Late last year, former Saitama resident Graeme Messer came across a Views from the Street column in which foreign interviewees in Tokyo talked about their experiences with the local immigration authorities. This prompted Messer to confront some haunting memories from 2007, when he had a closer brush than many with the authorities at the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau near Shinagawa.
'Kantan desu yo. There's nothing to it, really," said Pastor Kenji Wada cheerily, looking over his shoulder at me. "All I do is push this back and forth." He thumbed a small metal lever near the steering column that served as throttle and brake.