It’s hard to describe. If it was possible to lick the sweat off the God Venus herself, it might come close to the subtle, sweet, salty, and rich taste of this culinary delight. The French salt accents the butter flavoring, which is warmly met by the finely refined condensed milk and sugar blended together into a “hi-soft” rectangular caramel. At 25 calories per caramel, each tiny morsel exceeds the standard Morinaga caramel by 5 calories, but it makes a 100% difference in the taste. Once you’ve let one of these babies turn your tongue into French Toast soaked in Grade A Maple Syrup, the standard Morinaga Milk Caramel may never satisfy you again.

This buttery and salty caramel taste like the sweat of the Goddess of Love, some might say.

(*kyrameru-man aka caramel man. “man” can have a plural meaning in Japanese. Actually, I don’t think there’s a word in Japanese for people obsessed with caramels but we thought there should be such a word, so we made it up.)

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have announced that they will share more than $60,000 in assets seized from yakuza Susumu Kajiyama with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Kajiyama is documented in “The Emperor of Loan Sharks” (pages 213-236) in Tokyo Vice, and Special Agent Mike Cox, who appeared in the 60 Minutes clip, was instrumental in the investigation as was Special Agent Jerry Kawai.

In January 2005, ICE agents executed three federal seizure warrants targeting Los Angeles and Las Vegas bank accounts belonging to Kajiyama, 60, who is currently serving a 6 ½ year sentence in Japan on loan sharking charges. As a result of those warrants, ICE agents in Los Angeles seized two bank accounts containing approximately $342,000 from the Union Bank of California. ICE agents in Las Vegas executed a third seizure warrant targeting an account containing $250,000 in Kajiyama’s name at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. ICE agents in Los Angeles and Las Vegas coordinated closely with the agency’s attaché office in Tokyo and the Nevada Gaming Control Board on the case.

Read ICE’s announcement as stored on another web page here.

If you go there as a journalist, if you say you’re covering their world and especially their shop for the foreign media (gaikoku media/外国メディア), they might explain their job in a more cerebral way or even let you take a photo. But, if you visit the café as a fan, you are treated differently: good, and better, depending on how much money you pay. So we tried.

As a fan, you just want to spend a nice time, being taken care of by young females. You want to be their friend and maybe more, because you feel so happy when you consume their “love-powerful” beverages and sweet creamy cakes or omelets. That’s what Shunta (23), a chubby looking boy, likes to do in his spare time. Shunta lives one hour away by train  from Akihabara and his maid cafe second-home. He usually wakes up at 5 am, goes “to work” until noon, does some shopping and visits his favorite maid kissa, “The Mononopu” until midnight. Shunta is a frequent visitor of the “castle”. He has visited the samurai-maids for 5 years on a regular basis: “I come here almost every day.” Shunta said he is a furi-ta-, so he can afford to stay in such good company until the last train at night, and comes back the next day. His favorite maid is “Ritchan,” he said, pointing out a poster of her above his seat. He likes this café particularly because there is a general good atmosphere: “The maids here are not stressed out like in other places, they tend to smile more often, I simply appreciate their presence. ‘Mononopu’ is my favorite maid-kissa.”

“Kissa” stands for kissaten/喫茶店, a café in Japanese, not for “kiss.” Although Shunta dreams of receiving many kisses from his girl friends, the establishment is very strict on these kind of things: “you are not allowed to take any pictures of the place or the maids,” unless you contribute an extra 500 yen (US$6) to take an official polaroid photo together with the maid of your choice. The rules are spelled out on a placard at the entrance to remind you. It is forbidden to take a free picture of the maids and the café, its bar, sofas and chairs, however you are allowed to immortalize the cute and “love-powerful” coffee prepared especially for you. You can also photograph the omelet or the chiffon-cake baked with love and attention, “only for you.” Your name will be carefully written in ketchup sauce or chocolate cream, by your favorite maid.

Sorry if the coffee looks more than ordinary, actually it has "super-powers"

Natsuko, aka “Nattchan”, is a 654 year old maid working at Mononopu, a Sengoku era themed samurai maid bar,  in Akihabara. (Akiba, for those who are familiar with the place).  She is not really 654 years old but that’s her cover story.  As soon as you meet her in the street, she would take you to her café, where all her maid-mates are waiting for you to come back:  “Okaerinasai mase!” the happy team of kawaii maids will say as you step in their “castle”.

