Responsible Non-Adversarial Policing: Community Facilitators

Posted on June 30, 2020 by johnrachel

I’m proposing this in a rapid response to the BLM protests, which seem to lack coherent demands with bulletproof metrics to determine if the authorities are actually complying, or just putting up another smokescreen to pacify the mob. It may not be fully formed, complete in all the details. I welcome anyone and everyone to consider its merits, then make suggestions and improvements.

There’s a lot of anger, passion, frustration, enthusiasm, pessimism, optimism, confusion, determination, disorganization, organization, chaos and hope, out there on the streets right now. Open, exuberant display of civic concern and commitment to improvements in government in the form of mass protests is not only a constitutional right, but sometimes our duty as citizens.

But many folks are rightfully asking: What do the protesters want?

I have strong opinions about what they should want, should be demanding. It’s a long list.

But these current demonstrations are essentially about police violence, abuse of police power.

So here’s an idea. A clear, unambiguous, non-negotiable demand should be put front and center from this point forward.

There are two components to the demand . . .

  1. Any cop abusing his position should be immediately taken out of circulation, then ultimately replaced, if he is too aggressive. Any officer of the law who is caught provoking peaceful protesters; attacking protesters and especially members of the press; attacking unarmed non-threatening citizens; using force, weapons, tear gas or so-called “non-lethal” armaments, restraining holds or equipment; bludgeoning, pepper spraying, tear gassing, even pushing; when such force is questionable, should be immediately put on indefinite leave pending investigation, and then dismissed if the errant behavior is confirmed.
  2. That officer’s position on the police force would be turned over to a new type of law enforcement official, called a Community Facilitator. A Community Facilitator would be hired at full pay with full benefits. Hiring a such an individual would require the approval of both the police bureau and a committee selected by the communities where that Community Facilitator would be assigned or might appear for a policing incident. Every cop would be ultimately paired with a Community Facilitator. Every Community Facilitator would be paired with a regular cop. The regular cop would handle the rough stuff. The Community Facilitator would initially handle everything else, with the regular cop at his/her side.

Understand where I’m going with this: Ultimately — as soon as humanly possible — no patrol car would show up ANYWHERE to address ANY SITUATION, unless there were at least one regular cop and one Community Facilitator.

By the way, the Community Facilitator would be in uniform, very much like a regular police uniform. But there would be some aspect, shirt color, special hat, helmet, something, which would make it immediately obvious this person was not a regular cop, but a community facilitator.

We should demand that Community Facilitators be hired and deployed as quickly as possible. Since there would be pairing of a fully-trained cop with every Community Facilitator, the training would not have to be as long and rigorous for the Community Facilitator. It could be a quick course in the basics, safety, protocol, the law, etc. They don’t have to be Navy Seals to be effective at this job.

Police now view citizens as the enemy. Regular citizens now fear, often distrust and hate the police.

We need 1) to get rid of the bad cops, and 2) encourage proper, respectful, constructive communication between the everyday citizens and law enforcement.

Bad cop behavior is not hard to identify. These guys need to be pulled out of service immediately, before they further exacerbate the tensions and escalate the violence. Seeing bad cops immediately and publicly pulled off the beat when they display anything even slightly resembling the aggression we now see repeated every day in the news will demonstrate that local governments are taking seriously the demand for reform.

Having a member of the community in every patrol car and appearing on the scene when the police are called will in the future likewise reverse the adversarial dynamic which now characterizes citizen-police encounters and hopefully reduce the potential for violent confrontation.

Let’s replace half of the cops with Community Facilitators starting NOW!

If the mayor, police commissioner, city council refuse to entertain this idea, then maybe it’s time to get out the Molotov cocktails. 

(PLEASE NOTE: I’m not sold on the job title. If anyone reading this has something better than ‘Community Facilitator’, I’m all for it.)

