Mistaken Identity in Modern Japan
I’ve been in Japan for the past week and change now, and I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to post. It’s been a wonderful experience, and I hope to come back in the future.
A detective stopped me in the Akihabara police station and asked to see my identification, but he seemed to lose interest almost immediately once I took it out, and he only gave it a cursory glance-over. I couldn’t understand why he did that, until later when I was fishing around for my rail pass. If I have a particularly large load in my upper left pockets, I realized, my jacket makes it look a little like I’m wearing a shoulder holster. Handguns are highly illegal in Japan, so naturally I think he felt compelled to investigate. Really that was a very clever trick – he stood off to the side slightly while I did this, enough to get a look into my jacket and see that the bulge was just a pocket full of wallet, papers, and other random bits that tourists pick up. It stayed low-key, he was in full control the whole time, and I didn’t even realize he thought something was wrong until much afterwards.
A few days later, on a much lighter note, I visited an onsen bath, about an hour south of Tokyo proper. The hostess mistook me for a girl at first and nearly handed me a key to the women’s locker room. She caught herself in time. It’s not the first time that’s happened to me, and I’m used to laughing it off (really I think it’s a nice sort of compliment).
It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind overview tour, and I’m still a bit shocked that it’s coming to an end. Right now it’s some ungodly-o-clock and I’ve been traveling all day, so I’ll post more pictures when I get a chance.
Oh, that’s kinda cool, actually. I mean…not that you were suspected for having a handgun or anything, of course! Just the way he did it.
Heheheh. I’ve been mistaken for the opposite gender too. It can be amusing, yes? I take it onsen bath is a bathhouse of some sort?
Can’t wait to see some pics!
PS
The pic up here won’t load for some reason
PPS
This is DreamSkaype–I’ve switched dA accounts and am now running around with the pen name I hope to use :]
I was very impressed by the detective work, to be sure.
An onsen is, yes, a public Japanese bathhouse, particularly one fed by natural hotsprings.
I fixed the picture. The site isn’t used to me posting from Japan, and there are apparently a few issues around that.
( Surprise coming soon! )
Wow, that was really suprising, and the gender confusion bit? I’ve been there before. I dont like wearing tight fitting clothes and my looks lean more towards my father’s side so most people think i’m a boy. it’s kind of hard to date my bf when people stae at us. LOL