Firefly in Japan on the Your-Japan Blog Network

I like to think I’m a pretty upstanding citizen for the most part. I do my part to contribute to society, and look out for my fellow man (be they Japanese or foreign). However if you live in Japan long enough, you’re eventually going to run into the police. It’s a fact of living here.

Put simply, I don’t have the highest opinion of Japanese police. Almost every policeman I’ve ever met or seen is lazy, stupid, arrogant and high on power. The most useful function I’ve ever seen them serve is giving directions to Tokyo denizens who have momentarily lost their way. One of the worst functions I’ve seen them performing is harassing random people and cars, stopping them and demanding to see personal identification or prove their vehicle/bicycle is theirs.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m from Australia, and I have a huge amount of respect for the men and women who put themselves in the line of fire to protect everyone else. Every experience I’ve had with Australian police has either been positive, or at the least, professional. Case in point, one of my best friends is a firefighter in Australia, and I have a huge amount of respect for him.

Compare this attitude to Japanese Police - they do as little as possible, are often overweight, harass people for stupid petty crimes or for no reason other than a brief power “high”, and are useless in a real emergency. I have watched them stand by idly, unwilling to get involved in a serious conflict between aYakuza and a taxi driver. Many of my friends have been stopped and demanded to show their passport to prove they’re not an illegal alien. I have watched them wait until a person has walked away from their parked before before running over and waving over a tow-truck to remove the car - which their unwitting owners can have returned to them at a costly fee.

They will even try to entrap you - a friend had told me about an incident where a sleek Skyline car pulled up next to her at the lights. She looked over, and made eye contact. The Skyline revved it’s engines. This girl, being something of a crazy petrol head(rare for a Japanese..!) revved her engine back. They ‘revved off’, for about 30 seconds until the light turned green, and she slammed into first, spun the wheels, and took off. She hadn’t gone 100 meters when the Skyline driver had pulled out a siren and a light, affixed it to the roof, and called out “PULL OVER NOW” on a loudspeaker. Bastards. Just, bastards.

For these reasons and many more, I try to avoid the police. Unfortunately, my strategy failed one fateful day two years ago.

I was driving my scooter, and my girlfriend was on the back. We were going through a Shoutengai, a crowded shopping street. I am a very safe driver, and I was concentrating on avoiding people. I made a right turn, and slowly accelerated with a controlled twist of my wrist. I was going very slowly, about 20 km an hour. I drove slowly past a “Koban”, which is like a Japanese Police box. About 5 seconds later, I heard :

“OOOOIII TOMARINSASAIIII!” (Hey!! Stop!!)

I check my mirrors and see a fat Japanese Policeman chasing after me, folds of face fat rolling angrily as he awkwardly chases my slow scooter. I stop, and he quickly catches up. I turn, and look at him. He’s winding up for some kind of statement, and then he sees my white face. He pauses, momentarily confused.

“Hello!” I say, brightly in English, capitalising on catching him off guard.

“STOPPU!” He says.

“I’m stopped already,” I reply.

“Come off!” He says loudly.

“Come off?” I question innocently.

My mind flashes back to many of my friends and their experiences with Japanese cops and motorbikes. “NEVER SPEAK JAPANESE! It’s a pain in the ass for them to fill out all the paperwork to book someone on an international license. Just be friendly, and happy, and likable, and act like you don’t speak Japanese. If you make it hard for them, but look like you’re trying to be co-operative, they’ll let you go” They all told me.

“Come off!!!” He says, louder, pointing at the ground.

“Sure!” I say with a smile. My girlfriend hops off, and I dismount, and put the scooter on the stand.

“SHOW TO ME LICENSE.” He says, loudly and gruffly.

“Sure, no problem!” I say with a big smile. I open the seat of my scooter, and start flipping through the documents. “Can I ask why I was stopped?” I said.

“LICENSE.” Came the reply.

I frowned slightly, and continued fishing around. First I gave him my Australian license. He looks at it, and squints his eyes.

“Auusss..treea?” He awkwardly reads.

“Australia!” I say proudly.

He looks at me with disgust. “INTERNATIONAL LICENSE!” He says.