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Life In Japan: School Lunch

Posted on June 29, 2020 by johnrachel

As an American, when I hear a reference to ‘school lunch’ I think of school lunch programs back in my homeland. School lunch programs are designed to help the poor. Believe it or not, every night more than 13 million children go to bed hungry in what putatively the richest country in the world — the richest nation in history! The euphemism is these kids are “food insecure”. That’s a polite way of saying neglected, victims of grotesque wealth inequality, and systemic racism. School lunch, school breakfast, and after school meals, are an attempt via various government programs at keeping these children alive and minimally healthy.

Here ‘school lunch’ has an entirely different meaning.

Yes, it refers to that time around noon when across the entire country, students from four to twenty-four are sitting down for their mid-day meal.

But here in Tambasasayama, it has another very special connotation. This weekend, in fact, Masumi-san and I had a “school lunch”. It was at a restaurant set up in one of the schools which is no longer functioning as an educational institution.

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Japan’s population is in freefall. This attrition is especially significant in communities like where I live. When kids here graduate from high school, it’s either off to university, or to where the “good jobs” are, which from the prevailing perspective of local youth is surely not here. Being a farmer is not glamorous, nor does it offer the opportunity to amass a decent fortune. Or falling short of a decent fortune, getting one of those high-paying corporate positions with Panasonic or Mitsubishi.

The upshot is that our town is shrinking in numbers at a rate faster than even Japan itself. Many of the schools which once served a thriving farm community now sit empty.

Well, they sit empty unless put to other use. The former school where we had our meal not only has a restaurant, but a curios shop, an arts & crafts workshop, and an art museum for showcasing local artists. Where we sat down to have lunch was previously the office area where the school’s teachers had their individual desks, a room where they could think, create teaching plans, grade tests, get away from the noise and chaos of the students.

In the grand scheme of things, the world is over-populated, exceeding the planet’s ability to support the human race living in the splendor of modernity, convenience and luxury. Most environmental experts judge the Earth’s current growth trajectory unsustainable.

In other words: we need fewer people.

Inadvertently, perhaps, Tambasasayama is doing its part to reduce the human imprint. There are very few new couples starting families here. Few babies are being produced. Meaning a number of beautiful old schools will continue to sit idle, collecting cobwebs.

Here’s one. It even has an observatory on top, where elementary students a decade ago would gaze in wonder at the heavens.

Looks like a decent place to store rice. Or soybeans. That dome is a good start on a silo.

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Life In Japan: Police Power II

Posted on June 18, 2020 by johnrachel

Let’s face it. Crime is universal. Wherever you find human beings, you’ll find individuals in violation of the carefully-crafted laws of the land. Why just this week here in Japan, a lady in Kyoto walked out of a pet store with a cat. Granted, it was not a heist on the scale of the Great Train Robbery. In fact, the lady was convinced the cat was actually her cat, one that had recently run away. A case of mistaken cat identity? Covid-19 derangement syndrome?

But no matter how you look at it, policing is a tough job.

So . . . while police in the U.S. are killing fellow citizens, and especially people of color are being terminated by the law enforcement officers who are supposed to protect them, what are the police here in Japan doing?

The story pictured at the head of this article is a perfect example. Are they stopping waves of armed terrorists? Are they cracking down on drug traffickers and drug addicts who in need of their next fix are snatching purses from helpless old ladies? Are they interdicting elicit trade in contraband which could send the Japanese economy into a death spiral?

Actually, these officers are putting a notification on a bicycle! The owner of this bike — brace yourself — failed to lock it, a clear invitation for a hardened bicycle thief to cart it off and then God only knows. Ride it? Sell it? Ship it to North Korea as a gift to Kim Jong-un? The paper band around the tire is a reminder that it’s a good idea to lock a bike.

Of course, the world is in great turmoil right now. The coronavirus pandemic has everyone on edge. In the U.S. people understandably let off steam by burning down police stations, as a message to authorities that they should do a better job, even though now they don’t have a proper place to organize their police work.

By contrast, here in my charming home town of Tambasasayama, the police embrace a slightly different narrative. Since things that grow can offer both calm and beauty, they now have 40 flowering plants in the lobby of the main police station. Not surprisingly, people like this and some just stop by for no other reason than to enjoy the display of flora. No one has been seen outside the building with a torch and a trunk full of Molotov cocktails.

