The policeman was polite; however, he unmistakably wanted me to come with him. No problem with me – the timing was good. We had finished our dinner, Nikol and Nicole were happily drinking their fruit lassies and I was done with my beer.
I followed the friendly officer who seemed a bit disappointed that I did not understand him, and we walked to our parked rental-car.
In front of the car, a white Mitsubishi off-roader with exhaust pipes which would honour any Golf GTI was parked. We were blocked.
The policeman led me towards a female police officer and – what was that? – a dwarf like being with a iron walking stick and thick glasses.
Somehow we did not really manage to understand each other but there clearly seemed to be a problem since the Mitsubishi was not moving and the dwarf was angrily staring upwards to me.
The police understood that there was the potential for a cross-cultural misunderstanding and asked me “Friend? Speak Japanese?”
Nikol, our Canadian Couchsurfing-friend and host in Sapporo speaks Japanese a bit (she had been in Japan for only 3 months) and so I pointed to the restaurant we just had left. The policeman and I went to fetch Nikol. She eagerly followed and I asked Nicole to wait – this could only be a matter of minutes.
I was not.
With Nikol’s translation and the policewoman calling a translator via her mobile phone, we found out that the dwarf was the owner of our parking space and that in fact it was not a public parking we had chosen for that night.
Mrs. Dwarf was very upset and wanted 50’000 Yen for parking on her space. Even though I had had some sake and Sapporo-Beer, I quickly calculated that this would amount to 500 US-$. Ugh...
I asked if that was the fine for wrong parking we had to pay to the police. It was not – this was the price the dwarf asked for in order to have her fancy Mitsubishi moved out of our way. Black-mailing in front of the police? Well, that’s ok in Japan.
I told the dwarf “No way!” This was when Nicole arrived.
We explained the situation to her and she seemed not to believe her ears. The otherwise so friendly Japanese were really screwing around with us? Wow!
Shortly after Nicole, the dwarf’s son arrived – a bad Japanese copy of Robert de Niro – with a cynical smile and some probably very insulting words we luckily did not understand. He seemed to notice that and turned on his heels to walk away. He stumbled and I got convinced that he had had some sake, too.
The dwarf did not walk away.
We argued that we could not read any of the signs since they all were written in Japanese, we said that we were sorry (all translated by Nikol) but it all did not help: the dwarf did not smile understandingly and just repeated that we had to pay 50’000 Yen.
Even the police officers tried to help us and explained that we were just stupid Gajin (=foreigners) and that we would move our car as soon as her off-road monster would leave the premises. But the greedy dwarf stayed firm – no more talking before she would not see any cash.
Well, fu.. you.
The police had told me that they were not really interested in that matter, so why not just walk away and wait until Robert de Niro needs his car on the next morning and opens an escape way for us?
In this moment Nikol gave me her mobile phone – her friend Carlos from Mexico was on the phone. He had been living in Japan for 3 years and told me that walking away would not work – because a) Japanese always win over Gajins and b) the dwarf was old, and old dwarfs had to be paid respect - even by police officers. Further-on, the police guys had probably written down our number plates and we really could run into trouble.
Nicole told the police guys that we would not negotiate any further and that we would call our embassy. Unfortunately they did not understand.
Carlos spoke via mobile with the police agents and, as we realized later, they asked him to come over to help negotiating our ransom money with the evil dwarf.
It was freezing and we all were shivering. The policemen seemed to want to leave, the dwarf probably wanted to beat us with her walking pole and I just wanted to be in Russia.
Why did I not believe more in the movie “Lost in the translation”?
Robert de Niro brought a thick coat for the dwarf – they seemed not to give up that easily. Well, neither would we. No way that we would pay 500 Dollars.
We waited and Nikol was really polite to the dwarf. She said sorry and made me say sorry, but it sounded probably a bit half-heartedly. The dwarf was sticking up her nose in the cold air (and almost reached my belly) and walked away. Bitch.
Well, whatever, we could wait. Finally Carlos arrived and we explained the situation for him. Carlos seemed to see the whole thing a bit differently than I did – he told me that confrontation would be useless and that the only thing we could do was to pay some money at least. Well, what can you argue? I know that Japan is different; I know it was a mistake to come here, with or without car (even though our Christmas holiday in Niseko had been great).
We had been standing in the dark night for more than two hours now, the policemen just had left us (in fact, they were escaping) and Nicole seemed to be freezing. Carlos spoke very politely, explained that we were poor students (with a really expensive rental car, but whatever) and that we were very sorry. I wanted to kill the dwarf – get my Land-Cruiser from the Yokohama harbour and drive over her a couple of times. Her son was smiling stupidly and mad gestures like shooting a gun with his hands. I agreed with myself that he would have to die, too.
Carlos spoke with all his might, using body, face and language and finally told us that the greedy dwarf agreed to let us go for 10’000 Yen (100 US-$). I hated to give in, but both Carlos and Nikol who lived in that evil country (do you listen, Mr Bush?) told me that this was the best option to get out alive of the whole affair. We paid.
Then we drove off – only to discover that our front tyre was almost flat. I want my Land-Cruiser back. And I want Japan to be on the Black List of “Axle of Evil Countries”.
Ps: The next day we discovered that in fact we had two lat tyres. Did the dwarf really use here walking stick to puncture our tyres? Or could that be a coincidence? More in the next report “Under fire in Japan”.
