The squawk box crackles and pops, coughing out a garbled order.

I reach for the Regulations and Morals, a thin white manual hanging from a plastic hook on the wall, and, flipping through it, find the daily schedule:

7:20 Wake

Put bedding away, clean room, wash up.

Prepare for inspection.

A simple illustration on the following page shows how the bedding should be arranged. The futon must be folded into thirds and shoved up against the wall. The blanket and sheets folded neatly and placed on top. Failure to comply, the Regulations and Morals tell me, will result in disciplinary action.

As if being cooped up in this dismal little cell isn’t punishment enough.

In all my years of studying and translating Japanese, I’ve never come across the language so curt, so cold . . . so unambiguous. Your average Japanese will go to great pains, hemming and hawing, before he gives you a definite answer, but within the walls of the Kōchisho words are not minced. Do it, the manual says. Do it or fucking else!

7:30 Inspection

Sit, facing front window.

Give number when requested.

All the Chinese characters have furigana—phonetic notations above the characters showing you how to read them. Out in the real world, furigana is only employed for the most difficult of Chinese characters, such as an uncommon family name, or an obscure word. Here in judicial Limbo, though, literacy is not taken for granted. Even the most basic Chinese characters have these phonetic nightcaps on their heads.

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