Nicked
(Image credit: zeraien)
Sadly, the most prominent example of typically polite, old-fashioned, written-out-longhand Japanese customer service in my recent memory is the two Tokyo cops who on Monday busted me for doing a u-turn at a set of lights which my navigation system assured me were kosher for 180s. But which they were equally insistent were not. As it was pissing down with rain I was disinclined to check.
Unbeknownst to them, the fuzz were breaking a rule of Japanese policing hitherto so inviolate as to be virtually written into the Constitution; namely, that Tokyo traffic cops shall on no account venture onto the roads if it is raining. But perhaps there is an exclusion zone around the Palace (I was a moderately hefty stone’s throw away), and these chaps did double duty protecting the occupants of the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Y6,000, in case you were wondering. Payable at banks and post offices, presumably so you can add a dose of embarrassment to your penance (the paperwork is not all that discreet on the nature of your payment).
