I’m sure someone out there has dreamed of spending days in a tenth floor, waterfront suite in swanky Shinagawa-ku letting time roll by as you laze around, while looking out the window at Tokyo harbor as you wait for room service to deliver your breakfast. Am I right? Perhaps you have a cup of coffee and read a bit, or maybe you decide to succumb to the desire for a mid-morning siesta.
No work. No screaming kids. No responsibilities. Are you wondering where this mystical Utopia might be found? Are you asking “Oh sweet god. How can I find this Nirvana of which he speaketh?” It’s simple enough.
Just overstay, or otherwise violate the conditions of your VISA and make sure Japanese immigration hears about it.
I am as you read this, being detained on the tenth floor, “I” wing, of the Shinagawa immigration building. I have violated the immigration and foreign residence “law” by overstaying my VISA.
If you squint you can see me on the 10th floor waving from my penthouse prison. Come visit!
I know, I can hear the enraged cries for justice from the lynch mob gathered ten floors below. Their pitch forks and torches look ready to teach me a lesson indeed. “Villain!”
OK, so you hate me. “Give him the chair!” I hear you say, but please dear reader, don’t write me off just yet. I’ve made some mistakes, sure, and I’ll get into those eventually, but today I am only addressing the realities of being “detained” by immigration.
First off, the cops don’t run immigration and aren’t anywhere near here.
In fact this isn’t even a “jail.” If you have seen or spent any time with the cops in Japan you’ll know how much fun that is … FUN!. But things here are quite different. The immigration staff are generally friendly and cooperative. From the processing agents to the “guard men”, who all seem to be either 20 years old or 60, things seem to be geared toward making sure everyone is taken care of as opposed to being “punished” or “controlled.”
The rooms are tatami mats.
Half rooms or full rooms each has a proper toilet (The can even has a door!) and a flat screen T.V. connected to the greatness that is Japanese TV. Large sinks, like those found in most Japanese public institutions along with an electric water heater and two long tables, not to mention futons, are the basic amenities of each room.
From 0930 to 1200 the electronic doors to each room open and you are free to move around the wing. There is a vending machine, as everyone is allowed to keep their wallets and watches, and there are also public phones which may be used after purchasing a phone card.
We head back to the rooms at noon with lunch at 12:30 and then the doors open again from 13:30 to 15:30. One of my “roommates” wakes up around this time and habitually sleeps through the whole morning and nobody cares (Normal prison guards obsess with controlling every ones’ sleepy times). Showers are open everyday at your leisure during the open door hours as well as a full laundry. Shopping, from a catalogue of things you can get at most fully stocked convenience stores, is available although much to my dismay there is a distinct lack of beer on the menu.
“The bottom line”, as we Americans are so fond of saying, is…
…that the conditions are civilized and the “guests” fall into two groups; people waiting to go home to their respective countries and those of us that are trying to stay. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to stay, and nearly everyone has a reason for overstaying (me too more on that next time) but my motivations for trying to stay are a collection of fantastic friends, misfits one and all, people I genuinely treasure, and finally and most potently, a four year-old reason that loves alligators, action figures, is a confirmed ma-ma’s boy and marches to a beat only he seems to hear. Too many shades of his father.
Stay or go, I love Tokyo and am forever linked with this city and for this reason I remember nothing is forever and nothing’s impossible.
PS: They don’t give me access to computers here so this has been written down on TP, smuggled out of the jail and typed up and posted by Yosomono. I feel like Nelson Mandela! [Yosomono rolls his eyes at that last comment]
Read more from “Nelson Mandela” by Checking out:
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| 7 Books for Warriors | Corn Soup Confessional | Cute vs Sexy | Kickboxing in Japan | 7 reasons not go to the clink in Japan |
Gaijinass 
Well…I care that you’ve been locked up. When no one else stopped by to see you..*nods head*
I can’t drop by to C U as I live a long way up Japan, but am really surprised, all f%$#@ up and pissed that immigration has got you. How come, thought you had a visa through your school. Good luck, what are your options? Don’t know if you can answer but anyway I’m chugging some suds on your behalf.
Mark, Yamagata.
Wot?! I diodn´t see this one coming. Do you have to be in a look out in the showers as in common jail (Lol?) :P?
For how long will you be there? I am guessing Yasomono will be kind enough to relay the messages 😀
Gaijinass is a pretty big guy and as the only European in detention he stands at least a foot above everyone else. Soap dropage not an issue.
Detention in Japan is never straight forward so it could be week or a year. He talked to some people who have been there for years trying to get their VISA processed. But at the same time the people on the inside are jealous of his chances to get this resolved quickly.
Having done 21,11/10 and 3 days locked up over here I can say the “soap” issue is mostly a result of General pop system along with people doing life or extensive time. A guy still fighting to get out is not thinking so much about fucking a guy for the 1st time .
If it’s a general pop system with a hierarchy and men who will never see a real pussy again….then that’s another thing.
damn that sucks that you are in there but at least it is better than jail. Good Luck.
