Category: Personal/Blog News

Fuji-san returns

One of the great joys of flying in the front of an airplane is that you don’t have wings or engine exhaust to obscure your view, which makes the window seat a great place for aerial photography. I ran into Fuji-san on a cloudy day in 2006, and finally got a clearer shot of it on my way back from China in 2008.

The not-so-secret “secret” to spotting Fuji-san from the air: Pretty much all flights leaving Tokyo for destinations to the west (including Asia, but not Europe) use an airway that runs over the water south of Fuji-san. This is to avoid the airspace around Yokota and Atsugi, the US military bases on the west side of Tokyo. So when you’re leaving Tokyo, sit on the right side of the plane: when you’re coming to Tokyo, sit on the left.

Adamu update

Now that I no longer have to spend all my waking hours translating, Mutant Frog will soon be filled once again with Adamu posts. Between moving to Japan from Bangkok, adjusting to a new city and a new job, taking on way too much work than I should, getting married, and settling into my new apartment in the ghetto, Mutant Frogging and my other hobbies have been essentially on hold. But now the last of my side work is done (the last two months have been dominated by a project involving a certain Japanese-run bank in Indonesia… more on that later) so I plan on having much, much more free time.

Over the nine months that have passed since I arrived in Japan, my interests have shifted quite a bit. Living in Tokyo and working in the finance industry tends dominate my thinking these days, even if I am anything but a financial expert. I try to avoid issuing opinions on things I know absolutely nothing about, but perhaps you will start seeing more finance related posts. Tidbits from my studies and independent research will also hopefully figure in.

I’ve told some that blogging rots your brain, and to an extent it does (at least my brain anyway). To be honest, I hardly remember many of the posts after I do them. The months I spent blogging the Abe administration from Bangkok are mostly a blur, for example, and at any rate they were little more than idle prattling with no real point. One thing that is different from my previous blogging activities is that my free time, while increased now that I am concentrating on my day job, is quite limited. I want to make sure I blog more time efficiently.

But I have certainly missed the best part of blogging – interacting with readers as a sort of sounding board for ideas and debate. The occasional debates in the comments section are especially edifying and exhilarating. Now that Mutant Frog is entering its third year, I hope we can keep building a fun audience and keep doing what we enjoy.

One foreigner’s perspective on American and Japanese immigration security procedures

Jade OC, a long time reader and commenter of MFT, has graciously posted a detailed comparison of his experiences passing through both US and Japanese airline security and immigration checkpoints as a comment on an earlier blog post on the subject. As I suspect that many of our readers look only at the actual posts and not the comments, I thought I would promote this one to the front page.

As promised, here is my short report on the fingerprinting-immigration process in the US and Japan from the POV of a non-citizen of either (though a resident of Japan).

First big complaint. I never wanted to go to the US at all, at least not the first time. But you cannot bloody transit in the US – there’s no such thing as a transit lounge. Everyone who enters a US airport from outside the country, even if, like me, you are just taking a flight to Canada in about 90 minutes, needs to go through Immigration and Customs. This is seriously Fucked Up.

Continue reading One foreigner’s perspective on American and Japanese immigration security procedures

Real life first stories of modern first contact

First contact with previously unknown societies is not just the stuff of science fiction and the distant past, but still happens from time in some of the remotest parts of the world. The Washington Post has a fantastic long feature chronicling the adventurous life of one man who had made it his life’s work to discover, and aid, these isolated tribes-a unique Brazilian profession known as a “sertanista.” A sample passage:

It had been just over a year since they had made first contact with Purá, the only adult male in the five-member Kanoe tribe. Marcelo and Altair had sat for hours with Purá, patiently communicating with hand gestures. Eventually, an elderly Indian from the other side of Rondonia who spoke Portuguese and a related tribal language was brought in to translate the stories of Purá and his mother, Tutuá. Slowly, the team pieced together the Kanoe tribe’s grim history.

In the 1970s, when the group numbered about 50, all of the tribe’s adult males ventured out of their tiny village together in search of different Indian groups in the hope of arranging marriages. After several days, the men didn’t return, so a small group of women formed a search party. They found the men massacred, killed by unknown assailants. The women panicked, convinced they couldn’t survive and care for their children on their own. So they made a pact: All of them — women and children — would drink a deadly poison derived from the timbo plant and commit collective suicide. But Purá’s mother, Tutuá, refused to swallow. As she vomited fiercely, she rid herself of the traces of poison and was able to stop her two children, her sister and her niece from sipping the fatal brew.

The tiny tribe had lived on its own for nearly two decades — until Marcelo and Altair encountered Purá and his sister on a jungle trail in September 1995. The team members figured that if anyone could help them find the lone Indian, an Indian who had been in a similar situation until very recently might be their best bet.

Ruins of Shinbashi photo presentation up on eRenlai.com

The photo gallery I posted about three months ago of a condemned block in the Shinbashi region of Tokyo has been converted into a nifty animated slideshow for the eRenlai.com web magazine, by my good friend Cerise.

I particularly like the moody background music she added, which she claims is based on a phrase from the song I Could Have Danced All Night, but I’m afraid I just still can’t recognize as such.

While you’re there, have a look at some of the other pieces on eRenlai, such as this semi-abstract music video piece by Jose Duarte, not coincidentally one of my flat-mates from my time in Taipei.

I Am The Bar Exam (And So Can You!)

As I head out the door for a winter holiday in southern China (which will be blogged in due course), I am happy to announce to the world that I passed the New York and New Jersey bar exams in July 2007. I spent a lot of time reading about other people’s study methods on the internet, and now, in the interests of propagating science, I will now share my methods. Continue reading I Am The Bar Exam (And So Can You!)

Gang fight in Ayase

Tonight I had the privilege to witness my first major police incident around my home station Ayase, an area somewhat notorious for its gang activity, general slumminess, and proximity to Tokyo Detention Center, where the majority of Japan’s high-profile and death row inmates are held.

The incident tonight occurred as I was returning from a trip in search of imported food (the trip was successful and I’ll be having my highly authentic Xmas dinner (hummus) tomorrow). Just outside the station, Mrs. Adamu and I noticed a convoy of firefighters and police standing at the ready outside the local KFC. Around them a circle of rubberneckers had formed, but we weren’t initially sure what they were witnessing at first. Upon closer inspection, it hit us – the police were sort of referreeing a fight between what was either two yakuza members or one yakuza and one unlucky drunk civilian.

When we arrived on the scene, there were two men – one, a late-30s chimpira in a dragon-decaled letterman jacket, was stomping around screaming at the row of police, while another, a drunk, small man, was being held back by other yakuza in plain clothes. At some point before we showed up, the two had gotten into a scuffle. The scene was very confusing because the police were doing nothing to intervene save for standing and watching. After a while, the situation became clear – the drunk and the dragon-jacket guy had gotten into a fight, and some other yakuza were holding the smaller man back to keep the fight from escalating. The dragon-jacket guy was shrieking “don’t you fucking touch me” to the cops, who seemed only happy to reply. After about 10 minutes, dragon-jacket calmed down and walked away with his wife at his side. The drunken smaller man was similarly allowed to walk away with the men who had been keeping him away from dragon-jacket. The situation apparently ended without arrest (surprising considering the considerable public disturbance and mobilization of public law enforcement manpower) Let me repeat that about 10 firefighters and about half as many police did nothing to stand in the way of the fight as it played out (though when we showed up no blows were drawn and it consisted more of dragon-jacket shouting epithets at everyone).

I am no expert on law enforcement here, but through my experience with Aum Shinrikyo (reading books and seeing movies) I am aware that the police are basically not supposed to touch you unless they are ready to take you away on suspicion of a crime. They might be able to get away with pushing average citizens around, but anti-social groups like the yakuza and Aum know their rights and can basically mouth off to police as long as the cops have no actual proof of a crime and there is someone there to record the proceedings (a younger trainee on the scene tonight seemed to be taking video on his camera-phone).

The scene served as a reminder of one of the main reasons the streets of Ayase are peppered with petty criminals – ineffectual police. I have noticed young (non-tattooed) thugs mouthing off to unsuspecting convenience store customers and seen more traditional gangster types threatening people who failed to stay out of their walking trajectory. The strangest incident occurred one night when I was walking with Mrs. Adamu to check out the restaurants in the area. A man on a bicycle careened very awkwardly toward us and then crashed into the nearby bushes. The too-convenient path of his fall convinced us that he was attempting to score in an atariya (fake accident) scheme. This behavior thrives due to the hands-off police stance that I witnessed tonight. Perhaps a less intrusive police presence is what allows for the peaceful Japan that most foreign residents are used to, but areas such as this one the increased gang presence certainly dent the image of Japan as a safe country and personally make me worry what powers the police actually have.

In America, it would have been a far different story. Leave aside the fact that both sides would likely face assault charges in an incident that warranted the amount of manpower I saw tonight. The most significant difference is that anyone mouthing off to the police would be on his or her face in handcuffs immediately and no complaints would be filed. The police essentially are granted the power to immobilize people they deem a disturbance.  For better or worse, even gangsters in the US know they are playing with fire if they decide to talk disrespectfully to the police (and pacing around, as the dragon-jacket guy was doing, would certainly get you shot).

Of course, it may be (as it so often is even on COPS) that the police heard what happened and concluded it was too minor to be worth the paperwork. And as usual I will leave grand conclusions of the two cultures  aside and hopefully let my 10 minutes of voyeurism stand as a casual witness to Japan’s uneasy relationship with its easily identifiable and halfway tolerated underworld.

Joe enrolls in the MOJ Gaijin Hanzai File

Tonight I returned to Japan from a personal/business trip to the US, and got to experience the new fingerprinting system for the first time.

My flight was United 883, one of the later inbound flights from the US (it arrives around 5:30 PM). I was in the mid-section of economy so there were quite a few people getting off the plane ahead of me. I phoned Curzon as I was walking down the concourse to immigration and told him I would give a postgame report in “maybe 30 minutes.”

But when I reached immigration, there was practically no line for anyone. The area was separated into four zones: citizens, special permanent residents, re-entrants and other foreigners. Those using the new “fast track” card (which I did not bother to get before leaving Japan) were lumped in with the random foreigner category. There were two dedicated re-entrant stations open, and only one was in use when I arrived, so I went straight to the waiting officer who took my passport.

The fingerprinting machine is surprisingly simple, consisting of two fingerprinting pads (made of some sort of metal), an LCD screen and a tiny camera not unlike the built-in webcams that come with laptops these days. The machine says INSERT FINGERS and you put your two forefingers in. Then the immigration officer points the little webcam at you and snaps your photo (which, thankfully, is not displayed on the screen: I don’t need to know what I look like after nearly 24 hours of traveling).

So I was done with immigration in about 30 seconds, which I think is close to a personal record. This didn’t keep United from losing my luggage, though…