I guess some cynics would characterize this as police power merging with flower power. Or the cops trying to put an amicable face on the often unpredictable and brutal business of enforcing the law and keeping the peace. Whatever the reason, we have to recognize the harsh realities.

It’s easy for crime to take hold, spread, and run roughshod over a society. It’s important to draw the line, never make excuses or compromise.

Take jaywalking. Everyone knows that jaywalking is a “gateway crime”. Statistically, every person who has murdered, robbed, raped, dealt drugs, pimped, cheated on their taxes, or thrown someone off the top floor of a skyscraper, has jaywalked. In the minds of tough law enforcers, this is proof that jaywalking, if unchecked, leads to truly reprehensible and villainous behavior.

Thus, in the U.S. the police take a rigid stance on jaywalking. If you’re too lazy to walk the extra few steps to find a proper pedestrian crosswalk, it can end badly.

Hmm . . . I’m not sure why I brought this up.

Oh, I remember!

You see, the Japanese don’t jaywalk or cross against a signal. They dutifully seek out an official crosswalk, and even if there is absolutely no traffic in sight for several kilometers, they wait until the walk sign goes on before proceeding. Which is why there’s practically no crime here. No jaywalking. No murder or burglary, kidnapping or gang banging. Or very little. This strict regard for jaywalking law is, of course, reinforced by an abiding respect for the lives and property of others, as I’ve written about elsewhere.

Let me close this by referencing a video of the Japanese police in action here. This was a difficult “traffic management” situation which in my opinion they handled admirably.

Japanese police dealing with some jaywalkers . . . gotta be tough!

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BOOK REVIEW … “No More War” by Dan Kovalik

Posted on May 27, 2020 by johnrachel

In an era where a man like Julian Assange can be mercilessly persecuted for just doing honest journalism, it takes a great deal of courage to expose the lies and misdeeds of America’s imperial ambitions. Yet they must be exposed and condemned for exactly what they have been and continue to be. No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests is a book that goes the extra mile in doing just that.

As with all of his excellent books, Dan Kovalik has packed this readable and well-researched work with an abundance of invaluable information and insight into the imperial war machine, the imperial diplomatic and PR juggernaut, the extensive predatory machinations reducing the rest of the world to rubble so that America’s corporations and its ravenous banking system can subjugate and exploit their populations and extract their material wealth.

We citizens, under the spell of the Western propaganda machine, slog through the malaise of censored news, disinformation and deceptions with our eyes wide shut, preferring to avoid at all costs acknowledging the nefarious role our “exceptional” nation plays in perpetrating some of the most sordid war crimes in history, thereby propagating unfathomable misery across the planet. 

Though we might prefer to immerse ourselves in the bliss of this willful ignorance, as the folks who fund such misadventures with our tax dollars, and who implicitly support it by raising no serious objections, much less mounting actual resistance, we are ourselves responsible. We are culpable. We share the guilt of those actively engineering and promoting this tsunami of death and destruction, a reign of terror inflicted on any nation who would dare stand in our path of full-spectrum dominance and self-serving plunder.

How is it “we the people” are rendered so indifferent to these acts of aggression?

Not an excuse, but an incriminating explanation, provides the required insight: We are told — and gullibly believe — that somehow this orgy of violence, the bloodbaths and rubble which result from our military interventions, are in pursuit of a better world, one where democracy and freedom and justice for all reigns supreme. That it is the U.S.’s responsibility to stand up for and protect the citizens of other nations who are being deprived of the rights and privileges due to all of us as humans.

But as Kovalik proves beyond any doubt, for seven decades, our wars of aggression and fostering regime change around the globe have had nothing to do with the tragically laughable “cover story” that the U.S. is spreading democracy and protecting human rights, but rather are the direct, predictable, and inevitable product of America’s obsessive fixation on world conquest and unchallengeable global domination.

