In this episode, we talk about: differences of American vs. Japanese image of police, stealing things, getting in trouble with Japanese police, Pipo-kun, and scooters.
In this episode, we talk about: differences of American vs. Japanese image of police, stealing things, getting in trouble with Japanese police, Pipo-kun, and scooters.
Hello everyone and welcome back to chestnut english podcast. It's me your host Chris.
So, I don’t know if you can hear the difference, but I got a new microphone. So then this is the first episode with the new mic, and MAN I think it’s a lot better. It cost about 2x as much as the old mic, and it’s a dynamic mic, which means it’s better at ignoring noises in the background.
Okay so this episode, I wanna talk about: “police”. What are police? Police is keisatsu, Police are the people in blue uniforms that are supposed to protect people and enforce laws. And if there are bad guys breaking the law, they're supposed to be caught by the police.
Imagine like a robber who just stole some stuff. And he’s running. The store owner is chasing after him like “stop him, he stole our stuff!” Who’s job is it to catch this guy? It’s the police’s job.
Okay, so of course, police is something that exists in both the US, where I used to live, and also in Japan, where I live now. But something big I noticed, was that the public opinion of police, is different. The typical Japanese person views the police more positively, than the typical American does. Amerika de ha, keisatsu tte soko made shinrai sareteinai to iu koto. Nihon to kurabetara. In the US, people don’t trust the police as much, and I have stories for this too.
The first story, is just people talking about the image of police, keisatsu no imeeji. In Japanese school, we were doing this language-practice exercise, where you have to come up with related words.
“What words describe a baby?” Cute, drink milk, cry.
(and of course in language learning settings the teacher is usually putting a lot of effort to say things clearly)
“What words describe a robber?” Bad, steal things, black mask
“What words describe a policeman?” Lazy, donuts, fat, corrupt (fuhai suru).
And then the teacher was like WHAT? No no no no. And then so it turns out, the Japanese version is: what words describe a policeman? Cool, strong, and cute (if they’re a girl)
There was also someone from Taiwan there, and they said they agree with police = cool + strong
And then I had to think about it. Police are strong, yeah. Police are supposed to be good guys, yeah. But why is my first word lazy? Why does lazy have a stronger impression than cool or strong? Nande lazy tte ichiban inshouteki ni tsuyoikana. What about donuts? Fat? And then I though ohhh. It's because of officer wiggum from the simpsons.
whoa whoa whoa who is that? Well the Simpsons, is a TV cartoon show, it's really famous because it has a lot of crude humor. Crude = rude, a little childish. And in that show, there's a police officer named officer wiggum. Officer wiggum is fat, lazy, and loves donuts. So he's the representative American police officer. america no diahyouteki na keisatsu. And then there’s a lot of negative news for police in the past 5 years, so it hasn’t really improved, at least not for me.
Okay, so there’s like this image difference of US and Japan. But what about real life stories? Well that’s what this podcast is for, I’ll tell you my stories, and I’ve got both US and Japan stories.
So the police used to love me when I lived in the US, and then now in Japan they don’t like me. My image in the US was “he seems like a good boy”, and in Japan, it’s “that is a particularly suspicious foreigner” (ee! Sono gaijin tte tokuni ayashikunai??)
First, the US version:
I was always a good boy growing up. I got good grades in school, I didn’t break rules, I didn’t steal things…. And then I went to college.
I went to college in UC Berkeley, which I don’t really recommend, because it’s expensive, and that area, the city of Berkeley, is kind of dangerous and has a lot of weird people. And one of those weird people, is me. Chotto oboetekudasai, Kariforunia daigaku bākurē-kō tte osusume jyanai, chi an ga chotto warukute, hennna hito ga ooi.
So, I started stealing things. I stole silverware, spoons, forks. I also stole cups and sandwiches. There was this place called Golden Bear Cafe, and there were so many times where I ordered a sandwich - it was actually a wrap, sort of like a burrito - and then I just didn’t pay for it and walked out. The staff might have known, but if they did, they didn’t care, because they’re busy. And now that I work a cafe job, I know, if someone steals like $10 worth of stuff, and you’re busy, letting it slide might be the easiest option.
But yeah so I’m a thief. I’m a bad person. The police should catch me. Right?
And then one day. Whee woo whee woo. There was a police car, and the police were here. And I was like shit shit shit. I have stolen Pringles and chips ahoy in my backpack from Walgreens. And I was so nervous. But the police were investigating a different case. Someone stole shoes from a nearby shoe shop and ran off. I read about it later, an Asian guy stole the shoes, but the police suspected a nearby black guy. And that black guy was mad because he didn’t do anything wrong.
So, I think, if I were black, I probably would have been caught for stealing. But I look Asian, so I’ve never once been suspected of stealing.
And also stealing is not good, and I don’t do it anymore, and if you’re stealing stuff often, you should stop stealing and get your revenge in other ways, like writing bad reviews, because that’s more damaging than stealing.
Okay so that’s me right, I’m a thief, actually an ex-thief, and I moved to Japan. And I’ve only gotten in trouble with the Japanese police a total of 3 times. But first, let me take a short break here
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The first time I got in trouble with the Japanese police, I was going to Japanese language school. I just had my backpack and an umbrella. I was in the train station, about to scan my transit card at the kaisatsuguchi, but then two policemen stopped me. They were like "suimasen suimasen suimasenn, (and in Japanese) I understand that it may be possible that you are busy at the moment, but my name is officer yadayadayada, and if it’s okay with you, could you show me your passport?"
