That Time I Was Stopped by the Cops...

I wanted to include this in the medical check account since it was the same day, but it didn't fit.

I said with the medical checks that they are done in conference halls, and that you are assigned one of two locations (or can pick from two if you reschedule). I said it was another inconvenience, but I didn't really highlight how inconvenient it was for me, or most people. See, one office building is located in Itabashi, outside of Shinjuku. That's an hour away. The other was in Omiya, located in Saitama Prefecture (the one I live in) but opposite of where I live and with no trains to connect them. That puts it at an hour and a half away.

I went with Itabashi because it was near Shinjuku, and I more or less know how to navigate that area. I hadn't been to the area in a few weeks, because I've been staying at my apartment to study and relax for the FSOT, so it was sort of nice to go back that way.

I had to change stations at Takadanobaba, the place where I would go ice skating (haven't been in a couple of months). It was in Takadanobaba that I got stopped by the police.

I can't remember if I mentioned koban here before, but koban are like miniature police stations. They're all over the place. There is always one near a station. I was passing the koban at Takadanobaba Station when I heard urgent voices, understanding enough that I was being told to stop/wait.

One of the officers comes out, and started asking questions. The officer still in the koban was acting a bit shifty, and there were other people around him. My guess is he was getting hammered with questions too. It just added to this kind of tense environment that I was pulled into.

The officer questioning me was being too urgent about it, and I think he was starting to pick up that I was having trouble with his speaking, because I distinctly heard "where" at some point. And, at that point, I lifted my sunglasses to show him my face better. The--hilarious--reaction just ended up being this look of dread with a small "oh".

I had to say three different ways that I was American. First, I said US. Apparently, people in Japan are unfamiliar with the term. And, unfamiliar with United States. The third try was just "America" and that was understood. The officer tried to ask me something else, and kept drawing a box with his hands. At that point, I just pulled out my medical packet so that he knew I had to be somewhere and had no involvement in whatever it was going on. My guess it someone lost a bag or ID, and they were wondering if it was someone I knew.

So, that was my brief run-in with the law. What was really funny was I was curious about the sunglasses thing, so yesterday I had the opportunity to test it out again. On my way to work, a college girl advertising for the station mall jumped--literally--in front of me, and started talking a mile a minute. She tried to hand me the coupons, or info on a credit card, or whatever it was. I took off my sunglasses, and she just went "oh...sorry" and backed off.

My (work required) makeup hides the red tones in my skin, so I guess without that red and with my eyes hidden, people assume I'm Japanese. But, when the population is 90+% Japanese I guess that's a natural assumption. I'm very amused by it.

What it's Like to...

Part of working for a Japanese company means I am required to get a health check. See, I pay into the national healthcare system. It's taken directly out of my pay (along with the national pension). So, here is how it all starts:

• an email is sent to all offices saying all employees need the check
• a medical package will be mailed to your office with your name on it
• an appointment is scheduled for you, with the location picked
• but, this will be inconvenient for any number of people in your office, so you will need to reschedule

This is where you get to see "efficiency" in full force.

You can reschedule your appointment online so long as it is two days before. You can switch the language to English, and enough will be translated so that you can navigate. (Websites are not 100% translated, and often the English is nonsensical. This is why I can vaguely read "morning" and "next day" in kanji due to having to reschedule mail a few times.)

First, you have to pick your location. Health checks are done at two locations, and each only has a limited number of spots and days. Health checks are also split between men and women. I think the men only have two locations to pick from too, but I'm not 100% sure. I do know that the guys I know had no worries rescheduling their appointments. Lots of open spots. But, I had a heck of a time, and I had to do it twice.

Health checks do not take place at a medical facility. They happen in a conference room. Dozens of women are packed together, but somewhat separate due to the different stations slapped together and hidden by tarps. You check in by handing your medical packet they sent you to a receptionist. She asks what your name is to confirm (this for me was a little annoying because I was the only gaijin, so naturally I was the only one with my name, and it makes zero sense for someone to pretend to be me for a medical check).

After checking in, you go sit among a group of women at the first station. There are chairs, and they move down the line. So, basically, you sit, stand 30 seconds later, shift to the next seat, and repeat for the next 20 minutes until it's your turn. All of the waiting areas in this open space are structured the same. And, you always have to wait. Just like each station asks what your name is. There are around ten stations, but you don't have to go to all of them unless you're pregnant or something like that.