No More War covers a lot of ground, looking in detail at Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, the NATO aggression against former Yugoslavia, the Vietnam War.  We see 1) how disruptive and counterproductive U.S. meddling in such countries is, 2) how such interference in the affairs of sovereign nations contravenes both currently accepted norms and international law, 3) how this abuse of military prowess is rapidly overextending U.S. projection of power, 4) how it is making America a pariah in the world community, and 5) how this will ultimately result in a major confrontation with countries like Russia and China, two nuclear-armed nations which genuinely have assumed the higher moral ground in the world of geopolitics. Dan Kovalik also eloquently exposes the profound hypocrisy of the U.S. claiming to be standing up for human and political rights in other countries, as it ignores and violates within its own borders many of those same rights for its own citizens.

No More War is a powerful, informative book. While the well-crafted prose reads comfortably, conferring it with NYT best seller potential, its erudition demands that it be taken seriously. This invaluable volume begs to be used as a textbook for university peace study courses. For we can’t very well chart the right course without fully understanding where we’ve gone wrong . . . so very very wrong.

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Life In Japan: The Telephone Booth

Posted on May 9, 2020 by johnrachel

Probably anyone under 25 living in the U.S. will not know what that is in the photo above. Or maybe they saw one in an old movie. You know . . . old . . . like 1987.

It’s a telephone booth. Inside is a pay telephone. A person can put a coin or two in it and make a phone call. If they put a lot of coins in it, they can make a long distance call, maybe say ‘hi’ to their grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara.

The one pictured is in a fairly rural area about five minutes by bicycle from my house. Mind you, I live on the very edge of town, surrounded by bean and rice fields. This road is even further out but has houses on both sides of it, a small cluster of residences, forming one of the several villages which are the “neighborhoods” of Tambasasayama City*. Each village usually has regular meetings, puts on social functions — barbecues, holiday celebrations, bingo parties, etc — gets together to clean up and maintain the grounds and properties of the village. Most have a community center for hosting monthly meetings and various social gatherings. Some, like the one where I live, called Noma Village, have their own Shinto shrine, a valued but mostly symbolic feature — nobody goes there on a regular basis to worship, as they might a church or synagogue in America — visited on certain special holidays, e.g. New Years.

Back to the phone booth. Why is it there?

Well . . . someone just might need to make a call. And maybe their iPhone battery is down. Or they dropped their Samsung in a toilet and it’s not so waterproof after all. It’s there on the off chance someone needs it. Does this seem odd?

Actually, it reflects a typically Japanese level of forethought and consideration. Respect for redundancy. A willingness to leave some things in place — just in case.

Here’s another example: Everywhere you find a school or public building, they have what’s pictured here on the walkways.

What are they? They’re for blind people. Now I’ve been coming and going for 13 years. I’ve been up and down these streets. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’VE NEVER SEEN A BLIND PERSON in this town. So why do they have these? Well . . . ya never know. A blind person could show up one day. And the city doesn’t want to leave them stumbling around, wandering into the street, getting hit by cars or tractors or rice harvesters.

If the city council decided that there was some reasonable possibility that space aliens could visit our town, I have no doubt they’d designate parking places for their space ships and provide electrical outlets for them to recharge. That’s just the way they think here.

Tambasasayama is far from being a rich town. In fact, some would say it’s a dying town. There are hardly any young adults. Most kids bolt once they graduate from high school, first stop university, next a nice job in the city. Very few return. Not much going on here and unless you want to be a farmer, there aren’t really many jobs.

Yet, it seems they are constantly working on improving things. Paving the roads, installing new or fixing the old curbs. Here’s a bridge they painted a few years ago. I remember this well because I was so astonished at how much care they lavished on this particular bridge, a pedestrian/bicycle bridge which I use almost every day. When the tiniest, nearly invisible signs of rust appeared, they sanded it and put FIVE COATS OF PAINT ON IT! Five! Seven years later and it still looks perfect. It could probably take a direct hit by a MOAB and survive.

We have one street which is rich with tradition, sometimes referred to as ‘merchant street’. It has many traditional shops, vegetable stands, restaurants, art galleries, ceramics stores. It’s charming in every respect but one. The electrical lines.

