Tuesday, November 8^th: Off to Prison

Tuesday was spent frantically planning for my English lesson for Nishiakashi Prison. I use any excuse or opportunity to interject that I “have to go to prison,” simply for the hilarious looks of disbelief and crazed wonder similar to the likes of, “what has Kristin gotten herself into this time?”

Unfortunately, I was not accompanied to the prison on this occasion, so after missing a train, platform hopping, getting on the right train, and then having the dreaded announcement that someone had jumped on to the tracks, I eventually landed in Nishiakashi, an half hour late for my lesson and only with Kit-Kat bar to tide over my growling stomach.

As I approached the prison, the atmosphere was much different the second time around. With sunset creeping up earlier and earlier, it was pitch black and no street lights exist for miles, so I walked humbly up to the front of the prison gates. Unfortunately, since I was late, the last guard shift had ended and rather than be greeted by my front gate buddies, I was instead barraged by the search lights reaching toward the sky as though some lawless prisoner had taken flight in the literal sense.

Had that been the only change from my last venture to the prison, I would have been happy. But amidst the brilliant sheets of light the searchlights shed on the area, my ears quickly attuned to the high pitched screams coming from male voices inside the prison.

In life, there are moments, split-seconds where the hairs on our arms stand up straight and that inner voice tells us to turn around and run. But considering I was a half-hour late and this was the most incredible research opportunity I had in a lifetime, I had only one choice. One foot in front of the other, I slowly made my way toward the side entrance of the prison, trying with all my might to avoid the screams, and I almost ran into one of my students who had finally given up on me and was about to leave.

My last remaining student is a wonderfully kind man, short and stout, who’s admiration for my class is partly because he really wants to learn English and partly because he thinks I have “pretty eyes.” Pick-up lines aside, I led him back to the room and for an hour we sat and learned phrases like, “I do laundry two times a month” and other such attempts at normalcy as I tried to ignore the men’s voices wailing on the other side of the wall.

As we discussed, “I go to work,” my student immediately stopped reciting his English, turned to me and said, “I don’t like my work. I don’t like it here.” I knew that the atmosphere in the room had changed and so I slowly closed my book, and turned to look him straight in the eyes. I asked him, “why do you not like it here?” And with the only words he could utter he said in a short, quiet burst of courage, “I don’t like what they make me do here.”

Never in my life have I experienced the millions of emotions that ran through my body that instant. I came to Japan to research human rights, and amidst papers, classes, informative interviews and newspaper headlines, I never thought that I would come so close to the debate as I had that instant. Fear rung through every bone in my body like a bell, yet I almost felt a maternal compassion toward my student, as if giving him a hug would wash away all our fright and insecurity.

As our lesson ended, he walked me out and thanked me once again in formal Japanese, which I still do not feel that I deserve, teacher or not. As we walked down the stairs and was about to leave the compound, he turned to me and whispered the word, “jisatsu.” Suicide. As I walked down the long, dark corridor, gleaning the only light that shined from the outside world, that word echoed through my mind. It still haunts me. I now know that this opportunity has transformed from that of “something to pass the time until I begin my real research” into a life-changing experience rife with harsh realizations.