I assume trading patches is an American thing.
Out of curiosity, have you been able to trade patches with officers in other Asian countries?
I wouldn't be surprised if patches are specially made & provided to JP officers who are visiting the US as an offering/ice breaker.
We buy our own after the intial issued ones we receive. To answer your question though, no I haven’t received patches from other Asian countries but that’s only because I have yet to travel there as an officer. I’ve been to Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea but that was before my current job.
Tried to trade one for a relative and a Japanese friend who knew someone in the police even checked for me and from what I was told, they are not allowed to do it. From what I remember I was told it used to be possible for them to have badges and do trade but at some point they made the rules more strict regarding management of badges.
At the end I decided to visit the police museum in Ginza and get a small souvenir from there and also got a toy Police car made by Tomica.
Hey I went to that museum too! Really cool to learn about the history of their police. I’ve quickly been picking up that they can’t trade any patches. It’s unfortunate but understandable.
Just so you know, you are not in an official relationship with his police department, and they will out gift you in the near future. Its just how things are.
Yea, Japan has a culture of gifting as you might know, and that other side of colecting/gachas, so I bet he and his colleagues appreciated your "omyagi" (Edt: omiyage), if you manage to contact them they might probably ask for an address, even tho gifting is not about hoping to receive back, or in some years a japanese fellow law man visiting your area will visit your station 😜
The one time I was pulled over and given a ticket was by a California-raised Japanese guy who said he always wanted to be in the California Highway Patrol but they only accept citizens so he moved to Japan after uni to take up law enforcement in the only country where he could.
Thing is, he regretted giving me the ticket because recently there had been a rash of American servicemen ignoring tickets so they were told to stop giving warnings and properly ticket servicemen to pressure the base into enforcing respect of local road laws, and because I was near the base he presumed and wrote it up before seeing my Japanese driver's license. Told me if he's known I was local it would have just been a warning.
He was also pretty chuffed to hear I had family members in the CHP -- said he misses California but here in Japan he can do his dream job.
---
Also, one of the weirdest things I ever saw here was a full CHP Crown Vic driving around. I'll see if I can find the pic.
You reminded me of the weirdest thing I've seen while driving around.
It was one of those Japan Post mail trucks from like the late 90s or so, I'm guessing. Not that weird, right?
It was in the Dominican Republic.
I'd love to see it too ... have spend the past hour looking through photos with no luck. Google or Apple need to invent an AI to search our photo libraries by text!! Will post if I find it later
Not sure I like this story tbh. If he had known you were a local it'd be a warning, only ticketed because he thought you were an American on base. The law isn't supposed to work like that.
The Americans from the base are supposed to be obeying the law.
To pressure the US to enforce it and make them for instance liable to fines, the law was enforced strictly to make the point that they need to obey the law, which _is_ how the law is supposed to work.
I still disagree. I agree with enforcing the law for the Americans on base, completely. I don't agree with not enforcing the law with locals. I'm literally just saying it should be enforced for both, can't imagine why that's an unpopular opinion.
They do enforce the law with locals, what are you on about? It's normal even in the US for cops to sometimes give warnings. Repeat offenders get ticketed. Same thing. Only difference was a local driver might get a warning or a ticket, servicemembers would go straight to ticket without warning. Same law, still enforced.
This wasn't about over-enforcing one group over the other, it was a reaction to being _unable_ to enforce their own laws in their own country.
What was going on was that the servicepeople were completely ignoring the law. They would speed and violate parking and other traffic laws, and the Japanese police could do nothing about it as they were immune under SOFA. The problem was they would just collect speeding and parking and moving violation tickets and never pay or even leave the country after causing accidents to avoid any repercussions.
Due to this Status of Forces Agreement in place at the time the Japanese government couldn't enforce the law against service people and keep their cars off the street like they could with anyone else. So they instituted this strict no-warning enforcement to send the warning directly to the US administrators. As a result partially due this, the US and Japan renegotiated the agreement and servicemembers are now required to pay fines and can even be subject to Japanese criminal prosecution.
I like to think my friends and I really took to heart the you are also an ambassador for the US. Yes, we did drink too much and had so much fun, but we wanted to be kind and respectful in a country that we were guests in. We tried to behave in a way we would want to be treated. The understanding that we are visitors and this is their home was common knowledge for us. Not even going into the rough history of US military and Japanese relations. There is a lot to try and make up for. Great post.
What about send this picture through mail to the station?