Now keep in mind, I still wasn’t fluent in Japanese, and I didn’t do anything wrong, so I didn’t know why they were talking to me, and I didn’t really know what they were saying either. I asked them to repeat what they were saying like 2-3 times, and then I think I responded “oh no I’m not that busy, I’m just going to school”. Because in Japanese, especially polite Japanese, people say all this shit that if you take literally, you will not understand the meaning. So for example,
A, sumimasenn, O isogashī tokoro kyōshukudesuga, yoroshikereba, ryoken o misete kuremasen ka. O sumai wa dochiradeshou ka?
And at my Japanese level last year, all I really understood was:
A, sumimasen. Isogashii.
So I thought they were doing a survey or something. And then, they looked at my ID, they said
“Aaa, beikoku??” Oh, you’re American?
And then they bowed and said suimasen suimasen suimasen (which by the way, in this case, means I’m sorry)
So then I was like huh, I don’t really understand what happened, but maybe if I study some more Japanese I’ll understand more of what happened.
And then, the next week, at the exact same time and place, (this is azabu juuban station by the way, a rich area with lots of foreigners), two different police officers checked me. But then this time, I was smarter, so I showed them look I'm from beikoku, and then they were like ah okay suimasen you can go. And then I was like, no no no, you can’t go yet. You need to explain why you checked me again in this spot. and they said well you see, recently, there may or may not have possibly maybe been accidents on public transit so we're just maybe just protecting the public from maybe potentially dangerous people.
So then I asked a lot of Japanese people about it, and this is what I think what happened:
So at first I was happy, because I thought I was getting asked for a survey. And then I realized oh they think I’m suspicious. Okay I’ve got one more police-related stories of life in Japan, right after this break
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Okay so before I get into the last story, I thought I might mention that I actually went to the Tokyo police department for a tour. Yes, you heard that right, I went there for a tour, I didn’t get dragged there for a crime.
It’s kind of like a museum, and my group had a lot of middle-school kids, so we got the special kid-oriented tour.
And you know what’s funny? You know how Japan has a big culture around kawaii, anime characters? Well the police also have a cute anime mascot, called peepokun. It’s supposed to be pee for people, and po for police. And that tour had a bunch of activities like seeing the 911 (hyakutouban) calls, and online safety education for kids. There’s a video that says “if an online stranger asks you for money, or asks you for your naked pictures, consult an adult”. And then they have a live Peepokun participating and chatting with volunteer kids from the crowd. But yeah I thought it was pretty funny how even the police has a special mascot character, sasuga nihon, of course Japan would.
One more little break before the final story.
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So that's two of the three times I got in trouble with the Japanese police, getting questioned by the police in azabu juban.
The third time, is I was riding a scooter. In the US, and in Japan, there’s a lot of little rental electric scooters you can use. In Japan it’s called LUUP, and in the US, you have a ton of different companies, like Lime, Lyft, Uber, Spin, there’s a ton of electric scooter apps. You download the app, and then you can ride electric scooters. You can pick them up and park them in the scooter parking areas. But in Japan, it’s really cheap. For example, if you’re going to ride the train for let’s say 15 minutes on a single line, you’ll probably pay something like $1.50, about 200 yen or so. And then you can also ride a scooter for about the same amount of time, for about the same price. So if the weather is good, scootering is great, I would highly recommend it. You don’t need a driver’s license either, you just take an English test in the app, which you can retake as many times as you want until you get a perfect store.
So then one day, I went to my friend’s house, and we were talking about scooters, and how great they are. But then, my friend said she got pulled over by the police for running a red light. A, aka shingou mushi desu yo ne? And then she had to pay like 6000 yen. That’s like $40. And we were all like eee maji kawaisou, that sucks… and then in my mind, I’m thinking “you got caught, but that’s rare. I’m not gonna get caught”
And then we had a good time, so it was time to go home. So I took a scooter home. And I wonder if you can guess what happened.
A police car started following me and was like tomari kudasai, tomari kudasai. Please stop.
And then they were like alright let me see your passport. And then I tried to get out of it by saying I don’t speak Japanese
Gomennnasorry watashi ha nihongo tabemasen desu.
And there’s 3 policemen, right? And they do the classic look at each other like “what do we do”. But one of those three guys, he didn’t care. He was like
“You. ルール. Break. You ride scooter. You use app. App has rule in English. You read English rule, you say yes, agree. So you know rule, and you break rule. Sorry, nobody likes fines, but it is warning to protect everyone.”
Ne, Kore kiite, meccha kandou shita yo. Yukkuri tango wo yutte, zenzen communication ga dekita. Tango to jishinn dake de tsuujiru.
This guy worked so hard to explain everything to me, a baka gaijin. All 3 of those policemen were really nice, and that guy kept translating the other 2 people’s japanese for me. Just vocabulary words and some confidence and it’ll get across. Great guys, I’m happy to pay my 5000 yen, which was extremely easy to do, took about 3 mins.
6000 en bakkin sareta hito ha make inu desu.
So I actually have one more story about the police in the US doing a really bad job, but it’s a heavy story, so I think I’ll save it for another time. Okay let’s go ahead and wrap things up
Just remember that everyone, including police are individual people, so just because some individual policeman are bad, doesn’t mean other policemen are also bad. And you shouldn’t steal from stores, because if you wanna hurt them, bad reviews will hurt them more. And with that, thank you for listening, this was chestnut english podcast, with me your host Chris.