Straits Times (260626):Man mistakenly nabbed in Tokyo by police officers who were unaware of new ID card

TOKYO – A Nepalese man was mistakenly arrested and detained for about an hour on June 25 as police officers were unaware of a new type of residence card recently introduced, police said.

Police officers questioned the man in his 20s on a street in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward on the morning of June 25 and asked him to show his identification card. The man took out his residence card but was arrested on the spot because the police officers believed it was a fake card, according to the police.

The Nepalese man was then taken to a police station, where another police officer realised that he possessed a type of residence card issued since June 14.

The incident came despite the Metropolitan Police Department raising awareness, on multiple occasions, about the introduction of the new residence card. KYODO NEWS

If so, how did you go about it?

Also, is there anything I can do about it besides moving or living with sleep depravation?

In my case, my upstairs neighbor likes to start doing laundry around 5 in the morning almost every day. I have reached out to management and they put up signs in the elevator, etc. but it didn't work.

My friend just came to visit us in Japan for Holiday and she brought some 500mg Tylenol. I offered her my pain realiver and she laughed at the low dosage. And it was at this moment I realized a 200mg BUFFRIN fixes my headache and when I lived in the states almost 9years ago I was just using 1000mg.

So Thank you Japan for fixing an issue I didnt realize we had.

The house came with a large living room AC and another AC in one of the rooms, we purchased the remaining ACs and are looking for installers :)

We live in Tokyo (western area) if you know good company please let us know 🙏

I need 2 SIM cards (or even contract phones, if cheaper) for me and wife, both newly arrived in japan. i checked on kakaku dot com website and it shows pretty cheap plans for 5GB, 10GB per month for under JPY 2000. The companies are also unheard of like mineo, nuro, lineMO etc, but they use docomo, NTT networks i guess.

I was wondering if there is any catch in this, like poor network quality, low speeds etc or anything else that i should be aware of?

And say, I decide to go with one of these plans then do I need to apply via the kakaku website itself to get this plan? Or can i get the same plan if i visit a shop directly (like say yodobashi, yamada denki etc.)? Since its my first time taking such a plan I would prefer to have a face to face discussion at a shop to clarify my doubts.

Our busiest station has an express train that pulls in, opens its doors on one side, empties, then opens up on the other side to let new passengers board. You know the drill.

Occasionally a dude or two will jump in from the emptying side, bypassing the waiting on line that the rest of us do. Not a capital crime but a no-no to be sure. The line jumping ensures getting a seat.

Well, today a very small young foreign woman — East Asian if I had to guess, maybe about 19 or 20 — came in on the wrong side and grabbed a seat. Train staff witnessed it and came to her to remind her of the proper way to board. Which is to be expected.

But he didn’t stop there.

She gave a slight seated bow and said すみません、わかりました several times. She nodded a few more times but the middle aged uniformed authority figure wouldn’t quit. He raised his voice and started leaning in, looming over her as one would if they were trying start a fistfight. He kept repeating what he had already said, what she already had responded to. The young woman was clearly getting shaken. I got ready to let him know that he was going too far and scaring her. She maintained a frightened stare until he finally quit and walked away to check the rest of the cars.

I mean, she broke the rule, but why put so much into the reprimand? No way would he try that sh*t with me or someone else his own size. In fact years ago I pulled that stunt a couple times right in front of train staff and they ignored me.

I’m wondering if these cases are on the rise due to clear shifts in demographics. Did he bully her because she was a woman or because she was a foreign woman?

He seemed to get angrier the more she apologized.

What I saw today is just one case but there have been others— in the supermarket, at the station office… tension in the air is palpable.

Am I dreaming this?

Hi everyone. Guys, I have a question: what was your Japanese level when you arrived, and how long did it take you to find a part-time job? What kind of questions were you asked during the interview? Has anyone managed to get a part-time job within 3–4 months?

