ポール：「東京の入国管理局で、5時間も待たされましたよ」
佐々木：「たまにはぼうっと待つのもいいんじゃない？」 たいくつ
ポール：「ひとごとだと思って！ 先生が待ってみたら、どんなに退屈かわかりますよ！
Hitogoto
Paul: Tokyo no Nyuukoku Kanri Kyoku de, gojikan mo matasare mashita yo.
Sasaki: Tama ni wa boutto matsu no mo iinja nai?
Paul: Hitogoto da to omotte! Sensei ga matte mitara, donna ni taikutsu ka wafearimasu yo.
Paul: I had to wait five hours at the Im-migration Office in Tokyo.
Sasaki: Itcan'tbesobadtohavetositaround and wait sometimes.
Paul: How can you be so unsympathetic? You wouldn't say that if you were the one who had to wait.
Hitogoto refers to the affairs of others, things which, in theory, one needn't be concerned with.
To be blunt, foreigners in Japan don't like the Tokyo Immigration Office. The atmosphere of the place probably has to be experienced to be understood - uniformed officials sitting behind desks checking foreigners to prevent them from working in Japan, long lines of foreigners trying their hardest to get that all-important visa to stay in Japan.
There's probably a lot of truth in the complaints one finds written on the walls of a toilet. Whether this is true of the toilets at the Immigration Office I'm not sure. Here are a few examples anyway.
Nyukoku Kanri Kyoku wa kibishi sugiru. Kono yard (The Immigration Officials are too strict Asses.)
Ningen no kuzu da. Kisamatachi wa (The bastards, they're the scum of the earth.)
Zainichi gaikokujih ni yasashiku shirp (Be nicer to foreigners in Japan.) Though these are all pretty similar in tone, there are some exceptions.
Watashi wa kuni wo aishite iru. Kaeritai desu ga... (I love my country. I want to go home but...)
I wonder why the person wants to return? For work? To study? How does the sentence end? My oldest daughter is a graduate student at Durham University in England. I don't know what I'd do if she were treated like foreigners are here in Japan. Totemo hitogoto to omoemasen (What happens to her is of utmost concern to me.)
I came across this the other day while reading the paper: "The Immigration Office is so strict that students who want to study Japanese at Japanese language schools are not being given visas. Many language schools are thus going out of business because they have no students." I immediately called up one of my friends who runs a language school.
"Hitogoto de wa naku watashi no gakko mo sono uchi tsubureru kamo shiremasen" ("It's not something we can ignore. There's even a chance that our school might be forced out of, business.") He sounded worried to say the least. His school had sent in visa applications for 90 students-immigration had only passed 40 so the school's three classes had to be reduced to two. My friend was worrying about what to tell the teachers who'd been scheduled to teach the classes. He also mentioned that some schools are even up for sale-students, teachers, office workers included.
My friend who runs the school says immigration never tells him why the visa applications are turned down. For people whos｣ visa application is turned down, this is no laughing matter (totemo hitogoto de wa nai.)