• First station is height and weight. After they do this, they hand you the numbers and ask you if they are correct. Which... is all kinds of a dumb question.
• Second, you get your vision tested. They ask if you wear contacts (they have the same word so that you know easily what they're asking). Then, you do the test while still wearing your contacts.
• Third, blood pressure. Before this, they ask if you are pregnant. Or, in my case, it was just "baby in" because the woman spoke as much English as I do Japanese. That was probably the most effective way to ask that I've heard yet. XD
• Fourth, they take your blood. Three vials. It wasn't bad, but the woman doing it was kind of unpleasant. I'll write it off as just a long, bad day though.
• Fifth is hearing. This one was sort of funny, because they set up a second chair for your bag. I thought the lady was telling me to sit there, so bounced between the two seats until I realized she was saying the word for bag. Which is a different word from "shopping bag".
• Sixth was measuring your guts. Lift your shirt and under shirt, and pull your pants an inch down so they can put a tape measurer around your guts. Not waist, but were your organs would be all nestled.
• Seventh, and this was awkward, they do some type of electrode reading. You are told to unhook your bra and lay on the table on your back. And, without warning, a woman will basically yank your shirts and bar into your face, feel around on your chest, and start putting electrodes on you. She tells you to "relax" and disappears, coming back a couple of seconds later to disconnect all the suction cups. You're given a little time to look like you didn't just get roughed up by a woman nearing her 60s, and ushered back out through the tarp.
• Eighth, you wait for the longest wait yet--to see an actual doctor and not just a volunteer. For me, the doctor asked if it was okay to speak Japanese. I said only slightly, so she spoke English. My visit was extremely short. It started with asking my name, asking if Japanese was okay, asking how long I've lived in Japan while feeling my lymph nodes, listening to my lungs, and asking if everything was okay.
• Ninth, a short wait to hand in my sheet of paper and to be told how to get to the x-ray station. The woman I was handing my info to confirmed my name, again. She didn't speak English at all, but could understand me, so I just repeated what I figured she was trying to say to confirm the directions.
• Tenth, and for me the last, was the chest x-ray. The x-ray station was a bus parked in an alley behind the building. This was the first time I saw a man during this whole time. He wasn't the technician, but the driver. He just stood outside the bus and gestured to the chairs set up on the sidewalk. Because it was a bus, the area was small. Only three of us could be in there at a time. I was lucky, because I was in my work clothes and my office dress code is really corporate (except the colors) so I'm required to wear a camisole under my shirts. Other girls weren't as lucky, and had to strip for the x-ray. And, nothing reminds you that you're in a country where public baths are still a social thing like girls just stripping down like no one else is plastered next to them.

After all this mess, I had to go into work. That night, I had my receipt saying I visited for my health check. I'll know the results in a month or two. ...That is absolutely ridiculous. So, not only did it take months for me to get an appointment, but the appointment was inconvenient. The place was in a conference hall with a bunch of other people, all the stations run by technicians or volunteers with only two doctors present. The x-rays were done in an alleyway. And it'll take months for the results of the most standard, basic things that I know for a fact you can do in a 24-hour cycle.

I hate socialized healthcare.

A Random Musing

I have severely neglected this blog. I had some small adventures not related to human trafficking, but nothing that would make for a coherent post. The fact that I had to write a sentence like that is a surreal musing in itself, but not the main point of this update.

I'm assuming that everyone reading these posts knows I do--or did--a lot of writing. One reason I wanted to come to Japan was because I love manga, and wanted to do a manga-style story focused on girls' hockey that would take place in Japan. I needed experience with the culture and all that junk. (Related aside: I saw a girl with hockey equipment in my station earlier this week.)

I'm not a fan of my job, but it is giving me the opportunity to be around a variety of kids (and adults). In the last month or so, I've been coaching a handful of kids in public speaking. It gives me more one-on-one time with them verses having six of them shoved into a room with me against their will. (Although, I think kids can tell that I don't want to be there either, so we've come to a sort of understanding, ha ha.)

The musing is more of a two-parter:

First, when I'm standing there with a horrifically shy, 9yo girl glued to my side because she's deathly afraid to speak in front of others, there is the realization that I'm old enough to be her mother. It's a sombering feeling. Well... that's too depressing, but it is eye-opening and a little uncomfortable knowing if I'd lived my life normally I'd have a kid about that age.

Uncomfortable more because time goes quick, and I did think I'd have a kid by now. I can with all honesty say that me 10 years ago would not have thought I'd be sitting in a small Japanese city I've never heard of, studying for some weird government test because of frustrations over human trafficking. I guess neither did the me on May 19th, but, yeah, curveball.

Second, because I'm around kids a lot and related to the first realization, I'm much more aware of just how horrific some of my characters' backstories are. And, I mean, I knew it was absolutely terrible, that was part of the point, but... yikes.