“Sure,” I say jovially, as I turn back to find my international license. I look through all the documents, and it’s not there. Odd. I keep looking. I check my pockets, the front storage area, between the pages of the magazines in the scooter seat. After 3 minutes of frantic fumbling, I suddenly realise I left it at home. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Um,” I began.

His face scrunched into a ball, his beady eyes shrinking into his skull, as his frown protruded awkwardly from his face. Tough crowd, I thought.

“COME HERE.” He waved me over to the koban. Dammit. I wheeled my scooter around, and walked alongside him.

“PARKING HERE.” He gestured to the side of the koban. I obediently followed his command, and parked my scooter.

“COME IN. SIT.” he pointed at an uncomfortable looking foldout chair.

I slowly sat, and my girlfriend sat down next to me.

“You. You’re Japanese right?” The fat policeman addressed my girlfriend.

“I… um…. not.. speaking Japanese too good… born in America….!” my girlfriend replied in pidgin Japanese. Of course, she was a native Japanese speaker. Good girl.

The fat policeman scowled.

“I’m sorry,” I say with a genial smile on my face. “I must have done something wrong. Can you show me what it is? I’m so sorry to cause you trouble,” you stupid fat arrogantasshat , why don’t you do something useful with your time, like stop crime, or give someone directions, you piece of shit, “I wouldn’t want to cause you any more problems.”

“YOU SPEAK JAPANESE?” He yelled.

“I…. doing… to study.. Japanese… very hard… now!” I responded with a broad grin and mock pride, in deliberately pidgin Japanese.

“Come here.” He said in Japanese, and walked outside. I motioned for my girlfriend to stay seated.

“See this over here? This is a one way street. You turned into a one way street. See the sign there? Can you see it?” He punctuated his angry Japanese by pointing at a one-way sign obscured by a street lamp.

“Gomennasai, wakarimasen!” (I’m sorry, I don’t understand).

He threw up his arms, and walked back to the Koban, expecting me to follow. I momentarily considered leaving my girlfriend and making a run for it, but I realised they could track me down using the scooter numberplate, and my girlfriends wrath would be worse than the police. Ireluctantly trudged back to the Koban.

By this time, word had gotten around that the fat policeman had “caught” a gaijin. 3 other policeman were mulling around, with bemused grins on their faces, engaging in pleasant chat. I automatically frowned in irritation, but quickly became aware of my facial expression, and banished any sign of a negative or unpleasant reaction from my face. I retook my seat.

“WE CAN NO SEE LICENSE.” Specks of spittle showered out from his face as he awkwardly spoke English. “WE MUST SEE YOU BIKE LICENSE, OR WE NO LET YOU RIDE.”

“Sure…. my license is at home. You can come with me.” I offered, as friendly as I could.

“NO! YOU DO NOT HAVE BIKE LICENSE!” he shouted.

“Well, I do, but it’s at home,” I continued lamely.

“NO! I RIDE YOUR SCOOTER! You ride in patrol car.”

“Hang on a second,” I said, pushing my luck. “Can I see YOUR bike license?”

I battled to keep my grin away from my face as I saw that I caught him out.

“License? fuck.” He said under his breath. He again scowled, and called out to the crowd of police. “Hey, who has a bike license?”

“I do,” A random cop stepped forward.

“Come on then. Pile him into the police car.” The fat policemen said to the other police.

I was promptly led outside, and seated in a policecar. It’s a very weird feeling to sit in a police car. It was a busy street, and people were walking either side of the police car. They looked in, to see agaijin sitting on the backseat. I saw them shaking their heads in shock, and whispering to each other “I wonder what he did?”. I turned red in embarrassment.

After a few moments, I noticed in my peripheral vision that a young boy had come up to the window, and was staring directly at me, with his mouth wide open. I gave him 5 seconds to go away, and when he didn’t, I suddenly turned and “pounced” on him from the other side of the glass, with my arms up either side of my face making claws. He jumped in shock and ran away. I giggled to myself, and then stopped abruptly when a policeman opened the door and sat down. I gave them directions to my house, and we were off.

About 15 minutes later, we arrive at my house. A patrolcar in the neighborhood is BIG news, and all of the old women who lived around the area came out of their abodes in a desperate gambit for the next few days of gossip material. When they saw me sitting in the back, a familiar neighborhood face, they erupted in talk.