“Nattchan” is pretty and she looks like a doll in her half-samurai, half-maid fashion. Her mates look all the same. They just have different hair styles. Some extravagant and some very “natural.” As soon as you are inside, she will look after you and make sure all your desires are satisfied. She will talk to you. Give you special “super-powers.” Sing a song just for you. She is your friend, or your “baby sitter”, while you are there. “Nattchan’s” super-power is to make your coffee taste “as tasty as Love”, so she will say the magic words and put in the “faith, trust and pixie-dust” with her hand powers saying: “oishiiku na~re! boyo-yo-yoooon!!”

Illustration "THE SENGOKU MAID" by Matthieu Pellet, in Switzerland, from Gosh & Seiko

Don’t try to ask her real age. She lives in the Sengoku jidai/戦国時代, literally the “era of the war provinces” (Japan, 16^th towards end of 17^th century). The mystery about her age is now solved. As said earlier, you are not allowed to take a picture of her, and she would be very shy to tell you her (real) age, because she could risk the “penalty of death” under the rules of her shogun/将軍, for revealing her identity. But “Nattchan” secretly told us that she is a “university student”, and she works in this maid café as her “part time job.” If you really like her, you can subscribe to the “mail magazine” online, and see on which days your favorite warrior is on duty. As any due Japanese business offers, you can become a member and collect “points”. If you visit the “castle” on a rainy day, you can receive double points, for whatever reasons. And get a free drink the next time you visit.

okaerinasai-mase!

Entrance gate of the "Mononopu" Sengoku Castle (Akihabara, 2012)

Illustration above: Matthieu Pellet, aka Gosh, from Gosh & Seiko in Switzerland.

Shin’ichi Otsuki (40) is a very creative coffee roaster and owner of everyone’s favorite “coffee shop on wheels.”

He started to sell a very interesting collection of coffee flavors out of  a chocolate-coffee-brown van, the “Otsuki-Coffee-Van”, in which he organized all the steam machines and drip coffee.

Mr. Otsuki was responsible for the drinks and beverages at a well-known restaurant. He was particularly interested in coffee drinks. As a result, he designed new kinds of flavored coffee for his own shop, slightly different from all the famous chain coffee shops we know: “When I started my own business, and discovered the coffee ‘roasting’ machine more in depth, I became a big fan.”

Mr. Otsuki has no intention to expand his brand and his coffee business. He just likes selling delicious flavored coffees outdoors in a very simple way. He started his business covering Japanese seasonal festivals, omatsuri, especially in summer. His van is usually parked on the side streets of a big events. He recently stayed at soccer, golf and baseball events. But the two places he likes to open shop the most are in front of Yurakucho International Forum and in front of Tokyo University. His van is quietly parked there from 11 am until 6 pm.

Mr. Otsuki always had a passion designing drinks and drink menus: “I like this job, because I am free to create any kind of coffee on my own.”

Mr. Otsuki also has an interesting artistic sense. He insisted on driving a “chocolate-brown” van. Inside, you can find a huge variety of coffee items. And the interior is decorated in a very fashionable “chigu-hagu” style. With Japanese wooden furniture, and European style coffee containers, the van looks very half-Japanese, half-Italian. Its style is very carefully designed. So interesting, that very often, the street-walker or a tourist would take a quick picture of it. Especially when you look at it closely.

The "Coffee-Wagon" in front of Yurakucho International Forum

If you are a busy person, you can call up Mr. Otsuki on his mobile phone to ask him where he is in real time, and if by chance his van is driving close to where you are, you can stop by and have a nice coffee break! (You have to be lucky, otherwise try the closest Starbucks.) “It is so good to have a coffee that is not from St***, or Dou*** or Pres** for a change,” a woman queuing in front of the Brown-Coffee-Van said this afternoon, in Yurakucho.

