Mass surveillance

Japan has ruled to spy on all Muslims – after living there, I'm not surprised

Earlier last month I was strolling through a park in downtownTokyo, when a child suddenly caught sight of me and screamed – "Daddy, daddy! It's a gaijin!" – running to his father in abject terror. Many living in Tokyo can report similar episodes. Living here, you just take it for granted that quite a few people are going to treat you very differently because you don't look Japanese.

Japan as a nation (you will forgive the generalisation) is one that has a long-standing fascination with "foreigners" (gaijin or gaikokujin, literally “people from the outside”). Gaijin appear in the music charts, on television, and of course on every other billboard. This fascination however is often coupled with an underlying fear and mistrust.