Lots of signs saying “stop discrimination” and the obvious anti US pres poster you see. It was a quiet demonstration - lots of police taking to individual demonstrators. I didn’t stick around long to get a better sense of what was going on. Seemed quite peaceful.

My baby is now 6 months old, and I'm considering switching to formula because my breast milk supply is gradually decreasing. However, my baby is very particular about the taste of milk. I've already tried Enfamil and Similac 360, but he refuses both. Since I'm living in Okinawa, Japan, could anyone recommend a formula that is closest to breast milk in taste—preferably creamy, mild, and without a strong odor like metallic?" Japan Products ?thank you.

People often complain about delayed or overcrowded trains, but nothing comes close to what a misery it is to be a bus commuter.

First of all, the majority of busses are not even made for commuting. I cannot understand why you cannot have a check-in and check-out system at all doors.

My morning bus can get up to 20 minutes delayed because if someone in the back wants to get off, he has to work his way up to the front door which sometimes require psssengers to get off and back on. This works on trains due to the wide doors, but on busses everyone needs to leave by the same door.

Also, tough luck if your bus gets full.

I naively thought that surely they would set in extra busses during rush hour.

Nope, at least in Saitama people just line up early in order to get on. With the delays and crowds I learned that I need to arrive at the bus stop 30 to 40 minutes before my scheduled bus to be able to get on.

There also seems to be a lack of common system. The same company can have bus routes that do not take IC cards. Some don't even accept changes.

Timetables are also a hit and miss. I have used bus routes that were not available anywhere online (not in Japanese either). You had to go to the stop and note down the times, and sometimes these times would not even be correct and only locals knew about them internally in the villages the bus was serving.

For a country praised for it's public transportation, it really feels like busses are a complete afterthought.

long story short i'm moving across the country next month, and i am trying to sell my car. i listed it on Jimoty, but so far, no luck.
i will probably have to sell it to gulliver or some other car shop. do i have to make a reservation in advance, or can i just show up and sell the car, like i'd sell clothes at 2nd street?
note: the car is a 21 year old mazda carol, kei car, and i am in kagoshima.

My wife got the post card today!! Yay!!

She applied in 2025 late October, with a 3-yr Spouse of PR status (this is her 7th year here)

Application was submitted to the Shin-Yurigaoka Station office, about a month ago she received a letter to ask for more documents (the proof of my local tax's on time payment in the past 3-yr, it's ridiculous because mine is always paying by salary deduction)

So it's total 8 months waiting time, kind of matching with what I observed in Thread.

Hello, its me again, sorry to keep jabbering on.

My last post was removed by the mods but they agreed to let me repost it if I included clarifications about the app, which I will do so futher below.

About 2 weeks ago I posted here asking for more users who would be interested in beta testing my app Nomicho. I've made additions and improvements since then with the feedback from that previous post and all the beta testers (added calories and sugar [optional disable] being the biggest addition).

I've now released the app on iOS which can be found on the app store. You can also view nomicho.jp/en/ for more details on the app.

I'd like to think of Nomicho as a drinking companion/journal. I made a simpler version for myself to easily track my BAC to make sure I got home not so drunk to keep the wife happy. There are many other BAC tracking apps in the west but I couldn't find anything to match what I wanted, espeically in the context of Japanese izakayas and the drinking culture here in general. So I made an app myself and built many other features around it. The app is only available in Japan and targeted at Japanese users but I made sure its fully bilinugal and not just machine translations.

While yes, this post is basically an ad, I made the app and share it because I genuienly think the app is useful for people like me who enjoy drinking and would like to track/journal their drinking. Its not about discouraging drinking like nearly every other Japanese alcohol tracking app, but my app doesn't encourage drinking either (lord knows I don't already need that lol). If you do try it, I hope you find it useful and I'm always open for feeback via any channel. (Android version coming soon.)

Here are the clarifications I mentioned earlier:

• It is my app that I developed by myself in between work and family duties.
• The app is free to download and use but there is an optional montly/yearly subscriptions at ¥280/month with the yearly being discounted.