They are now in the process of putting all of the power lines underground. Because most of the buildings have traditional architecture, when they’re done with this, this already charming street will look very much the way it did, say 200 years ago. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn seeing this sort of commitment of time, energy, and public funds to the town’s infrastructure: For the Japanese, aesthetics are an essential part of honoring history and community life.

Politicians in the U.S. are always bloviating about the need to repair the “infrastructure” there, which they all openly admit is crumbling, if not already in shambles. Then there will be another tax cut for the rich or another war or pandemic . . . or [ fill in the blank since any excuse will do ] . . . and nothing ever gets done.

Well, building and maintaining infrastructure to keep Tambasasayama safe and operable is not just a campaign slogan or bumper sticker here. It’s an integral part of daily life. We all do a little. But the government itself does the real heavy lifting.

To put it mildly, I’m awed.

One last note. Proof that the telephone booth at the beginning is not just a fluke, here is a photo I took less than 100 meters (300 feet) away, even closer to my house. Frankly, I had never noticed it before. Yes, it’s yet another phone booth, this one sitting adjacent to a truly funky old bus stop shelter. While you’re waiting for the bus, you can call your grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara. How convenient!

* Note that in May 2020 the town officially changed its name from Sasayama — the name that appears in most of the articles in this series — to Tambasasayama.

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Life In Japan: Highway Service Areas

Posted on April 9, 2020 by johnrachel

There are highway service areas in Japan so elaborate and well-outfitted that families pay the pricey highway toll just to visit them and spend the day. For these folks, going there is the same as going to a park or a shopping mall to hang out and have fun.

Highway service areas in Japan are what we in the U.S. call ‘rest areas’.

Years ago, I used to spend a lot of time traveling the entire Eastern half of America by car. This was roadwork for my music business activities, initially as a musician, then later as a band manager and music producer. Trust me, I’m very familiar with rest areas. While I hear that these days there are some very fancy ones — with restaurants, shops, showers, and the like — this is how I remember them. Since these are current photos, there are obviously still many which conform to this basic design.

No Images found.

There are simple, basic highway service areas in Japan. However, they tend to be atypical. Even these rudimentary iterations provide more than just a restroom and a picnic table. Want to take a break from driving to do some fishing? Or feed some ducks?

Most of Japan’s service areas offer abundant opportunities to shop, eat, relax and play. They are more stop and play than gas and go.

We have a highway service area about 15 minutes from our house, which we visit with my step-daughter, Azusa, and her dog Ji Ji — because it has a dog run! We access it from a small road behind the service area grounds, which runs parallel to the tollway. So actually we visit this highway service area without even going on the highway.

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So I won’t be accused of cherry picking a few exemplary but unrepresentative examples, here are just some of the highway service areas within 100 kilometers of my home town.

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How do I explain how things work here? I guess it suffices to say that Japanese excel at taking everything to a logical and elegant extreme. They have extremely high standards and are perfectionists. This even shows in something as routine as setting up a place to pull off the road to take a break from driving.

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Life In Japan: Public Restrooms

Posted on April 8, 2020 by johnrachel

Japanese folks will wonder why in the world am I writing about public restrooms. They take it for granted that when you gotta go, you just go. Restrooms are plentiful, clean, safe, well-maintained and open to the public everywhere here.

I can explain why this is a big deal. I’ll answer with a question: Have you ever tried to pee in New York City?

Without checking into a hotel?

Without sitting down to a meal at a restaurant?

Without buying an ensemble you didn’t need at a department store?

Or let’s say you do happen to stumble on one of the extremely scarce public toilets.

If you don’t encounter a homeless family who have set up housekeeping . . .

. . . if you don’t see a junkie shooting up over in the corner . . .

. . . if you don’t have to step over dead body or two . . .

. . . if you don’t find perverts having sex through a glory hole between adjoining stalls . . .

. . . then the stench will drive you out, because the place hasn’t been cleaned since they laid off some janitorial city worker six months ago to give tax breaks to Wall Street execs.

Let me be clear.

I consider peeing-on-demand a basic human right. Like breathing, going to the bathroom is not a lifestyle choice.

