Be Excellent To Each Other

Bloody hell... http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2 ... on-control

via @Glinner

I read that - mental, proper crazy stuff.

That's appalling! That's the sort of thing you'd expect to hear about in the arse-end of Africa, not an advanced country of supposedly ultra-polite people like Japan.

Jesus.

That is madness....

I remember the strange look I got at Narita Airport when they went through my bags and Cadburys Cream Eggs rolled out of my shoes.

Not sure if serious.

Thought that said Narnia airport. There's no leg room in them wardrobes.

Hmm.
Is that really much worse than the treatment you might get if you turned up at Heathrow or JFK without a valid visa?
I mean physically and human rights-wise - trying to scam him out of huge amounts of cash is inexcusable.

But legally I think you'd be in the same black hole anywhere.

Refused the ability to contact the embassy, instructed to sign falsified statements, and given an interpreter who wilfully changed what you said? I certainly don't think that would be the case.

Quite possibly, if in possession of a beard and a bad attitude.

I just think that story is a bit embellished and/or seen through the lens of a westerner unaccustomed to not getting his own way.

Not saying any of that treatment is justified, and there's certainly abuse of power from some officials by the sounds of it. But he got out in a short time, without any of the (possibly exaggerated) threats actually happening.

Devil's advocaaaat, like.

He was expecting to walk through the airport, and go from there to his home, where he lived with his partner and their dogs. Instead, he was imprisoned, questioned, extorted (if unsuccesfully) and deported. Oh, and threatened with a gun.

Admittedly, the article isn't clear about his visa status, but it does state "Without even looking through my passport, where he might find proper stamps for my travels" suggesting that to his knowledge, his visa was in order.

..."might" rather suggests that he knows there weren't.
Certainly the bit about his lawyer advising him not to reveal the truth of the matter is a bit of a giveaway.

And dogs or no dogs isn't going to make much difference if you're genuinely on the wrong side of immigration law.

I'm more concerned with America's policy of casually offing its own citizens without due process in foreign lands than someone not realising just when the right time to pay a bribe is. If it was a second world country, it'd be an anecdote, as it is a first world country, albeit one that still has the death penalty, it's considered rum.

I agree with MaliA!

Random airport abuse blog post I recall from last year:
http://leothegeek.wordpress.com/2011/06 ... -terrorist

That doesn't really compare. If I phoned the police and told them I'd seen you running around outside your house with a gun and heard shots, they'd send several cars and arrest you until it came out that I was lying.

One person abusing her ability to cause you trouble by calling in airport security, and the police doing their job by following up on it isn't even remotely close to what clearly seems to be a systematic policy of imprisonment and attempted extortion that clearly involves collusion by immigration officers and airline staff.

Yeah fair enough, not the same, I just recalled it as an example of how Orwellian things can get, even here, if one official decides they don't like you and abuses their power.

Erm, yes I am. My perception of Japan is that it's a very civilised country where everything is done by the book.

It was the juxtaposition of stereotypes that confused me, and, it has to be said, slightly amused me. I thought that was my job.

But the other Sterotype about Japanese people is that they are quite racist, and hate Gaijin with a passion as they almost consider them not people.

Malc

One of my older cousins worked in Japan for a few years in the mid to late 90s. I remember being quite fascinated by Japan for a while, and asking all about it, but he didn't like his time there at all. He said the people were not so much polite as efficient, tasks were usually carried out in silence (though language may be a factor in some cases) but that staff and public servants rarely smiled or were friendly.

What seemed most to strike him, though, was that he thought many Japanese to be very xenophobic, especially in the older and more powerful generations: businessmen, business owners, middle classes. Teenagers (he did some target audience work, or something) were often more open to outsiders, but many others were very unwelcoming and unfriendly, even though he was working there and interacting with many if the same people there for long periods of time. Some people were openly hostile from the very first hello.

At this time some restaurants, shops and bars still had signs such as 'Japanese clientele only welcome' and 'no foreign(ers)', and he brought back pictures of shop signs he'd taken to this effect, which for some reason really stuck with me.

I guess the experience outside of tourist areas might be very different to the side that holiday makers see, though this is all 10-15 years ago.

Whether or not this story is embellished, the article links to reports from Amnesty International detailing very similar accounts from others.

I'd like to report that my Cream Eggs were released without charge.

Blimey! I think I may have been viewing Japan through anime-coloured glasses...

The xenophobia extends to goods too - the Xbox hasn't done anywhere near as well in Japan as Sony or Nintendo.

Doesn't extend to whisky/whiskey.

I tried some Japanese whisky once. It was undrinkable.

Racist.

Heh. To expand on that, I can just imagine in my head a group of Japanese lower rank execs in a restaurant or something, drinking some Japanese brand of whisky, going "Whisky, very good, hai!", gulping it down with a straight face, just the hint of a tear in their eyes.

The Japanese whisky I had in Japan was awful, even if it did come with a huge, complexly engineered ice cube.

The Japanese whisky I had in Cornwall a couple of months later, on the other hand, was gorgeous.

Hey, let's go to Japan, after all, they seem like a right bunch of mentals lol.

Later....

Help, I'm in Japan and they're a bunch of mentals!



I think if you watch enough Japansese cinema it's not hard to arrive at the conclusion that there's a fairly wide chasm between what I inherently feel a person to be and what the Japansese do. It does seem to be a geographical thing, a close relative had a wonderful relationship with a Japansese only to find that Fuji casts a long shadow when in the background.

I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Click your heels twice.

*crushes Frank Boughs cock*