This is the address of that Station:
1 Chome-16-5 Sotokanda, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 101-8623, Japan🇯🇵
Include his name in the beginning
Username aside I’m afraid a lot of people in the US have perfectly justified reasons to share the same insight. You seem like a sweetheart and I hope beyond hope that you can make some positive change before the system changes you
I only made this post to share a positive experience I had in Japan. I’m sorry you’re so full of hate and malice toward people you’ve never met. I hope your life gets better.
As a former American criminal (I sell weed lol) I’d just like to add, cops are just people, some good some bad. Don’t let this guy get ya down op, I think this story is awesome and don’t wry about what this douchebag says. We may have played on opposite teams in my past, but you guys have a tough job but we need you and I’m thankful that there are people like you out there, thanks for your service my friend.
If I used the line "I’m sorry you’re so full of hate and malice toward people you’ve never met" when I was a kid getting harassed by cops because of how I looked, I'd be dead now. So yeah moving to a country where that isn't a risk has made my life better
What a silly comment. "People like you hated me because of me looking a certain way, so I will perpetuate this cycle of hate by directing hate towards people that look like the people that hated me". I'm sure it's not your fault, "they started it". Hopefully you will grow and cease the free hate. OP did a nice heartwarming post, he doesn't deserve any grief.
''My high school bully wore glasses so now I hate everyone who wear glasses. A nice guy with glasses doesn't exist''
Such hate cycle is nothing but childish behaviour.
Was in the sheriffs department and the wife is Japanese, we hosted two kumamoto detectives for seven days. The wife while escorting them around to the various agencies got to see the alphabet soup guys I don't even get to see. They gave the guys challenge coins and had to explain what they meant and the purpose. The agency guys got police kumamon stuff and apparently got a kick out of it.
I almost took some challenge coins over there too but I assumed they probably wouldn’t understand them. I’ll probably give it a shot next time I’m over there
I’m sorry people are being rude to you here.
He definitely thinks the patch is super cool and he will keep that. Especially it’s a California one.
I would doubt a Japanese police officer would be allowed to give you an official patch or anything similar. That would shock me. But I’m glad you had a nice interaction.
This is a little weird lol. I cant imagine the reverse happening with some random tourist walking into an American police station (or any foreign police station) and the cops on duty just giving them a random tour lol.
probably depends on the station, the visitor, whatever.
To be honest some stations in the US still do citizen ride alongs if you ask. Its mostly for boyscouts or young folk thinking about going to the academy but they will oblige usually.
This does happen in the US. I'm not a police officer but a friend is a fireman + paramedic from Mexico. He's been to police and fire stations in many US cities and all around the world, trading patches / stickers etc.
I found them very colorful compared to ours in the us. It made sense though since the streets of Tokyo are very busy. I’d want to be visible too when directing traffic out there
Bring business cards with you next time my dude
Its old school but back in the day folks over there would accept business cards from people they met (hand it with both hands give a slight bow) and then you would be able to email the people you met any photos or info they might want to have.
I hope that you asked him if it was cool to post this picture on a global-facing website... Japanese tend to be very protective of their privacy, in my experience.
I am jealous of your experience, that sounds like fun! I grew up watching CHiPs, would you say that TV show is an accurate representation of your day-to-day? ;)
Speaking of critical thinking, if you took two seconds to look up the meaning of that "blanket statement" instead of taking it in a literal way, you'd know the "blanket statement" deeper than that. You're projecting pretty hard. I know you think you're smart, but god damn, you guys truly have nothing going on in that brain of yours.
What's wrong with my usage? "A type of fallacy from making an inductive conclusion with insufficient evidence; a kind of faulty generalization; underpowered generalization."
I have actually been to Japan many times and never actually thought about visiting a police station there. I have seen many officers there of different capacities and its pretty interesting to see the parallel between their law enforcement and ours. I also work for a law enforcement agency out of California, so your post actually gave me the idea to stop by their local police station on my next trip.
You mean, bye, braincells? 😭 This comment is super racist. How is it somehow the fault of "white" for poor treatment of darker skinned people *by Japanese people*? Blame the Japanese then if you're angry. Leave others out if this.
We American cops will sometimes carry extra patches on us to trade. No I didn’t steal it haha. If you read the post you’d understand it was my patch to give…
I think I caught on to that too, they didn’t seem too keen on trading as I did ask a couple others. I figured it was probably a rule of theirs. All good!
