My Night at the Police Station

*READ BEFORE YOU ASSUME!

On a random week night during summer vacation, I had a frightening experience. Let me tell you about it from the beginning…

During summer vacation, my sleeping schedule was pretty extreme. I would go to bed at about 5 in the morning and wake up at about 2pm.  So, on a Wednesday night, Shinya came over after work to chill for a bit before going home around 11:00 or so. He had to work the next day. Since 11pm was still early for me, I decided to chill out at my local bar I always go to, White & Cigar. It closes at 3am, so I figured I’d relax there for about 3 hours and call it a night.

I arrived at about midnight, and at that time, there was only one person there. He is a regular customer who I’m friends with. We chatted together and with the bartender a bit until two other men came in together. We chatted with them a little and talked about movies and alcohol. One of the guys went home leaving his friend behind. Over the course of time, other regulars who are my friends came and left, and in the end (from about 2:30am), it was just me, one of my regular friends, and the remaining guy I didn’t know from the beginning.

For those of you who know me, you probably know about my strong alcohol tolerance. As usual, I was drinking cocktails consisting of alcohol only. The bartender even set one of my drinks on fire to show how potent it was haha! However, I was never more than just buzzed. Throughout the time I was there with the guy I didn’t know, he was really impressed by my drink choices and wanted to try everything I was drinking for himself. Take note that when he first got there, he was already a bit tipsy and was drinking seabreezes (a weak cocktail) which lead me to believe that he wasn’t that good at handling alcohol. So anyway, I warned him that what I was drinking wasn’t for the faint of heart. I was drinking crazy things like Spyritus and Lemon Hart. However, since he was already drunk, he didn’t care. I didn’t really care either to be honest.

The bartender lit some Lemon Hart on fire
to show us how potent it is.

He began to get progressively complicated to speak to. His speech was incomprehensible to me, and he was at the point of making farm animal noises as a joke. So basically I began to ignore him and talk with my girl friend sitting next to me. Sometimes he’d try to chime in, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and according to the bartender, what he was saying had no relation to our conversation. In some instances, he was apparently insulting my friend and calling her ugly. It became past 3am, so I asked for my check. My friend was almost done with her drink. It was about that time when the man out of nowhere became angry and violent for unknown reasons.

I wasn’t paying attention to him at all when he suddenly starts yelling, and I see a glass fly past me in the direction of the bartender and shatter on the wall. I was like WTF?! He goes to grab one of the big glass peanut jars, and all I can say is “Yamete! Yamete (Stop! Stop!)!” I cover my head and face as he proceeds to throw that over the bar, too. Luckily it didn’t shatter. At that point, my friend and I get out of our seats, afraid he will throw something else. He’s yelling things I can’t understand. He approaches my friend and I and shoves my friend on the shoulder. She is a very thin Japanese woman, so she almost fell over, but I caught her thankfully. The bartender came around the bar to try

to restrain him and tells us to go home, but the man is between us and the entrance. The man, screaming about who knows what, picks up one of the barstools and chucks it THROUGH the window, shattering it. At this point, it has gotten scary, and the only thing I can think to do is grab my friend’s wrist, pull her into the bathroom, and lock us in. I felt sorry for leaving the bartender alone with the man because he is not the fighting type, but I’m sure he was concerned about our safety and wanted us away from the crazy man. Unfortunately, neither of us grabbed our phones that were in our purses (there was no time to think while all of this was going on).

While we were locked in the bathroom, the man tried to open the door once. We heard more shuffling and yelling. There were times of silence though. We were concerned about whether the bartender would be able to call the police. Meanwhile, my friend was crying and contemplating running out to get her phone which I strongly discouraged because I thought the man would become angry again. Plus I’m sure the bartender wanted us to stay safe in the restroom. It seemed like we were in the bathroom forever until we heard sirens. We heard the man fight with the police until the bartender final came and told us it was safe for us to come out.

