I went to the Japanese Consulate General on Tuesday to drop off my paperwork. I’m going to Japan on the 31st for a week, and need to renew my work visa. I’ve done it before, so I know the drill. You need to fill out the form, bring your passport, your certificate of eligibility, and get a passport photo taken of yourself. I took the Muni metro downtown and stopped at Wallgreens for my $8 passport photo, and then popped up to the Consulate General’s office.
The security guard seemed to remember me from eighteen months ago, “Back again?” He asked me. I smiled and assured him that I was indeed, back again. We grinned at each other as he rifled through my back pack. When he was done, the thin little man in the official shirt gave me the all clear, and handed back my back pack and a small wooden octagonal number. I nodded, and took my seat.
My number came up immediately. The woman behind the counter reviewed my paperwork and made a couple of corrections. Then she came to my photograph. The woman was modest, and blushing. She held the 1.5″ x 1.5″ photograph between the index finger and thumb of both hands and carefully examined it, looked up at me, and then examined the photograph again. She excused herself and returned with a crowd of people, they passed my photograph around, each looking closely at it, and then up at me. I asked what was the matter, and after a consultation between them in Japanese, the woman re-approached the window, slipped the photograph back through the stainless steel slot below the bulletproof glass and said “This photograph can not be used.”
“Why not?” I asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
The woman blushed, her acne seemed to glow a dark red while her face, heavily covered in foundation, remained the same color. She bowed a couple of times and said,” Good style is best for photograph.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. I wasn’t at all sure what the big deal was. I am two months out from my annual haircut and haven’t really even begun to get half as shaggy as I like to be.
“Um, yes… This photograph is unacceptable.” She said carefully. The woman looked deeply embarrassed and couldn’t seem to stop bowing. I smiled at her, hoping to make her more comfortable. I was beginning to get sea sick from all the bowing.
“What exactly is unacceptable about this photograph?”
“Yes,” She said with a bow. “For example, your hair is not good style. Your eyes are unequal. Good style is best for photograph.”
“I see.”
I wanted to explain that the concept of “good style” is a relative experience. I wanted to express that in Japan one finds many interesting hairdos, including the enduring Hanoi Rocks mullet, complete with fedora and skin tight trousers as well as mohawks, Sid Vicious clones, and many bizarre variations on popular hip hop cornrows. There’s nothing more dubious than a person with bone straight hair getting the county jail hair braids just to look cool on the streets of Tokyo is there?
I didn’t say anything. I was amused. I smiled and promised to return with good style and a new set of pictures as soon as possible. She bowed again, and said goodbye.
I chuckled all the way to the barber shop where my barber was amazed to see me. “You’re early!” He gasped. All the other barbers laughed. I grinned and said “Do it up!” So I got my annual haircut ten months early, walked back to Wallgreens and asked them to please re take my photograph. And returned to the office of the Japanese Consulate General.
Everyone in the office was delighted with my new look. All of my friends from an hour and a half before came out to look at me and discuss this new picture. Everyone waved, and smiled brightly at me. One man called “Good style!” to me from behind the glass. The woman helping me was blushing again, but had stopped bowing.
“Very good style for photograph.” She said with a grin.
I grinned.
“You may pick up your passport and visa on friday.”
“Thank you.”
12 Comments
hee, hee, hee. That does seem a bit strange considering the myriad of looks to be found in Tokyo.
Have you ever had anyone there address your appearance before?
No, never. But I suppose this [i]is[/i] the modern world.
haha… the stuff that happens to people.
that is just bizarre enough to be completely true.
how very odd.
erin
I love this story Sunshine! Have you ever read “Thank you and OK” by David Chadwick? The chapter on his experience at the Japanese DMV is priceless!
From Publishers Weekly
Hats off to newcomer Chadwick for his engaging account of a nearly four-year stay in a rural Buddhist temple and subsequent adventures in Japan. A stickler for detail, he jots down minutiae as he tries to make sense out of the mix of tradition and change–such as the ancient temple altar where 500-year-old scrolls sit next to a large matchbox bearing a picture of a grinning, winking Japanese man and the English advertising slogan “THANK YOU AND OK!” Chadwick, who studied Zen for more than 20 years to little avail before heading to Japan, tends to lean over backward to stare at his belly button, but his writer’s skill is evident in everything from skin crawling descriptions of mukade (dreaded scorpion-like insects) to a benevolent look at takuhatsu , formal monks’ begging. Several chapters are rib-tickling Abbott and Costello-type routines with Chadwick as straight man. None is finer than Chadwick’s day at the Driver’s License Test Building–a remarkable commentary on human endurance, the unflagging courtesy of bureaucrats in the face of “what cannot be helped,” and sheer lunacy as when the bureaucrat asks about the written test he had taken in California ” ‘And what language was the test administered in, Japanese or English?’ ” The book is long and the confusing interweaving of Chadwick’s stay at the temple Hogoji with accounts of life in the Japanese ‘burbs is unnecessary. But whenever the reader begins to think about putting the book down, the writing picks up and one is hooked again.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Whoa!
That’s all I have to say about that.
Thank you for making me laugh my head off today. Great story! The best twist is that you went back same day with your new ‘doo. Hysterical. They’re probably telling some funny stories about you tonight, too!
i bet almost everyone who read this got to the “what’s wrong with it” part of the entry and thought “oh no, some other reason that travel plans vex sunshine”
glad that’s not the case…now just make sure you’ve got your head on straight about flight information.
thanks for the laugh! that is a very funny story. only the japanese could be affable enough to force you to get a haircut and re-take your picture and yet the whole thing comes out being funny. can you imagine if someone at an american dmv did that? most people would probably lose it.
they probably just needed to see you better for security purposes. but the fact that they say your hair is “not good style” and your eyes are “unequal” - is just too funny. well, hopefully your new “good style” look will help you get through security checkpoints faster!
I’ll be continuing the tie experiment for this trip to Japan, so I’m quite certain that all will be well.
: )
OMG… that’s gotta be the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time… and I live in Tokyo. I didn”t know it was possible to experience culture shock even before you arrive in a foreign country. Go figure…
I heard you’re coming to spin at Yellow so I’ll do my best to come down and support your show.
whee! if you’re looking, i’m the unique user who has hit your site 25+ times today. i don’t know why i never clicked on your link on ali’s blog, but i’m enjoying my run of it today. i think you have good stlye in the pix above; were those the rejected?