself when being falsely accused of a crime.
