Stopped by police patrol around love hotels

Simonka said:
Safety measures: Delete any trace of SW from your phone if you use apps like Line or Whatsapp. Very low risk but they may check your phone. Don't leave emails or Tag conversations open.
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Don't sweat that. They can't inspect the contents of your phone without a court order.
 
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I
ShowaJidai said:
The real game-changer in my attitude and level of comfort in living here came when I completely owned my decision to be here. I came back here of my own free will after I left the military and knew what I was getting into. Every day that I stay is my decision to do so.

Yes, I have built my career and my life here so it would be very difficult to move to anywhere - but that doesn't mean I am required to stay.

When I hear old-timers (some who haven't been here as long as I have) complain I generally tune them out.
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I think some (all?) people just need to vent sometimes. Be it about Japan or what have you. What’s wrong with that? Can we never complain? Or if you complain sometimes, does that mean you hate_____________,(fill in the blank)?

Sometimes you just need to vent and immigrants do it with other immigrants. (I find it interesting that none of you use this word). Many of us are immigrants. But we’ve been brainwashed to think we are “guests” or foreigners.

What I find sad at times,is that we are not willing to really listen to each other, and empathize. It sucks being discriminated against. It sucks getting stopped by the police. Let’s have some compassion for each other.
 
TheScientist said:
A search is not allowed to extend to what is inside a person's phone unless the person consents to such a search. What is in someone's bag or pockets is only an issue if that item is either illegal on its own or an be directly connected to an existing criminal case.
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Try refusing. I tried to refuse a search of my car. They cannot force you without just cause, but they will keep you until you give in. They don’t like it when you stand up for your rights and regard it as disrupting police business.
 
User#8628 said:
Right? Japan a police state? Even though there is police on every streetcorner, they don’t actually intimidate people and get into their business too much. I feel like they do checks and other things to fill their quota or because other citizen ask them to, but they don’t actually seem to get a powertrip out of stopping people like police in other countries, and i’ve seen them be very patient with people who would definitely not have gotten that treatment elsewhere.
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Japan is a police state. The police regard themselves as you parents, mother or fill in the authority figure you want. It is not egalitarian that way. But it is a mostly benign police state. But like most police in most countries, they are biased against people who do not look like them.
 
I know of an innocent guy who was thrown into a chair by a Japanese policeman, but in general at least they are perhaps one of the most nonviolent police forces in the world.

Verbally,some of them can be very rude, and some are bullies and will try to intimidate with their stares.

Most are polite enough.

But the same personality types that are attracted to the yakuza, those who love power, are also attracted to police work.
 
Snuggles said:
What’s wrong with that? Can we never complain?
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There is complaining to your best friend over a beer and then there is bitching to a unknown crowd in an unrelated internet forum. Everyone does the former, nobody gets compassion doing the latter.

Snuggles said:
Japan is a police state.
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Indeed it is and I don't think many people disagree. That's just one more reason to keep your nose clean and the boys in blue, if not happy then at least satisfied.
 
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Snuggles said:
Japan is a police state. The police regard themselves as you parents, mother or fill in the authority figure you want. It is not egalitarian that way. But it is a mostly benign police state. But like most police in most countries, they are biased against people who do not look like them.
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Snuggles said:
in general at least they are perhaps one of the most nonviolent police forces in the world.

Most are polite enough.
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Imo many things in Japan are like that, not perfect...could be improved...but nevertheless far better than the vast majority of other places in the world. I think this is particularly true for gaijin who do not have to bear the heavy burden of expectations and conformity that the Japanese impose on themselves. Having had experience of a lot of other countries and places, complaining about life in Japan always strikes me as sort of unreasonable...would be like going to your favorite restaurant with the best food in town and complaining that it could be even better.

That said, I do understand that being aware of problems and pointing them out is one of the ways to make things improve. The world would be in bad shape indeed if most people were willing to settle happily for "good enough".

-Ww
 
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In discussions like these everyone is speaking in general terms about their own little world and ignoring or not empathising with others. The fact that you are well employed, healthy and free from major life issues doesn't have any relationship to the life of others. As a simple example, I have never been stopped by the police, but a friend of mine was stopped every single day on his way to and from work for over 3 months until the company president contacted the local police and asked them to leave him alone - now he gets stopped only a few times a week.