So, I think what I'm getting at is that sometimes it's good to sit back and age. It's good to gain more world/life experience, and to gain additional perspective. With stories especially, we get really excited and rush through a draft or planning or something. And that's important, because it gives you a launching point, but I also think that it's important to age a bit. (With some stories/characters anyway.)

The two examples I have are my stories MI and Rebs. MI, as a vague idea, is over 20 years old, and the first time it was written down was 17 years ago. I was the same age as the protagonists. I knew it was violent, and what they were doing was abnormal and all that jazz, but it didn't really click. It did a little more when I rewrote it, in my late teens-early 20s, but I was divorced from people in that age bracket.

Now, I'm older than the protagonists' parents by a couple of years, and I see kids 4-21 almost daily. 4-21. That "21" is an important one to note, because in-story, that's the age many of the protagonists get married, or start having kids. I can't even imagine that. Half the time I'm focused on just getting the 21yos comfortable enough to talk out loud. (Being around this age is helping a lot with FT too.)

Most of the kids I deal with are 10-11. That's how old MI's Farrah and Dionne were when they lost their mom. That was how old Farrah was walking out of the American desert, and how old Dionne was when she started to plot rebellion. Nevada was not that much older. And... just Nevada at 13-14 was all kinds of yikes. I knew that back as a kid.

That's how old any of the characters in Rebs. were during one of the key monstrous points in their life. I had picked 11 purposely because it was young. There is more agency at 11, but it is still really, really young. I mean, when I'm coaching an 11yo girl on how to poke her fingertips discreetly with her fingernails to keep from going numb and to avoid clutching the hem of her shirt for dear life because in a couple weeks a bunch of people will be staring at her and judging her while she delivers a speech, you do realize how young she is. And, I also realize that Rebs.' Alouette was the same age when she hid in a buffalo carcass to avoid being murdered.

I haven't exactly liked this move. Part of it probably had to do with Risk, but a lot was the job and the parts of the culture I just can't handle (like child porn and "suicide season"). I was derailed from finding some semblance of... I guess ordinary, after the whole human trafficking thing. That gave me a goal, but it wasn't really something I could point at and go "yep, glad I went there". Gaining this additional perspective might be though. Because, if I can write these characters with this new insight, it'll make them stronger and make the stories better. The dark grays get a bit darker, so all the colors get a bit brighter sort of thing.

Last Kabukicho Update

Here's the thing, the painful truth of it all, there is a reason the UN and the US designate Japan as just meeting the bare minimum for fighting human trafficking: they don't see it as a real issue.

Human trafficking and sex slavery is technically not illegal here. Just like underage porn is not really illegal. I have seen porn of kindergartens. Not adults or teens wearing kindergarten uniforms (but yes that is 100% a thing too) but actual drawings of people made to look as correct to a 4/5 year old girl as possible. And people buy it. The underage porn is the higher market. But, hey, what's age when the national law of consent is 13?

Yeah, yeah, prefectural laws usually raise it to 20, but that does not change that the national--again, national--law of consent is 13. And because women here are still seen more as... others, this law does little boys no favors either. Oh, yes, I know, the law for homosexual relations says they need to be 18 to consent. It also says they can be fired everyone outside of the Tokyo area.

Relating this back to Kabukicho, because women are others and because of the law of consent and porn in this country, there is no movement on sex trafficking. Gaijin are also 'others'. The crackdowns in Kabukicho focus on making sure the junior high fetish clubs stay to a minimum. Again, not high school, but junior high.

And so, to end my rant of how there is absolutely no progress in just getting a waitress or two out of forced sexual labor, I've started the process for taking the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). I need to try to get the test scheduled on my day off in 5 weeks. If I pass, I have to go to Washington in March for an interview. I'd need to break my contract here, but honestly, the work culture and a bunch of stuff regarding other parts of the culture is plain awful. If I end up a FSO, my first order of business will be going after the sex trade in Kabukicho. You cannot be part of the UN and ignore something like that.

When I Was...

I recently broke down and got some pocket Wi-Fi. Not because I needed Google Maps, like the recommended reason to purchase this, but because I wanted to play Pokémon GO. It's been difficult to make anything near progress in gym fighting or coin collecting.

So, I was outside fighting in a gym during my lunch break. I hear a camera shutter, and look up. A girl and her boyfriend took a picture of me. She had stood behind me and posed, and he had taken the picture.

And that's the time when I was used as a photo prop so a couple could say they saw a gaijin.

Gaijin Encounters

I think I explained it before, but "gaijin" is basically "foreigner". Japan is up in the 90s for pure Japanese population, so gaijin tend to stand out. For better or worse.

There are different types of gaijin though. Or, I'd say you have two different categories. You have visitors. I even include students on a one semester study abroad under here. Then you have the expat. This country is very different if you are a gaijin and visiting verse a gaijin and working/living here. (Then you get other differences based on ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation but let's just stick with the two.)

