“The characteristics of foreigner criminals visiting Japan.” (”来日外国人犯罪の特徴”)
A handbook “sponsored by the Shizuoka-Ken Head Police Station, the Shizuoka-Ken Association for the Prevention of Crime”

Link to Zone81 blog where this masterpiece is printed in its entirety (though without Japanese you won’t get much out of it — the pictures are fun to look at though).

I’ve been looking around a lot for some form of confirmation on this one, but my Japanese sort of fails me. What I did find was almost as bad though. Practically every prefecture in Japan has a [prefecturename].go.jp (government dot japan) page which lists “visiting foreigner criminals/crime in Japan”, divided into racial heritage with cute little diagrams and such.

Before I came to Japan, I knew it would be one of the few places on earth that I could go to and be “mistreated” for being a white male. Not a lot of places where you can get that these days. I knew, and I came here anyway, because I am fascinated by the Japanese language, the people who speak it, their culture, and how they came to be as isolated and “we vs them” as they appear from the outside (and from the inside as well, to a great extent). If I had wanted good treatment and smiley faces and chirpy birds, Japan would not have been on my list of places to go.

Some days pass and all I am greeted with is friendliness, openness, a willingness to accept each other as brothers across the world, and such floweriness. Today, as I came home from my test-ride to my potentially new school (was timing it to see when I had to get up in the morning) an old lady walked across the street as I was buying a coke from a … uh … jidouhanbaiki (the fuck is that in English?). I looked at her and she looked at me for a sec, and then she nodded and smiled and I nodded and smiled back. I realized that the Japanese are big on greetings. Even if you don’t know a person, you might nod to them if you end up inadvertently trampling into their bubble — such as looking at them while they happen to be looking at you. I tend to turn my head away and do my thing in those cases, but I think a Japanese might have nodded or something to acknowledge the other’s presence.

Then other days I am baffled by the blatant racism and ignorance that permeates this place. Such as the above “handbook”. I think part of the problem is that 20% of Japan’s population are all above 65 years of age. Old people tend to forget about equality and understanding cultural differences and such things. Sadly.