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.

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Japanese Driving Test III: Investigations of a Dog

I sat down to look at the form a bit more and decide how to proceed.  I considered my options: (1) I could go home and drag my 8-months pregnant wife and young child out in the 100-degree heat of the Fukushima summer to serve as totally unnecessary translators and my symbolic Japanese masters.  And, for foreigners living in Japan, if you have a Japanese master, it's almost always best to bring him or her to any sort of application process, because the rights of foreigners are (politely) shat all over by immigration and city hall officials here when no Japanese people are watching.

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Japanese Driving Test II: Before the Law

I had a dispassionate conversation today with my wife after visiting the Fukushima License Center about how she thinks all the problems I seem to come across here in Japan are directly caused by my confrontational, stubborn, and uncompromising personality.  I can't deny that she's right.  I have an abject and probably unfounded hatred for nearly all public employees, and take great offense when I am forced to do something which I find illogical and pointless.  I am absurdly cheap and miserly, and hate being forced to spend money on meaningless fees.  I don't object to the concept of paying taxes, because the government needs money to function, and we the people need some form of government, but the underhanded way in which all governments structure their revenue sources to fool consumers into thinking they pay less than they actually do is odious and criminal, especially coming from the people whose job it is to serve us.

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