bocastephen

As a frequent user of transit security desks at NRT and ICN, I can attest to almost seeing it all, until this morning. The friendly, charming screener asked to look in my bag and found a tube of toothpaste that was probably over the limit that I forgot to remove from the packaging box. Making matters worse, the manufacturer listed gms (130gms) instead of mls, so I actually had no real idea if it was over the limit or not - but the fun part came when she insisted that I have a ziplock bag for the toothpaste which she provided - then she placed the tube inside the ziplock, closed it, and proceeded to wrap it tightly and put the tube back in the box!

Of course as always the screener was friendly and very apologetic, but her actions reminded me of some of our debates over the years about how the ziplock bag imparts some sort of mysterious and magical protection to the contents...and it was fairly obvious she either was unable to stray even a punctuation mark from the rule, or believed placing the tube inside the bag actually made it safe.

G702TT

I have noticed this a lot in my past travel experiences in Japan (and not just at airport security).

Years ago when I went through Japan customs and immigration at KIX, there was only a small space on the landing card to legibly write the name of the hotel I was staying at. It was the one of the most well known hotels so there would be no problem in finding me. But no, the lady disapprovingly looked at the form and told me I had to fill out a brand new one this time including the complete address. So I spend several minutes at in front of her filling everything out again. Then when it I was at the small space to state where I was staying I started scrunching the hotel address in the tiniest lettering possible. It was kind of pointless because everything was completely illegible. But it satisfied her as it was more important that I include everything even though all the tiny writing was now illegible.

Another visit was during the swine flu epidemic (those times where they inspected flights arriving from the U.S. for several weeks with doctors coming on board to take temperatures and read surveys that we had filled out). I had no temperature, no symptoms and was cleared to leave the aircraft. A week into my trip they called me. At first I thought they just wanted to confirm that I was still symptom free as I confirmed with them I was still feeling great (Genki desu!). But no, they demanded I go to some regional health ministry office to prove to them I had no symptoms. I told them I felt fine and had several other cities to visit. They told me I had to go before travelling to the next city. I said fine but never followed through with the health check visit. I continued with my travels and the fact I did not attend was not brought up at NRT departure immigration. I think the bureaucracy was kind of silly in their hysteria and belief that they could actually track everyone in their country and prevent a single transmission from occurring. I'll bet they called everyone on this arriving flight just because one person might have had the sniffles that they quarantined.

Anyway, I know what your talking about. Those with authority in this country seem to have a culture of mindless adherence to every procedure and rule without any consideration for practicality or common sense.