Ob la di Ob la da, Life (Doesn’t) Go On

This happened to me when I was an English teacher in a small town in Japan.

Iizuka, Japan ~ 2008

We had a three day weekend with Monday off and on that Monday I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go for a bike ride. I was biking toward the river bank across the street where there was a little bike path. Not wanting to break my pedaling, I glanced behind me to make sure no cars were coming. There was one a little bit away but I knew I could make it. So I picked up some speed and zoomed across the road.

Unfortunately it was a cop car. They followed me down to the river bank and flashed their lights for me to pull over. The ensuing conversation did not go well. From my limited Japanese I made out that they were accusing me of stealing the bike and thought I crossed to the riverbank because I saw them and was trying to get away. Although I was in workout clothes and had the key to my bike’s wheel lock, they didn’t buy my story about merely wanting to bike along the bike path just to pass the time.

They put me in the back of their car and drove me to the station. …Very, very, very slowly because one of the cops rode my bike alongside the car, making an interesting little parade for the other pedestrians.

At the station they grilled me in fast Japanese that I couldn’t understand. Then they left me in the chair for the next four hours. In the late afternoon, someone brought out a telephone and on the other end of the line was (ostensibly) the sole cop in the entire prefecture who spoke English. He told me I shouldn’t have tried to run from the cops and I should have registered my bike but – they were going to let me go.

I was at fault for not registering the bike, since technically you are supposed to although not many people do. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong when they pulled me over.

I sat in that police station for FOUR hours to hear two sentences that I could have easily google translated and it felt deliberate. It was humbling and frustrating and made me feel extremely helpless.

America ~ Present Day

The events of the past several weeks have brought America’s racist problems to the fore (again) and it jogged this memory when I felt like I’d received disparate treatment because I was a foreigner. When I recall the impotence I felt from just that small, mundane experience – I can’t even fathom what it must feel like to be black in America.

Some people may say life goes on and yadda yadda yadda but for some people, life literally doesn’t go on anymore. And we can’t hold up our good thoughts and morals for a few weeks (paragraphs) and then just forget it. I want to do better than that.

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