

Yesterday I had to go to Morioka to renew my Japanese driver's license. It's hard to believe I've already been driving in Japan for three years! Anyway, so I went to the city to do the paper work. I wasn't really happy about having to waste my Sunday afternoon in the government's offices and became a whole lot less happy when I realized that I had to take a two hour class upon renewing my license. I understand that for the Japanese government, it was my first renewal but I've been driving for twelve years already; I don't need to be taught how to drive all over again.
Now the class wasn't that bad and it was a good refresher for those "paper drivers" and even I learned a few things I didn't know (mainly trivia.) Two hours was too much, tho. One hour would have been more than enough.
During our little course (in which I pretended to know zero Japanese so they would leave alone) we were shown two videos. One was your average safe driving video but the other was pure gold. And when I say pure gold, I actually mean utter crap. I had never seen so many Japanese clichés used in such a short production.
The main character, a 25 year old male father to a 5 year old cute little girl, wakes up late for his baseball practice. He's so busy with baseball that he never has time for his family. He makes empty promises to his little girl and leave in a rush. On the way he almost hits a woman riding a bike, a biker and an old man. He drives fast without paying attention. He picks up his cellphone while driving and doesn't seen the stop sign. He hits another car in an intersection. So far the story is full of cliché (busy dad, baseball loving, bad driving) but still ok. However it takes a turn for the worst when the main character wakes up in limbo. There, God (or something like it) says he will get to go to hell or heaven depending on how he review his bad driving. The main character, instantly accepting the fact that he's dead, goes along with it without even shedding a tear or panicking. At first he thinks that he was not at fault and God gets angry. So they go back to the world of the living (Christmas Carol style) and the main character gets to see the pain he's caused. He gets all emotional and realizes that he was wrong all along. He is then allowed to go to heaven but begs God to give him another chance. And now, for the best part: he finally wakes up in bed (it was all a dream!) a changed man and goes to the amusement park with his family instead of going to his baseball game. He is now the perfect father AND the perfect driving. Isn't this wonderful?
The whole thing lasted about 20 minutes and made me cringe. The message was totally wasted on me; all I could see was the horrible, horrible story. It looked like it was made for small children and it made me wonder if that's how the state sees the Japanese people.
Anyway, I now have my new license and won't have to deal with them anymore; I'm going back to Canada where renewing your license is easy: you just pay.