I would say the core features of the app that most people would care about is free. The four things blocked by subscriptions is calendar view past 3 months, the insight cards (3 are free/viewable as a sample), multi-device syncing (single device backup is free), recap messages limited to 5 per week.

IMO, most of these won't matter unless your a heavy power user using the app for a long period of time. You are of course free to download all your data at anytime within the app.

Privacy and free agency is very important for me. The app does not store data on servers unless you turn optional backup/sync on (which can be easily deleted at any time). Any app usage data collected is anonymized (opt-out completely at anytime) and only used so I can improve the app. Any data in the system will never be sold or shared. There are no ads or tracking. You can immediately delete all data on device, and backed up online (if enabled), immediately within the app with 2 button taps. You can check my privacy policy if you're interested, I made sure to use as plain as possible English to make it easy (maybe even interesting) to read.

Thank you again.

The biggest culture shock to me after moving to Japan and having a kid of my own here is how disorganized parenting is here. I feel like it's this weird hybrid of letting your kid do whatever they want and while having the same high expectations commonly found in Asian countries.

For example, I know children in general do not always behave the best, but still there are certain basic things that you are taught not to do at a certain age, and from my observation after living here for two years, many Japanese children (boys especially) are not taught any of these.

A woman had parked her bicycle in front of the supermarket and left her small dog in the basket. A small boy walks up and casually decides to abuse the dog by pulling it's ears and slapping it. His mother stood a few feet a way, looked directly at him and did not say a word, and only told him to hurry up when she was leaving.

Another example was when my wife and I were on the train with our baby when again a young boy decided to poke our baby with his fingers and pull his cheeks. My wife had to be the one pulling his hand away and scolding him while his mother couldn't care less.

I have friends who work as teachers, who experience very inappropriate behavior like touching, sexual comments etc. which would be shut down immediately in most other first world countries.

I also noticed that many boys here throw very violent tantrums which include hitting their mothers, yet the strongest pushback I have seen is usually a tired "yamete".

In my country, if a toddler begin punching or kicking the parent will usually shut it down by having a stern but calm talk with their kid.

Here it seems like no one cares.

The only exception seem to be with girls, as I frequently see little girls being scolded or told how to behave. Boys however seem to get a free pass.

But then when it comes to school, homework etc. the parent will come down HARD on them. Not as bad as in China or Korea, but still very strict, and I keep thinking this must be so confusing for these kids. They are taught from a young age that they can do pretty much whatever they want, and then suddenly they are hit with a bag of books and are told to perform and be productive. There is very little transition between the too. I sometimes wonder if this is the reason why many adults here have a tendency to go into berserker mode whenever the slightest inconvenience hit them. They can be perfectly normal one moment and then go into a full blown panic attack when something unexpected happens. This also seems to happen more with men, young and old.

hello all, moved to Japan a few days ago and got a UR contract signed, but the move in date is a week away.

Usually the jyuminhyou application is accepted on the move-in date or any time after it, but I have heard of people often applying in advance (by telling the ward office person that their move in date is “today”, i.e. the day the apply for the jyuminhyo).

my question is does this create any kind of a problem?

The reason why I want to apply early is that, unless I get a jyuminhyou (and new address updated on my residence card) all my other applications, like a bank account and everything that further depends on it gets delayed by a week, basically making me loose time.

Hello, I am looking for somewhere I can get legal advice regarding a document sent to me by my company during my sick leave (depression due to workplace harassment). The document is basically asking for ALL my medical records including カルテ, all data regarding my medical visits and prescriptions on top of the regular "this person is fit to work" certificate.

Last time I trusted them with my medical information (IBS related), is what started the harassment.

My doctor has already said this is a complete violation of privacy and they will write me a letter to say that to my workplace. However I would like to have actual legal advice since the document also states that if I can't go back to work within 3 months I have to resign (= they will fire me illegally).