Hopefully this is all sorted out “quickly”… although it sounds pretty “swank” there! Also, THANK YOU for the enlightening post link to :”7 reasons to avoid the clink in Japan”
Wow, locked up? Do we need to start a #freeGaijinass campaign?
No work, no screaming kids, and no responsibilities…I was so ready to go til you said where it is. Disturbing, entertaining, and educational all at the same time. Your blog has enough material to keep me busy reading for a while…not suggesting that you won’t be missed. Still, what a wild ride. Hope this doesn’t have too much of a negative impact on your ability to function upon getting out. Your fantastic friends must be very understanding. Regards from this fly on the wall.
Damn, that sucks! I’m sure you’ve got good advice already, but if you have a kid here you’re due for a “long term resident” visa (a buddy of mine is working on getting one of those right now in fact):
http://english.visajapan.jp/teiju.html
i remember the migra ( Mexican for immigration police) doing a raid at one of the gaijing houses in the asakusa area i was residing in.
Unfortunately for a what appeared to be a 20 year old intern or new person knocked on my sliding door. me being hung over from the night before gave this lucky girl a look at my 18 year old chorizo at the time because i failed to realize i was naked. we just stood there for a second she turned bright red i looked down put on a smug smile and invited her in. cute girl then proceeded to call in one of the older dudes over just slipped some boxers on gave em my pass word and kept winking at the cutie who would turn beet red anytime i would look her way best immigration raid ever. makes me Wish i was back in Tokyo instead of okinawa that and the lack of my fellow brothers in arms.
passport not my password
btw swordfish cough* cough*
You have got to be kidding me! Why didnt you go for a 3 year exstension? I am not gonna type the huge bit I did a few seconds ago (only to bump the wrong button on this tiny laptop……) who am I kidding I have nothing better to do.
At least you didnt die from pancreatitus. I shall explain that non-sequiter. Okay, First I find this guy on youtube that reviews j-horror flicks. I was drunk and figured eh something to watch.
Well as my life spiralled down and inward into its own little hell I found myself bored one night and decided to check up on this youtube guy again. It was over a year later. He, Rodger Swan had moved to Japan and was teaching English in Iwate. He had moved on to posting videos about everyday life in Japan. I was amazed. Through his informative videos I could escape my own little hell and vacation in Japan, in a way. Then he died of pancreatitus (how do you even spell that?).
All was not lost. I remembered someone who had appeared in one of his videos. Tokyo Cooney, a comedian who also lived in Japan and had his own youtube channel.
Cooney wasn’t as informative or concerned with everyday life. Still he was funny and that kept my interest. I did even learn a few things. Then he got his own T.V. show and quit posting.
I decided that was it enough youtube crap. I happened upon you through a cracked article. You talk about so many interesting Japanese subjects in a very straight forward way. I was learning about Japan, entertained and able to live out my dream through someone else.
Well part of my dream, the being in Japan part anyway. Plus you made geeky coments every once in awhile, so yeah a real human being not some standard run of the mill brochure about all the bright shiny parts of Japan. Yeah M.E.R.P. perhaps geekier than DND.
Please for the love of GOD! tell me you have a way to stay in Japan and keep up the articles? I have almost read all of the Japan posts. I to go have a long way to go before I am even speaking with any of my Japanese pen pals on webcam and even long before I set foot on Japanese soil. Que the sad pathetic explination of a web thing (can’t really put a human title on the average web user, instead they get terms like troll).
I lost my career a few years ago and am now going to college for god only knows, at age 31. I have lost a house and then a rental and now live in my parents basement on a cot next to a computer and a black widow I smashed against the wall. Even that stupid half manx cat of my parents has its own room, but I am crammed in the basement (which is used for storage) as long as my food stamp card keeps providing me with a way to buy my parents food. Then it is back onto the streets.
My wife is an alcoholic, I cant get her to agree to a divorce that doesn’t totally rape me and I have about $80,000.oo dollars in debt which will soon become a number I do not wish to type. The debt is just waiting for my two year college to finish next summer and then it gets the steroid boost it needs to hulk out on me.
I have one thing going for me. A rocking Pen pal from Japan. She is beyond what I would have listed for the perfect woman. She knows I am allergic to grass and that I am living with my parents while going to college. Anyway not that any of this matters.
Just saying COME ON WTF!? DUDE SERIOUSLY! Find a way out of this situation and get yourself a 3 year work visa for the love of god.
That said, I am not a total loser just yet. I have goals and kinda have a longshot way of achieving them. I could land on my feet and rebuild my life into something not bad if it all works. My Pen pal is certainly more than enough motivation. If she doesn’t work out for me well then I made it this far once with an awesome Japanese female and there are plenty of fish in the sea so to speak.
Oh yeah I did say way to much but thats where the anonimty of the net rocks. Hope everything works out. I am gonna read some of the other recent things you posted. Then its back to finishing off the Japan posts.
My dream btw is to direct samurai dramas for the Japanese straight to video market. Laugh all you want you’ve played M.E.R.P. too. I did also achieve being a licensed insurance agent at 20 for life acident and health insurance in 29 states. So this isn’t a totaly impossible dream.
wow just typing this has made me crave liqour. Well I will have a glass for you. don’t get to relaxed in there, some of us would like to see you keep writting about life in Japan.