Usually on the weekdays,  the Coffee-Van is parked in Yurakucho on Tuesday and every Wednesdays it stays at Tokyo University. Otherwise, the place of choice “varies on (Mr. Otsuki’s) mood of the day.” In Yurakucho,  salary men and office ladies are the majority of the customers. “They come to my shop after lunch, and in the late afternoon, I have more tourists stopping by,” he said. In front of Todai /東大, (Tokyo University), “I see more students and local grannies who are taking a walk around the area.”

Inside the "chigu-hagu" style Coffee-Wagon

The Coffee Van is in town every day, from Monday to Sunday, except on Thursdays, when Mr. Otsuki goes to roast his beloved beans at a special coffee shop that has a coffee roasting machine” or delivers them to other indoor coffee shops. The Brown-Coffee-Van’s coffee beans come “from all over the world”, he said, “from Africa, Indonesia, Central America.” The beans can also be purchased on the spot per 100g.

The prices of the drinks vary from 280 yen to 350 yen (around US$ 3.5 or 4). The most successful drink is the “Today’s Coffee” or the “Cimnamon Cappuccino”. The most expensive drink is the “Strawberry Caffe Mocha” (380 yen) and all the drinks are served hot or ice cold. While The Coffee Van is never easy to find, for the serious coffee fan, it’s almost worth finding it when you can. Especially for that Cinnamon Cappuccino.

The "Cinnamon Cappuccino" made by Mr. Otsuki this afternoon.

Japan’s last operating nuclear power plant reactor went off yesterday, but only for maintenance. Japan had 54 reactors before the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident last year. This weekend Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido shut down and  Japan is running without nuclear energy for the first time in 42 years.

The Washington Post reported some anti-nuclear power demonstration in Tokyo on Saturday, which coincided with Children’s Day. The traditional 鯉のぼり/koi nobori, carps flying in the air, on the Children’s Day,  became the symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.

Naoto Matsumura, the well-known farmer, who stood alone against the government’s decision last year to evacuate the cities situated within the 20km zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, because the fauna in that zone would go out of control, visited Tokyo on Saturday and Sunday. The purpose of his visit was to participate in  a fund rising event in Yokosuka for the Fukushima animals.

Naoto Matsumura and his friend Mr. Kaneko said at a press conference in Tokyo last February that they were actively trying to set up an NGO to look after the abandoned farm animals or residents’ pets. After three months of struggle, Mr. Matsumura said that his NGO called “Ganbaru Fukushima” (“がんばる福島”) got approved  by The Civil Society Support Center of Yokohama very recently, and will be officially starting out on May 11^th 2012. “It is almost 90% sure that they will approve our activities, but the official starting date will be on May 11^th”, he said today. The NGO’s leader is Naoto Matsumura, and the vice-presidents are Mr. Kenji Kaneko, together with professor Yamashita, from JAXA. Under the three leaders of the new group, there are an additional 10 people from various backgrounds supporting Ganbaru Fukushima’s activities.

Naoto Matsumura, on his way home to Koriyama this evening, the closest city to Tomioka Town where he lives, paid a visit to TEPCO headquarters near Shinbashi station, in Tokyo. As he was staring at the buildings, he recalled all the times when he went there to ask the leaders to shut down all their nuclear power plants. On Saturday, it became reality. Matsumura on his way to Tokyo station said: “Look around you. Does Tokyo need nuclear electricity? Is the city in darkness?”

Naoto Matsumura at Tokyo TEPCO headquarters, near Shinbashi station one day after all the nuclear power plants shut down in Japan.

And he quietly walked from TEPCO headquarters to Tokyo station to take a bullet train back to Fukushima.

Naoto Matsumura spent two days in Tokyo. He went back home on a Sunday evening. He said: "I will stay in Tomioka town until its soil will be completely decontaminated."

The lady with the red umbrella has the latest dual use umbrella. It keeps the UV rays away and it also is structured to keep the rain out as well.

Get out your umbrellas! Just one should do it. May is the start of  the rainy season, or tsuyu/梅雨.  It is expected to come early this year. It can be so sunny and warm when you leave your home early in the morning, that you go out wearing just a T-shirt. But the danger in this season, is that you can get caught in a rain storm, with thunder and lightning on the same afternoon.