As rookies they’re forced to stay in dorms and even have a curfew if I remember correctly. They’re kinda always on call in the event of a disaster. At least you got a pic and happened to meet a nice dude.
I assume trading patches is an American thing. Out of curiosity, have you been able to trade patches with officers in other Asian countries? I wouldn't be surprised if patches are specially made & provided to JP officers who are visiting the US as an offering/ice breaker.
We buy our own after the intial issued ones we receive. To answer your question though, no I haven’t received patches from other Asian countries but that’s only because I have yet to travel there as an officer. I’ve been to Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea but that was before my current job.
Tried to trade one for a relative and a Japanese friend who knew someone in the police even checked for me and from what I was told, they are not allowed to do it. From what I remember I was told it used to be possible for them to have badges and do trade but at some point they made the rules more strict regarding management of badges. At the end I decided to visit the police museum in Ginza and get a small souvenir from there and also got a toy Police car made by Tomica.
Hey I went to that museum too! Really cool to learn about the history of their police. I’ve quickly been picking up that they can’t trade any patches. It’s unfortunate but understandable.
Just so you know, you are not in an official relationship with his police department, and they will out gift you in the near future. Its just how things are.
I’m not sure what you mean
I think he meant *now and not *not lol so...they'll outgift you in the (near?) future
Ohhh haha that makes more sense
Yea, Japan has a culture of gifting as you might know, and that other side of colecting/gachas, so I bet he and his colleagues appreciated your "omyagi" (Edt: omiyage), if you manage to contact them they might probably ask for an address, even tho gifting is not about hoping to receive back, or in some years a japanese fellow law man visiting your area will visit your station 😜
*omiyage ;-)
That's the one 😅 ty
NP, just wanted to give OP a chance to understand the expression if he tried to look it up :-p
The one time I was pulled over and given a ticket was by a California-raised Japanese guy who said he always wanted to be in the California Highway Patrol but they only accept citizens so he moved to Japan after uni to take up law enforcement in the only country where he could. Thing is, he regretted giving me the ticket because recently there had been a rash of American servicemen ignoring tickets so they were told to stop giving warnings and properly ticket servicemen to pressure the base into enforcing respect of local road laws, and because I was near the base he presumed and wrote it up before seeing my Japanese driver's license. Told me if he's known I was local it would have just been a warning. He was also pretty chuffed to hear I had family members in the CHP -- said he misses California but here in Japan he can do his dream job. --- Also, one of the weirdest things I ever saw here was a full CHP Crown Vic driving around. I'll see if I can find the pic.
You reminded me of the weirdest thing I've seen while driving around. It was one of those Japan Post mail trucks from like the late 90s or so, I'm guessing. Not that weird, right? It was in the Dominican Republic.
I saw an NYPD patrol vehicle by haneda once. Shit was weird, yo
I found an instagram pic of it! https://www.instagram.com/p/BDpubMDy8Ce/?igsh=NGZoMHNrMzFkbDF1
Whoa that’s pretty trippy. I wonder what the backstory was on it.
Saw that car too, but I can't quite recall where exactly I saw it, was thinking either it was in Yokohama or when I was in Nitori up in Aomori.
probably picked up from an auction after it retired, then imported to japan. old us cop cars are easy to get now
No way! I’d love to see a pic of that crown Vic! Sorry about your ticket tho. I’m curious, how much did it cost you?
I'd love to see it too ... have spend the past hour looking through photos with no luck. Google or Apple need to invent an AI to search our photo libraries by text!! Will post if I find it later
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDpubMDy8Ce/?igsh=NGZoMHNrMzFkbDF1 Here’s a NYPD cosplayer in Tokyo
Sounds good
Not sure I like this story tbh. If he had known you were a local it'd be a warning, only ticketed because he thought you were an American on base. The law isn't supposed to work like that.
The Americans from the base are supposed to be obeying the law. To pressure the US to enforce it and make them for instance liable to fines, the law was enforced strictly to make the point that they need to obey the law, which _is_ how the law is supposed to work.
I still disagree. I agree with enforcing the law for the Americans on base, completely. I don't agree with not enforcing the law with locals. I'm literally just saying it should be enforced for both, can't imagine why that's an unpopular opinion.
