Monday, September 08, 2008

arrested by the POLICE

-pengalaman di tahan polis jepun-

Don’t know why I forgot to write about this. Anyways, I mentioned about this when I commented on one of saifulislam.com’s interesting articles, and someone asked me to tell about this story in detail, so here I am in the middle of the night in front of the computer.

Early summer of 2003, and it had only been 3 months since I first came to Japan. I was staying at Rikko Kaikan (Rikko Hall, for foreign students) in Nerima, Tokyo; and on one hot summer weekend, I went to the nearest video rental shop to return some VHS and DVDs that I had rented earlier.

I like to clarify things that don’t need any clarifying in the first place so here goes. The VHS tapes and DVDs that I rented are in no way pornographic in nature. They’re just some old Hollywood action movies and Japanese horror films. There might be some slight showing of an actress’s bare breasts, or some lame sex scenes, but that don’t count as porno.

I have a principle to NEVER use the scholarship money, originating from tax paid by honest-working Malaysian citizens, for anything that has to do with satisfying a men’s sexual gratification. I’ve been very successful in my righteous struggle to sustain this principle from being blotted with erroneous , and I must say that I am almost proud that I have been able to do this, with all the perverseness and sexual fantasy glorified in the Japanese pop culture that I’m living in right now.

Wait a minute, there is one time that I accidentally paid 1000yen for an all-u-can-see adult paid channel in a hotel in Osaka… but that was an accident. I don’t want to let waste the hard-earned money of my people, so I forced myself to watch, even though deep in my rose-smelling heart, I don’t want to.

But this experience has taught me one valuable thing: even someone like me would end up bored and fell asleep when exposed to Japanese porn for several hours.

Anyways, that was a long introduction. Let’s get on with the main story.

I went inside the video shop, returned my rentals, told myself to lose interest in what the 18 years old section had to offer, and went back to my bicycle parked outside. As I was helping myself to put my manly-shaped ass on the bicycle saddle, one young Japanese policeman tapped my shoulder. He wanted attention.

Then he started to ask me questions that I don’t quite understand. Bear in mind that my Japanese language skill at that time is piss poor, and I’m really confused. Then he used hand and body gestures. He pointed at the bikes’ broken lock, made a ‘hammering’ movement, and then put his fists together, then breaks them away. He was asking me whether I’m the one who broke the lock.

The situation was not so good for me. He then asked me to follow him to the nearest Koban (police box), while keeping a firm grasp on my arm.

“I’ve spent the last 17 years of my life in Malaysia, and I’ve never been arrested by the police. It only took me 3 months to achieve that in Japan.”

At the Koban, they asked for my alien card, student ID etc, and they were surprisingly polite in doing it. I thought I’m getting the ‘penampar jepun’ first before being asked any questions.

Then they explained to me that the bicycle that I used was reported stolen 3 years ago. That is the first time that I know about 防犯登録 (BouhanTouroku – Registration for Crime Prevention), a system in which an owner of a bicycle should comply to by buying a license and register their bicycle to the police, so that when the bicycle should be reported stolen, it makes it easier for the police to detect the reported bicycle. And Japanese cops are real hard-workers because they really did try to search for those stolen bicycles by looking at the registered license number.

Some called it the ‘bicycle license’.

Shit. I’m in deep shit.

But I tried to keep my calm, because I know I’m clean. The bicycle is not mine. I heard from a friend that he heard his friend talking about hearing a senior of ours telling that the bike belonged to a friend of another senior from another batch; and he left the bike at the Rikko Kaikan (the student hall where we stayed) for the use of us juniors.

I tried to tell this to the policemen at the Koban, but I cannot construct the proper Japanese grammar because my Japanese sucked big time. English was useless because he cannot speak English at all. Probably, the only English words that he knows are of the utmost absurd ones. Like “Fuck you Yankee remember Pearl Harbor” or “I’ll pay you double if you love me long, long time.”

I knew how important it is for me to clear this misunderstanding, and dig myself out of this shit-hole that I’m dragged into. They told me to wait for the police car to come and pick me. They’re sending me to the Nerima City Central Police Station.

The back seat of a Japanese police car is very comfortable. At this point, strangely I don’t felt scared anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m too overconfident that I’m innocent. Or maybe I’m just plain dumb.

I took out my cellphone and activated the camera. As I was thinking about posing for pictures inside the police car with peace signs, the police driver looked at me in the back mirror, his face not so happy.

「ピースサインをポーズする場合じゃねぇだろう!!!」
[It’s not a situation where you do peace signs!!!]