Japan completely respects the inevitability and the all-too-often urgency of nature’s call.

Here in my hometown of Tambasasayama, in the eight or ten block area which comprises the center of our town, I counted no less than five public toilet facilities. As restrooms go, they’re fine. Nothing fancy. But clean, properly kept up to the high standards and hygienic expectations of the citizens here.

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Additionally, there are restaurants, temples, public buildings, stores which have toilets. I’ve never seen a ‘Restrooms For Customers Only’ sign anywhere in Japan.

Along with the five public toilets downtown is an outdoor one at a supermarket . . .

. . . another at a 7-11 convenience store . . .

. . . and yet another at a curios shop/restaurant . . .

. . . all publicly accessible, no questions, no hassles.

Could relief be any more accessible? Adult diapers? (Ugh!)

Granted, there are those who might accuse me of focusing too much here on the mundane. Come on! Toilets?

Just remember. Sometimes it’s taking care of the little, simple things in life, which makes the much bigger, more complex things possible. Try to enjoy that stroll through Greenwich Village or taking in the sites at Times Square when you’ve had to hold it in for four hours.

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Life In Japan: Koban

Posted on March 28, 2020 by johnrachel

The Koban is the heart of community policing in Japan.

Remember community policing?  Yes, it was a big buzzword in the U.S. during the 90s, a decade that featured a brutal police beating of Rodney King, an unarmed black man, which sparked riots in Los Angeles.  The idea was to have policemen be participating members of a neighborhood, an integral part of community life. This would promote good relations between citizens and the men in uniform, acquaint the police with the citizens and unique activities of the people living near the community policing stations, giving them first-hand familiarity with the “players” there, good and bad. People would see police as humans just like them, police would experience citizens on a personal level. Moreover, if there were a problem requiring their attention, the police would be in the vicinity right on the scene.

It turned out to be more of a PR stunt in most cities in the U.S. and the approach finally buckled under the tensions it created, fueled by suspicion, lack of real trust, the sense that the cops weren’t there to help but to spy on the locals, using their insertion in the locale to better subject the everyday citizens to the strong-arm tactics and “establishment” bullying law enforcement is often rightly accused of. 

Community policing is not just a PR campaign here in Japan. It’s a reality. If there’s a problem and it’s not an emergency, you turn to the officers at the local Koban to get help. They truly are members of the community, living in the housing usually at the rear of the building, often with their own families.

There are a number of these in my home town here, and thousands all across Japan. Even in the big cities. I’ve seen them in Osaka and Tokyo.

Let me tell a story to see how this approach actually functions here. And please understand that I’m not trying to portray myself as some hero. What I did in this situation is exactly what 99.999% of all of the folks living here would do.

Masumi and I were on our way to a nearby town, if I recall, to visit her mom. It was a nasty day, rainy and windy, visibility was poor. I was driving. We approached an intersection and as I slowed down, I looked out the side window of her Mazda. This is what I saw.

Obviously, that was not the woman. I Photoshopped the pic to illustrate what happened.

I immediately braked, signaled to the car behind me to stop. Then I went over to the body laying in the road.

It was an elderly lady, probably in her 80s, and she was conscious, laying exactly as you see in the above pic, just staring straight into to cold, wet pavement.

The man in the car which was following me came over. We talked to the lady and helped her to her feet. She was fine. Just confused and lost.

There was a Koban not more than 100 meters away, around the corner of the intersection.

We walked the lady there, sat her down. The police officer on duty got a blanket, probably one of his own from the private quarters, and it greatly helped the lady warm up. It was a cold, miserable day.

Before I go on, let me show you the tiny strip on this narrow street where she was laying.

It was a miracle she wasn’t run over! As I already mentioned, the day this happened was gray and cloudy, it was raining, visibility was very poor. And this is a well-traveled road. To make things even more precarious, she was dressed in a long overcoat a color that almost matched to pavement.

The police officer tried to get some basic information from her. Sadly, I think she was a victim of severe dementia. But . . . because he was right there in the community, he knew exactly who to call. Yes, there’s a nursing home nearby. One phone call later, the staff at the nursing home confirmed a lady fitting her description was missing. They sent someone over and took her back to the comfort of her residential care facility.

