It's some minutes before 9 am. I stop to take a picture of something I find interesting so I lean my bike against the wall. It is obvious I'm just stopping to take a picture, I have the camera in my hands, arms sticking out, looking through the LCD screen. It's a backstreet, not busy at all.
A Japanese granny comes from behind and says something I don't understand. She repeats it 2 or 3 times more and starts pointing at my bike so I intelligently start to understand what she means -I'm level 4, I'm getting there-: you can't leave your bike here.
The last time she says it she takes of her anti-allergy mask so that I can see her face, a face full of anger. She can't realize that I'm not leaving my bike there, obvious as it is she can't see that I'm only taking a picture, that it's only a matter of seconds until I'm finished. And she can't see all that because I'm a gaijin, a foreigner, and she doesn't like me.
I'm all polite all the way until I see her face full of contempt, then she turns into an old rug from the respectful old lady she was. And I lose my nerve. I burst 'ちょっと待てね！' as in 'Can't you fucking wait?'. Not that I know how to swear in Japanese, but that's what I mean and she got it and walked away.
After a loooong day at school I set off on my bike again: I wanna get home, chill out. School is some 10k's from home, 45 minutes of an up and down mamachari ride.
When I'm almost there the police pull me over. It's around 8 pm and I think 'Great, as I didn't cover my share of racism this morning!'. I get ready for 20 minutes of racist none sense, I know this, It's happened 4 times before. This time it's 3 policemen, it might take forever. But then one of them opens his snout and barks it is dangerous for me to go with the cars, that I should use the pavement. I think it's funny and slightly silly, as everybody goes with the cars, but it's nice of him, isn't it? And maybe suspicious too.
I slowly eat my miss-conceptions and prejudices as he speaks and he slowly looks down to the registration number of the bike. Snap! I wasn't wrong at all. He starts talking about the bike, is the bike mine? I'm tired, I wanna get home and I remember the incident with the Wicked Witch of West Shinjuku this morning, so I lose it again. 'Aaaaah, is that it? It's always the same, isn't it? It is because I'm a gaijin? Do you wanna see the papers?'. I'm amazed at my Japanese that moment. He goes 'Oh, have you got the papers?', as in 'Wow, we found an intelligent one!'.
So they check the papers, everything's in order and they set me free letting go a thousand 'Sumimasen', 'Gomendasai' and 'Ki wo tsukete's. They can apologize as long as they want: they stopped me because I'm white, I know it, they know it, but they don't give a flying shit. I have never ever seen a Japanese and his/her bike being stopped before. I've been stopped FIVE times.
Anyway, not matter how hard some (just a few of them) try, I still love this city. So they're gonna fail all the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment