I Fell Into a Gaijin Trap

Two weeks ago, I fell into a gaijin trap. First of all, you may be asking, “What's a gaijin?” Well a gaijin is the Japanese word for foreigner. So what’s a gaijin trap then? Is it a scam for foreigners? While some paranoid people may think so, that is not the case.

Let me explain. I was driving with a friend of mine the other day and we mentioned how we dislike something about Japanese roads. In addition to being narrow, many have... er... not rivers. But dips in the side of the road where water runs off from the mountains. Sometimes they are quite small, sometimes really big. If you’re not careful driving, your wheel (or car) could fall into them. Since they’re not seen nearly as often in many foreign countries, we gaijin are unused to them... so my friend dubbed them the gaijin traps!

So I was backing into my parking space the other day. Usually I don’t have to back in but the way the cars were parked made it necessary. Gaijin traps were “ippai” (everywhere) around my space and my wheel fell into one! At first I felt panic that I wouldn’t be able to get out. What would I DO?? It was the night before my big trip to Okinawa and I wanted to spend it packing not trying to call a tow truck in Japanese! I decided it was best to act quickly... so I speedily pushed on the gas and my car came back up easily. My car is a tank! The only damage was a scratch... no denting or anything. Instead, my car hurt the gaijin trap, knocking a stone loose.