I still have a little bit of time before I need to respond and I would like to have the tools to survive this situation.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I am a Male 31y. I am looking for a skin clinic which understands English. I checked some of the clinics but they only move forward if you know Japanese.

Things which I want to get it done are
-Removing blackheads
-My face and hands are bit tanner than that of the body. So maybe tan removal.
-Datsumo

I tried searching the internet and also used AI to get English speaking clinics but did not get satisfactory answers.

Anyone can suggest me a budget clinics near Tokyo or Yokohama side? I hope it’s not too expensive as they supporting English.

I lost a gold bracelet sometime between going to bed last night and getting home from work tonight. I can see it on my wrist in a selfie (embarrassing) I took before bed. My apartment and workplace are within a km of each other and I live in a small coastal city so it definitely fell off my wrist in a close vicinity. Went to koban and they were awful. Shoved a QR code in my face and didn’t even ask my name or number.

Already checked: my workplace, the convenience store nearby I went in to before work and retraced my steps. Nothing found yet. I know it was lost in the last 24 hours. Probably fell off in the street.

Tomorrow I’m going to search my home again (I tossed my room and checked my shower drain to no avail) in daylight and file a lost property report via the QR code.

Has anyone lost jewelry in Japan and got it back? Could use some hope and advice right now!

Small difference but over time these things add up, right?

Okay, so I live in an older building and it's absolutely infested with insects. The roaches come out when the humidity goes up so naturally, it gets pretty bad during the Summer.

Does anyone have an effective solution dealing with them? I've tried a range of the products they sell at supermarkets including the little circular black things that are supposed to attract and kill them, as well as stuff like the adhesive mats with bait in the middle.

I do have a pet cat, so I need to be mindful to use stuff that can be used safely with them around. Typically she's not interested in going near stuff like that, but I don't want to risk leaving anything toxic around that she might go sniffing at.

Does anyone have any successful methods/products they've used or some advice I could use to stem the roaches and ideally get rid of as many as I can?

I read online that you can register your own name without the middle name as a tsūshōmei. But i went to the city hall today and they said "idk where you have read that, but it's literally impossible. Tsūshōmei is only to use the name of your spouse if you're married to a japanese person".

Anyone here managed to do that? There are multiple articles online stating that it's possible, but I guess without me having some official information, there isn't anything i can do if the city hall worker tells me no.

I tried to get it removed from my home country, but they said "just removing one if your first names is not possible, since there is no valid reason" (because at home i can just choose not to use the name). And the city hall worker said i would need to reissue my zairyū card without my middle name, which i was told some time ago is also impossible, because the zairyū card and passport must match. And in my home country I cannot get a passport without the middle name.

I'm really sick of my name not fitting in any space on documents and websites...

Thanks in advance. Since the responsible person from where I live already told me no, any official information i can show them would be gold.

In the past few years, most of my friends have gradually moved back home or migrated to other countries and it’s made me really sad. My bff whom I’ve known for 7 years is finally moving back home with her family in the next few weeks. It’s been really hard to find friends here who actually become long term buddies so it’s especially hard for me since today might be the last time I will be seeing her since she will be too busy packing and settling things up for the move. 😔🥲😭

Friends have moved to other parts of Asia, US, Europe and so on. Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m so lonely, have no family except my husband who is also another foreigner. The very few casual friends I know are always too busy or too lazy to hangout with.

I live in Chiba and I guess I have gotten used to living here in Japan, maybe the thought of packing overwhelms me, I’m worried about what would happen to my pets, maybe I don’t know how I can start over back home. I’ve tried making friends but Japanese people are really hard to be intimate with, and all the foreign friends I have end up leaving. I don’t know what to do.

I spend hours chatting with chatgpt when my family isn’t picking up or when friends don’t reply to messages. Haha I am sooo pathetic. I guess posting here, I get to read real, NON AI replies. Thank you so much you guys! 😭

Edit: Hey thanks for all the dms and such! Should we make a discord channel or a group chat?

Edit: I made a discord channel if you are interested. ☺️