The day John was pulled over by the police

So today, I decided to go on bike to this sports equipment store some 10km+ away for the first time. I reasoned that it would be an adventure and provide some exercise, especially since I am resting my ankle right now. No, it is not sprained, I just rolled over it slightly a few days ago and it is a bit sore. Well, despite going there the for the first time and not having a map, for some reason I decided to take a shortcut. Uncharacteristically, I ended up on this small road lost. The next thing I know this police car pulls up next to me and the cops come out and start asking me questions.

But wait, these were not cops who were trying to help someone lost. Bike theft is pretty common in Japan and all bikes are supposed to be registered with the police. I don't know why these cops decided to stop me but apparently they were suspicious of me and the bike I rode. I didn't understand everything they were saying and answering their questions in very broken Japanese did not help at all. Maybe it was because the bike I rode looked relatively new and I was out of place? Obviously, they soon realized that I was a foreign student at the university but they still asked me a bunch of questions like where I bought my bike and such.

Oh, and while I would usually advise you to not lie to the police, sometimes glossing over a few details might not be a bad idea. The cops saw that I had another bike key in my basket (I use it to recognize my bike, helpful when it is stuck in a stack of hundreds) and asked me about it. The details are complicated and hard to understand if you don't know a lot about bikes in Japan, but in retrospect having the key might have seemed suspicious because it could have easily come from a bike lock I broke off. I had to tell the truth and say that the key came from my other bike (which has a broken lock), which set off another round of questions and broken answers.

After answering all of their questions and giving them my name, address, and number (no idea what they are going to do with it), I finally got away from them. They were polite the entire time, even though we had trouble communicating, but it was still a very weird experience. No one likes be thought of as a thief, so that was not pleasant. I think this is also the first time I actually had any contact with the police, let alone be a suspect, in any country as well. While I was a bit nervous (probably from the language difficulties), I was fairly confident that things would be ok since I had done nothing wrong and the bike is mine and registered to me (though apparently they couldn't pull up that record soon enough and never did). The event is something I can look back at now and laugh at, but I still wonder why in the world I was picked in the first place. Thinking that you might look like a criminal is not a pleasant thought.

Oh, and apparently, I really do look Japanese. This is not the first time I have been told this. When I was a baby and in my grandma's care, her friends used to ask her why she was taking care of a Japanese baby (or so I am told). My tutor and his friend say I have a "syoyu (soy sauce)" face, as opposed to having a "(western) sauce" face. When the cops found out I was an American, the first questions they asked was if I was a Nisei (second-generation Japanese), which has happened other times as well.