Last Sunday, on the last day of the Japanese “Golden Week”, everyone who was in Tokyo may remember the heavy rain, almost a twister (tatsumaki, 竜巻) that hit the Yurakucho-Tokyo-Akihabara area.

Akihabara, last day of Golden Week 2012 (Sunday). That pink sun umbrella may be fine for keeping the "Gothic Lolita" pale skin look but in a rain-storm...

The heavy cloud broke around 4pm in Akihabara station, and the noisy crowd of people dispersed to take refuge under any thing that could protect them from the sudden rain. Nobody saw the thunderstorm coming. Most of the unprepared people didn’t bring an umbrella to hang around in town on a Sunday afternoon that started with a very warm and sunny morning. (Some of us, Tokyo gaijin reporters, were even having a light and healthy brunch and spicy tomato Bloody-Mary at an outdoor terrace, near the United Nations’ University earlier in the day).

Most of these people know the “300 yen umbrella” you can get at any conbini (convenient store). They are convenient and available anywhere, if a storm breaks. However, the problem is that you might end up with a pile of those transparent see-through umbrellas. They break very quickly due to their cheap frames.

If your country also has a “rainy-unpredictable” season, you should get a “sun & rain umbrella” (晴雨兼用傘/seiukenyogasa), the one umbrella  to rule them all. In Japan, we found a store that sells an infinite selection of beautiful and colorful umbrellas. But they are not just ordinary. They protect the modern urban walker from the sun, as well as from the rain. They are UV proof and waterproof.

Although we start to see people protecting themselves from the sun using umbrellas in Europe, when I walked around in Geneva or Paris in a hot mid-summer afternoon, with one of those Japanese “S & R umbrellas”, people looked at me with suspicion. Some children would even tell me: “Are you wet, Madame? ‘Cause it’s not so much raining right now!” In the busy streets of Tokyo, it’s a natural thing. You find many females, younger and older, walking under the sun with umbrellas. They are using them to protect themselves from the radiation of the sun, which can also cause skin cancers and they use them on rainy days as well. Is this marketing, or is it efficient? The explanations about the product are clear: yes, the umbrella cloth is UV proof, and it protects you as well as a usual rain umbrella. (We have tested it personally.)

The Sun and Rain Umbrellas usually have a tag like this. If you can't figure out which is which, just show the shopping guides these words: 晴雨兼用傘

The dual use umbrellas are worth investing in if you can manage to keep ahold of them longer than a few days. Umbrellas in Tokyo tend to vanish as quickly as bicycles.

An umbrella for every taste and occasion.

Editor’s note: These umbrellas are really light and strong, so even if you don’t really care about getting a tan or wouldn’t be caught dead walking around with a sun umbrella–they are pretty good buys. (We all know that men who care about their skin have to wear baseball caps or lots of sunscreen but never, never a sun umbrella.)  The only thing that these umbrellas lack is a solid titanium core so that you could use them to club someone into unconsciousness. A hidden blade would also be nice but a violation of the sword and firearms law. Until we have a combat version, the current models will have to do.–Jake 

Writer’s note: The cutest Sun/Rain umbrellas can be found at Loft, or Tokyu Hands, but Minipla (the cute shops that are in the subways) are also very cute and useful. The last feature image on this text was taken at Loft Yurakucho by the editor. (They cost between 1900 yen and 2010 yen.) — Nathalie-Kyoko

Bullying is a big problem in Japanese schools.

At school, in any country, including Japan, bullying victims are humiliated by other class mates. In Japan, the phenomenon is called ijime (虐め). The Japanese definition of ijime is very simple: “To inflict mental, emotional, or physical suffering upon someone in a weaker position.”

According to public sources, bullying victims say they are  kicked, slapped, tortured and humiliated by other students. A common form bullying in Japan seems to be placing garbage in the shoes of a victim.

Sometimes, child bullying end up in suicides. Bullying at school is also linked to another phenomenon, hikikomori, when young people lock themselves in their rooms.

Internet bullying involving middle school and high school age youths is increasingly becoming a problem in Japan.

In October 2008, of 14-year-old middle school student in Saitama hung herself in her room. The suicide was initially attributed to scolding by her parents over test results. But in a suicide note she left behind the victim said she hated middle school and mentioned the names of people who wrote nasty things about her, on a public Web site.