Wwanderer said:
Having had experience of a lot of other countries and places, complaining about life in Japan always strikes me as sort of unreasonable...would be like going to your favorite restaurant with the best food in town and complaining that it could be even better.
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That's a pretty stupid analogy but a good example of exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately Japan is not a restaurant where you may select whatever you want from a standard menu, some people get a shit sandwich. Ask anyone who is divorced and is unable to see their children, they don't care about any of the good things that you appreciate about Japan.

(I've never really understood why people feel the need to use analogies to make their point, if you can't make an argument directly you probably haven't thought too deeply about it. But the way people make analogies is very instructive about the assumptions and biases they have)
 
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User#8628 said:
Right? Japan a police state? Even though there is police on every streetcorner, they don’t actually intimidate people and get into their business too much. I feel like they do checks and other things to fill their quota or because other citizen ask them to, but they don’t actually seem to get a powertrip out of stopping people like police in other countries, and i’ve seen them be very patient with people who would definitely not have gotten that treatment elsewhere.
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I once saw a rather high or drunk dude(wasn't sure if he was Japanese or a foreigner) constantly challenging a police officer at a koban next to Shibuya Station, getting close to his face on several occasions even though he was pulled back by his friend several times. Police did not physically do anything to him and were extremely patient and calm. It was pretty crazy and went on for over 20 minutes. Anywhere else, and he would've had his butt tased or restrained.
 
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Snuggles said:
Japan is a police state.
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No... Really no. I'm old enough and traveled enough to have experienced East Germany. That was a police state. Japan of the 21st century is most definitely not a police state. Several of your other comments also show a pretty deep ignorance regarding the local police and perhaps those in other countries, its almost as if you've never actually spent any time talking to people in that profession.
 
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TheScientist said:
No... Really no. I'm old enough and traveled enough to have experienced East Germany. That was a police state. Japan of the 21st century is most definitely not a police state. ...
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I agree completely and was going to post essentially the same thought above, but I decided to avoid a semantic argument. One could argue for caling any state/country that employs police to enforce law and order a "police state" I suppose. But Japan is not remotely close to the conventional definition and usage of the expression. See for example

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/police state

which, for those of you who don't want to bother clicking, says

"a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures". Text made bold for emphasis.

Here is a list of characteristics of a police state:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/...ce-state-and-how-they-are-appearing-in-the-us

And here is a list of specific current and recent countries classified as police states:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Police_state#A_few_clear-cut_examples_of_police_states

And finally, like @TheScientist, I have spent some time in places that are or were police states according to such normal understandings of the term (notably the old Soviet Union, some Eastern European countries in the Soviet era and Chile under Pinochet), and no one could possible mistake them, their public life or their police for anything even vaguely resembling the situation in current day Japan.

Btw, in the decades just before and during WW-2, Japan was a police state.

In other words, to say that Japan is currently a police state is to either mean something unconventional by the term or, more simply, to be wrong. Calling it a "benign police state" is somewhat clarifying but also an oxymoron.

-Ww
 
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Wwanderer said:
One could argue for calingl any state/country that employs police to enforce law and order a "police state" I suppose.
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Unfortunately such distortion of terms has become all too common on the left and the right in political discourse in Japan and in the west. Let me qualify that in that the right tends to engage in hyperbole rather than redefinition of terms (moving the goalposts). Contemporary examples of this are all too common:

  • Calling a head of state one doesnt agree with (or often doesnt even understand) a dictator.
  • Use of the term "war crimes" by those who have zero knowledge of either of those two words
One could argue these things but I consider it a sign of mental weakness to do so.

Wwanderer said:
Btw, in the decades just before and during WW-2, Japan was a police state.
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As I said before "of the 21st century" with the understanding that the Kenpeitai exerted influence on state policy and acted without state supervision as we understand the term from the late 19th century up until the end of the war.

Wwanderer said:
In other words, to say that Japan is currently a police state is to either mean something unconventional by the term or, more simply, to be wrong. Calling it a "benign police state" is somewhat clarifying but also an oxymoron.
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I wouldn't even go that far as it is still essentially a distortion and attempt to move the goalposts.
 
