{"id":7499,"date":"2010-09-16T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=7499"},"modified":"2010-09-16T13:43:55","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T04:43:55","slug":"transit-tangent-hell-to-pay-at-lax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=7499","title":{"rendered":"Transit Tangent: Hell to pay at LAX"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"Foreign<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free<\/p>\n

Hi Blog. \u00a0Now in Calgary after one day (more than that, actually) flying from Narita to Los Angeles, then transferring to San Francisco and finally here. \u00a0Redeeming air miles gets you some pretty circuitous flights.<\/p>\n

One of the most frequent questions I get is, “Now that you’ve given up your American citizenship for Japanese, what kind of reaction do you get from US Customs with a Japan passport?”<\/p>\n

Well, actually, up to now, not all that bad. \u00a0First time I went back was in 2005 (I never left Japan once between 2000 and 2005; boy that’s hard core), and that was Newark on the way back to Japan after getting to Montego Bay via the Peace Boat. \u00a0(The Jamaicans, btw, were so amused by my passport that they took it to the back room for a quick guffaw amongst themselves before letting me pass.) \u00a0US Customs gave me a look, asked me what I did in Japan, how long I would stay, and that was it. \u00a0I thanked him for the painlessness of the procedure, and spent the night drinking with Rutgers law school grads Curzon and friends.<\/p>\n

Second time was more interesting. \u00a0Went to San Jose with my university students in 2006, and the African-American gentleman manning Customs did do a double take, then talked to me in Japanese about where I was going and how long I was staying. \u00a0No altercations, no incidents with my students (who didn’t speak much English and were happy to meet that Customs officer), easy peasy.<\/p>\n

Other times also, no real issues. \u00a0Taking the train from Vancouver to Seattle in October 2006 (I always wonder why American Customs is allowed to have their border check IN VANCOUVER STATION itself — the Americans certainly wouldn’t allow another nation to plant their Customs flags on US soil), the officer actually talked to me for about ten minutes about potential places to eat and see in Japan (he was going there with his Korean wife in a few weeks); had to break off conversation because the train was about to depart. \u00a0Other visits in 2007 and 2008 also passed by without interrogation.<\/p>\n

But this time was different. \u00a0Landing at LAX yesterday, a buff tattooed officer did more than just a few double takes, and, in addition to the regular questions about how long, birthplace, and what I did for a living, wanted to know why I was coming in on a Japanese passport instead of an American one. \u00a0“Japan does not allow dual nationality,” I explained. \u00a0“So you have no other nationalities?” \u00a0No. \u00a0“Wait a minute, I’m going to have to talk to my supervisor. \u00a0I can’t let you in on this passport if you still are an American by birth.” \u00a0I let him check, but I’m not sure if he’d get the concept of an American actually renouncing. \u00a0He came back and gave me a smile (rare for these people, as you know), and said, “Anyway, welcome back. \u00a0Enjoy your stay.”<\/p>\n

It was a nice welcome after all that, especially given the inauspicious beginning of this trip at Narita. \u00a0Let me back up a few hours: \u00a0When I first checked in at NRT, the ticket clerk asked, “Have you checked in with ESTA<\/a>?” \u00a0What’s that? \u00a0“The Electronic System for Traffic Authorization. \u00a0Every non-citizen going to America has to check their passports in with the US Government before departure.” \u00a0Oh oh. \u00a0Er, no. \u00a0But I’m only transiting to Canada. \u00a0“Doesn’t matter. \u00a0Okay, go to the internet terminals down at the end of the hall and check in online. \u00a0Should be pretty quick. \u00a0You’ve got three hours.”<\/p>\n

So we unpacked my computer, got a day pass for online use, and went to the ESTA site. \u00a0It requires name, address, passport, date of departure, airline (hell, there are lot of them, and United was far down the alphabetized list) and flight number, a list of questions you should answer “no” to, the address you will be staying at in the US (no option for people transiting). \u00a0And oh, fourteen USD for those who qualify for the visa waiver program. \u00a0Credit cards accepted. \u00a0Humph. \u00a0How convenient, for them.<\/p>\n

I typed in all the info with middle finger raised and got a screen which said, “AUTHORIZATION PENDING: \u00a0…A determination will be available within 72 hours. \u00a0Please return to this web site…” \u00a0That’s where I began to get pretty antsy. \u00a0My passport still has my previous surname (Sugawara) on it, and four pages later an official amendment indicating that my surname is now Arudou. \u00a0But when we tried to use the automatic check in, “Sugawara” came up in the scanner, with a button to press saying “Is this the same as the name on your ticket?” \u00a0(It wasn’t.) \u00a0The MOFA hadn’t gotten around to updating their records after four years, I guess. \u00a0Maybe that was what snagged me with ESTA.<\/p>\n

I took my computer screen back to the ticket clerk, where he said, “Hm, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. \u00a0Let me try to see… Oh, look, it’s just come up. \u00a0You’re cleared. \u00a0Here are your boarding passes. \u00a0Enjoy your near-heart-attack.” \u00a0Okay, I made that last one up.<\/p>\n

