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.

That Time My Managers Shrieked...

Here's a thing about working for a Japanese company that is probably a bit different than working for an American one: performance reviews. Now, that doesn't sound different on the surface. Employees, especially new ones, undergo reviews all the time. What sets the Japanese model apart is that you are given a handout--much like you would in the 4th grade--and then you grade yourself, and write comments beneath each section. Your managers have this same handout, and they grade you. You then give them your copy so they can look it over, make a scan for records, and then you set a meeting date and time.

You go into this meeting with no knowledge of how they graded you, but with them having full knowledge of how you graded yourself. The meeting always starts the same: thanking each other for setting the date and time, and for taking the time to meet (when you really had zero say in it), and then small talk. Small talk is a cornerstone in Japanese business. All meetings start with 5-10 minutes of nothing, whereas in America there is no beating around the bush. All parties understand why there is a meeting, so you just have your meeting. This style is seen as abrasive over here.

Small talk is not my favorite. I personally think it is a waste of time, most especially in a meeting setting when everyone knows the purpose of meeting. But, I'm a team player--at least at work--so we start with small talk after our 1-2 minutes of thanking each other was over.

One manager opened our small talk portions with the ever awkward question of "if you stayed in America how would your life be different?" which sounds more rude than it was meant. She was trying to ask if I was homesick, and missed what opportunities I may've had lined up over there. But, this brings us to why this was awkward and why I had two middle aged Japanese women shriek "Nani!" and "What!" loud enough that the rest of the office heard.

See, they knew my degree was National Security and Intelligence related, but that isn't something that fully connected. Even in America, that gets some eyebrows raised. In Japan, where everything is "safe" and peachy, well... disconnect is an understatement. So, after a pause of trying to figure out how to word my answer, I said "well... I probably would've been hunting terrorists or something, so... yeah my life here is very different."

Cue the shrieks. Cue me restating my degree, and trying desperately to get them to just start the meeting. It took awhile. they started asking me follow up questions like if the building was safe.

So, yes, performance reviews are awkward. I don't like the style they're done at over here. All this could've been avoided if we didn't do small talk.

The Return to the Den

After stumbling upon a slave in Kabukicho, I skipped the area the following week. I'd been approached on the train platform shortly after splitting off from my co-worker that night. It struck me as odd that a East European man came out of nowhere and started talking to me, and then sat with me for almost an hour on the train. My first instinct had been to lie, and that's not a good sign.

So, to play it safe, I didn't go to Kabukicho the following week. I still went to Shinjuku, but stuck to the main part of the city. I made a plan to hit up the restaurant June 3rd to get pictures. I sent an order to the kid in Hokkaido to report me as missing if I didn't contact him by 1am, and went off.

Quick aside: When we left that restaurant, we came to an unspoken agreement that this was a secret.

Now, I didn't want to get this kid wrapped up in things further, but no one answered the call to go to dinner. If I was wandering in there alone, I needed someone to know where I was and it only made sense to tell the guy who was in on it too.

I don't go to Shinjuku until I'm getting ready to head home. So, for the day I went to Yokohama. I took pictures of things. Took some video. It was horribly hot, so I wasn't there long. But, long enough for my phone to rapidly drain.

I hit Ikebukuro instead of Shinjuku to go home. Sent the kid a text telling him it was off for the week so he wouldn't worry. This was the first time I hadn't gone to Shinjuku since arriving in Japan. It was a weird feeling.

I planned out a strategy for the 10th.

I put out an offer to go to Nakano, and got a taker. I also set up skating in Takadanobaba. This set me up with two possible "backups".

Naturally, not everyone gets along. I met up in Nakano with one guy before skating. I invited him to come along, but he can't stand the guy I was going to skate with, That was a blimp since he did want to go to Shinjuku that night.

I figured out arrangements. Skate for an hour, cut the second guy off since it wasn't known if he wanted to go to Shinjuku, and meet up with the first guy again. But, of course, things don't work out that smoothly. My original plan was to bum around, and take him to dinner around 9:30. Things had to change for two reasons: first, we were meeting up with a girl from our training group, and second, Aladdin was showing. Both wanted to watch the movie. I agreed, but with no earlier showing available (you have to reserve your tickets for movies here) this put our end time after 11. The restaurant would be closed.

I was carrying my skates and a stuffed Pikachu. I asked the guy to hold my things while I went to check on something. But, this didn't work. With easily 20 minutes+ until our co-worker arrived, he decided to come along, and asked many questions about where I was going.

We'd eaten not long ago, so when we stopped outside the restaurant, naturally, he was confused. He started up the questions--or never stopped them. I told him that we weren't eating. I then told him that I needed him to stop asking questions, and do what I tell him.

