Okay. Something happen to me this past Friday I think is worth sharing. I handled the situation cool as ice but it pissed me off beyond all measure. Yet instead of going off in a rant, I will simply report the event to internet land and allow judgment to be passed as such.
This past Friday I was in Shibuya. I was about to come out of a back alley onto center gai. I was feeling good just being out and enjoying hanging in Shibuya for a bit. It was about 2:00 p.m. and all seemed calm. Suddenly, seemly out of know where three cops on my ass like horny gay bikers. It is creepy how these boys can sneak up on people. They try to surround me but I was able to get myself a little wiggle room; just in case. Their gang consisted of two old men and one young buck.
The two old men spoke no English at all but the young buck seem pretty fluent. The young buck quickly said, `Sorry sir but this is a police check. Please submit.` I quickly answered, `Why are you doing this? I don`t understand why you are talking to me.` The only response I got was, `Police check. Police check. Submit sir.` A voice in the back of my head said, `punch one of them in the face and run` but I knew that would be a very bad idea. So I said, `Okay. What do you want?`
The old men started asking for my gaijin card(yes they actually called it gaijin card) and requesting I empty all my pockets. The young buck seem to have a different intetest in me. He wanted to talk in English with me. He made casual conversation with me while the two old men raped me from top to bottom. He asked me my nationality and what my hobbies were. He then went on to explain that his sister married an American from Milwaukee. The young buck says he favorite beer is now Miller high life.
Anyway, the two old men really had their way with me. They made me remove everything from my pockets. Even the bits of random paper had to go! They struggle to go though my leather jacket. My jacket has many pockets with strong zippers. I had to help them with the zippers. LOL!
In the end they got their fill of me. They gave everything back to me and let me go. They never explained why they stopped me and searched me from head to toe.
What do yall think?
Fucked up?
Monday, October 19, 2009
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9 comments:
The reason they searched you is that you're a foreigner. This has been going on for several months now. What they did is technically illegal (in terms of the search itself, not the request for I.D. as they are fully entitled to ask for your gaijin card). You could have refused, but then you'd just be taken to the police station and put through a longer ordeal as they'd trump up some excuse to take you in and search you anyway.
That being said, while I'm sure they chose you because you are a foreigner, they do search Japanese people as well, though not their entire bodies. They usually just search the bags of Japanese people. Ostensibly, this is done to check for knives because of all of the random slashing that is going on in Japan these days (most recently, I believe one occurred in Higashi-Azabu - last night, I think).
Of course, this is insane. You can't find knife-slashing maniacs by randomly searching people, particularly when there is a heavy focus on foreigners and the slashing is being done by Japanese men. This is all about the illusion of dealing with the problem rather than actually dealing with it. Seeing the police harass foreigners makes the locals feel like their safety is being looked after.
This is what Japan is coming to and I suspect it's only going to get worse as the social order continues to crumble in the face of economic hardship. People have talked for decades about Japan being peaceful as if it were an innate quality of the culture, but what it has been is a reflection of economic stability and a lack of economic disparity. As those stabilizing factors deteriorate, so does the peaceful society.
It is not easy being a resident of Japan when you are not Japanese sometimes.
Oddly enough, I went to the dentist after being searched. The dentist wondered why I was late and I told him the reason. Even he said the police did not behave in a `professional` manner.
The police might be misjudging the will of the people a bit. While the police may think the general population feels safer when gaijin are searched from top to bottom, the people may not agree this is such a good idea. Although, it is hard to read Japanese people at times.
If one out of a hundred Japanese feel it is good to randomly search gaijin the other 99 will agree just to maintain harmony.
I once got stopped 6 different times on a bicycle ride from Shunjuku to near the palace.
Atleast they didn't submit a crotch sniffing dog upon you, "Chomper, sic balls!"
Wonder if this has anything to do with a drug crackdown in Shibuya in the wake of the Nori P incident. Apparently it was a foreigner who sold her husband drugs.
Whatever... Sucks. At least you got a good blog post out of it.
"three cops on my ass like horny gay bikers" hahaha...
pretty fucked up situation man. out of interest, did they perform the search in a private location or feel you up in public? did they reasonably identify themselves?
They did it right out in the open. That is what I find surprising.
that scares the crap out of me, as an obviously foreign female
were they actually police or criminals in disguise
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