Lesson to everyone: when the police is driving you to the central police station for further questioning, don’t be so relaxed. You might piss them off.

There were 3 police officers in suits waiting in front of the Nerima Prefecture Central Police Station. Without further a due, I was brought to the questioning room on the first floor, and upon entering the room, one of the officers said to his colleagues:

“Wait a minute; he’s still 18 years old!”

At that time, I’m still 18 years old, and according to Japanese law, I’m still a minor.

“We’re going to the juvenile department”

They said some other stuff, but I don’t understand most of it. Maybe they were telling me my rights of something; as I was being brought to the 3rd floor, into the juvenile department.

The juvenile department is kinda different. It looks no different than an office space, except they got questioning rooms.

One medium sized table and two chairs were put facing each other at the center of the dark questioning room. I was told to wait on the chair, and there were 2 police officers in the room.

About 5 minutes later, another 6 police officers, all in plain clothes, entered the room. Damn, Nerima Prefecture must be so damn peaceful, these police man had nothing else to do but to listen to his colleagues questioning me.

Then they started to question me.

“So, what is your favourite Japanese food?”
“How long does it take to come to Japan from Malaysia by airplane?”
“Some other casual questions that was supposed to make me relax”

I was a child at that time, there were 8 japanese police officers in the small room that I’m in, and all of them are asking me these questions that has no connection with the crime that I’m being suspected of committing; I would be lying if I say that I’m not a little bit nervous.

I only managed to understand only a portion of what they’re saying because my Japanese language capability is comparable to the capabilities of Pak Lah of sustaining a firm political stability.

Anyways, those Japanese policemen are too nice, it’s disappointing actually. I thought they’re going to grind me hard until I pissed in my pants and begged for their mercy.

No, those fuckers just asked me which is hotter, Malaysia or Japan.

I asked for the right to make a phone call, and then I rang Tanaka-san, the person in charged of the Rikko Kaikan. I told him that these bored Japanese policeman are just trying to find a way to make them look like they’re doing their job when in reality, they’re just passing time.

“I don’t know what they’re saying to me, I’m innocent, and I want to get out! Do something!”

Then I repeatedly explained to the people at the police station that I was innocent. I don’t know it was a freaking stolen bike! I even tried to explain it in English, and of course it’s more useless.

Then one fat policeman entered the room, and say he’s taking me to the records room. I don’t know the procedures, but the fat policeman kept grabbing my ass while he was transporting me to the records room. It’s fucking weird.

In the records room, they took my fingerprints, weight, height etc. Shit I’m in the Japanese police records! Then they made me hold this piece of plate in front of my chest while they took pictures of me, you know, like they do it in the police movies. It was kinda awesome and scary.

I’m a gangster in Japan, bitches!

Anyways, lucky for me, Tanaka-san, the Rikko Kaikan owner, was connected with the police, and I was let go scott-free. I don’t know how it went down, but he called the police station and kinda bailed me out, and I was not charged with any crime. Probably the police believed my story about me being innocent.

When it was all over, one detective told me that he’s heading out for a case, and he said he don’t mind to drive me to Rikko Kaikan because it was on the way to where he was going to.

He’s so fucking cool.

But I asked him to drop me off at the nearest fish market because I’m cooking fish curry for 5 people that evening.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

hot ramadhan

it's been extremely hot these couple of days, and the heat had been stealing almost all of my energy to get through the day. i'm hung like a tired dog at the end of the day, just before the time of breaking fast.

in the hotness of summer and hungriness of ramadhan, i've been reading about malaysian news. and one of those that caught my attention is the raja petra case.

4 religious departments in malaysia had filed a lawsuit against the provocative malaysian blogger, accusing him of deforming the image of islam, its followers and the prophet Muhammad saw.

two controversial article were brought up: the post entitled I Promise to be a good non-hypocritical Muslim, and the comments made in the post entitled Not all Arabs are descendants of the Prophet.

being the anonymous nature of the internet, i don't think that the blogger should be held accountable on what the readers wrote on the comment area, but raja petra should know better that not everyone understand this.

i don't always agree with what raja petra wrote, because a lot of it are just angry rants, and you don't know whether what he wrote depends on his fabricated imagination or pure fact; but sometimes he did write things that encouraged people to think, so that is why i seldom follow his stories.

if you read his I Promise to be a good non-hypocritical Muslim post, you could easily understand why he made some people really pissed, even during ramadhan.

his angst had compromised his control over how to tip toe across a narrow border of misunderstandings. he is talking smack against muslims, but he is not talking smack against islam. in islam, there are bad muslims and good muslims. and even a good muslim could misunderstood the intention of his post.

call it language barrier, culture barrier.

anyways, raja petra should've known better.

not all of his readers are smart people who could take some honest smack-talking. especially hollier-than-thous.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

puasa hari ke dua

puasa hari kedua nih memang agak mencabar buat aku.

mencabar bukan sebab lapar ke.

panas terik ke.

tapi sebab aku kena present seminar selama 2 jam.

perit anak tekak.

air... aku mahu air...

tapi alhamdulillah.

walaupon tajuk seminar aku susah nak faham.