That f’n cat. It went something like “hey mom, dad I know I am just sleeping on a chair in the living room and I noticed that the room in the back of the house doesn’t really have anything going on so how about you guys let me sleep in there? I mean that chair is uncomfortable as hell and I am using all my food stamp card fund to get you two groceries to kind of thank you for letting me stay so how about it?” Parents almost in unison “but thats the cat’s room” me “the cat gets a frikin room and i get that old uncomfortable chair that no one will even set in?” dad “we are not gonna make the cat give up it’s room for you” mom “I was thinking about getting a new chair to replace that bad one” dad “well he isn’t going to sleep in a brand new chair. That would ruin it.” parents together “basement” me “come on the cat only goes into that room to eat and that is just because you put it’s food dish in there. Just put it’s food anywhere else and the cat won’t even notice” dad “so if you can find enough space somewhere in the basement you can set up a cot, and watch out for the leaks.” (run on paragraph anyone?)
Yeah thats just one small segment of my weird but, not-in-a-good way life.
Get out of visa prison if you have to kickbox your way out and fix your situation so I can get back to ignoring mine till it goes away.
You sir are, what we in “the biz” call, a “trip”‘. Believe it or not, I was ACTUALLY able to follow your thinking there! When you think about the cat jackin’ you, just remember the basement is a big step up from newspaper for a blanket alleys (been there…), with complimentary shoe chewing rats. Capisce??!!??
Oh that cat. THAT EVIL F’N CAT! When ever it catches me falling asleep it starts walkin to the other end of the house. Then just as I am dozing off it gets a running start and leaps so its entire weight is behind the hadouken it delivers with one-fat-overfed-declawed-paw to my face (it goes for they eyes, lips and nose).
Okay I had never even heard of a Manx being a housepet till my sister started breeding them. She thought if she bred a full blood manx with a regular housecat then she would get an exotic looking domestic animal she could sell. SHE MADE SATAN!
Eventually she gave up the idea. this one though had been declawed and her boyfriend at the time didn’t like it (wonder why), so she gave it to my parents. Its dreams of being a prize fighter are a source of comedic entertainment to them (whom it never hadoukens). Thank god the basement door keeps the cat upstairs. If I get drowsy I just head downstairs so SATAN can’t practice evil cat fu on me.
Now This cat is more proof that my parents didn’t want me and may even despise me. See growing up they always let me know they wanted a girl instead and when they had my sister they made it more aparent when they actually treated her like she was their kid. I got treated like a slave and beaten like a captured enemy soldier. Well now the cat (a frikin housepet) is even getting treated better.
I get to spend the next week looking after the damn animal while they are on vacation. Yay slave to the cat from the ninth layer. I can’t even get revenge on it cause if anything happens to it, if it so much as acts funny when they get back, I am out.
So yeah a lot to the cat situation that I did not explain. Sometimes I am just minding my own buisness, walking to the fridge or whatever and it hisses at me then its the parents screaming at me for a half hour. If I try to go to the bathroom at night it emits this low satanic growl that a cat should not be capable of.
I don’t hit it. I don’t do anything mean to it. I even try (unsuccessfully) to pet it at times. Do not get a manx or even a half manx. Man I gotta clean up its litter for a week. I have sunken so low I am looking after that satan spawns excriment.
Oh well a week without the parents screaming at me and trying to get me to quit college and do factory work for minimum wage. So that is a plus. I also just finished writing a reply letter to my awesome, amazing (redundant speech i know) pen pal. She even said she wants to hear me. Yeah I may make it to phone calls or a video chat soon. Hell yeah, happiest moment of my life!
I can use this week off to catch up on the college homework they (the parents) kept interupting on me all week. Why does my life have to be full of such bad weird unbelieveable crap? Seriously that cat! WHO HAS THAT KIND OF CAT COME IN TO THERE LIFE THAT ISN’T IN A CARTOON!?
Wow, gonna get into my leftover red wine tonight (yay ten dollar bottle). Hey thanks for the reply. I am amazed you could follow my train of though. I reread that crap before replying and it took me a few tries to make sense of it. Gaijinass probably wishes I would leave his site alone at this point. I WISH HE HADN’T TRIED TO STAY ILLEGALLY AND ENDED UP IN VISA JAIL INSTEAD OF JUST GETTING A THREE YEAR WORK VISA! STAND UP COMICS PULL OFF A THREE YEAR WORK VISAS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
Really though I hope all turns out well Gaijin
…but even so I respect you.
I and everyone who like you will keep respecting and liking you as far as you always face your life.
Very true words Michiko.
“Stay or go, I love Tokyo and am forever linked with this city and for this reason I remember nothing is forever and nothing’s impossible.”
If, possible I think you should stay. If, you leave the chances of you being able to see your four year old again could drop substantially. I hope, they will allow you to re-new your visa and leave in peace.
STATUS UPDATE??
very different from Indonesia…..