The plan was easy. We go inside, ask to see a menu, and he pretends to read it while I get pictures and videos. Two snags: this guy wouldn't stop asking questions, muttering the entire time, and it was too early. The restaurant only recently re-opened for the dinner hours. There were no waitress on staff.

I hand the menu back, and thank the waiter. We leave, and before we're even out of the restaurant completely, the questions start back up. I wait until we're out of ear-shot to answer: "This is a front for human trafficking. No one can know." Saying he looked shocked is an understatement.

I briefly told what had happened as we walked back to the theater. I explained that Monday morning I spent emailing charities and gathering information on organizations to get more attention focused on the area. I do at least a walk through the Kabukicho area, but don't stop in anywhere. I explained our co-worker knew, and that I have had to give the "if I disappear" order to him. I re-stressed no one can know right before we called out to our co-worker and went into the theater together.

The week after, I walked through Kabukicho and had a man watch me too carefully near the restaurant. Most likely it was nothing, but I'm skipping the area for the next couple of weeks just to play it safe.

There are two outcomes for the end of this that I see as the best. The first is that patrols break up the ring, or significantly damage it. The second, all this is nothing more than a horrible misunderstanding.

I've never wanted to be wrong so bad.

When You Aren't Normal...

Everyone has something about them that makes them abnormal. Especially when certain aspects of normal are relative. As I've been discovering over the course of this job is that I've had a fair number of these abnormal happenings.

Take this example:

During training, one night the sixteen of us were eating in the common room with the Japanese only TV on. I don't remember how it came up--maybe the show was medical--but I said something about the "sclera". I had fifteen people whip around and stare, and ask what I was talking about. Clarified "the whites of the eye".

This confused me a bit. I asked if they ever heard the word before, and the defense was "we didn't study biology".

Now, if I left it at that this would've stayed more towards normal. But... I hadn't learned that from college biology. So, my confused reply: "But you were in second grade? Didn't you learn the parts of the eye when you did your sheep eye dissection?"

I learned that night that dissecting sheep eyes was not a standard part of second grade curriculum.

Another example happened recently during a counseling session:

I was speaking with a client, and he kept going off on tangents about a variety of things. One topic was finger prints, and how when we were kids that was the key evidence to a detective story, but now detective stories all have how the finger prints were faked. So my comment that started a train wreck, "Finger prints can change too. I got my finger cut open here by a hole puncher, so the print is a little different than before."

Now, my scar on that finger is almost impossible to see after twenty years. The scar on the finger I got from doing a knife defense with my friend (who was an assistant Krav Maga teacher at the time) is a different story. He asked how I got that one. Well... "I was doing a knife defense with my friend. She was an assistant Krav Maga instructor." What's that? "An Israeli fighting system." A real knife? "...Yes." Kitchen knife? "...No." She stabbed you with a knife?! "No... I was trying to stab her... and she defended... and there is no way to make this sound good or normal."

He commented that he liked asking me questions, because it was like hearing something from a movie every time.

The very last example I have comes from another client:

Part of my job is conversation, so lots and lots of small-talk. Which I hate. Well, I asked him if he had hobbies as a kid. He told me shogi. He mimicked my question. And without thinking "I used to sell Pokémon cards to my classmates."

After a few seconds of silence with him staring like I had six eyes, "That's not a hobby. That's a business." Then he laughed.

Those are the three examples that pop into my mind when I think about how something that to me was just a part of my life is seen as strange and somewhat fascinating to other people.

When in Takadanobaba...

When I found out where I was moving one of the first things I checked was where the nearest ice rink was. I narrowed it to the Tokyo area, since I was arriving in April and didn't want to wait until winter to get back into skating. As expected, there were a few options for year-round skating.

The one nearest--and the one I was able to translate into English--was a place called Citizens Plaza. It's located in a city called Takadanobaba, which is one stop short of Shinjuku. This made it even more convenient due to the habit of going into Shinjuku once a week.

Just about every other week, I shoulder my skates and head for the rink.

The first time I found the rink was during the Golden Week vacation. I think I was there for 2.5 - 3 hours. Not a consistent skate during that whole time. I hadn't been on skates in 15 years, so I had a lot of breaks.

Hockey is not a popular sport in Japan. At all. Figure skating dominates. In Takadanobaba, the rink is always full of people wearing figures. Many are children being coached as they practice pieces of routines. It's pretty amazing to see 4 - 13 year-old kids jumping and spinning. But, also very annoying.

Figures chew up the ice. The ice gets in bad shape very quickly, and the figure skaters have zero awareness of their surrounding as they're too focused on their step sequences. Half the time they're skating backwards and swerving all over the place.

I stand out pretty badly when I go. First, because I'm a gaijin. Second, because my skates are completely different. What you may not know is that because hockey skates and figure skates are shaped different, your posture is different depending on your type. Figures force you to stand upright. Hockey skates make you bend your knees. Bending your knees keeps you centered on the blade, because hockey skates are rounded whereas figures are flat and picked.

