Not Just a Western Problem

Japan too is letting in those who are not here to help it.

As a foreign exchange student in Japan in the late 90s, I was returning to my apartment it a Tokyo suburb, west of the city.  I had been living in this location for over half a year and was familiar with Tokyo proper from my time in Japan in the navy.  Tokyo and all of Japan was a safe place for all, except for areas where drunk squids frequent and that was mostly due to the drunk squids.  It was late afternoon on a warm but not overly so day with low humidity.  Walking down the street after teaching English to a private student in the town one over from mine, I hear the hail “Hey, English teacher!”.  I look over and see three obviously non Japanese men waving me over.   In any other country, I would have kept going, but this was Japan; safe Japan.  I had met many wonderful people from all over the world in this fashion in and around Tokyo.  Regardless of from where we originated, we are all gaijin here.  I backed my main topsail and hove to in answer to their hail.

The fact that they were middle eastern troubled me not in the least.  My ship made numerous port visits in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and prior I stayed in Bahrain awaiting a helo flight out to my bird farm.  I was treated very well there, the Middle East.  Though I would soon forget the topics covered, I will always recall that we had a friendly exchange of ten minutes or so.   Suddenly, one asks if I knew Osama Bin Laden and then stated that they were his friends.  President Bill Clinton had recently bombed an aspirin factory in the Sudan and a training camp in Afghanistan in retaliation against al-Qaeda's two deadly US embassy bombings.  “Fauci!”  Thought I.  “How did I let myself get into this situation?”  In any other country, I would not have; now, whether I would live to see the sun set was an open question.  Myself, I doubted very much that I would see another sunrise.  During our pleasant conversation, they had maneuvered me into corner and blocked my escape with their bodies.

They were three sons of Muhammad, a tall skinny one, who had his hand now gripping my left shoulder, who wanted me dead.  He said so.  Made it as clear as clear can be made that he intended to kill me.  To my immediate front was a short stocky fellow who argued that Slick Willie was their enemy and not I.  Tall skinny dude wasn’t buying it.  The third was a monster of a man whose shadow in the fading sunset blanketed tall skinny, short stocky and dumb as a box or rocks squid for getting himself into this mess-me.   He was awaiting what the other two decided to do with me and was going to be the one to ensure it was accomplished.  Watching intently for an opening I did not expect to find, short stocky eventually said something in their native language that pissed off tall skinny enough to release my shoulder and point his finger at short stocky.  At that exact time, short stocky gestured for me to skedaddle, and more a skedaddling squid has not been observed by human eyes before or since.  Late 90s.  I do not talk to strangers on the streets of Japan anymore.    

Knowing from experience that not all who adhere to this faith want me dead, I am loath to paint them all with the same brush.  However, I am not about to keep in their company for there are those in that community that do and have no problem undertaking efforts to realize their desires in this regard.  I give them as wide a berth as channels allow.  A few years later I would see a large group of this faith near Ikebukuro station.  I beat to quarters whenever I cruise near there ready to fight or flight as situations may require or allow.

Over my last 24 years here, I have witnessed a noticeable increase in those of this religion in Tokyo, especially women.  Once a rarity, I now run in to not only women from the Middle East on the streets of Tokyo but also families almost daily.  Yesterday I passed 6 such women with a single male of this persuasion on my way in to the medical school.  Today I saw a Muslim couple, she very pregnant.  It is this last couple added to the rest I have to share that prompted me to actually write this post.  This is one topic I am most uncomfortable with.     

There are exceptions of course, but it used to be if one ran across a married non Japanese living in Japan that was not SOFA sponsored (meaning having something to do with the US armed forces stationed in Japan.) that their spouse was almost assuredly Japanese.  Japan did not give out visas to spouses of those it issues visas to just because they are married to a visa holder.  The spouse would also have to apply for and be granted a visa on some other grounds than being a spouse of another visa holder.  Husbands/fathers living apart from their families for work is the norm outside Tokyo and possibly Osaka and other major urban centers in the country.  It is not a problem to them to have fathers live on the other side of the country from their families or even abroad with their families remaining in Japan so they have no sympathy for non Japanese applying for visas solely on the grounds of keeping the family together.  During my over a quarter century spread over 4 trips living in Japan i have made many trips into immigration for visa renewal and upgrading.  I have never seen a family of gaijin at immigration.  Not a single one.  I have seen an obviously non Japanese parent with a child or children that are equally obviously “hafu”, sometimes with the Japanese parent or a grand parent with them, but never an entire foreign born family.  Not even once.

Last week I met with a friend for coffee.  She is suffering from long covid and misplaced her ivermectin and asked if I could lend her some.  We, with another, bought ours together.  She has had to make many trips to immigration recently and reported seeing several families; mother, father and 5 to 7 kids at the immigration center.  All of these families were from the same part of the world as the three gents who I allowed to endanger my ability to share this with you.  Long used to seeing families with babies touring exotic lands, (Bali, Easter Island, Okinawa for a few, which has always had me wondering why.) I wondered if the numerous families from the Middle East I was seeing here were the same.  Well, I now know that at least not all are.  At least some are being let in to Japan through immigration.

Within the last couple of months, I first began seeing adds on InstaGram for people to come to Japan to work or study.  India is a major focus of this immigration push.  However, I have a friend from India who is currently studying Japanese in Tokyo who is trying to land a job that offers visa sponsorship.  He has a degree in accounting from back home and has worked in that field.  I do not recall the extent of his qualifications but he has some in Law too.  Japan does not seem interested in allowing him to continue on here but happy to bring in unskilled persons from his homeland and elsewhere.

For better or worse, Japan has some baked in ingredients that hopefully will help prevent it from becoming the immigration nightmare much of Europe and the US have become.  Vigilantism is not frowned upon here as it is in the West, in fact, at times it is openly condoned or even encouraged.  Local police enforce laws to at least some extent to the desires of the Chokai, neighborhood associations of which I have written about before.   Locals can be very territorial.  Sadly, my family witnessed this after the last matsuri we participated in.  That is a story in and of itself.  Here I will say only that if an altercation between the those of the neighborhood and an outsider erupts, locals pile on the outsider with no questions asked.  When meeting with my friend to loan her ivermectin, I learned that there is a large Kurdish community in Kawaguchi just north of Tokyo and there have been problems there.  Interestingly, despite finding many articles online about the problem, I had not heard of it until she told me of it.  Foreigner crime against the local populace is always a hot button issue that gets tons of coverage, yet, this has not been widely reported.  Not blacked out, but unless you know to look for it, you’d not likely run across it.  The first several hits are on how bigoted the Japanese of the city are for not welcoming outsiders into their communities.  One must scroll to the bottom of the page to find the first providing the local’s point of view.  This, on my experience is unusual.

Unlike the police of Akihabara working with the neighborhood associations to clamp down on seedy businesses that sprung up during the panic, the locals in Kawaguchi say that the police will not intervene, are not even patrolling where the problems repeatedly occur.  Politicians respond with how great diversity is.  Apparently, according to my friend, the locals have had enough and have begun to fight back, and not in a literary sense.   Or, as we said on the bird farm, “fight back, heavy on the fight.”  I cannot say I disapprove of the local defending their homes, neighborhoods and communities.  I wish my fellow Americans in the States would grow a collective pair and set things right as is both their right and duty to do.  However, this also raises concern.

If the local population is forced to protect their neighborhoods by themselves, they will with time naturally come to view all outsiders the same.  Reading some of the history of what went down in the aftermath of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake leaves the distinct impression that things can get really bad for those who are not obviously Japanese.