Laws and enforcement of laws in Japan can be a bit of a
nightmare for foreigners at times. What caught me most off-guard was what would
happen almost every night that I would come home rather late at night. As I
would be walking along minding my own business, I would be approached by 3-5
Japanese policemen in a car. The first time this happened I was horribly
nervous and scared as it happened in early September, and my Japanese was
fairly poor. They would stop me not because I had done something wrong or
anything, simply because I was a foreigner and they had the authority to do so.
It would take about 10 minutes of awkwardly trying to formulate responses for
their numerous questions until they would seemingly get bored and move on.
Something that really surprised me along the same lines of
racial discrimination was the various signage around Japan stating “No Foreigners”.
I had several experiences when trying to get into bars with some of my Japanese
friends when I got rejected just because I was a foreigner. This type of
behaviour was extremely shocking for me, considering coming from Canada where
multiculturalism is so heavily promoted. This is something that anyone going to
Japan will just have to learn to deal with, as there is absolutely nothing the
government will do for you.
Though this isn’t something that I faced directly, it’s
something that certainly pertains to Japanese laws. During the massive
earthquake and tsunami that affected Japan in March, I was shocked to see that
regardless of the situation, Japanese people still respected such basic laws as
waiting at a pedestrian crossing to cross the street. This really just
emphasise how much respect there is for rules and laws in Japanese society
