DMV and My birthday

Japanese efficiency When you live in a big city things are typically done in a different manner than they are done in the countryside. Getting your drivers license renewed is no exception. I woke up a little later than I had planned and tried to help with Anna then took off. I got on the train and could not remember the stop. Was it Higashi or Musashi-Sakai? I chose Musashi-Sakai, got off and found the bus to take me the rest of the way pretty easily. I was not sure when to get off but spotted another guy with a card like mine telling him to go to the Drivers License Center and wisely got off when he did. When I got out of the bus there was a woman herding people towards a rather unofficial looking tent. She told me if I paid 600 yen she would get me the paper I needed to get started and I could skip the first queue. I was skeptical since all the people ran straight for the Drivers License Center (DLC). Then I remembered how cheap most Japanese people are when it comes to something like this. They would rather stand in line another hour than pay 6 bucks. My time is worth allot more than 6 dollars so I paid up and when I got into the DLC I saw she was right. The first queue was the longest, must have been at least 1 hour wait. I stepped right into the payment line where I bought some stamps and put them on my paper. The wait was about 10 minutes but I think you might be able to skip this part if you knew exactly what stamps to buy, they are common forms of payment at city halls and ward offices. A savvy Japanese native could circumvent this step as well I would guess. After this the experience pretty much turned into follow the herd as I went from station to station noting the people around me and making sure they where in the line for the next station as well. It was simple and efficient every section was broken down into a series of short questions and that I answered with a yes.

There was a eye test. I had my photo taken, and had to hunch down to get my face in the right place, resulting in possibly my worst drivers license photo. They checked my address and finally my driving record. Since I was fortunate enough to to get a ticket for going wrong way down a one way street, I also had the fortune of going to what in America would be a 1 hour driving school, except in Japan it was a 2 1/2 hours. In the class there was allot more men then women and all the men sat on one side and women on the other. The guy next to me was a older Yakuza looking type with a shaven head and his complete Willy Coyote track suit. From the start I knew he was not going to be awake after more than 5 minutes of class and was dead right. When the room finally filled the class started and the instructor took the stage. His mic cut in and out annoyingly for the first 5 minutes. He seemed to get it sorted and then proceed with class spending the first 25 minutes talking about the new drives license and how it also doubled as a IC card. My Japanese is not great but I tried to keep up with him, but after about 30 of 40 minutes of him having us flip between different pages in the manual while he read from it. I was full, and just listened for the page numbers and checked pictures and hiragana on each page. After a quick break 1/2 way through we got to everyones favorite part. The movies. Seriously I had seen "Blood Runs Red on the Highway!" more than once in my days so I was curious what the Japanese version would look like. It was actually interesting, it made it very easy to see the difference between the controls Japanese society has as opposed to America. In America fear is what keeps people in place, it is the tool that all major media outlets use to get and keep viewers. "Tune in tonight at 6 and see is your at risk to be infected with the flesh eating streptococcus virus!" The television reporter says during a commercial break. The videos in American driving school are no different. They show kids lives cut short, badly mangled bodies, and parents and friends crying. Fear that you will die or be maimed. The Japanese driving school video had a completely different premiss. Shame. A man drinks and drives, and hits 2 small children, one dies while the other is in a coma. He turns himself in, cause he did not stop at the scene. His family is forced to move from a nice place to a tiny apartment. His wife begs the children's family for forgiveness which they do not give. He is sentenced to jail. The family unit starts to fall apart with mom always working and the kids left alone. The older boy rebels and starts getting in trouble the daughter does the same, by refusing to go to school. The wife again asks the family for forgiveness and they tell her to get lost. So She steps in front of a train. The Husband cries from his jail cell, his children are led away by their grandparents. Lives ruined by drinking and driving the Japanese version. I often wondered why American driving school videos had no impact on me. I guess they never realized I was not afraid of dying. I know that I will never forget this video. The video ended and then so did the class. We got our final stamps and I again followed the heard outside to another building where we all waited to get our license. A man yelled out names and numbers on licenses and you went up to pick it up. 15 minutes later I had my license, registered the IC card in it and was on my way. I think that day about 4000 or more people were processed at that driving center. Each line I was lasted in only 5 to 10 minutes, plus a 2.5 hour class rounded out my trip to just over 3 hours. Not bad I though. Not the best birthday experience I ever had but definitely a interesting one.