You drive me crazy

As of today, I'm a little bit less of a gaijin. You see, I finally got my Japanese driving licence. Thankfully I was exempt from taking any kind of aptitude test thanks to an agreement between the UK and Japanese governments. However, getting my licence was still far from easy, involving running an incredibly tiresome bureaucratic gauntlet.

It took no fewer than three trips to the prefectural capital, and on each occasion I had to be accompanied by my supervisor to act as interpreter. Thus, upwards of three man-days of public servant time was wasted in order to negotiate the red tape of another branch of the public sector. It's no wonder this country has a national debt of 200% GDP.

The first trip was to get my British licence translated, which seems reasonable on the face of it, but when you think about it is a bit of a nonsense. It's not like I come from Sangala or something (I'm currently rewatching 24 season 7) - they must have seen a British licence before. And what is there to translate, really?

The second trip was actually applying for the licence, which was far from straightforward. It seems they are very concerned about illegal immigrants and/or counterfeit licences. I was asked all sorts of questions about the particulars of my licence and test. Often, I didn't know the answers - I challenge you to tell me what all the letters on the back of your licence mean. When I said I wasn't sure, my interrogator said that wasn't good enough: he needed a definite answer. This really got my back up, and I felt like arguing that his request was unreasonable, and I was unwilling to potentially lie to the Japanese government because he was bullying me. But I realised it was one of those situations where you should just give them the answer they want to hear. Like at airports, where they won't thank you for giving an inventory of all the things in your baggage that could conceivably be used to kill someone, as truthful and carefully thought-out as the answer may be.

I ran into particular problems because I renewed my passport shortly before coming to Japan. Consequently I couldn't prove that I'd lived in the UK for 90 days prior to getting my international driving permit, which is a condition of its validity. We ended up getting my degree certificates faxed through from the JET people, to confirm that I had indeed been resident in the UK before coming to Japan. The guy further tried my patience by complaining that my signature didn't match the one on my licence. Though to be fair, it doesn't. My signature has evolved a lot in a decade. Signatures really are a terrible way of verifying identity. Roll on retinal scans - the occasional eye theft would be a small price to pay to avoid all this hassle.

After about three hours the inquisitor was finally satisfied. It's almost literally true that I've been awarded doctorates with less of a grilling. Bear in mind that I come from a respectable first-world nation, am a Japanese public servant, and was accompanied by another civil servant who could vouch for me. I dread to think what kind of treatment the average Filipina hostess would receive at the licensing department. Waterboarding, probably.

Today I had to return to get the the actual licence. All this involved was having my photo taken (though of course for my application they didn't let me use their camera, instead expecting me to pay 600yen for the photo booth). Also, myself and all the other applicants had to be there between 8:30 and 9:00 to sign up, meaning I had to leave Nanyo at 7:30, and I imagine many of the other people there would have come from much further afield. Somehow, showing up, getting my picture taken, and them printing it on a licence took all morning, but I am now the proud over of yet another form of ID.

I'm sorry, this was only meant to be a preamble to a post about my weekend. Like oil from a BP well, it's difficult to stem my flow of bile for governmental harassment once it gets started. Normal service will resume shortly.