Job Discussion Forums

[Zzonkmiles]

I went back to the US for winter vacation and I had a great time. It was my first trip home since I first came to Japan a year and a half ago, so it was very therapeutic. By the end of my trip, I had recharged my battery and was ready to return to Japan.

Obviously, due to the heightened flight restrictions after September 11, I had to undergo rigorous screenings at the airport in the US. They made all the passengers take off their shoes, get screened with the wand, take their laptop computers out of their bags, etc. It was a hassle, but it was understandable. No big deal.

So I finally arrive at the Kansai Airport (KIX) and am tired after a 15 hour flight and am ready to go home. After a long wait at the baggage claim, I collect my bags and pass through immigration with no problem. Then when I was about to leave the airport, I had to go through customs. Of course I had nothing to declare. I then showed the agent my passport and ticket and suddenly he starts asking me all these questions in Japanese:

"Why did you come to Japan?"

"What is your job?"

"What's in your suitcase?"

"Do you have any merchandise?"

Okay, I'm getting a little bit flustered now. But I'm not angry, yet...

Then the customs agent took out a knife and asked if he could open my fucking suitcase and inspect it. Perhaps where I went wrong here was allowing him to do it without asking him why.

So he cuts the wire lock, opens the suitcase and starts rifling through my belongings. I had bought a lot of toiletries, such as toothpaste, face soap, and even vitamins, in addition to omiyage (magazines, books, candy). Then he'd hold something up from my suitcase and ask me what it was. Meanwhile my underwear and other clothes are falling out of the suitcase for all the passengers behind and around me to see. Then he takes the bottle of vitamins out and even opens it only to find that its safety seal is still intact. I had to identify half of the items in my suitcase to this guy, including lotion, shampoo, and even Dr. Seuss children's books! Fucking incredulous. Meanwhile, all the other passengers are just going through the other lines with no problems at all.

So then the customs agent calls another agent over to look through my suitcase. After the second agent inspects it, he then asks if he could do a fucking BODY SEARCH and instructs me to come to an area that is partitioned off. In this area, he told me to take off my shoes and he started looking inside both of them and inspecting them closely. Obviously, I had nothing suspicious in my shoes or in my suitcase, which they should have realized since I had already been screened to get on the airplane in the first place. He also asked me who I had bought those gifts for (which was none of his business) and asked where I worked. Then he said I was all clear and then said in English "thank you for understanding."

Yeah, whatever. I can only imagine how this situation would have played out if I couldn't speak Japanese at all...

Of course, none of the Japanese people who were going through customs were stopped. And, even though I don't want to say this, none of the Whites who were passing through customs were stopped either, even though some of them had more bags than I did. There were maybe 3 other Blacks on the plane with me, but I don't know what happened to them.

When I finally left the customs area, another Black guy and his Japanese wife approached me and told me they saw what had happened to me. They then told me that the customs agents have been doing that a lot recently to Black passengers (only) and they are looking for a way to solve this. This guy told me that it even happened to him the last time he flew into Kansai and that the agent stopped interrogating him when he found out that his wife was Japanese. Maybe the agents were looking for drugs and marijuana, since everyone knows only Blacks use and smuggle that stuff.

Anyway, this experience made me so angry and I was so taken aback by what was happening that I didn't know how to react to this, which is why I complied without making a scene. I wish I got those agents' names because I would love to report them. This experience was fucking humiliating, unnecessary, degrading, and unprofessional. I did make it back home though, which is the most important thing. But suddenly, living in this country has become a lot more unattractive to me. I can deal with the suspicious stares and the apprehensive women (pedestrians) who move away from me when I approach a traffic light and want to cross the street. But this was in an entirely different league. This level of racial profiling is something I would expect in the US, but not in Japan. Maybe I was just being naive.

And people wonder why Blacks in particular have a chip on their shoulder with respect to skin color...

[canuck]

You made this determination based on your experience and hearsay, that there is racial profiling. How many people go through the airport everyday? They search a lot of people to varying degrees. Big whoop. They searched you a little extra. They were just doing their job. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Move on.

[Nismo]

I got searched on the way out of Japan last time, almost exactly as you described. I'm white.

[Cshannon]

I dunno... sounds pretty harsh to me. Of, course one can only speculate about RACIAL profiling (as if anyone would admit it anyway), but I for one wouldn't be too surprised. My opinion is that racial discrimination can happen anywhere in the world, but I have been told by Japanese friends that racist views towards blacks in particular is not uncommon. Either way, the whole experience seems severe regardless of race. I just don't see how 'randomly' interrogating/body-searching the odd person (no pun intended) can be an effective way to stop anything. Maybe I just don't get it, but if it happened to me I'd be just as pissed of as zzonkmiles.

