After living in Japan for close to ten years and once never breaking the law I was quite angered when I learned that the next time I re-enter Japan I will be fingerprinted and my photo will be taken. My photograph and the image of my fingerprints will then be ran through a database of international terror and crime suspects as well as domestic records.
It felt like a bit of a slap in the face at the time. I have always believed that Japanese are not racist, at least not to Hakujin (white people). However, this was yet another case of discrimination in a ,at times, backwards country with more than enough social, political and economic problems to worry than concern itself with fingerprinting every foreigner that comes into the country. Japan has been fingerprinting all foreign visitors for security measures since November 2007.
This an another example of Japanese bureaucracy wasting money and resources. Japan is only hurting herself making this move. It will make many people think twice about visiting Japan. It will especially frustrate businessmen. Just imagine you arrive at Narita airport after a 10 to 15 hour flight. Your tired and want to get to your hotel or destination and you are going to be requesting politely requested to have your fingerprints and photo taken. If you refuse you’ll be deported. This kind of bureaucratic nonsense really fuels the fire of my love-hate relationship with Japan.
I can’t think of any reasons that justifies this “security measure”. Japan has not experienced any terrorist attacks by any foreign group or individual. The only recent terrorist attack I can think of was the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. this attack was committed by the Japanese religious cult Aum Shnrikyo.
Japan can be a wonderful country to visit and live in. However, the longer you live there the more you realize the less you understand. After ten years and many experiences I knew that Japanese could never really be a home for my family. It was a difficult decision to leave, but it was the right decision. I certainly didn’t want my son exposed to certain aspects of Japanese culture. His mother is Japanese and he was born there, but he was always considered a foreigner or half before a Japanese because of the way he looked. I think growing up in Japan would have been very difficult for him.
I lived in Japan for almost 10 years, married a Japanese, had a child in Japan and I couldn’t even apply for permanent residency. My wife, on the other hand was able to apply and received permanent residency immediately to my home country of Australia last year.
Here is a letter from a student I got a while back in Japan. I thought I would share it with you.
Dear Nick,
Thank you so much for your enjoyable lessons every time! After class last week, I was thinking about what you told us. I do understand you have some stressful life in Japan. I know travelling and living in another country is quite different. I think Japanese people are generally kind and friendly but it would be hard for the people from other countries to live in Japan. The way of life, the tradition, local customs, human relations, and so on.
Tajimi is a small town and we hardly get to know non-Japanese people in everyday life, and most of us speak only Japanese. If you lived in some other big cities like Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama or Nagoya, you life might be comfortable. You are such a nice and friendly person who tries to understand our culture and way of living, even though you have had some unpleasant experiences. you are fed up of being asked something rude, for example, “Are you American?” They wouldn’t know it is rude.
Since the World War II ended, Japanese people have been strongly influenced by the USA. Probably “Gaijin” means “American” for them. I guess. Well, I have textbooks called “Modern English”. I got in the 1970′s, and the first dialog is written like this. “Excuse me. Are you American ?” “Yes, I am from New York”. When I heard your “grumble” last week, I remembered this dialog. In those days the characters in the text were only American and Japanese. I have a recent English textbook for junior high school students, and the characters are American, Australian, Indian, Chinese, Tanzanian and Japanese. Excellent, isn’t it?!
I cannot express well what I think, also my listening comprehension is still poor, but I enjoy learning English from you. It’s good to know the words we learned at school or from dictionaries but native speakers don’t use actually. Looking forward to you next lesson.