“Look! It’s that gaijin!”
“I always knew he was trouble. He probably killed someone.”
“No! Surely not. He said hello to me once.”
“I never trusted him. Lucky for me.”

Their mindless babble continued, as my frustration and embarrassment mounted. This is your fault you know, a voice in my head reasoned. Shut up, another voice reasoned back.

I was told to go and get my international license. Then, to my surprise, they asked if they could come with me.

“Can I say no?” I asked, guardedly.

“You don’t have to say yes.” They said.

“Alright, then, no.” I replied.

They looked almost crestfallen, as if they were hoping for a chance to see an exotic gaijin habitat filled with trees, plants and rare animals.

They drove me back to the police station. My girlfriend was remarkably cool about the whole thing, whispering to me what was happening and giving me some clues and head-ups since I didn’t understand all the complicated rapid-fire Japanese.

We finally arrive at the station, and I’m led deep into the bowels (and I mean BOWELS) of the police station. They make me wait for an hour. I do my absolute best to continue being jovial, fun and friendly with the surrounding officers.

Finally, they place a handwritten piece of paper in front of me.

“SIGN.” They ordered.

I frowned at the paper in front of me. I recognised my name written down the bottom, with a line for my signature. The kanji was difficult and written in messy longhand. I didn’t understand any of it.

“Um, can I have a moment to read it please?” I asked, warmly.

They grunted, and left me with my girlfriend.

“What does it say?” I asked her frantically.

She scanned the paper. “Hm… it just says ‘I made a big, stupid mistake when I turned the wrong way. It was very stupid, I caused lots of problems for everyone, and I promise I will never, ever do this again. I have no excuse, I am embarrassed and feel very stupid.” She translated for me.

I choked on a laugh. “Is it safe to sign? I’m not committing myself to jail?” I asked, earnestly.

“It’s fine, you can sign.” she said with confidence.

I signed the document, and I was released about 30 minutes later. They allowed me to ride my scooter home after the incident. The whole thing took about 6 hours from start to finish - a very shitty way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I’ll re-iterate - if you live in Japan, or if you visit Japan, do WHATEVER you can to avoid the police. Many of them will make your life difficult on purpose. In the best case scenario, they’ll take a lot of your time, and really piss you off.

If you have the misfortune to be caught, be apologetic, friendly, and as stable and solid in your personality as possible. They smell weakness like a dog smells steak, and they will mericileslly attack you if they find you’re a pushover.

In addition, apologising in Japan is a way to show that you’re aware that you disturbed the ’social order’, and you’re simply regretful of the problems you caused everyone; it’s not an admission of guilt like in America. It’s best to apologise frequently, strongly, unabashedly and keep as friendly a demeanor as possible.

I hope you never end up at the mercy of one of these Japanese police officers, but if you do, follow these guidelines, and you should make it through. Best of luck, and leave some comments if you have had any experiences with the Japanese police.

I logged into the server. I bounced around the hundreds of directories, while simultaneously doing 3 different searches. These files must be somewhere on this damn server. It doesn’t make sense that only some of the files are missing. I absentmindedly shook my head, as search after search came up blank. No directories called Sales, or Finance, or Accounting - not a trace. The server was a dead-end.

I suddenly felt an ice cold shiver shoot up my spine. I turn around to see the Office Manager looking at me from across the office. I smiled weakly, and tilted my head, showing that I was aware of the problem, and working on it. She stood frozen to the spot, filling me with dread with her cold, accusing eyes. I mechanically swivelled my chair back to the desk. I fumbled for the phone, and dialed Bills mobile.

*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..

It rang out.

I called Shane.

*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..

Same.

I called the office.

"Hey listen, I’m having a bit of an emergency right now - where are Bill and Shane?" I asked quickly.

"Oh they’re in a meeting this morning I think. They won’t be out until 11:30am."

"Until 11:30am?! But it’s 9:20am!! I need to speak with Bill right now, I need to know what he did on the weekend to the server."

"Sorry, I can’t help."

I threw my arms up in frustration and hung up the call. I sat there for 10 seconds, and called Bill and Shane again. They both rang out.