So if the ticket clerk was Charon piloting me over the River Styx, the tattooed Customs officer at LAX was Cerebus at the gates of Hell. \u00a0And LAX was indeed a reasonable facsimile of it. \u00a0Consider this: \u00a0We have to get our baggage, of course, but they came to a different carousel than the one announced on the plane (and there was no sineage saying that the emerging bags were from our flight). \u00a0Then I saw a sign saying “Connecting Flights”, waited twenty minutes in line, and found out that it was actually lost baggage claims. \u00a0“No no, you go dere, dat line”, said the clerk. \u00a0“But that’s not what your sign says.” \u00a0“You go dere, dat line,” was the automated response. \u00a0So I joined everyone else in an enormous line to hand in the tickets that say, “We are not bringing in any fruits or vegetables or whatever into the US”, which required an individual passport check again with only two people on duty (took about another 45 minutes). \u00a0Then I followed the signs to Connecting Flights, got into another line, and was told after another fifteen minutes that I just needed to hand my bags to “dat guy over dere”, since they were already tagged through to YYC (then why the hell did I have to collect them myself, then?).<\/p>\n

Bags stowed, I followed the CF (no longer “Connecting Flights”; more like “Cluster F*ck”) signs, and felt like I had been Barnumed (“Come see the Egress”), as I found myself out on the street! \u00a0Some friendly guy came up and asked if I was looking for CFs and directed me down the street and up the stairs. \u00a0Then he asked me for a donation (as an Official Airport Volunteer, with embossed name tag) to his orphanage. \u00a0I begged off and got upstairs, only to be told by another TSA officer to get into another 45-minute long line to go through Security scanning again! \u00a0Finally through that, I was back in the transit zone. \u00a0But the LAX lounges looked in a state of permanent decomposition, and the TSA people acted as if they were defending a fortress, and we would be damn lucky if we were let into their compound. \u00a0No thanks for our cooperation, no pleases when requesting. \u00a0Just, “We’re protecting you, so be grateful. \u00a0Or else.”<\/p>\n

And what was the Or Else? \u00a0I got a glimpse of it when talking to my Calgarian seat neighbor on the last leg of my flights. \u00a0I was noticing how Canadian Customs forms for “Are you bringing any fruits in?” allow for families to write their names on one tag (no individual tags lengthening the line), and don’t even require a passport number! \u00a0He said, “Yes, my wife and I have separate surnames, and once we got to the head of the line the US Customs guy said we had to have separate tags. \u00a0So he crossed her name off and said, ‘Fill this out and get back at the back of the line.’ \u00a0I reacted and said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding.’ \u00a0He didn’t like that. \u00a0‘You sassing me?’, he said. \u00a0I tried to take it back, but he called for an officer to escort me to an interrogation room where I sat alone. \u00a0I couldn’t go anywhere — he had confiscated my passport! \u00a0So after twenty minutes or so he came in and asked me the standard questions again about where and how long, then let me go to find my wife on the other side. \u00a0I don’t say anything beyond ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir’ to these people anymore.” \u00a0Wow, way to put travelers in their place.<\/p>\n

Not ten hours out of Japan, and I was already missing it. \u00a0Customs people (not to mention Narita Cops and their random racial profiling<\/a>) there can be pretty surly too, but at least things are signposted, and somebody is making an effort to be clear about where you’re supposed to go and what you’re supposed to do. \u00a0And the transit lounges, although Spartan, are still clean and reasonably airy. \u00a0LAX was, in a word, a shithole.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen it before at other decrepit airports in the US (try JFK), but what a great impression to leave upon visitors to the US — one of decay. \u00a0Enough people have complained about Japanese airports (particularly Narita), and there have been improvements (Haneda, Chitose, Centrair, and KIX are all decent if not downright nice, and even Narita has have gotten better). \u00a0Japan takes very seriously its impression overseas and works on it. \u00a0America just doesn’t seem to care — hey, you’re lucky if we let you into our fortress. \u00a0I’m sure Ellis Island too was a shithole. \u00a0But at least you only had to go through it once — it’s not a major international hub for citizens too. \u00a0What kind of place takes more than two hours to allow people just to get on a connecting flight, and charges them for the privilege? \u00a0One that doesn’t deserve my ever going there again. \u00a0I got to YYC, got my bags, and was outside and all done within fifteen minutes. \u00a0Oh Canada!<\/p>\n

Other American airport horror stories welcome. \u00a0Seems like the American airline industry is on a race to the bottom for standards of customer service. \u00a0Some airports have already essentially become bus stations. \u00a0I look forward to getting back to Japanese standards. \u00a0Arudou Debito in Calgary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a summary of the hell I went through at LAX. It wasn’t passport control. It was the simply awful treatment everyone has to go through regardless of nationality, unbecoming of a first-world airport. Seems like the American airline industry is on a race to the bottom for standards of customer service. Some airports have already essentially become bus stations. Other American airport horror stories welcome, in hopes that someone will care about outsiders’ opinions as much as the Japanese airports do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,22,44,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-business-practices","category-cultural-issue","category-discussions","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}