Airport Customs: Narita, JP vs. Newark, USA
I recently returned from a trip to Japan. I thought one of the more challenging parts of the trip was going to be getting there. Instead, it was more of a challenge getting home.
In the past, I traveled to Japan with my wife, who is Japanese and speaks fluently (it’s her first language). This trip was different. She was already in the country on business, and I had to find my way off the plane, through customs, onto a bus, and checked into the Hotel. I was a bit nervous, but I was confident that I would be okay. There are an abundance of signs and such in alternative languages in Japan. In general, one could almost say the entire country comes subtitled in English. It turns out I was right… the trouble came on the way home.
It all comes down to signage. When you get off the plane in Narita, the first thing you see is a huge sign telling you to proceed to customs. This sign is written in Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish (though that might have been Portuguese, I don’t know enough of either to be able to tell). As you proceed down a long corridor, there are signs everywhere. In between major intersections and branches, the signs are in Japanese and English. At major points, the signs are in all 5 languages. As you get closer to customs, signs clearly denote where to go if you are a Japanese citizen, or if you are a visitor. There is also a huge electronic billboard with rotating messages in about 10 different languages. This was the “Port of Call” message, an older standard that allows sailors, fisherman, etc. to obtain a special 3-day pass without a Visa or Passport. In general, everything was very neat and orderly, and passengers knew exactly where to go.
When you get off the plane in Newark, you proceed to exit the terminal, and the reason you know that you’re exiting the terminal is because if you go in the opposite direction, you quickly reach the end of the terminal. In general, you just follow a mass of people moving in one direction and hope that they aren’t wrong. The terminal ends in a “T” intersection with a wide hallway. Across from the terminal exit, there’s a single sign in English with an arrow “Customs and Baggage Claim.” The hallway is very long, and there are no other signs. The hallway ends at an escalator/staircase. At the bottom, there is a large room that is broken out into two sections: 1 for US Citizens, 1 for visitors. About 30 feet into the room, there is a small sign on a floor stand. I couldn’t even see it at first, because there were people lined up on both sides and the top of the sign is about 5 foot high. When I finally got to read the sign, it contained a single message in English “Citizens to the right, Visitors to the left.” Of course, the line extended far past the sign, so none of the citizens could read it, and most of the visitors couldn’t read it anyway. So the area was complete chaos. After a while, one of the customs agents came out, and shouted “If you’re a United States Citizen, please line up over here. Everyone else, go that way”. Of course this was followed by US Citizens moving over to the right, and visitors not moving at all. You could instantly here babblings in about 6 different languages as people tried to figure out what the agent said.