On 6/7/2004 7:59 PM, Michael Cash wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:51:02 +0900, Scott Reynolds <sar@gol.com>
> brought down from the Mount tablets inscribed:
> 
>>On 6/5/2004 3:37 PM, Matthew Endo wrote:
>>
>>>Otemachi was really convenient, but of course consolidating the offices
>>>in some inconvenient location (a bus ride away from Shinagawa station)
>>>was a much better way to service the foreigners in the eyes of the
>>>government...
>>
>>I also like the way they incorporated the detention facilities for the 
>>poor unfortunates awaiting deportation into the same building people 
>>have to use to apply for and pick up their visas. Perhaps this is 
>>intended as a (not too) subtle reminder to the rest of us to keep to the 
>>straight and narrow.
> 
> They bring them in around back, though.

Thank goodness! Wouldn't want to rub shoulders with the riffraff.

> Did you know that not very far away, just over on the next island in
> fact, there is a special sort of halfway house for foreigners? I think
> it's for people who may be coming in on some sort of refugee status. I
> believe this is the same facility that they used a few years ago when
> they had a massive homeless removal campaign in Shinjuku. They took
> the homeless folks there and let them stay a couple of weeks before
> kicking them out on the streets again.

Aha! I wondered what they ever did with that place.

But how come you know all this about the halfway house for foreigners, 
Mike? I would guess that most Japanese people don't know about it. Heck, 
even Japan experts like Howard French probably have never heard of it.

-- 
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Scott Reynolds                                      sar@gol.com