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UPDATE: Saturday, June 12, 2010      The Japan Times Weekly    2004年4月17日号 (バックナンバー)
 
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SLEEPLESS IN SETAGAYA

Neighborhood watch

By ROBERT HALLAM

* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

I am worried. I am convinced that I am being watched.

It's not the cursory, casual glance on the train or the curious school kids' stare, or the angry "what the hell are you doing in my neighborhood/country" glare. No, I mean WATCHED as in monitored, observed, scrutinized, checked up on.

I'm a law-abiding permanent resident. All my documentation is in order -- my wife makes scrupulously sure of that. I pay my local and state taxes. I stand when the Kimigayo is played. I watch the Yomiuri Giants play baseball and I believe that Shigeo Nagashima is the greatest sportsman the world has ever seen or is ever likely to see. And after many headaches from confronting the brick wall, I've learned the wonderful tranquilizing powers of one, simple word: shoganai.

I am boringly normal. Hopefully, anonymous.

And yet the Justice Ministry wants my neighbors to keep an eye on me.

I admit that when I get angry I raise my voice. When I lose my temper I have been known to stomp out of a room and leave the door vibrating in its frame behind me. And when life, or usually my wife, gets the better of me, I will sometimes utter an expletive or two, perhaps even three before shoganai comes to mind. The other day I had an heated exchange and nearly came to blows with a curtain that had decided to attach itself to a window shutter -- much to the amusement of my son.

Although I accept that some people may view my very existence in Japan as a crime, I am not a criminal.

But I live in a close-knit community in Setagaya -- there are just nine houses in our little Akazutsumi cul-de-sac and I am the only foreigner -- and I don't mean emotionally close. The wall of my next-door neighbor's house is 1.5 meters from mine. So my raised voice, angry footsteps echoing on our wooden floors and the quivering door I leave in my wake may be kinjo meiwaku (neighborhood disturbance/nuisance) or cause ken'o fuan (repugnance/anxiety), which are two of the criteria for denouncing foreigners to the ministry's Immigration Bureau Web site. The site was set up in February so people can anonymously report "suspicious" foreigners to the authorities.

Of course I would never accuse my neighbors of being government stooges, but when the state calls for volunteers to stand shoulder to shoulder on the barricades with Junichiro Koizumi and Shintaro Ishihara to turn back the foreign hordes, who could refuse? It's their patriotic duty.

I'm on nodding, ohayo gozaimasu terms with my neighbors, but I've never paid much attention to them and I thought and hoped the feeling was quite mutual. Now every time I go out of the house I'm aware of every twitch of every neighborhood curtain. It could be the wind, but who in their right mind has their windows open in January? I am particularly suspicious of the woman who lives opposite who always appears to be sweeping in front of her house -- morning and night -- when I leave or return home, the 3-year-old from two doors down who always -- and only -- wants to know how I am in English, and the house on the corner that has it blinds -- every blind -- down 24 hours a day. Perhaps that's their nerve center.

I wonder if the ministry knows about this obviously unstable foreigner? Or if it has been informed about the heated discussions -- OK, arguments -- between one of its citizens and a non-Japanese? Perhaps somewhere in the bowels of Nagata-cho there's a file on my "subversive" comments about reforming the education system, using the revenue from the consumption tax on what it is supposed to be used -- social welfare -- Zico Japan's chances of qualifying for the next soccer World Cup and, perhaps most damning of all, about Koizumi's hairstyle.

I'd welcome any comments or opinions, in Japanese or English, about my column. You can write or fax me at The Weekly, or e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: April 17, 2004
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