See how easy this works? No calls to central headquarters, checking databases for missing persons, trying to piece together a narrative to explain and identify this lost woman. Being right there in the neighborhood cuts through a lot of red tape and guesswork.

The officer interviewed Masumi and I, as well as the other driver, got all the details, filled out the requisite paperwork — Japanese love paperwork! — and thanked us for our service. He was very professional. It was obvious he took his job seriously and liked his work.

Community policing works. Especially if the police are dedicated and honest.

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Life In Japan: Udon, Soba & Ramen

Posted on March 18, 2020 by johnrachel

Granted, ‘Udon, Soba & Ramen’ sounds like a law firm based in Yokohama.

Actually, these are the three most common forms of noodles here in Japan, and are among the staples of the healthy diet of this country.

My history with ‘noodles’ is pretty sketchy. My mom used to serve me chicken noodle soup, typically Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. I tried to smile and show my gratitude but I’ve never forgiven her for serving me this slop in a can.

I’m now recalling the name of the character Robert De Niro played in one of my favorite gangland movies, Once Upon a Time in America. Yes, It was ‘Noodles’.

Hmm . . . let’s see. I used to eat buttered egg noodles for lunch sometimes.

There you have it. A lifetime noodling around. Until I arrived here.

Like everything here in Japan, the science and art of noodle-making has been perfected to the highest possible level.

There is, for example, a whole prefecture — a prefecture is the equivalent of a state in the U.S. or a province in Canada — devoted to creating the finest udon in the Universe. It’s called Kagawa Prefecture. I’ve been there! There are hundreds of udon restaurants, and you can watch them make noodles from scratch as you sit there waiting for your meal. They make dough, roll it, cut it, then toss it into boiling water. You can’t get udon any fresher than that!

Udon (うどん) is a thick wheat-flour noodle, served in a very basic broth. The slippery texture makes it enormously fun to eat. The toppings are a real bonus. They include varieties of tempura, soft- or hard-boiled eggs, fish paste, fish cakes, shrimp, with the whole affair then sprinkled to taste with chopped scallions. We eat udon at least once a week. A real treat is to serve a basic udon generously blended with Japanese curry.

Soba (蕎麦) is made from buckwheat flour and despite the name, buckwheat bears no relation to wheat. It’s made from grinding the seeds of Fagopyrum esculentum, a plant which is not a grass like wheat is. It took me a while to develop a taste for buckwheat. I had tried buckwheat pancakes in the U.S. and thought they were odd, certainly not at all an improvement on regular pancakes. Slowly here in Japan I’ve grown to enjoy the unique flavor of buckwheat and soba itself.

Most soba restaurants seem to be more traditional institutions, so the dining experience embraces atmospherics as well tongue tantalizing. My wife really loves soba, so at least once a month we go to her favorite restaurant tucked away on a country road in the middle of nowhere.

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If you happen to go to this place, I’m sure you’ll be as amazed as I always am that anyone can find it. But there’s always a line at the door of expectant soba-aficionados eager to get their fix.

Ramen (ラーメン) is the least healthy of the three. Lots and lots of grease. Which means it tastes great! It’s based on Chinese wheat noodles, a meat or fish broth — usually it’s pork — and like udon is garnished with all sorts of yummy ingredients. Slices of butaniku (pork) are very common. Some people dump in tons of garlic or green onions, or peppery spices. Many regions of Japan have their own distinctive version of ramen. For example, tonkotsu is the ramen unique to Kyushu and miso ramen that of Hokkaido.

Ramen and people’s devotion to it sometimes have religious or cult overtones. This was beautifully captured in a very funny comedic film called The Ramen Girl, about an American lass who is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend, and apprentices to a ramen master to get her life back together. I highly recommend it!

(Disclaimer: This movie has no transgender CIA assassins who side-by-side with comic book superheroes attempt to defeat an invading swarm of 6-dimensional extraterrestrial nano-spiders. But it’s still outstanding!)

There you have it. Come to Japan. Join in on the fun.

