My friends, watching over me
January 28, 2002
I get strange looks from the local police. This neighborhood isn’t exactly the best Tokyo has to offer. At night in certain areas I’ve found myself running into “ladies of the night.” They are often foreign women working on a tourist visa from the Philippines, China and Korea. So foreigners walking through the neighborhood at night are considered suspect. Once I while coming home, I walked past a cop car with 3 possible 4 cops in it. It was at night and they were parked in one of the cramped side streets so common in Japan. I was trying to go to the store and since the streets are small I had to practically walk against the car. I heard horror stories about monitories being harassed in Japan, so I wasn’t surprised to find every set of eyes in the car grilling me. I tried to make light of the situation. I smiled, it was funny at the time because I was just going to the store. When I gave them a nod hello they didn’t flinch and they most certainly didn’t smile back.
Now I’ve just returned from my morning jog, which takes me past the police station. It is actually just a large room with two cops inside. I remember the first morning I ran past it, one of the cops almost broke his neck trying to see why I was running. I don’t think they pay much attention now. However when I went running today, a cop car followed me for about a city block just watching me. At first I was worried that they were going to interrupt my run and then I simple thought of it as a police escort. When they realized I wasn’t going to stop running for them and no one chasing me, they speed up and drove off.
It’s a shame. It was the same exact scene from the movie “Ali” starring Will Smith. In that scene he’s running through Harlem and the police ride up beside him and ask “who you running from boy?” Japan still has a long way to go but at least they keep their activities to watching.
March 28th, 2004 at 10:12 am
That really is a shame. Unfortunately, I don’t humans will be able to stop stereotyping people.
April 1st, 2004 at 7:15 pm
body
April 7th, 2004 at 11:23 pm
yea, i was born in africa and came to US, and i get constantly sterotyped. Too bad they havent gone through the troubles ive had myself, Oh yea ejovi i recently read your book, your life is quite like mine :). Except i was born and lived in africa for about 5-6 years of my life.