Apparently, while we were in the bathroom, the man had fits of anger and moments of silence. He didn’t hurt the bartender, but instead asked for more beer while muttering to himself. While the man was drinking the beer, the bartender was able to call the police. THANK GOODNESS!

The police told us we had to immediately go to the station for questioning. It was about 4 or 4:30 at this point. I was nervous because my Japanese isn’t perfect, but I did my best to answer their questions. They questioned all four of us in separate rooms (I could hear the man still going crazy through the walls). It took forever… At about 7:00, the questioning was over, and we were all exhausted. Then we found out that we still had to go back to the bar to take pictures. Basically the cops had us stand in different positions to reenact what happened. They took many pictures for about half an hour. By the time I got home and into bed, it was about 8am. Good thing I had no work the next day!!

In the end, things turned out fine. No one was hurt, and the man paid for all the damage and bought a cake for us as an apology. I ate the cake, but I never want to see his face again. He is banned from the bar. Throughout the whole experience, I was pretty calm. I was shocked but not panicking. The next day or so I was a little traumatized, but I soon got over it. Shinya was pretty worried about me which I appreciated.

If I think about it now, I wonder if I should’ve been more scared like my friend was. I think I still have a child’s mindset that nothing bad will actually happen to me. What if that man grabbed a knife from, behind the counter in his rage? What if the glass hit me or my friends? Those things were very possible. I have trained myself to not think about “what if’s,” but maybe I should think a little more carefully about possible realities. What can I do to be prepared in these sorts of situations?

This isn’t the first act of violence I’ve witnessed in Japan. Actually, at the same bar, I’ve seen a brawl between three men (I think one was trying to break them up). At that time, glasses were broken over heads, punches to the face were thrown (the sound a fist makes when hitting skin is not like what you hear in the movies), and blood was drawn. Luckily it didn’t last long, they went outside, and disappeared. I wasn’t involved in that. I was just a witness, and the police weren’t called, so I didn’t care that much. I just felt bad that the bartender’s stuff was broken. I helped him pick up.

I’ve seen a woman screaming at her boyfriend/husband (I don’t know) at the top of her lungs in the middle of the street while continuously beating him with her purse. He just stood there and took it. I might be forgetting some other violent events as well.

Japan has an image of being so safe, but in my experience, I don’t find it to be that safe. Sure, there are no guns, people generally are more polite, and you can often leave your purse or phone at a table while you use the restroom without anything happening (I’d never do that though haha). However, I have had more dangerous experiences in Japan than I have in the U.S. I’ve also heard personal experiences from my friends as well.

I always wonder if I put myself in these situations. Maybe I didn’t have many bad experiences in the U.S. because I didn’t go to bars or clubs often, and I didn’t live alone. Is it because I’m a foreign woman in Japan that I attract bad men? In Japan, I have seen violence, I have been threatened and stalked (I also went to the police that time. I have never been to the police station in the U.S.!), I have been groped in bars, clubs, and on trains, my friends have been stalked and groped, one of my friends even had a pervert expose himself to her (actually, a guy exposed himself to me in Hokkaido once, but he was Canadian, so maybe that doesn’t count when it comes to talking about Japan’s safety), and lastly, my friends’ wallets have been stolen.

I have written about this topic before in my “Crime in Japan” and “Being Foreign in Japan” posts. So if you are interested in hearing more about my experiences and feelings on these topics, please read. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this post. Mainly, I want my readers to take one thing away from this post. Don’t think you’re invincible. Bad things CAN happen to you. We hear this all the time from motivational speakers and what not, but really, think about what I’m saying for one minute, even if you are someone who doesn’t go to bars and clubs. Bad things can happen anywhere. Think about what sort of situations can arise and what you would do in those situations. I myself need to take more time to do so. I’m not telling you to worry all the time about something bad happening to you (I used to be like that in college, and it was miserable. It took me a while to fix my mindset in that respect), but I’m telling you to be prepared and to believe that you are not exempt from dangerous situations.