Or if you’re already here, you know . . . the Japanese take noodles very seriously!

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Life In Japan: Conveyor Belt Sushi

Posted on February 25, 2020 by johnrachel

Sushi and I have a long history.  I discovered the joys of raw fish on sticky rice back in the 80s, when I lived in Los Angeles.

I was a bit of a sushi snob back then, not because I’m class conscious, but because the people I was hanging out with at the time had a lot of disposable income.

Sushi scene in “Defending Your Life”

There’s a great romantic comedy film called “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep.  The two sushi chefs in that film had a fabulous sushi restaurant frequented by movie industry types — moguls and celebrities.  They were the “rock stars” of the sushi scene in that area of town, which is why they ended up in the film.  These two geniuses were my initiation in perhaps the best sushi in the entire Universe!  That’s how I became a sushi snob.

When I moved to Portland, Oregon I was heartened to find one phenomenal sushi bar, unfortunately now out of business.  I was home free!  The competition wasn’t exactly stiff.  Portland’s unofficial motto is still to this day ‘Keep Portland Weird’. 

Predictably there were some very bizarre places that passed themselves off as sushi restaurants.  One was called Rock ‘n Roll Sushi.  I tried it.  It was horrible!  Other places were run by individuals who clearly had no training in the fine art of sushi making, weren’t remotely Japanese, probably thought miso soup was just bad English, as in “Me so glad to see you, Yoko!”

It was in Portland I first heard of conveyor belt sushi.  I immediately dismissed it as just more Portland weirdness, glanced in the window of the new conveyor restaurant only once — yes, it was the talk of the town and I was curious — and thought, what a stupid gimmick!

I was pretty confident I wasn’t missing anything.  Here’s what one customer said about it:  “Sushi Mioga may not serve the best sushi in town but for the price and with tons of options, this is my new favorite conveyor-belt-sushi restaurant for now.”

Whatever.  Sushi delivered on a conveyor belt?  Ha!  What a joke!

Of course, I was wrong about at least part of the story.  Conveyor belt sushi was invented by a Japanese sushi restaurant owner back in 1958.  His name was Yoshiaki Shiraishi, and he was looking for an effective way to get his sushi quickly to his customers.  A visit to a local Asahi brewery, which used conveyor belts to speedily move the beer through the process of bottling and packaging, was his inspiration.

So Portland wasn’t being weird or innovative or anything of the like.  It took someone there almost 50 years to discover and capitalize on this clever invention.  By then, Japan had entire conveyor belt sushi restaurant chains up and running across the nation.  The most well-known and successful is Sushiro, which has been in business for over 30 years.

Sushi tends to be very polarizing.  Either people absolutely LOVE IT or are nauseated by the thought of eating raw fish.

I guess I’m pretty lucky living here, since I’m a hard-core sushi and sashimi lover.  Both are as common here, both at home and when eating out, as pizza or fries are in America.  Masumi and I went to a cook-out at a friend’s house and along with the usual things that you’d see at a backyard barbecue, there was the huge plate of yellowtail sashimi pictured here.  That would cost over $100 at a restaurant in the U.S.  And here it was being served as a snack like you’d serve cheese and crackers.  I was in heaven!

We don’t eat out all that often — both Masumi and I love to cook and she’s certainly a genius in the kitchen — but on average we eat conveyor belt sushi once a month.  Our favorite place is in nearby Tanba-shi.  Usually we go with Masumi’s mom and her two daughters who live near us in Sasayama.

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It’s not only incredibly delicious and inexpensive but I frankly find it to be a lot of fun.  There’s always the anticipation of what the sushi chefs have coming down the belt next.  Sometimes some real surprises!

Since conveyor belt sushi is extremely popular, for the lunch or dinner rush hour it’s generally a good idea to make an online reservation a few hours in advance.  Last time we were there, however, it wasn’t peak time and the place wasn’t as crowded as is usual.

Even though they weren’t blasting Megadeath over the speaker system and the waitresses didn’t look like something out of Zombie Goth Apocalypse, we still had an excellent time!






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