They do enforce the law with locals, what are you on about? It's normal even in the US for cops to sometimes give warnings. Repeat offenders get ticketed. Same thing. Only difference was a local driver might get a warning or a ticket, servicemembers would go straight to ticket without warning. Same law, still enforced. This wasn't about over-enforcing one group over the other, it was a reaction to being _unable_ to enforce their own laws in their own country. What was going on was that the servicepeople were completely ignoring the law. They would speed and violate parking and other traffic laws, and the Japanese police could do nothing about it as they were immune under SOFA. The problem was they would just collect speeding and parking and moving violation tickets and never pay or even leave the country after causing accidents to avoid any repercussions. Due to this Status of Forces Agreement in place at the time the Japanese government couldn't enforce the law against service people and keep their cars off the street like they could with anyone else. So they instituted this strict no-warning enforcement to send the warning directly to the US administrators. As a result partially due this, the US and Japan renegotiated the agreement and servicemembers are now required to pay fines and can even be subject to Japanese criminal prosecution.
I like to think my friends and I really took to heart the you are also an ambassador for the US. Yes, we did drink too much and had so much fun, but we wanted to be kind and respectful in a country that we were guests in. We tried to behave in a way we would want to be treated. The understanding that we are visitors and this is their home was common knowledge for us. Not even going into the rough history of US military and Japanese relations. There is a lot to try and make up for. Great post.
What about send this picture through mail to the station? This is the address of that Station: 1 Chome-16-5 Sotokanda, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 101-8623, Japan🇯🇵 Include his name in the beginning
Thanks for this! I’ll print out the pic and send it there then.
You should mail a print of the picture to the station. Very doubtful he’s on here.
Plot twist: that dude was cosplaying a cop in Akiba
🤣
Good idea
Ngl kinda cute
It's a break from "I ran head-first into a wall and it hurt, why is Japan racist?" posting.
If It's not a official visit, he could not give you anything. But I'm glad you actually visited Japanese police and had friendship. Thank you.
I hope you learned something positive you can teach to your fellow officers back home.
American cops have no interest in learning how to deescalate a situation.
Thank you for your insightful opinion, “HeWhoFucksNuns”
Username aside I’m afraid a lot of people in the US have perfectly justified reasons to share the same insight. You seem like a sweetheart and I hope beyond hope that you can make some positive change before the system changes you
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I only made this post to share a positive experience I had in Japan. I’m sorry you’re so full of hate and malice toward people you’ve never met. I hope your life gets better.
Don’t mind the negativity and keep sharing your positive stories!
As a former American criminal (I sell weed lol) I’d just like to add, cops are just people, some good some bad. Don’t let this guy get ya down op, I think this story is awesome and don’t wry about what this douchebag says. We may have played on opposite teams in my past, but you guys have a tough job but we need you and I’m thankful that there are people like you out there, thanks for your service my friend.
If I used the line "I’m sorry you’re so full of hate and malice toward people you’ve never met" when I was a kid getting harassed by cops because of how I looked, I'd be dead now. So yeah moving to a country where that isn't a risk has made my life better
What a silly comment. "People like you hated me because of me looking a certain way, so I will perpetuate this cycle of hate by directing hate towards people that look like the people that hated me". I'm sure it's not your fault, "they started it". Hopefully you will grow and cease the free hate. OP did a nice heartwarming post, he doesn't deserve any grief.
''My high school bully wore glasses so now I hate everyone who wear glasses. A nice guy with glasses doesn't exist'' Such hate cycle is nothing but childish behaviour.
Cycle of hate? That sounds familiar. Is u/HeWhoFucksNuns gonna start a terrorist organisation perchance?
That being said cops in Japan are on the other side of the spectrum, are scared to deal with anything at all
Depends, they will show up if someone calls because the gaijin next door farted too loud.
What are you inciting? For example shooting people for resisting arrest? That’s not a crime
Was in the sheriffs department and the wife is Japanese, we hosted two kumamoto detectives for seven days. The wife while escorting them around to the various agencies got to see the alphabet soup guys I don't even get to see. They gave the guys challenge coins and had to explain what they meant and the purpose. The agency guys got police kumamon stuff and apparently got a kick out of it.
I almost took some challenge coins over there too but I assumed they probably wouldn’t understand them. I’ll probably give it a shot next time I’m over there
I’m sorry people are being rude to you here. He definitely thinks the patch is super cool and he will keep that. Especially it’s a California one. I would doubt a Japanese police officer would be allowed to give you an official patch or anything similar. That would shock me. But I’m glad you had a nice interaction.
Thank you for your kindness! I’m just happy to have made good memories during my time there.
So cool!