Japanese sociologists say that bullying might be the result of social pressure, and high expectations attributed to young people. Frustration and deception generate hatred and competition among students.

Last month, the Japan Times reported that bullying cases at schools hit record in 2011 with 3,306 cases nationwide, according to numbers provided by the Justice Ministry.

Sadly, out of the total number of child bullying cases, 491 were reported by people affected by the 3.11 disaster, after having to move from the disaster zone. Some media reported that children who moved from regions affected by last year’s nuclear explosion at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to other schools in other regions were bullied because they were “radioactive.” Fear and lack of solid coverage of nuclear power plants accidents increase the urban legends, in cases such as in Fukushima.

Thomas Armstrong, an Australian writer based in Shimabara-shi, Nagasaki-ken, contributed the following piece to JSRC. It captures one vignette in the world of 虐め (ijime).

★★★★

Graduation Day

By Thomas Armstrong

In the Japanese school system and the country at large, nothing passes without ceremony. It’s not surprising in a culture that places high importance on symbols and surface appearances, because it recognises a truth: that the superficial has a life and reality of its own. So, even at elementary school; graduation day is a spectacle, joyful and restrained, theatrical and mechanical.

The whole school fills the gymnasium hall, done up for the occasion. To begin the graduation ceremony, the principal gives the formal opening words, and everyone stands, facing the flag hung at the stage back, to sing the national anthem. I hum along, awkwardly. After entering in perfect order to applause and taking their assigned seats, the graduating 6th graders sit in the centre, the guests and the event stacked around them in symmetry. To their left, facing them from behind a table in two long rows are the dignitaries: visiting alumni, city officials, principals from other local schools, and other VIPs. Behind the 6th graders sit the other student years. Cultural conditioning and emphatic injunction keeps them non-verbal but it can’t beat youth and sheer biology: kids fidget constantly, if quietly, and with flu season not long ago there’s constant sniffling and coughing. On either side of the students are three rows of proud parents, smartly dressed, about half with cameras. Most wear western-style formal wear, some mothers wear kimono. I notice two parents in particular: at the front, a handsome woman in a sand-coloured kimono, dabbing her eyes occasionally, holding composure tightly. Several rows behind her is a man in a black suit, impassive, with a comic-book hairstyle that seems incongruous on the parent of a teenager: it’s all artful curls and spikes, dyed tawny brown. On the 6th graders’ right, paralleling the VIPs, are their own teachers and the school staff, where I sit watching.

I’m going to miss these kids. They can be difficult, and cranky, and sometimes troubled, but also irrepressible, and there’s one class in particular that always shows me a warmth and welcome I’m never sure that I deserve. I see some of my favourites sitting there, but none of them catch my eye, they all look straight ahead with practiced restraint. The graduating boys wear suits, the girls either suits or dresses, jackets and skirts. They look formal, but somehow a little punk-rock at the same time: most wear small informal bits of flair, rakish jewellery or spiked hair. They look like the kids in School of Rock, but tidier. On the end of a row close to where I’m sitting I see ‘T’ – a round-faced girl with a tomboy-short haircut, wearing a suit. She likes animals, and singing the songs from anime shows, which she takes seriously enough to practice every day. There’s a solemnity or sullenness that seems to strike Japanese kids in-between the 5th and 6th grades, filling them with a new-found seriousness in their last year: before it caught T, she used to run playfully up the school stairs on all fours, like a cat. Elsewhere I can see ‘I’, another favourite who’s hyperactive, a chronic smart-arse, and clever enough to be a know-it-all, but never serious. The gravity of the event has done the impossible: he’s quiet and restrained, but his smirk doesn’t seem like it’s gone, just rendered itself politely invisible for the occasion.

Now, the principal takes the stage with one of the younger female teachers beside him in kimono, to hand out the certificates, and the students each go up one by one to receive theirs. It all runs like well-oiled clockwork: as the student on the stage has their name called and answers with a loud “Hai!”, the student two places after them in order is already standing up. When each moves to take their certificate, each student before or after them moves to the next station, smoothly. Everything has been practiced: standing up, moving to the stage, bowing, receiving and carefully folding their certificate in half without creasing it, moving from the stage, bowing towards the watching teachers, and taking their seat again; when to stand, where to move, where to look, when to bow. They have practiced this an hour or two a day, several days a week, for weeks in advance.