熱流体物理量 (bincang pasal tenaga mekanik, haba dan tekanan dlm zarah2 - malas ah nak check maksud kot melayu or omputeh)

takde la aku kantoi sangat.

nasib baik prof aku banyak tolong dengan menyampuk time aku tersangkut nak explain. budak2 ni pon tanya soalan susah2. siot tul. nanti time diaorg present, aku nak tanya soalan susah jugak. balas dendam hahaha.

seminar habis pukul 4.

anak tekak menjerit, perut berkeroncong alunan yg tak sedap.

adoi lambat lagi ke nak berbuka nih...

lepas abis, memba lab tanya:

"bakpo demo napok letih jah haghi nih? sakik ko?"

"ooo takde apa2. cuba aku letih sebab aku puasa"

"poso?"

"yap. skang muslim satu dunia tengah berpuasa. hari ni hari kedua. kitaorg kena puasa selama sebulan"

"sebule keno poso? tok mati ko? kawe kalu tok make setengoh haghi pon ghaso leloh"

"bukan nya puasa satu bulan. bila malam bole makan. tapi time matahari ada, takleh makan atau pon minum"

"ooo gitu. gagoh demo neh! ganbare!"

dulu time aku kat nagano collage of tech, aku penah cabar tutor aku puasa. dia bole tahan 3 hari ajeh. tapi siot punya manusia, lepas tu sebab aku ejek dia tak power, bole dia balas balik dengan datang tempat aku, pastu minum air sambil buat suara2 enak.

adoi lambat lagi ke nak berbuka nih...

Monday, September 01, 2008

fukuda out

just after unveiling a stimulus package worth 11.7 trillion yen ($107bn; £59bn) to boost the country's economy a couple of days ago, today the prime minister of japan yasuo fukuda had announced that he's stepping down as the prime minister, ending his short-lived seat of power.

after the influential junichiro koizumi stepped down as prime minister, and the failure of shinzo abe to maintain a stable cabinet, fukuda took the job during japan's lowest political stability; trust and support for the government is at it's lowest.

it seems like the prominent impact of the koizumi-legacy is far too great for the poor fukuda to match and follow suit. at least it didn't went as bad as abe.

the same effect could be seen on malaysian politics.

mahathir left a hole bigger than what abdullah could fill.

and we're not talking about filling a jar with candies here.

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fukuda mengatakan dia letak jawatan kerana rasakan telah gagal untuk memberikan apa yg rakyat tuntut; dan adalah lebih baik untuk memberi peluang kepada org lain yg mempunyai approach method yang berlainan untuk menghadapai masalah2 yg dia gagal selesaikan.

at least dia sedar dia silap, dan tidak bodoh sombong.

dah rasa koizumi, abe dan fukuda.

pm seterusnya mcam mana pulak ah?

dah rasa mahathir, abdullah.

pm seterusnya mcam mana pulak ah?

merdeka! lepas tu puasa

selamat menyambut ulang tahun kemerdekaan negara

dah 51 tahun malaysia merdeka

zaman di mana majoriti rakyat

dilahirkan selepas zaman penjajahan

ramai yg tidak tahu

tak faham erti merdeka daripada penjajahan

termasuk lah aku

bacalah buku2

dengar cerita orang tua2

tapi tak mungkin aku tahu dan faham sepenuhnya

yang aku tahu

malaysia sudah merdeka daripada penjajah asing

tapi kita masih dijajah dengan ideologi2 yang kita sendiri tak faham

ada orang pakai rangka agama untuk menjajah

ada orang pakai rangka kaum dan budaya untuk menjajah

cuba meniru buah fikiran mereka2 yang berbeza daripada kita

kita sudah merdeka dari penjajah luar

tapi belum lagi daripada penjajah dalaman

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hari ni start puasa

ramadhan bermula dengan pagi yang panas terik

masuk tengah hari

perut dah meragam

lapar

wahai perut

sorry la lapar mengejut

lama2 biasa la tuh

ramadhan ganbarou!
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