I once freaked out a Nationalist in 1994 who used to preach in an SS officer’s uniform near Akihabara about “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and other anti-Jew nonsense but explaining to him that Japanese are Jewish. The clincher were the words that are nearly identical in both Hebrew and Japanese. Tori meaning bird; Japanese “samurau” means to guard the noble compared to the Hebrew “shamar” means to guard. The word later became samurai. I told him the Emperor knew and that is why 12,000 Jews were sent to Osaka and Shanghai and rescued from the Nazis. I think he wet his pants. My sincerity scared him more the possibility I spoke the truth.

Thanks, Alan

The whole notion of society rests, it seems, on cooperative behavior, on a set of “rules” which, if followed, gain more for each of us than we could accomplish on our own (we see the germ of it in ant colonies and dog packs and ape tribes). The business of trusting / relying on others is a bedrock part of human society itself; so I guess it’s not odd to find that the subcultures of society must follow a portion or variant of those same rules.

But I’m also reminded of something I read some years back from Stephen Pinker or Richard Dawkins, to the effect that there is an opening in this setup for a small minority to take advantage by flouting those same rules. These are often people who are marginal in some way, people who do not stand to benefit particularly from playing by the rules; and from a strictly Darwinian sense these people are “failing” if they do not do whatever is necessary to maximize their potential, even if it requires wandering into the antisocial.

Thanks for the food for thought.

Do you have any insight into the elderly investment scams? My japanese mother-in-law lost half of her life savings to an investment scam two year ago. The organizers collected retired people’s investment into a legit registered company, and then as we started making calls everyone involved just disappeared. We retained a lawyer, who I was sincerely impressed to see go up against a yakuza backed company for very little personal gain, and actually won a court judgement. Then the bad news a few weeks later when the lawyer informed us there was no way to collect as he could not locate the individuals or recover any money as the police would not offer any assistance in enforcing a court order. The police had absolutely ZERO interest any step of the process from doing any action. It seems they don’t get out of the koban unless there are physical casualities. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of scams affecting old people but after talking to many involved people it appears the police and government in general has absolutely no will in taking any action to change things. I think things won’t change unless Japan creates an FBI/ICAC type agency.

I just finished your book “Tokyo Vice”. I found it both enjoyable and informative. I have spent about a total of eight years in Japan, however I never had the occasion to expose myself to the seedier side of Japan, described in your book. I never had enough money to patronize the places or associate with the type persons that you describe, but I don’t doubt that they exist.
The only thing that I would like to express is intended for persons who have not lived in Japan. You can visit or live in Japan without ever being exposed to the criminal elements described in this book. Generally crime is not an issue in Japan, unless you go looking for it. You just use common sense and steer clear of it as you would any other place in te world.

Again, I enjoyed your book….G Miles