There have been a handful of times now when I've run into another expat and we knew we were both expats. It's a bizarre experience that I can't exactly explain. But, I'll try.

In Japan, people don't look at each other. They walk around staring off, or staring down. That's another way gaijin, especially Westerners, stand out. (This is why I get all warm and fuzzy when I see parents with their kids and they're actually interacting with them instead of the more normal silence.)

I was waiting around at Ikebukuro Station one afternoon, using the free station internet to catch some Pokémon. I looked up, and coming into the station was a gaijin. Nothing unusual. Ikebukuro is a popular, urban area so it is full of gaijin. But this was different. We made full eye contact, starting grinning like two kids that knew the same secret, nodded recognition, and that was it.

The encounter lasted no more than half a second, but in that half second it was clear that this gaijin was a fellow expat.

I would've written this off as an isolated incident except that it happened again. This time not in a busy place like Ikebukuro, but in my own town. At the station mall slash grocery store.

It was a weekend, so I was off work before the stores closed. I've started cutting through the mall and going out through the grocery store on those nights, because it's very hot and sometimes I trick myself into thinking I'll buy some groceries so that I won't need to on my day off. But, since I'm always too tired and with just a half hour before everything closes, it has become nothing more than a shortcut.

I was coming down the escalator, exhausted from working all day. When I'm halfway down, a gaijin passes the bottom. He paused, stepped back, and looked at me. We both grinned, nodded, and went our separate ways without a word. I'm fully convinced he was another expat, and that he recognized my exhaustion.

The final encounter for this post will be an example that happened a couple of weeks ago. This also occurred outside my station. It actually happened outside the door I exited after the second encounter.

I was on the tail end of a cold, so I was wandering around with a surgical mask. It was also bright, so I was wearing sunglasses. With my face 95% obscure, maybe I should have been so surprised to have two young guys holding a "Let's Speak English" sign yell out: "What's up? Do you speak English?" But that is what happened.

Keep in mind, I wasn't near them. I was about twenty feet away. Also keep in mind that this is Japan, where talking to your friend in an audible voice on the train is considered rude. I tell them I'm American, and they got super excited because they were also American. Me knowing they can't move from their spot under the tree (because they were advertising for the English language church in the area) I go over to struggle to talk, because my voice wasn't yet 100% from losing it.

I find out they've been their two weeks, and were having a difficult time getting Japanese people to talk to them. Let me, again, remind you that they shout at me as I was walking by. But, I wish them good luck and say I'll attend one of their English parties sometime.

And that is an example of non-expats. They'll live here for a couple of months tops, and then go home to speak a few phrases in Japanese and talk about the great--and slightly odd--time they had. Because, as I started with, Japan is different if you are a gaijin and you live and work here. If you work here, really work here, you recognize that exhaustion. And if you are a gaijin that works and lives here, you know that no matter how nice and great people are, there is an unspoken barrier. You are a gaijin. You are not Japanese. That is an unchangeable fact.

Return to Shinjuku

Got kind of busy there, but I'm back with a recent exploit. And one that doesn't involve human trafficking.

Monday is supposed to be my day off, but as luck had it the week I was sick enough to lose my voice (causing mild panic among my staff as my voice is a huge factor in my job) was also a 6 day work week for me. The Monday I desperately needed to have off instead was spent on more training.

Now my staff did try on three occasions to reschedule this, but I turned it down. I wanted to get it over with, and I didn't want another day off taken away for it when I was already mentally prepped to lose this one. Plus, they would have tossed me with a different group and not the ones I lived with for 2 weeks. So, I declined and just went feeling lousy. I'm paying for it a bit now.

After the tedious, and honestly pointless, 8 hours of training everyone went off their separate ways. Me and the kid in Hokkaido once again went off together to Shinjuku. The weather was even the same as the night we found the slave in Kabukicho.

The original plan was to go back to get a photo of the branding, but with me sick I called it off. Instead, we walked arpund and tried very hard to stay out of Kabukicho. Failing and walking by the restaurant.

But, as said, this isn't about Kabukicho. While we we're walking around, a little old homeless lady was wandering around trying to give change to foreigners. It was the same old lady that tried giving me money. She followed us a bit, not recognizing me, and kept tapping the kid on his back trying to get his attention. I told her "no change" and she left. Then had to explain she gave change to people, because it is the weirdest experience being chased by an old homeless lady waving a coin at you.

She stays around the same area which is near the bookstore where I first met her. I might try bringing her a lunch at some point, since I don't know how giving her money would work with her trying to give it to random gaijin.