New Immigration Procedures Part 2
Lorna says she is leaving
Leah: You can't do this. I mean just up and leave
Lorna: I am. I’m going. On the 19th. The day before they start fingerprinting and photographing and interviewing all foreigners on entry and exit.
Leah: Smart as. And are they serious! The cameras and fingerprint machines are installed and ready to go.
Lorna: More than that, the big time-wasting will be when those immigration officials try to conduct the mandatory "interview" with Permanent Residents and Russian Tourists alike.
Leah: Can you imagine Japanese immigration officials conducting interviews in their Broken Immigration English. "What your reason you come Japan?" and a non-native, meaning anysomeone from Abu Dhabi to Zimbabwe, if they speak English, going "I have good reason, anysure, sure, you tell me thing, I tell you onegood."
Lorna: And the official gapes, then dives for his manual?
Leah: Right. Two minutes of page-turning rustling. And then he says, "Could you please once more repeat, more slow?"
Lorna: 10 minutes per immigrant. 20 immigration officials. While the jumbo jets continue disgorging 5000 non-Js into the immigration hall every hour. I mean have they done the math? I mean the sociolinguistic math?
Leah: Ah, chaos, chaos, chaos.
Lorna: You’re going out for new year aren’t you? Promise you’ll write me about your return.
Leah: If I come back.
...
Labels: immigration, Japan
posted by Barry Natusch @ 8:04 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I'm sure the authorities thought things through. Anyway, do you want people from non-aligned countries coming in and committing acts of terrorist violence? I know I wouldn't!
You're either for them or against them. You don't want to misunderestimate the dangers posing as certain things.
I think the writer isn't against screening incoming PPL. His point seems to be that the J-PPL are so hopeless at communicating without ambiguity and have little experience at understanding what PPL from other places REALLY mean. e.g. understanding John Cleese or Woody Allen are pretty much impossible for most.
And I wouldn't underestimate the Japanese NOT to think things through when it comes to things non-Japanese. Look at the KAOS their pension system has resulted in. Basically they thought nobody would get old and begin to claim on it.
I don't think that's his (her? The only information we have - as far as I can tell, that the author is male is a little sketch in hirs profile) point at all.
The ostensibly point in this vignette, I think, has little to do with communicating without ambiguity. Rather, it has to do with the inconvenience caused to terrorists and non-terrorists alike, by the implementation of this new gaijin screening system.
As for misunderestimating (thanking here one Mr Bush for his quirky contributions to the language) the Japanese NOT to think things through re things gaijinese, I question whether problems in the pension scheme (which is non-gaijinese, i.e. Japanese, directed) is a representative illustration of how they would approach a non-Japanese (i.e. gaijinese) situation.
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