jake

I’m a 23 year old WNY native currently living in Honolulu. I got your book on Tuesday and finished it Wednesday night. Your book moved me because I too have lost a close friend to suicide, and dealt with watching a person who has been a mentor to me struggle with cancer. I hope you never underestimate the power you have to influence and change the lives of other people for the better.

I picked Tokyo Vice to satisfy my curiousity about the Japanese underworld, and I appreciate that rather than glorify their dealings you spoke the truth about how some of these fortunes are made from the horrible sacrifices and comprimises by women. These are global problems, perhaps exacerbated in places where income inequality and gender bias are at their highest.

Best wishes for You & Your Family
Sincerely, Vince

My first question is about your marriage: Are you still with Sunao? One day, I’d like to be married, and have kids of my own. I’m young though, so that’s hardly just a dream, it’s a rite of passage I’ll go through. Still. Your book left it fuzzy, and I found myself reading the afterwords and the thanks, something I rarely ever do in a book. I find myself enjoying love stories (often of Japanese origin, I watch a lot of Anime), and your love life is no different; I’m interested.

Second question is how you learned Japanese so well. Was it just excessive studying? I really love the language; I taught myself Hiragana and Katakana, and learned a few Kanji. But my vocabulary totally suffers. I’m sure it’s speech first, vocabulary second, but it’s hard when you live in Ohio and you don’t have much exposure to the language, if at all. Was it just classes in college, or something?

And third, I’d like to praise your book. I really loved reading it, from beginning to end. It was vividly written, the emotion truly expressed. You are truly a remarkable man. You stand by what you stand for, and wouldn’t let anything get in your way. You worked hard to get your results. That’s simply amazing, and absolutely something to respect. You are a man, through and through to the end. There were some things I found myself cringing at, especially the sex stories, but that came with the territory of being a Vice reporter. I’m sure you hated doing those things yourself, but I’m not you, and I personally don’t care to know your true feelings, because you said something respectable: you would do anything for your information. That shows hard work and dedication, and if you apply it in one aspect of life, it’s applied everywhere. As despicable as some may find it, that you basically did cheat on your wife, I’m sure your love for her was unwavering. The written word is powerful, and every bit of writing you wrote really struck a chord with me. I found myself nearly crying when I read that short bit about Hamaya, and I find myself feeling the emotion while writing this comment. And Helena? I truly feel for women who are prostitutes; some may find them as just being whores, but that is not true. These are women who are troubled and truly have no other place to go, they can’t find any other work…it’s an honestly sad life. I am sure, as you already know, that Helena is happy for what you’ve done. You’ve avenged her well. She did not die in vain. Your writing really did well for her, and so did taking out that bastard from his seat of power.

The book conveyed true emotion; I really felt it, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether or not they’re an “american otaku”, “Japanophile”, or even disinterested in Japanese culture. It truly brought the workings of the Japanese way of life into light; the way you’re supposed to behave, and the way the country really is. I found myself surprised at some of the things I read. They were interesting. I was happy to have read your book.

Thank you for the time in reading this comment. You are a man to respect, and I shall do just that.

So hats off to you, Jake. You are now one of my favorite writers, and I hope that other people find a similar kind of enjoyment in Tokyo Vice as I did. I would love to find a copy of the Yomiuri with one of your articles as well. A long shot, but something to think about the next time I go to Japan.

Tay-san,
You’ve written a very honest well-thought out letter and it merits a real reply. I can visualize you on that bus, and I understand how that feels. At 24, I was working for the Yomiuri Shinbun, and even though the early days were extremely rough—I was happy because I was doing something that I wanted to do. It wasn’t easy getting there. I studied Japanese very hard in college, and I didn’t have an aptitude for it. Even before getting hired, I spent a year preparing for the entrance examinations to the newspaper and that involved hours of study every day and every night. Between working weird jobs.

The thing about a memoir and also about movies is that it compacts all the exciting stuff into a tight-fitting package. The day to day experiences of the job were grueling, difficult, and often boring. In the early days as a reporter, we were over-loaded with meinial tasks, the most horrible being typing up local sports results–which had to be done in a very complicated pattern to be processed by our archaic work terminals and which I felt few people ever read. I once spent three days following around a monkey in a high-yen neighborhood in Tokyo because that had become “the story” of the moment. I was once told to stand in front of a hospital where a relative of the emperor was ill and keep a look out for “something unusual” and left there for almost eighteen hours.

Figuring out how Goto Tadamasa got past Customs and into the United States for his liver transplant involved wading through a gigabyte of leaked police materials–one page at a time. I’m working on a second book now about Yakuza in the business world, “The Nine Fingered Economy” and a great deal of it involves looking at real estate deeds, company registration, cross-referencing newspaper articles, and typing in data to make connections. The interviewing people part is the exciting part and fun but there is some seriously brain-numbingly boring work involved. But at the end of the day, I’m still doing work that I enjoy and means something to me, so it doesn’t really feel like work. My work is my life, my hobby, my reason for existing. Of course, friends and loved ones are a huge part of that life as well. Finding a balance isn’t easy.

Sometimes, we all have to endure a lot of crap to get where we want to be in life. Academic life seems like an elaborate form of hazing at times because most of what you really need to know is learned on the job. I couldn’t tell you if your writing is good enough for a national newspaper. Getting a job as a reporter is difficult, surving on the terribly salary even more difficult, and not getting burnt out as you watch your workload increase while your pay decreases is almost impossible. Its almost impossible but not if you believe in what you’re doing and you have the support of some good friends. (What exactly is a good friend–that’s another question in and of itself). Most of what we do at any job means nothing, is rarely helpful, and often even damaging to the world. I think the Buddhist idea of Right Livelihood is certainly something to consider–it’s why it’s part of the eightfold noble path, but it’s also something everyone should consider. If you’re not doing any harm to the world by your work, that’s not so bad. However, if you don’t enjoy it–if it’s not what you really want to do, then I’d encourage you to take the risk of failing and try to do what it is that you want to do. And you need to ask yourself why you want to do that. “I want to write because I like writing and communicating” isn’t a bad reason. Follow your bliss.

However, if you want to write because you want to become famous then you have to ask yourself, “Why do I want to become famous? Why do I need recognition and approval from the world?” But back to your question. If you want to be a writer, remember the three rules of writing that Robert Heinlein once stated, and I’m paraphrasing: 1. You must write (and write often until you improve). 2. You must finish what you write. 3. You must sell what you write.

We all have to work. Crunching data for a heartless company sounds hellish. I might suggest you read a good book about Zen Buddhism and try to turn it into a meditational exercise. In any event, if its not a job you love, start planning a way to find the work you’d like to do, that would be meaningful for you. You may fail at this the first time around but persist. Work is 70%-90% of our adult lives. It should be a good experience and the ideal is as Mencius says, to find a job that you love so you never really “work” again.
Good luck.

Also, since you are a professional writer with a mastery of both Japanese and English languages, based on my comment, do you think I’m a ways to go before my writing is good enough to be submitted to a national news website/paper. I take criticism well =P.

By the way, not trying to shoot you hollow praises here, but I loved your book.

Thanks a lot Jake, as someone who plans to visit Japan eventually it was a great book.

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