I quietly rose to my feet. I grabbed my jacket, and mentally mapped the fastest path to the door. I scooped up my mobile phone, and began powerwalking to the door. Office workers noticed my dash, and called out to me for help.

"chotto…. itte kimasu (I’ll be back in a second)", I breathed as I walked past them.

Breathing heavily, I finally reached the elevator, and pressed down 10 times in succession. The elevator sang out it’s relaxed *diiiiing*. I stood, tapping my feet, staring at my phone. No calls. The elevator doors opened, and I walked in quickly and pressed closed doors, before another worker saw me and began asking me the same questions again. The elevator hit the ground floor and the doors slid open, and I burst out of the elevator**, rushing outside.

I began calling Bill again, but as my finger went to press "Dial", the phone sprang to life and began vibrating. Bills name popped up on the screen. I quickly answered the call.

"BILL! I’m having some trouble here, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. Some really important folders are missing on the server, and everyone is coming down on me. I’ve searched through the whole server, but I can’t find them. Do you know where they are?"

"Hold on, slow down a second, bloody hell. I just have a 5 minute break from the meeting - you called me 10 times! My phone was going apeshit in my pocket. Don’t do that again. 10 bloody missed calls!"

"What? Uh, look I’m in a real rush right now, I really need your help. Everyone is coming to me, and I don’t have the answers."

Halfway through my sentence, I heard a muffling sound, like someone was putting their hand over the phone.

"Listen can you talk to him? He’s going crazy right now, I don’t want to deal with that shit." I heard Bill’s muffled voice say impatiently.

"Uhhhhhh, hello?" Shanes monotone voice.

"What the hell, I’m not going crazy, I’m completely rational. I have every user in this company chasing me, and I don’t have any answers for them. I need to speak to Bill, dammit. Put Bill on."

"Uhhhhh, hang on." Shane said. The muffled hand noise again.

"He’s having a problem at the client site. Something about missing files." Shanes voice said quietly through the tiny speaker on my mobile.

I imagined Bill throwing his arms up in the air in semi-mock frustration and annoyance.

"FINE." I heard Bill breathe. "Tell him I’ll go after lunch."

"AFTER LUNCH!" I almost shouted. "I need some answers in the next 5 minutes. It’s 9:40, I can’t wait another 3 hours!"

"Bill said he’ll go after lunch." Shane said.

"But wait, I really need.." I began.

"Cut him off, the client is coming back in a minute." I heard Bill hiss.

"Just tell me what Bill did on the server so I can start to troubleshoot!" I pleaded. The next thing I heard was a *pop*, as Shane cut the call.

I stood on the streets of Ginza, surrounded by expensive clothing shops, and quaked with furious indignation. I formed a fist so hard my fingerhands cut deep into my palms. I spun on my heels and walked back into the client site.

The next 3 hours, I sat at the desk, lamely trying to troubleshoot without the information I needed. People got more and more frustrated with my lack of ability to provide answers about their problem. The Office Manager shouted at me for 5 minutes straight. I took a long lunch to try to avoid dealing with people. Finally, nearly 4 hours later Bill turned up, visibly irritated.

"Alright then, wheres the friggin problem," he pushed past me, not even bothering to say hello. He sat down at the desk and began looking through the server.

"I don’t know where the problem is, because I don’t know what you did on Sunday. What did you do on Sunday?" I asked, angrily.

"I did what I said. I updated the permissions, rebuilt the server, and copied the files back." Bill mumbled flatly, putting almost no thought into his conversation with me.

Something suddenly struck me.

"You updated the permissions?" I said slowly.

Bill mumbled an affirmative, not bothering to open his mouth.

"With the old domain account?" I continued.

"Hmmph"

"Did you update permissions on all of the files?" I asked, slowly and deliberately.

"No, just the ones protected by security groups." Bill said distractedly.

"…… Like Sales, Finance, and Accounting…?" I said.

There was a sudden silence. Bill froze. The mouse dropped from his hand, as he looked up at me. Our eyes met, and I saw his mouth drop open as he figured out what happened about 10 seconds after I did. I could see the "Horrible IT Mistake Feeling" gripping his body, as he turned pale white, and his throat constricted.

