I have been arrested in Japan.
My 31 days (the maximum) in solitary confinement in a dirty police jail in Osaka over the holidays nine years ago was my first taste of starvation, solitary confinement and torture.AOn my 25th day on Christmas day I received a 'gift' from the prosecutor. She decided to charge me with bodily injury for insulting a group of Japanese businessmen on the Bullet Train who turned their noses down at my clumsy attempt at courtesy.And for kicking the ticket collector. Twice.Turns out the joke was on me.
Despite having gone to law school in Japan I somehow failed to glean how the Japanese justice system truly works.
Too many Hollywood movies I guess. Instead of telling the beautiful prosecutor to go fuck herself I should have kissed her sweet ass.
'No, she is the one who decides whether to charge you or not...you have to flatter her and play dumb. Dumb as, can’t remember one thing, dumb. You didn't confess did you??!', asked Maeda san, the saintly ‘cell manager’ who I met in detention after I got out of police custody.
‘Yes’, I replied feeling dumb.
Maeda san was charged for beating his wife but absolutely refused to admit to the charges. He had been there for a year and 3 months waiting for his trial to begin.
‘What?! Now there is no hope of a not guilty sentence for you. You will get a record and automatically be deported, children or no children’.
Not only did Maeda san refuse to confess but he ended up walking out of detention a free man leaving me who had been there the second longest at three and a half months as the new cell manager.
In Japan nearly 100% of those charged are convicted. The guts Mada san showed not confessing is astounding because nearly everyone is forced to confess one way or the other.
Maeda san said he would stay in detention as long as it took him to be declared innocent.
His tale provides a textbook example of the courage and determination needed to walk out of Japanese detention without the criminal record which will ruin your life in Japan.
But back to solitary confinement in my filthy, little jail cell.
I wasn't even given water. Only cold 'jail tea' which tasted like dirty dish water.
When I literally 'turned it down' and demanded a cup of coffee things got really bad.
No food. No water. No ‘tea’.
My manners improved and my ‘meal’ service resumed.
I sat obediently in my call waiting patiently for 'meals' that were so small I took to eating each sesame seed sprinkled on my evening meal individually.
With my chopsticks I marvelled at how tasty and filling each tiny sesame was to a starving man.
One thing I have to say is the meals arrived on time to the second. But the time to each meal seemed an eternity.
One afternoon mid-way through my 'stay' six prison guards came in and jumped on top of me, put me in a straight jacket and broke my arm.
When I showed my bent arm to the inspector who interrogated me the next day (and the next, and the next, and the next) , he smiled and said 'looks like you took a fall, eh?'
By that point I had made the switch from Hollywood tough guy to apple polisher.
It was too late.
Back in my cell there was nothing to do but sit on the floor and wait for my next ‘meal’.
I was so thirsty I started gulping water from the toilet bowl.
I was so undernourished that I didn’t take a shit for two weeks.
The only time we were allowed out of our cells was to brush our teeth for exactly five minutes every night at a long sink.
After two weeks and a failed suicide attempt, they started bringing me the daily newspaper and let me check out Japanese novels written in Chinese characters.
I read a full five novels in those two weeks.
If I hadn’t learned to read Japanese I literally would have lost my mind.
I mean even more than I did.
Eventually I settled into a routine.
Cleaning the dirty carpet and the walls of my cell.
Endless push-ups.
And constant reading.
Waiting for my meals was the most excruciating part.
They gave me just enough to keep me alive.
The tiny rice balls and other even more miniscule morsels were the tastiest things I have ever eaten to this day.
Twice a week I was taken to a tiny and very hot bath where the guard watched over my naked body from a foot and a half away.
This was pure heaven because my cell was as cold as ice. They purposefully blew cold winter air at me from outside until I shivered.
Curling into a small ball I would hike my freezing bare feet into my sweatshirt which was over my head. I would blow warm air from my lungs onto my body. But I was still deathly cold.
In the warm bath I lathered up my now completely streamlined body.
The love handles I had since childhood were completely gone. But when my now bony knees rubbed together in the bath it was jarringly painful.
Back in my cell I waited anxiously each morning for the daily newspapers.
The guards started to respect me for my reading ability and became chatty.
But the measly food portions and the freezing cell remained. Still no water, no ‘tea’ and definitely no coffee.
Day after day I sat on the floor and listened to my groaning stomach.
I could literally feel myself losing weight.
My only diversions were seeing how many push-ups I could do and how many pages I could read.
Both were in the thousands before I was finally transferred to detention on New Years Day 2014.
I had lost almost thirty pounds from my already slim body.
Next thing I knew I was shackled with wrist and ankle chains and walked unto a bus with thirty other inmates.
Jesus Christ! this is getting serious I groaned. I am a convict in Japan.
Holy shit Andy