Certificates received, the next part of the ceremony starts. The graduating students stand simultaneously, turn their chairs to face the larger student body behind them. Now come the wakare no kotoba – the words of parting or farewell for their peers. I don’t where this came from, but it’s distinctive and theatrical. The graduating students recite a long farewell speech together, but individually. They speak in sequence – one by one, each stands at the right moment, loudly and clearly speaks the next few words of the speech, before sitting down again. They thank the other students for the year’s achievements and time together, wish them well, and charge the new 6th grade to take their place as student leaders. This isn’t my first graduation here, but I can’t remember if the words are the same each year. The sentiments, at least, are. In turn, the younger students reply in the same way. Every student has a part to speak, either individually, or in small groups for the youngest kids. Even the 1st graders are polished and exact, but high-pitched and comically serious. Still facing each other, the students sing a final song.

After that, the 6th graders turn to face the front again, and the principal gives a farewell speech of encouragement. Representatives of the PTA stand and formally thank the teachers. The lady in the sand-coloured kimono is one of them, and she cries a little bit as she speaks. Representatives from the city education board and the community also say their part. Eventually, the graduating students leave the hall to more applause, and graduation is nearly over. In around 15 minutes time, the teachers and other students assemble on the school sports ground to send off the new graduates and their parents with a long corridor of applause. Afterward, the graduates and parents stick around for a while and chat. I go out and take photos with some of them, and their classroom teachers. Having escaped from the formalities, the students are elated, laughing, and grinning. None of them seem even a little bit somber to be leaving school, when I ask them. Students I’ve rarely spoken to one on one find me, wanting to take a photo with me and wish me goodbye. I find T and wish her the best, and she introduces me to her mother. I tell her that T is excellent in class – not always true but true enough; I’m feeling happy and I want to share it with them. I find ‘I’, and shake his hand, and joke that I’m going to write to the foreign English teacher at his new Junior high school and warn them about him. He seems pleased by the idea. I’d happily stay out there all afternoon to chat with them this last time. It’s cold today, though. So cold this year that the cherry blossoms aren’t in bloom yet, and nobody stays for long.

There’s an irregularity today, and once back in the teachers’ room I don’t notice it right away – but nobody else has changed out of their formal wear yet. Then the smiling teacher who sits opposite me explains that we’re all going back to the gym hall now, and I understand why the rest of my co-workers are still in suits. There’s going to be another graduation ceremony today, a special one.

As we leave the teachers’ room, my co-worker explains. There is one student graduating this year who never comes to school – I’ll call her ‘K’ here – and despite having worked at the school for nearly three years, I’ve never met her.

Afterward, back in the teachers’ room, I ask my co-worker about K and she explains a little. K transferred to the school when she was in third grade, and while she seemed to be settling in well at first and making friends, she started to get bullied, badly. So badly, apparently, that for three years she hasn’t been back to school.

We reach the outside of the gym hall, and K is waiting with her mother. She’s a tall, lanky girl with pigtails, wearing a boys suit. I think she’s probably pretty, but it’s hard to tell – she doesn’t greet the teachers, but turns to face away, looking at the ground. Her shoulders are hunched with tension. She doesn’t smile. Even empty of any other students, school is clearly the last place she wants to be.

We go inside the gym once more, and things are at once the same as they were earlier and yet not. The parents’ seats and the seats for the younger students have been removed – just the chairs for the graduating students, the teachers, and the VIPs are left. We sit in the same place as before, and the VIP chairs are empty. K sits alone among the student chairs, her mother a few rows behind her. They are both surrounded by empty seats. Unlike the earlier students, K is slumped in her chair, while her mother sits upright with her expression tight and unreadable. The girl seems pinioned; trapped and transfixed by the circumstances, weighed down by being at school, penned in by expectations and a circle of empty chairs.