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Just a data point: I had an (excellent) session with a Thai Plaza (most of whose girls are working illegally) girl today and she mentioned a lot of police presence around Uguisudani station this week and she'd already been ID checked once. They didn't hassle her beyond making her produce her passport (which had a valid visa albeit not one allowing any kind of work) but she seemed pretty scared.
 
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I can agree there is a lot more police outside than before. I see a police car almost every time i’m in any love hotel area.
I was recently in the central kabukicho area to meet a tagger, and i saw at least one police car, and two times two police men walking together.
I’m very relieved I didn’t get a bag check, because i got some nice toys as a present from the guy i met and that would have been embarrassing!
But I wonder if its a problem if they recognize me as someone who’s often hanging out there in the presence of men...

I have never had a bag search ever though and while i’ve had some ID checks in the past, that hasn’t happened to me recently, last time may have been two years ago.
 
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On New Year’s Eve I was walking back to my hotel room when I saw some girl walking past the Koban with a Japanese guy close behind her, she said something to the officer standing outside and then the guy started sprinting away with the cops chasing him. One of the touts outside a club looked at me and said “You don’t see that everyday”, I wonder if Kabukicho/Shinjuku is having an increase in crime lately to cause a spike in police presence.
 
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It was last year when I was staying in ANA Intercontinental.

A friend of mine was driving me back to the hotel in a weekday afternoon. He somehow missed the hotel entrance so he had to drive around that area.

And in less than 10 mins he was stopped 3 times by different officers, and every time both of us were ordered to produce ID:(
 
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TAG Manager said:
That's unusual...
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Aye...later I found there was a sticker on his car he bought somewhere in Hokkaido as a souvenir, which contains the kanji of '大和'.

We must have thus been recognized as some sort of uyoku dantai protesters by the police patrolling US embassy and Paliament House:bear:
 
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I imagine they have a plan to start cracking down on things leading up to the Olympics, imagine some of the scam shops/tout groups / less legitimate shops etc are going to be rounded up in the next year, police presence increased all over the city.

Anyone here before they started cracking down in the early 2000's will remember what a different landscape we used to have.
Fashion Health etc at every station.
Akihabara of all places was my go-to stop for Fuzoku shops, and these were legitimate shops not weird JK shops with secret options.

Back then Shibuya was a scary place. Iranians selling drugs on the corners, touts all over the place, scouts for women going after everyone. Weird people in Pikachu costumes just loitering around. Groups of delinquent youths. It is amazing how cleaned up it has become.
 
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okayspot said:
Anyone here before they started cracking down in the early 2000's will remember what a different landscape we used to have.
Fashion Health etc at every station.
Akihabara of all places was my go-to stop for Fuzoku shops, and these were legitimate shops not weird JK shops with secret options.

Back then Shibuya was a scary place. Iranians selling drugs on the corners, touts all over the place, scouts for women going after everyone. Weird people in Pikachu costumes just loitering around. Groups of delinquent youths. It is amazing how cleaned up it has become.
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I remember all that and more vividly, but I would not have called it particularly scary...and afaik, the dangers to anyone's personal safety were pretty minimal compared to any other major world city you can name.

It is no doubt a matter of personal taste, but today's sanitized Tokyo has much less "personality" and is less fun/interesting from my perspective.

-Ww
 
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okayspot said:
Anyone here before they started cracking down in the early 2000's will remember what a different landscape we used to have.
Fashion Health etc at every station.
Akihabara of all places was my go-to stop for Fuzoku shops, and these were legitimate shops not weird JK shops with secret options.

Back then Shibuya was a scary place. Iranians selling drugs on the corners, touts all over the place, scouts for women going after everyone. Weird people in Pikachu costumes just loitering around. Groups of delinquent youths. It is amazing how cleaned up it has become.
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That sounds amazing tbh. Places that are too santized become boring really fast and Tokyo suffered a lot with that. By the time I saw Akihabara it was already becoming a shell of its former self and even I think it's changed a lot since the first time I visited Japan. It's just a tourist trap now. Bring back a time when everything was out in the open. I guess it's only getting worse now.
 
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