WWG

Ok, so I'm more than a little miffed right now, 'cuz I just got pulled over for WWG -- walking while gaijin. I come out of my station, my station and two cops walk up to me. The exchange goes a bit like this :

Excuse me, I’m officer Tanaka {shows me his badge}. Can I see your passport?
I don’t have my passport.
You don’t have your passport?
I don’t have my passport.
Well, do you have one in your house?
Yes.
Where do you live?
What? Why?
You’re supposed to carry it every day.
Every day?
Yes every day?
But, don’t you think it’s a little dangerous to carry it every day? What if it gets stolen?
You’re supposed to carry it everyday. You see, there are many foreigners in Japan currently with no passport.
Well, I have a foreigner registration card.
You do? Can I see that?
{Hand it to one of them}Here…
Well, you’re supposed to carry this everyday.
I do.
You see, Japanese people all have id cards so we know that they’re legal….
Ok, what about Koreans…
Yes they must carry passports.
…and Chinese?
Yes, yes.
So, you’re telling me that you can tell every Korean and Chinese person just by looking at them? So you know who to stop and who not to stop?
{Gives me back my card}
Well, no. We’re stopping everybody [including Japanese].
{I make a gesture at the 5 or 10 people currently walking past us}
So, you’re stopping everybody? Not just foreigners? I think this is discrimination.
No. no, it’s not discrimination, we’re stopping everybody.
Really? This is discrimination.
No, no, it’s not. It’s just that we have to be sure who is legal and who isn’t, and I’ve never seen you before.
{Make a gesture at the people now walking by}
So, you’re telling me that all of these people are acquaintances of yours?
{Other cop chuckles}
No, no. Umm, for example, that woman on the bike is passing too fast, so I, umm, probably wouldn’t stop her…
This is clearly discrimination. You looked at me, saw I was a foreigner and based on that, you stopped me.
No, no. It’s not discrimination. Japanese people do not discriminate. To be honest, Japanese people don’t discriminate, if you must know.
That is totally untrue. I have been discriminated against since I’ve been here. And you claim, that you’ve never seen me. I’ve lived in the area for 3 years.
3 years? Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but if we [the police] discriminated then we couldn’t do our jobs…
{Turns away from me to signal that he wishes I would take my leave}
Well, what you should do, when you return home tonight….get out a dictionary and look up the word sabetsu [discrimination]…
Well, sorry to have inconvenienced you….sorry…
{I walk away and promptly call my friend Chris and bitch at him about it for the entire walk home}

I had to translate and paraphrase this a bit, but it is factually in line with what happened. I have half a mind to go back down there to make sure that they are stopping Asian folks as well.

In general the cast-a-wide-net style of "police work" that they use here leaves a lot to be desired. I think that a lot of the impetus for this kind of misbehaviour on the part of the police is just to show the general populace that the gaijin are being rousted, so it appears to all as if the police are doing their jobs.

There is a not uncommon belief here that foreigners account for a large percentage of the crime in Japan, and with the recently heightened security demands due to worries about terrorist retaliation to Japan's support for America in Iraq, another violent facet has been added to the already fearsome image of the foreigner in Japan. In fact this post from Gen Kanai a while back, looks at a system that has been introduced so that people can report suspiciously behaving foreigners to the authorities.

Now, everyone knows that I love living here, but days like today really push the limits.

Comments

[Gen Kanai]

Thanks for the link and trackback, Shannon.

I have little to no faith in the Japanese police to catch the real criminals, be they Japanese or foreign. The increased presence in the JR stations is not enough. And stopping people under racist pretentions does not help either.

[adam]

What a strange incident. Of course I have no personal experience in Japan, but I have always been curious about Japanese police and their purported duty to remain polite yet still act as enforcing agents. Of course, living in Newark NJ right now, I witness the opposite phenomenon (duty to remain rude and total disregard for the prosecution of crime). Honestly, for the past three years I have received quite a bit of discrimination in this city - having water thrown on me while walking down the street, racial comments, etc. Amazing how people have such different mental structures and ideas for their conduct.

I'm very sorry to hear that you have experienced discrimination in your travels. That's an aspect of culture I didn't expect to hear about from Japan.

[Quinlan]

The police in Tokyo really are out of line. I personally have only been stopped for WWG twice in the last few years, but a friend of mine who drives a car gets stopped at least once a month. I really wish they would at least enforce traffic laws while they harass anyone non-Japanese with an emphasis on people who look like they might be from developing countries.

I've been almost run over by large trucks too many times while crossing on a green, but these crazy vehicles are never pulled over. And the damn motorcycles that go by my window at 2am with their mufflers removed at 100mph are a constant annoyance. This will probably be more troublesome after our child is born in September. Oh well..