I’m not sure if I’m imagining a hesitation in the principal’s voice when he says the same words as before, to open the ceremony. This could all seem comical, going through the motions of graduation in a mostly empty hall, but it’s firmly serious. I think one of my co-workers is crying very quietly (I think it’s the always-smiling society teacher who explained to me about the second graduation ceremony), and my eyes want to water as well; because none of us watching can escape the awful tension in the hall. Because I know something of what it’s like not to have a normal graduation day.

K’s name is called and she stands, alone, and she goes to the stage to receive her certificate. Descending from the stage, she hesitates. She hasn’t practiced, nobody has shown her where to walk. After hushed directions and gestured instructions, she walks over to make a perfunctory bow to the teachers table, before resuming her seat.

The principal remains on the stage to give his parting speech, though this time he speaks directly and only to K, alone in the seats below. He praises the essays that she writes from home, he tells her that her teachers think well of her, and he does his very best to encourage her to go to junior high school. He is a Japanese school principal of middle-age with all the gruff masculinity which that implies; I catch his eyes for a second as he steps down from the stage, and he is wearing the tightly stretched expression of someone working extremely hard to hold back tears.

I’m fortunate in the people I work with. I know some of them well, and I can read the faces around me. As a kid, this might have surprised me, but I know now that there isn’t anyone among the teachers watching who doesn’t want to make things right for K, who doesn’t wish they could do something right now to give her the happy graduation day she should have. But that opportunity or moment for intervention, if there was one, probably came and went three years ago; it would have been before K learned not to expect justice or respite, before the last bonds of an important trust were broken.

I should say again at this point, that I don’t know K, and that I’m barely even vaguely familiar with what bullying and school refusal means in Japan. I don’t know more than the bare outlines of her story. I imagine that she’s not always the battered and tense survivor that I saw that day. Like my co-workers, I hope the very best for her. I hope she’ll overcome the things that hurt her, that she’ll be able to enjoy most of the next few years, be free, and make something of herself. But what I know from experience is something different: that this is what “formative” means – these things stay with us, even healed, leaving indelible fault-lines and rough edges.

More formal words are said, and the graduation ceremony finishes. We form a line, and we applaud warmly as K and her mother walk past us out of the hall, K still not meeting our eyes. Her mother and the special assistance teacher beside her. Shoulders tight, the lanky girl in the suit walks quickly out of the school. She doesn’t look back.

Tom Armstrong is a writer, an Australian, and a mad fan of language learning/teaching, independent video games, and fiction. He blogs irregularly at www.nouncollective.net with a multinational cohort of friendly people. He’s currently finishing up his fourth and last year as an Assistant Language Teacher on the JET Programme.

This is one trip that won't get get a five star review.

On April 30th, the day after the accident Rakuten Travel sent an email to those who had purchased bus tickets for the tour which said in a very chipper tone, “How was your ride (ご乗車はいかがですか）?” etc, asking for a response to an opinion survey.  As of today, none of the dead responded nor have their families.

Rakuten Travel explains that the mail was sent automatically, and that usually the responses would be displayed on the Rakuten Travel website, in “the customer’s voice” section.（お客さんの声）. Rakuten Travel publicly apologized for causing any grief to the families or survivors.

Of course, it’s unfair to blame Rakuten Travel for the accident although perhaps they could be criticized for not carefully vetting the vendors connected to their travel site. If there’s a lesson to be learned here it’s that automized mail is a frightening thing…and so are expressway buses. Maybe somewhere in Japan, in someone’s mail box, there’s a missive from TEPCO asking “How did you enjoy your tour of Fukushima Daichi,  one of Japan’s absolutely safe nuclear power plants?”

con man who specializes in throwing himself in front of cars and collecting damages from either the driver or the driver’s insurance company. A dangerous hard-hitting job but one that does leave an impact on society—or automobiles.

bakuto (博徒・ばくと)、gambler

Often considered the first kind of yakuza. Groups of gamblers who traversed the highways of feudal japan.  Finger-cutting, tattoing, and the yakuza’s policy of cooperation with the police are practices that were started by the bakuto.

boryokudan (暴力団・ぼうりょくだん)、violence groups

Used by the police to refer to organized crime groups.

bosozoku (暴走族・ ぼうそうぞく）、motorcycle gangs

Structured groups of young bikers, who are  responsible for a great percentage of the juvenile crime in Japan. Comprised mostly of teens who drop-out from the competitive Japanese high-schools and find themselves without many other options in the Japanese job market. Almost one-third are ultimately recruited to join the yakuza.