"I tried to copy files onto the new server, but I didn’t have the permissions… they didn’t copy… then I formatted the server… I formated the Sales, Finance and Accounting folders…………………. HOLY FUCK," Bill gasped.

I oddly felt a bit better, since I had someone to share the Horrible IT Mistake Feeling with. I didn’t spare any sympathy for Bill however.

"I might be able to undelete it. It might be recoverable." Bill said.

"Alright… why don’t I run to the shop and buy some special undelete software, I know a good package." I offered.

Bill looked around the office, and saw about 15 people looking in the direction of the server room, waiting to pounce on him, demanding answers for their lost files and lost productivity.

"Uhhh, you know what? I’ll go and get the software package." Bill said.

"Are you sure? I don’t mind going for a run." I said, knowing he would turn me down.

"No, I’ll go. I’ll be back soon." Bill said over his shoulder as he grabbed his jacket and split the angry office worker crowd down the middle and headed to the escalator.

He rushed back in the door 40 min
utes late. I realise he must have taken a taxi both ways to get back from the local Big Camera so quickly.

He sat down at the computer and began installing the software.

"Go tell the users we’re looking into it now." Bill ordered.

I raised my eyebrow.

"I’ve been telling them that for 5 bloody hours." I said.

Bill paused and looked up at me, as if considering to blast me and tell me to go and "do it anyway". After a couple of seconds, a dialogue box popped up on the screen, and his attention again returned to the software installation.

Bill installed the software, and managed to recover about 70% of the deleted files. He updated the permissions, and tested them(this time), and copied them into the appropriate folders.

"Alright… go and tell them there was a server crash, but we’re lucky because we were able to recover 70% of the files." Bill told me.

"What? You want me to lie?"

"Just tell them that."

"I don’t feel comfortable lying."

"I don’t care, thats the story."

"No. I’ll tell them the files are unrecoverable." I said firmly.

Bill shook his head, grabbed his bag, and left the building, leaving me alone again with a bunch of angry office workers.

I deeply sighed, and began the long, painful and ardous task of information each user that 30% of their vital documents were missing and completely unrecoverable.

It was one of the longest days of my IT career.

The next thing that Bill did to me made me decide to quit, despite the fact I had only a few months left on my VISA, and had no prospects or places to go. Updates soon.

**I thought it appropriate to put this note down here, otherwise it interferes with the pace of the story. On an interesting side note, elevators in Japan don’t have a "Ground" floor. The floor at ground level is 1, the next level up is 2. In Australia (and I presume, English as well), the ground floor is labeled "G", and the next floor up is 1.

Ginza is a famous area of Tokyo, filled with very expensive designer clothes stores, expensive cars, more expensive women, and a business district.

I was working at a client site in a prestigious area of Tokyo called Ginza. Two companies were coming together, and the IT systems needed to be consolidated. Bill and I went in on the weekend to work on thefileserver . Bill got to work doing the important stuff, and I cruised around the office doing the grunt work. The air was heavy, and warm. There is always a unnatural stillness in offices on holidays.

"Firefly!" Bill shouted from the server room.

"Coming," I said.

"Alright," Bill said, rubbing his hands together. "I moved all the information from the old hard drive, onto the new hard drive. Then I’m going to rebuild the server, and fix the permissions. Go around to all the PCs and make sure you can’t find any files in My Documents or on the desktop."

"Sure." I turned each computer on, one by one. The task was mind-numbing, which I actually didn’t mind. My imagination tends to spark up during these repetitive tasks, and I spent the next hour or two in deep thought. I copy files I find to the server in ordered directories. I returned to Bill.

"Done." I said.

"Well we made progress faster than I thought. I’m going to set up RAID, leave this server building, and copy back all the data. Come back at 9am sharp on Monday to continue work."

I nodded agreement, said goodbye, packed up my bag, and left. I was mildly irritated that a big chunk was taken from my Saturday for 2 hours of overtime pay (about 5,000 yen). Oh well, it’s not all about the money. My presence seemed to help Bill, even if he just wanted someone to talk with. I shrugged it off, and enjoyed the rest of my weekend.