[Gordon]

Zzonkmiles, it may not have to do with race, but perhaps because you are a young male and were alone. They may feel there is a greater likelihood of smuggling than a female (harder to stash a gucci bag on your person) or someone with kids or an old person. That's no excuse how they handled it, but we all know how blunt people can be at airports. They are not hired for their kindness.

How were you dressed? I always make a point of wearing something semi-professional (and comfortable) when I travel through airports. Can't hurt.

[Glenski]

Zzonk,

Sounds fairly strict, but you said they spoke to you in Japanese. I know you have studied very hard in the last year or two, so you probably didn't make any attempt to force them to speak English, did you? That could explain why they spoke in Japanese, and I would expect that if you feigned innocence and that you couldn't speak Japanese, they would have found a way to communicate in English.

As for racial profiling, there's a guy on www.gaijinpot.com with a similar experience to you. Again, as someone pointed out here (and you yourself admitted), nobody knows who else on that flight was treated the way you were.

Accept the fact that it happened peacefully, and from the sounds of it, relatively politely, and move on. If it happens repeatedly, then consider the reasons why.

[Mike L.]

I'm going to disagree wiht the mob and say that the "3rd degree" search was probably because he was black!

I 'm white and have never been checked before until I came
back last week from a trip to SEA.

Even then he simply looked over my stuff quickly, was very polite, and sent me on my way. It wasn't a thorugh search at all.

I've never seen them bother a Japanese ever!

It's defintiely a racial profilling deal with more emphasis on certain races than others.


Why does this happen?

I've said it many times before. JAPAN CAN'T COPE IN THE MODERN WORLD!

Simple linear ideas don't trickle down easily here! Especially any kind of acceptance of other cultures and races.

I rember years ago at a bon enkai being asked all kinds of questions like Why is Canada so open to foreigners? Why are there so many foreigners living in Canada? How can a Chinese be Canadian?

I replied that once you get your Canadian passport it dones't matter where you were originally from you're Canadian and entitled to everything theirin.

Of course there are issues but this group, public school teachers, couldn't understand our tollerance.

These poeple were teachers!

Japan often seems trapped in a sort of edo era thinking where isolation is "Goodo" and strange foregin and by consequence foreigners are "bado."

Japan will be blaming it's problems of foreigners forever simply because of the fact they don't have the wherewithal to fix them themselves.

The Japanese government can't ballance budget. Manage an independant foreign policy. Deliver one full reform of anyhting or produce any leaders of note.

As a consequence it will be unable to deliver social programs effectively in the future.

Will the Japanese do asnything about it?

NO!

Japanese people will never stand up and to their masters and thus will just do as they are told hoping the "nanny state" will look after them.

They will simply blame foreigners for all of their problems.



Zonkmiles: That IMO is why you were searched! You should pity the ignorant and stupid!

[JimDunlop2]

I'm really sorry you had to endure that. How humiliating! Unfortunately, what are the alternatives? Not travel by air at all, I suppose.

I don't suppose this will make you feel much better, but IMO, most police officers, rent-a-cops, customs officials, etc, etc.. are just government-endorsed hired goons. Their job is to intimidate, dehumanize, enforce, and otherwise use any means necessary to show you that THEY are the boss, and the junkyard dogs ruling over their little fiefdoms.

In general, I think the best way to expedite and minimize having to deal with such lowlife, is to be as cooperative and humble as possible. It makes them feel like they are God, (as they rightfully SHOULD be) and that you respect their authority and worship it. The trade-off is, you gotta swallow a big lump of pride...

Once I got caught returning to Canada with a bottle of 80proof over the limit (I declared only one). In the end, despite all the B-S I came up on top.

It makes the guy feel GOOD to have you confess that you are wrong, show remorse and say you shouldn't have done it and you won't do it again.

Others in my place may not have had the stomach to brown-nose and shmooz like that, but hey.... In the end they let me have my booze and with no duty (but a warning not to do it again) and we were all happy. The alternative scenario: I could have told the customs guy to kindly go and engage in self-reproduction... He would have searched through my suitcases ANYWAY, been pi$$ed off at me and made my life miserable any way he could, and I would be out a perfectly good bottle of hooch, which would pi$$ me off double.

The world's an unjust place.... This sort of treatment happens world-wide.

[guest of Japan]

I'm white and have never been searched. However my wife who is Japanese has been searched while I stood by waiting. Meanwhile the officials were pulling aside quite a few innocent looking Japanese young girls for searching. This was in Narita, post 9/11. My theory was that they didn't want to find anything, and that they wanted to put on a show of equality.