burakumin （部落民・ぶらくみん）、’small settlement people’

Descendents of an outcasted class from the feudal era. Burakumin held jobs considered to be unclean, or related to death. Although this has changed some over the years, they are still often discriminated against and are therefore prime recruits for the yakuza.  Though estimates vary, a third of the general yakuza population is thought to be burakumin.

furyo (不良・ふりょう）no good; defective product

The word 不良 is most often used in 不良少年 (furyoshonen) or juvenile delinquent, but when used alone in the Kanto area, it refers to the yakuza. Yakuza often call other yakuza (in Kanto area) furyo. The word is sometimes used in front of civilians so that they don’t understand yakuza are being discussed.

gurentai （愚連隊・ぐれんたい) 、hoodlums

Predecessors of the modern yakuza. Though they are one of the original groups of yakuza, unlike the bakuto or the tekiya, they employed very violent means. Capitalizing on the the moral and economic depravity that followed World War II, these groups grew in number quickly. They were quite profitable, shaking down restaurants and other service industry-related businesses through threats and extortion.

jiageya（地上げ屋・ちあげや）、 land sharks, loan sharks

Eviction companies run by the yakuza to force tenants off their land in order to sell larger plots of land for a greater profit. Jiageya would drive out occupants by creating disturbances or damaging property around the target (driving into cars, playing loud music at night) and sometimes even setting the house on fire.  Just one job could be extremely lucrative; during the bubble period, this was the greatest single source of income for the yakuza. The start of the ‘keizai yakuza’.

jisageya (地下げ屋・じさげや）real estate price wreckers

A spiritual brother to the jiageya, jisageya are usually yakuza hired to live in an area driving down real estate prices so that unscrupulous real estate agents can buy land or homes there at a discount. Usually they are partnered with the real-estate agent. Sometimes, the yakuza leave as soon as their real estate agent or developer has purchased the property. After a few months, the property values may raise again, allowing the owner to sell off the property at a profit.

jikenya （事件屋・じけんや）、incident specialists

As an alternative to going to court, these yakuza are hired to help resolve issues ranging from traffic incidents to contract disputes. Going through the Japanese legal system is time-consuming, costly, and often ineffective. Therefore, many Japanese citizens using the yakuza for these kinds of services, and with an attitude of resignation, often report little reservation.

sangokujin (三国人・さんごくじん) 、‘people from 3 countries’

Refers to the groups of Chinese, Koreans, and Taiwanese who were brought in to remedy the dearth of Japanese workers during the war years. They often clashed with the yakuza for control of the black markets after the war. Approximately a third of yakuza today are of Korean ancestry.

seiriya （整理屋・せいりや)、loan shark

A loan shark who handles messy contracts involving money disputes: bankruptcies, loans, debt collection. Very similar to Jikenya.

sokaiya (総会屋・そうかいや)、　corporate extortionists, racketeers

Professional extortionists who often pull in huge profits. Traditionally, sokaiya would do extensive research on a company to uncover their secrets, buy enough stocks to enter the annual shareholders meetings, and blackmail the company by threatening to spread the rumors. Eventually laws were made prohibiting this kind of activity, and so sokaiya today are paid off in more subtle ways.

songiriya （損切り屋・そんぎりや)、loss-cutting specialist

Another kind of ‘specialist`, similar to the Jiageya – extortionists working in the real estate business who would create false liens against residences and then demand payments. General real estate scams.

tekiya （的屋・てきや)、street-stall operators, peddlers

Along with the bakuto and the gurentai, one of the three original kinds of yakuza. They worked at trading centers or fairs, selling products of dubious quality or value; for example, they would sell miniature bonsai trees that didn’t have any roots, or lie about the origin of a product. Many of the burakumin became tekiya, as a way out of otherwise inevitable poverty and disgrace.

yakuza (やくざ）、traditional term for Japanese mobsters

Literally, `8-9-3’, the hand that will lead to a score of 0 in a traditional Japanese card game. Comes from their original role as gamblers, bakuto, in feudal japan.