After breakfast on the first morning at Suginami detention cell, I was worrying about my wife and son. At the same time I was gripped by the shock of my arrest.
After being arrested, everything was my first experience. Above all I got cultural shock at the lockup.
I couldn’t believe that I was in the barred cell which I had seen only on TV. I got scared whenever the police officer (we call him the “person on duty”) who watched us shouted as “Get up!” or “Wash your face!” in an imperative tone. I felt vaguely scared when I was in the community cell with criminals and also had breakfast with them. I felt I was wandering off into the world where I couldn’t go under normal circumstances.
A roll-call was one of them. Police officers made roll-calls after every breakfast and dinner. “Roll-call!” When the police officer called out the cell number and my own number, I had to reply “Yes, sir.” At first I didn’t know what to do, so I was one beat behind.
Another one was smoking time. When the time came, all streamed into the smoking room next to the lockup. I saw numbered wooden boxes with two cigarettes for each person. Two cigarettes a day were all that were allowed for one person.
In this smoking room we were allowed to clip nails and get a shave. A nail clipper had a mirror-like flat part, which we used for shaving as a mirror. I didn’t shave. That was the least to express my resistance, because “I had done nothing wrong.”
Though I was not a smoker, I was sent to the smoking room. I stood by the window and looked at the scenery out of the barred window. I saw a motor park of the Suginami Police Station. Some police cars went in and out there.
I felt an impulse to cry with anger which filled my heart. I couldn’t accept my situation. “What am I doing?” However, immediately after that, I said to myself, “Just be patient a little longer. I can go home in a couple of days.”
The widow in the middle of the picture was that of the smoking room.
After being arrested, everything was my first experience. Above all I got cultural shock at the lockup.
I couldn’t believe that I was in the barred cell which I had seen only on TV. I got scared whenever the police officer (we call him the “person on duty”) who watched us shouted as “Get up!” or “Wash your face!” in an imperative tone. I felt vaguely scared when I was in the community cell with criminals and also had breakfast with them. I felt I was wandering off into the world where I couldn’t go under normal circumstances.
A roll-call was one of them. Police officers made roll-calls after every breakfast and dinner. “Roll-call!” When the police officer called out the cell number and my own number, I had to reply “Yes, sir.” At first I didn’t know what to do, so I was one beat behind.
Another one was smoking time. When the time came, all streamed into the smoking room next to the lockup. I saw numbered wooden boxes with two cigarettes for each person. Two cigarettes a day were all that were allowed for one person.
In this smoking room we were allowed to clip nails and get a shave. A nail clipper had a mirror-like flat part, which we used for shaving as a mirror. I didn’t shave. That was the least to express my resistance, because “I had done nothing wrong.”
Though I was not a smoker, I was sent to the smoking room. I stood by the window and looked at the scenery out of the barred window. I saw a motor park of the Suginami Police Station. Some police cars went in and out there.
I felt an impulse to cry with anger which filled my heart. I couldn’t accept my situation. “What am I doing?” However, immediately after that, I said to myself, “Just be patient a little longer. I can go home in a couple of days.”
The widow in the middle of the picture was that of the smoking room.