I arrived on site at 8:50am equipped with my coffee, Monday morning fuzz, and my shoulderbag which housed my laptop that I purchased myself. I moved through the columns of desks, and found an empty space, and set up my computer and hung my jacket over the chair. I strained my neck over to the left and right, and was rewarded by satisfying cracking noises. I logged into the server, and had a brief look. Seems fine.

A user came over. "Excuse me, you are computer person?" she asked.

"I sure am, how can I help you?" I said, summoning my best Monday morning smile, and probably failing.

"I have trouble find file. You can help?" She asked, gesturing towards her desk.

"Sure," I said, pushing the wheeled chair away from the desk and bouncing to my feet. "Let me have a look."

I sat down at her PC, and brought up the pre-configured mapped drives.

"All the files seem alright to me," I said, while flicking through the directories. "Whats the problem?"

"No - only half of files are there. Other half are gone." She said, a crack developing in her voice.

Must be simple user error, I thought. It’s pretty unlikely that only SOME directories are missing, that just doesn’t make sense.

"Ok, sure - I’ll look into it for you. Can you tell me which folder is missing?" I said.

"Accounting folder missing. Also, Finance. Also, Sales." She said.

"Um, accounting, finance and sales are missing?" I said with surprise. She nodded my head. "No problem. I’ll look into it."

I stood up and walked over to my PC. Another foreign man came over to me.

"Excuse me, I seem to be missing the files in Sales - I need them for a presentation in an hour. Can you help?" He asked politely.

I visibly gulped. "Sure, no problem. I’ll just look into that right now. Give me a moment." I said, breaking a light sweat. He nodded, smiled, and walked away.

An email popped into my inbox, subject "IMPORTANT FILES MISSING : URGENT" from the office manager. My muscles involuntarily tensed. The office manager was very rude and abusive - I’m sure she is going to blast me as soon as she sees me.

Another girl walks up to my desk.

"Excuse me. I am very sorry to interrupt, when you’re busy," she intoned in quiet polite Japanese. "I seem to have lost some files. When you have time, can you please help?"

"I’m working on it right now actually." I said, suddenly feeling my shirt collar tighten around my neck.

"You don’t know where they are?" She asked.

"I’m uh… .just.. starting to work on it now." I said, fighting a sudden urge to panic.

She sensed the uncertainty in my voice.

"They are gone? The files?" Her throat constricted, and her voice came out as a croak.

"I’m.. just looking into it now. I’ll tell you soon." I said, a little impatiently.

She stood there, unmoving.

I looked at her blankly, waiting for her to leave so I could begin work.

She started blinking fast. Her small mouth turned downwards at the corners. She choked back a sob, as a tear slid down her face.

"Oh geez, look, i’m looking into it now. Please give me a moment, and I’ll tell you whats happening as soon as I can," I said, as reassuringly as I could. I could feel my own neck on a slab of cold hard stone, and the office manager wearing a black mask and aggressively wielding an impossibly sized axe for someone of her small frame.

She spun around and took off at a quick jog, trying to hide her tears.

I gulped, and called Bill.

*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..*ring ring*…..

My knuckles turned white as I fiercely gripped the phone handset. I looked up and saw 2 other people sitting in front of their computers with a confused expression on their face.

*ring ring*…..*ring ring*….."Hi you’ve reached Bill. I’m unavailable.." I cut off his voicemail message.

I could feel a quiet anger and desperation around the office, as more and more people began discovering their vital files were missing. My heart rate continued increasing, flushing my face red with worry and adrenaline.

There is a special feeling of horror when you’re an IT person experiencing a major, major issue. Only IT people with similar experiences are able to understand. The feeling is intensified when it’s your fault, but when you’re the front line, it still gets pretty bad. It starts in your stomach, like someone just took a sickle and disemboweled you on the spot. Then it spreads up to your throat, and slams into your head. Your head becomes light and dazed and you suddenly realise the consequences of the your actions (or the problem). Fortunately, I am a very careful person, and in years of working in IT, I’ve only felt this 2 or 3 times. But when you feel it, you know it. And every time you feel it, you NEVER want to feel it again.

I pushed the horrific feeling away as best as possible. I glanced at the clock.

9:16am.

This is going to be a long day.

To be finished soon.