Japanese Driving Test IV: The Trial

At one, the three foreigners assembled, and I discovered that the Japanese girl who had helped me before would actually be taking the foreigner's test since she had obtained her license in the U.S. while studying music therapy at SUNY, and she was therefore as good as a foreigner.  She was on her third test, and she was the only one of us who had been allowed to actually see "how it was done": on her first day, the police officer had shown her the correct way to drive the course, and she had tried twice to no avail to duplicate his exact motions: no braking allowed on corner 12!  Drive between 31 and 33 km./hr. on the straightaway between "The Crank" and corner 15!  Of course, only she actually knew the arbitrary mechanism holding all of us prisoner (and failed anyways).  The rest of us, like Josef K., were ignorant of our charges.

We waited around until 1:45 or so, at which point the Japanese girl said that she'd better go upstairs because they'd probably forgotten about us.  I was shocked to hear this, but, sure enough, they had actually forgotten about us, which is no big deal, because we're not important.  An old shit cop who looked like Marlon Brando after he died in Godfather II (but Japanese) came down and grumpily called our names.  I was and would continue to be "John-san" since I had written - and always write - my name as it is typed out on my passport to avoid "not kurisutofaa but kurisutoufa" confusion, and John, being my middle name, comes last, and every Japanese person knows that foreigners's family names come last, so my family name must be "John". 

I was to go last, and this trend would continue throughout the whole testing period for some reason.  The first lady was a Chinese or Korean woman married to a weary-looking Japanese man who served as her master.  I would see her fail more than once.  This time, she forgot to signal at the first turn and was forced to turn her car back before even attempting any of the obstacles.  The second driver was the Japanese girl, and it was my turn to ride in the back and observe how it's done.  She, after all, had been shown the correct way by the pigs.

She drove completely retardedly, going ridiculously fast on straightaways and then slamming on the breaks before turning super slowly.  She failed, and I got a chance to talk to her afterwards, where she said that that was how she'd been instructed to drive.  I couldn't really believe her, but when it was my turn, I decided to trust her and followed suit with said completely retarded driving style.  After I finished, it was time for the ceremonial being lectured on safety by a semi-retired police officer with a super high salary for doing nothing and a bully pulpit. 

Apparently, my driving had not been retarded enough and I had not been far enough left.  The particular infraction of note came when there was a motherfucking bike lane marked with a yellow line which I did not cavalierly plow through.  I was supposed to, because if I drive through the marked-with-a-yellow-line bike lane, the bike-riders will know not to fuck with my car, and safely clear out.  Otherwise, they might think the bike lane was for bikes.  Seriously, that was the rationale for my failure.  I was also told that I had been driving way too fast (I had been creeping at 25 - 30 km./hr. average the whole time.).  I argued with the guy, and I don't think he liked that very much, because the dudes who get to work at the license center, with its super high salaries, are part of, in Japanese, amakudari, which loosely translates to English as Golden Parachute.  This means they're super well-connected cronies making bank off the public dole, and obviously dickheads. 

I couldn't really believe I had failed despite knowing full well that statistically I would, because I hadn't made any mistakes.  At that time, I still believed there was the slightest semblance of logic in it all.  My friend had passed a few years ago on his first try, I had been texting him all day trying to uncover his secret as I waited, and he had been talking about how it wasn't really a big deal, and only losers fail and whatnot, and I almost believed him.  And so, I called him and talked to him while riding my bike home that day after failing, and I let out an anger-fueled rant for which I'm now frankly embarassed.

I wasn't free again until the following Monday, since I have work and a life and stuff, and so I made a reservation for then.  I showed up expecting to fail, but still held a glimmer of hope that reason and compassion existed in the hardened hearts of the amakudariyasan.  On Monday, I took my second test.  I had to show up between 10:30 and 11:30 to write down my name and address and pay the test fee of 2,400 yen, before then waiting two hours for the test to begin.  The same girl from before was still there and we talked about life in Japan and the United States as foreigners.  She had participated in clinical research in the University hospital where she had worked in the United States and had struggled financially, as all students do, and so had been forced to take a part-time job in a sushi restaurant while studying for her masters degree, despite the fact that that was totally illegal according to the ridiculous terms of her ridiculous visa, because some white American guy could be making sushi instead. 

It is absolutely striking how completely like shit foreigners are treated in our nationalist world system.  No matter what country, whenever shit hits the fan, immediately foreigners are blamed, and they took our jobs is the Frankenstein's mob that makes everyone stop questioning the government.  The first sign of a country's degeneration is the ostracization of foreigners.  If you watch for that, and escape as soon as it happens, you'll be safe once they start mandating tracking chips in everybody's passports.  Oops!  Too late.  The U.S. did that four years ago. 

I followed the instructor's directions perfectly the second time around and decided to play it super safe.  I reduced my speed to around 20 km./hr. - an absurd Grandma speed - and I was still failed for "going too fast".  But I was also simultaneously failed for "going too slow".  How both of these conditions can be simultaneously satisfied still beats the fuck out of me, but there is no rhyme or reason to this test, and I still needed to accept that fact.  Towards the end of my second test, I was told to drive at 50 km./hr. for the final straightaway, and did so, but Marlon Brando suddenly slammed on the breaks half-way through, everyone in the car flew forward into their carefully-fastened seat belts, and Marlon Brando said I had been going too fast.  50 km.hr. - the proscribed speed - was too fast for that stretch, and I had been driving dangerously.  If the lesson here is to distrust cops. done.  I haven't trusted cops since high school.   

I wanted to torture and kill him and then Keyser Soze his family.  My rationale for taking the test in the first place was simply to gain access to the law of my own country.  I'm planning on returning to the U.S. in December to prepare for medical school, my second daughter is due August 23rd., and there is only a short window where my family and I can visit the U.S. embassy in Tokyo to be officially sodomized before the new baby is born.  The visa paperwork for my wife and stepson will take at least three months, and waiting until the new baby is old enough to make the trip would mean I couldn't enroll in an fMRI technical course I wish to take at Harvard Extension School in January, and I would have to be a janitor or something for a year.  If I didn't get my license soon, it would mean disaster for my family.  If all family members don't personally appear at the U.S. embassy, well, then, we must be terrorists.  

For anyone who still harbors doubts about how fucked up our world currently is, I implore you to marry a foreigner.