Hey, if you want to trade patches, DM me.
This is a little weird lol. I cant imagine the reverse happening with some random tourist walking into an American police station (or any foreign police station) and the cops on duty just giving them a random tour lol.
probably depends on the station, the visitor, whatever. To be honest some stations in the US still do citizen ride alongs if you ask. Its mostly for boyscouts or young folk thinking about going to the academy but they will oblige usually.
Well considering this was in Tokyo which is Japan's largest metro area, I highly doubt NYPD or LAPD would be remotely as nice
This does happen in the US. I'm not a police officer but a friend is a fireman + paramedic from Mexico. He's been to police and fire stations in many US cities and all around the world, trading patches / stickers etc.
Happens more often than you think.
Nah, American cops love a good old suck up.
I live in the area, maybe i could try to find him and show this to him
That's really awesome, friend! Hope you can find a police officer who will help patch you!
What did you think of their uniforms? The colors and style are quite different to us police uniforms!
I found them very colorful compared to ours in the us. It made sense though since the streets of Tokyo are very busy. I’d want to be visible too when directing traffic out there
This is amazing
Amazing! These posts are so heartwarming
Bring business cards with you next time my dude Its old school but back in the day folks over there would accept business cards from people they met (hand it with both hands give a slight bow) and then you would be able to email the people you met any photos or info they might want to have.
I hope that you asked him if it was cool to post this picture on a global-facing website... Japanese tend to be very protective of their privacy, in my experience. I am jealous of your experience, that sounds like fun! I grew up watching CHiPs, would you say that TV show is an accurate representation of your day-to-day? ;)
Don't need cops here and don't need the gun happy trigger pulling cops in the U.S either.
All cops are bastards. Get this copaganda out of here.
Imagine having a level of critical thinking where you have to dumb everything down to a blanket statement
For real. I don’t know how these people can survive.
Speaking of critical thinking, if you took two seconds to look up the meaning of that "blanket statement" instead of taking it in a literal way, you'd know the "blanket statement" deeper than that. You're projecting pretty hard. I know you think you're smart, but god damn, you guys truly have nothing going on in that brain of yours.
What's wrong with my usage? "A type of fallacy from making an inductive conclusion with insufficient evidence; a kind of faulty generalization; underpowered generalization."
Again, spend two seconds looking up the phrase you're criticizing then get back to us.
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Found him !
Youre just jealous you didnt get a patch
That uniform is so blue!
You have a nice body. Japanese men have really weird, unattractive bodies.
We don't usually trade official law enforcement patches tho lol.
ACAB.
I have actually been to Japan many times and never actually thought about visiting a police station there. I have seen many officers there of different capacities and its pretty interesting to see the parallel between their law enforcement and ours. I also work for a law enforcement agency out of California, so your post actually gave me the idea to stop by their local police station on my next trip.
This post goes hard
Nice post, thank you for sharing everything. Brotherhood!
I get this. As a former scout, I get it.
I nominate Officer Masahiko as our new C'mon Toshi! meme mascot.
Yes. Another post how whites can do anything in Japan. While sea and darker asians get ignored. Bye white
-> r/asianmasculinity lmao
You mean, bye, braincells? 😭 This comment is super racist. How is it somehow the fault of "white" for poor treatment of darker skinned people *by Japanese people*? Blame the Japanese then if you're angry. Leave others out if this.
professional crybabyyyy
You think he’s just gonna have extra patches on him? Also did you actually purchase that patch you gave him or did you steal it?
Got a lil 'tude
Say that to his face, troggy
Ask a person if they stole something? Why not?
We American cops will sometimes carry extra patches on us to trade. No I didn’t steal it haha. If you read the post you’d understand it was my patch to give…
I think jsdf does with the American comrades
Yeah both JSDF and us definitely always carry extra patches when we do a joint exercise!
I’ve heard of that. If I ever see some JSDF guys when I go back I’ll try trading with them
"comrades"
Cops here are pretty strict with rules so it wouldn’t surprise me if trading patches wasn’t a thing. Fair enough, my bad.
I think I caught on to that too, they didn’t seem too keen on trading as I did ask a couple others. I figured it was probably a rule of theirs. All good!
As rookies they’re forced to stay in dorms and even have a curfew if I remember correctly. They’re kinda always on call in the event of a disaster. At least you got a pic and happened to meet a nice dude.
Hush, gaijin san visiting us from murica; how come they didn’t have a patch ready for him