Essay

Forgetting your anniversary

By Mike Dwane

Before me stood a grey office block that on the outside looked no different to any other in this part of Tokyo.

But inside was a spectacle infinitely more colourful than in most of the surrounding buildings peopled by the salarymen.

I needed a stamp on my passport, so I joined the queue of turbaned Sikhs, brightly robed West Africans and everybody else who had business with Japanese immigration.

A kind official told me that the person who could help me could be found at the end of the green line on the floor. I followed it only to find that there was another line to follow -- this time orange. The next hour was spent tramping through corridors, boarding elevators and descending staircases through all the colours of the rainbow until I found myself back at the green line!

For a moment, I thought I had been caught in a never-ending nightmare from the pages of Lewis Carroll, but my multicoloured odyssey around the immigration bureau had more to do with my poor Japanese than anything else. The officials were polite and even apologised that my time had been wasted before giving me another year in the country.

I have been interrogated by immigration police -- but in my own country!

Let me explain by saying I have been married three times, each time to the same woman.

The first was at the Meguro Ward office around eight years ago. My second "wedding" took place some time later when we got the documents translated and the marriage legally recognised in Ireland.

And the third took place in a shrine in Harajuku on May 9, 2010. I remember this date because it cost me the most money!

So you could say I have three wedding anniversaries -- and a lot of numbers to remember.

I never thought I would have to recite them until immigration officers at Heathrow told my wife that her residency stamp was six months out of date and we should go to the Irish authorities as soon as possible.

So we found ourselves in front of a policewoman, who suspected ours might have been a sham marriage -- where there is no real love, only a desire to get around immigration law.

She began the interrogation by asking me some basic questions.

"When is your anniversary?"

"October 28?" I ventured.

"No. What year?" she asked, increasingly suspicious. "2006?"

She shook her head, indicating I was wrong again.

"I'm not sure. Can you give me a clue?" I begged.

I had failed this most simple of tests but to our great surprise, the officer produced a stamp and brought it crashing down on the passport. Another three years' residency was approved with only a stern warning not to be so complacent in future.

結婚記念日を忘れて

外国人の出入国を管理する入国管理局には世界各地から外国人が集まっている。筆者は以前、東京入国管理局で苦労した思い出があるが、最近、自国の入国管理局でも質問攻めに遭ってしまった。

The Japan Times ST: August 23, 2013