Not only am I easy to spot, the posture change makes it easy for me to spot others not wearing figures. A few times these others are super wobbly; my guess being that they grew up on figures and switched to hockey. Because while hockey is not popular here by any stretch, those who do like it like it with vigor.

So, my first time at Takadanobaba I'm going around on horrible ice. I'm wobbly, and I need a lot of breaks. It was Golden Week, so the crowd was crazy. There were teens on dates (them wear hockey skates which was too cute), parents and coaches with tiny figure skaters, and then this really old guy--easily in his 80s--zipping all over the place speed skater style.

As I was winding down, after watching many come and go, this old man nearly collides with me out on the ice. Like I said, I was really shaky and figure shatters have zero situational awareness. I was focused on trying not to run over a toddler, and he was focused on trying not to hit a couple.

Collision avoided, but for the first time (even though we'd been there for hours) he noticed my skates. When I went to take a break he followed. He sat next to me, started speaking and motioning to my feet. I told him I didn't understand, and wouldn't you know it, he didn't understand either.

See, most Japanese have some basic knowledge of English because it is taught as a school subject. Even if they can't speak it, if you tell them "I don't understand" they normally get that so will mime their question (showing chopsticks or a bag or a credit card) or they say a word or two in English so that you know they understand at least some of what you say even if they can't respond. This man was so old that he either never learned any English, or he had long forgotten it. He wore some kind of veteran hat, so, yes he was an oldie.

With the language barrier firmly in place, we sat quietly for a moment. He asked me something again, and pointing at my feet again. I propped my foot up to show him my skates. He felt the blade, nodded, and thumbed up. He asked me something else, and touched his hands. He was wearing gloves, and I wasn't. I tried explaining I didn't have them. It got through enough that he started asked about falling (through miming). I said I didn't plan on falling. He started asking something else, and couldn't mime it. I made a guess, and said I played hockey 15 years ago.

This was where it was very apparent he didn't have a history with English. The one thing that gets through without fail is numbers. But, 15 didn't register at all.

I went to my last resort: my phone. I typed: I played ice hockey 15 years ago, but haven't skated for 15 years. I handed him my phone so he could read the Japanese. He reads, nods, and gets up. He gestures for me to follow, and we go back on to the ice.

We don't really skate together. We're going different speeds, so are never that close. We're just aware that the other one is there.

After a couple times around, I get off. My knee is starting to ache, and I wanted to go grab food in Shinjuku. Take in a movie. The old man comes off, and looks confused. I tap my wrist like I would a watch. He nods, high-fives me, and goes back out.

That was my first time in Takadanobaba. I've skated there every couple of weeks since, but I have yet to run into that old man again.

I Met a Guy Who...

A throwback to shortly after I arrived in Japan. I was one in a group of sixteen that arrived in April. We were locked together in the training center, located in a smaller town away from all the bustle of the large cities.

With a large group, it becomes easy to form sub-groups. The core of my sub-group was formed that first night in Japan, when me and two guys walked two hours from our training center to Ikebukuro. Ended up in a maid café. It was strange. Don't think I'll go back.

By the end of the first week of training, you know which people you would rather not sit in the common room with first thing in the morning when you're sleep deprived and still mildly jetlagged.

That morning, I dragged myself into the lounge. It was some early hour that I hope to never see again. My first thought is 'coffee" so I head straight for the water boiler. One of the guys from the 'bukuro maid café walk was at the burner. I mutter "hi" and stare groggily at the water boiler. (Probably wishing for real coffee and not instant like every morning since I arrived.)

Then I hear "can I ask you a question?" Now, I've been hanging out with this guy, so I know questions are probably traps. But, that's what makes them amusing. I agree, and he then goes "what is this stuff on the hotdog?"

I look in the pot, and there is a peeled hotdog rolling around. These were stuffed hotdogs too, so chunks of cheese were falling out. The hotdog skin was shredded on the counter, and he has one he was about to peel in his hands.

Still thinking this is some sort of trap, I ask if he knows what hotdogs are made out of. He names the key part- wrapped in intestines. I tell him that's what it is. It's the skin. And he goes "okay so it's not plastic?" I assure him it isn't, and that it's supposed to be on. He decides to try boiling the other with the skin on.

Well, this brought up a question of my own, "have you... never had hotdogs before?"

His answer was that he didn't make them on his own until he left for college. And then he added, "I didn't buy them much because they were such a pain to peel. I couldn't understand why people said they were easy. And they don't taste that great."

Okay, so this kid never made his own hotdogs until he was eighteen. But then moved into a place with roommates, started peeling hotdogs, and no one said anything. He peeled hotdogs for four or five years. In front of other people.

