April in Shimonoseki

Today, as I was riding back from Mitsuko's along the sea, nearly being thrown off my bike by the blustery sea breeze, I was stopped by two somewhat earnest Policeman who caught me very off guard as I was away in a world of techno with my ear phones on, and nearly crashed into them. I smiled politely, got off my bike, stopped the techno, (which I was not happy about I can tell you), and then waited expectedly. Thing is, I kind of knew what to expect; the police have taken to doing checks of cyclists to make sure the bicycle they are riding belongs to them, because bike theft is SO huge in this country. Although no where nearly as bad as in England, believe me. There is just a more communal attitude here, so if your bike isn't locked to anything, well, its there for the taking! I don't even think this practice of checking cyclists and their bikes is such a bad thing, but, really, there are surely problems with it. For instance, I believe a Greek man called Dmitrius is currently making my little Jaggie in England very happy with his very fine ass. But if they were to trace Jaggie back to anybody, it would be my Grandad. And then a whole heap of shit could kick off and in this practice Dmitrius might be acused of bike theft! So thats my problem with this practice. We all share our bikes in Newcastle, so this would never go down all that successfully.

Anyway, I kind of knew what was coming, but I pretended to be very unclear about the whole thing just to make them feel bad for getting me off my bike. So bless the non English speaking policeman, when they blurted out the word stolen in English (clearly trying to explain to me they were checking for stolen bikes) I gasped and pretended to be frightfully shocked by this accusation, and to make the whole thing even more dramatic and farcical, I rang up Mitsuko, who I KNEW hated the police, explained I had been stopped by the police who were acusing me of stealing a bike, and handed over the phone, after which Mitsuko laid into the policeman big time, scolding him, and telling him he should be ashamed of himself for stopping a very good and honest employee of the Board of Education and who did he think he was...??? Hilarious. The policeman made many apologies down the phone to Mitsuko and went rather crimson, at a loss for words at how to diffuse the situation. I was trying to hold back laughter imagining all the things she was saying to him. Thankfully, and very fortunately, Waka-chan came by in the car, jumped out, and came to my rescue. We were able to rescue the policeman who was just doing his job from Mitsuko, and Waka-chan acted as translater for the police. Once the call came through that it was indeed my bike, they bowed and apologised and said thank you very much. In English. Bless em. I hope I made them SQUIRM.

Another thing made me laugh the other day. My friend Yukari, who also works for the city hall and is a memeber of my English class, was moved to a different section in April, and so now works for the Events part of the City Hall. I asked her, "so, Yukari, what event have you got lined up?!", and she explained to me that the government, being so concerned about the plumetting population numbers, is taking it in their own hands, and so she has to arrange a single's party for 20 - 35 year olds, to try and get them bumped off and married. Is this intervention not absurd?!?! She has to arrange an activity like a trip to the beach, or climbing a mountain, and then plying them with drink in the evening because clearly the government know the best way to produce babies is to ply its population with alcohol. Really. Considering the over population of the world, the increasing problems we are facing environmentally and socially, you would instead think they might try and work with this problem differently, and instead find a way to support the aging population. But instead they employ people like my friend Yukari to play professional cupid and try and get people married and knocked up.