[homersimpson]

I got searched in a similar fashion about two years ago at Fukuoka Airport. I'm white. I don't think it was a case of racial profiling. I endured a 30-minute search and interrogation in a customs office (doors closed). I still believe there are only two kinds of people in Japan, the Japanese (I mean "pure" Japanese, not from a mixed-race parentage) and the gaijin (doesn't matter if you're black, white, or blue).

P.S. Gordon made a good point about the clothes you wear. The more casual you are dressed, I think the more likely you might get hassled.

[bshabu]

I am no stranger to going through customs. Having gone through Japanese customs over 10 times. Only once did they ever open my bag. I mean they(he) just opened it. Didn't paw through it. Didn't ask me any questions. Just opened and closed it.

This New Year's break I came back and she asked me "any duty free?"

Advice:

Dress smart (Not a suit and tie but nice)

Act dumb and helpless-they love this

My expirience is that the female interrogators...um I mean custom agents are easier going.

Lastly and this goes without saying, be polite.

I have seem customs giving a harder time to Japanese.

A little on the topic. I do love getting to go through the Japanese line in Immigration and by-passing the long Gaijin line.

[Lynn]

Zzonkmiles,
I totally feel for you. I think Mike and I are alone on this one. I also think it was total racial profiling. I can understand if you want to leave Japan and never come back. However, I do want to thank you. I truly believe the more people get to know the "unknown" the less scared they will be.

When I taught at the public elementary schools, a Japanese teacher noted how the children were so comfortable around me. She said, "when I was a child, there were no white people around and had I ever seen one, I would have been so scared. But children now a days are not because they meet people like you."

I think the change will be slow, but I believe it will happen. I often look to US history as well. I think of my mom when she was my age and how much has change.

Zonk, I'm sorry it happened to you, and at the same time I applaud your endurance. (weird Japanese English right there, but I don't know how else to say it)

[Brooks]

I talked to my wife and she thought young Japanese men were likely to be searched, and people that come back from places like Thailand and Amsterdam.
I think the way people dress has something to do with it.
And maybe stereotypes about the way people look.

I wonder how it is for people that are arab, muslim, Iranian, etc.
Last month I returned to Narita and a young Japanese guy had all his stuff searched and a carton of cigarettes was found.

No problem for me at customs. Having a Japanese wife certainly makes things easier.

A couple of times at the Canadian border I have been given the 3rd degree.
I am white. Once in Ontario (Niagara Falls) I had to go to a back room, I guess where criminals are interrogated. In the end I was let in.
It was back in 1999, and I was given shit for not having a passport or a birth certificate. I was told that sometimes they don`t let Americans in and they say they have to wait for the next bus to Buffalo.
At the border, the way it used to be, if you were in a car, no identification was needed. But on a bus or train, it is a different story.

[shuize]

I doubt it was racial profiling, as the many white posters who reported receiving the same treatment recently tends to show. I have received similar treatment traveling into the United States myself. I'm white.

But, yeah, since blacks are the only group of people that don't smuggle anything, I can see how it would upset you be checked at all.

When asked, say "no" or "why" next time. After all, by your own admission, you consented to the entire search. But now you're mad about it? Your story reminds me of stories attorney friends would tell me about their foolish clients who consent to being searched and then want to argue the seach was illegal. At the very least, if they ask and you say "no" they might have to come up with a reason.

I agree with the post above that it often has to do with style of clothing. A number of years ago I was travelling back to the U.S. from a language program here in Japan. I met a (white) guy from the same program at LAX while waiting for our luggage. He spent time in Thailand before flying back from Japan and definitely looked like he'd enjoyed himself there. While we walked toward customs an agent zeroed in on him. Since I was walking beside him they immediately asked if I was with him. "Well, no, not really" naturally didn't satisfy them and I got put through the same treatment you described above. Was I mad about it? Not really. Tiring, yes. But if I were a customs agent, I would have done the same thing. Of course, they didn't ask me, they just did it.

[Laura C]

Sorry, Zonk. That was a crappy thing to happen. And I'm with Lynn and Mike L in thinking that there probably was a racial element to it.

Re the appearance thing -- I have had maybe 40 flights in my life, and ALWAYS got stopped. The first one was flying back to Belfast from London on an Irish passport -- fair enough, but I was the only one stopped. Flying into NZ from Melbourne a few years ago I was the only one approached from our whole flight. But coming to Japan this time I had no bother. The reason? I've taken my facial piercings out. Pure cr*p! If i was going to smuggle drugs I'd put on a suit and carry a briefcase, not wear jeans and eyebrow rings. Customs officials worldwide need to wise up.