Well, I'm way too tired to process all this, so I just get my coffee and sit. He joins me with his hotdogs. He bites into the one with the skin on and "Wow, these are really good. All the cheese stays in and everything."

Yes. I met a guy who peeled hotdogs. He was also the first in our group to drop out, taking us from sixteen to fifteen before training ended.

That Time I Went to Dinner in Kabukicho

May 20th was supposed to be a day off, but instead my training group got called together for additional training. See, they schedule them on your day off so that you don't miss work. Just like the normal scheduled day off is always Monday because a lot of the national holidays fall on Monday, and they don't want to give you a 3 day weekend. And, they train you in stuff you've already been doing, making the trip mostly nothing but a frustrating waste.

But, it was the first time we had been all together since being sent off across the country. One kid was sent all the way to Hokkaido, so he never has anything even resembling the chance to hang out with the rest of us.

The down side is, this is an 8-hour workday, so none of us actually had time to hang out or catch up.

I work a different schedule from my group. Monday is my first day off whereas it is their second. I was slow after the day, debating if I wanted to hang out around the training center or go into Shinjuku. Because, yeah, Monday is Shinjuku day.

My training mates were quicker to leave. I figured they were trying to get back to the station to get back to their respective homes to manage a couple of hours before having to go to work. The only exception to my group was the Hokkaido kid. Because he had to be flown in, he was staying the night at the training center and was leaving the following afternoon. It worked out pretty good, since he was one of the guys I hung out with during training. We decided to hit Shinjuku to wander about and find food.

Here's a thing about Japan: nearly everything in the city closes between 8:30-9:00pm. Trains shut down somewhere between 10:45-11:30, I think. Point being, we had a very limited amount of time to hang out.

We tried browsing stores just to walk and talk, but the stores were kicking people out. We wandered the streets a bit, before deciding it was time to find a place to eat. Not very easy when things are shutting down, outside menus are written in stylized fonts, (some places don't serve gaijin), places stop allowing customers in about an hour before they close, and we were looking for specific stuff. Namely no curry because we'd both been eating nothing but that all week.

We went into Kabukicho. I'd been wandering around there enough that I knew places stayed open much later (because it's the red light district). We found a Thai restaurant up on the 3rd floor of a building with a "massage parlor" and other such stores. We got there just before last call at 10pm.

They seated us quickly, and hastily requested we order. An appetizer each, nothing too big since it was late and we were just tired at that point. I'm not sure what we talked about that night. My guess is the job and stuff. This was supposed to be a vent session. Very soon, our Japan experience would take a radically different turn from the rest of our group's.

Around 10:40, there was a bit more urgency to get us to pay and leave. Understandable since the place shut down at 11. We were talking about how to divvy up the check, because I don't know the word and the Hokkaido kid forgot the word. It was decided I'd pay since I only had large notes, and he'd pay me back.

All night, a man had been the one serving us and attending to us, but a woman in her early 20s was the one who came to deliver our check. I felt this horrible jolt as she placed our check on the table: 3 inched from her wrist, on the inside of her forearm was a tattoo made of cheap black ink, 1 inch by 0.5 inches. The first part was difficult to make out, most likely because it wasn't English, but the very last part was clear. It was a number.

The waitress took our check off. (Is immediately intercepted and spoken to by one of the male staff out of ear shot.) Right after she was out of sight I just leaned back in my chair and swore only loud enough for my co-worker to hear. This got a confused stare. So, I explained, "She's trafficked. She's got a branding."

This is not the sort of situation that happens when you go out for dinner, so understandable there was a little nervous laughter followed by "are you serious?" I show him using my arm where to look when she returns. Then I go about being the normal every day customer. Smile. Thank her for my change. I look across the table at this guy, and am strongly reminded that he's my brother's age and fresh from university. He's holding his head, hunched over the table, staring in horror.

I tell him we're leaving, and we descend the stairs back to the street. He starts reaching for his wallet. I flatly tell him he isn't paying me back, and apologize for getting him caught up in this.

That night, he tried to report the incident and immediately hit a wall. This was Kabukicho. No one cares what goes on there. I tell him I'll handle it.

And so, since May 20th I've been reaching out to all sorts of charities to get more info on the human trafficking issue in Japan. I've hit many walls with a big reason being that there are no laws against human trafficking in Japan. Let me say that again: there are no laws against human trafficking in Japan. I've emailed the White House with the story, requesting it be passed on to higher powers so that external pressure can be applied. I've even contacted the United Nations, because Japan cannot ignore human trafficking and be a part of the UN. You can't have both. Other than that, I still go back to Kabukicho every week. I walk through to collect external data on the area. I went back to the restaurant once. But, that's another entry.

Here lies the story of how my Japan experience is now forever different.