Jun
30
2008
I noticed a policeman posted at the exit of the Ginza line in the Aoyama-ichome station this morning who's normally not there. He was watching people carefully and had his baton in his hand, in addition to the pistol strapped to his belt. Then when I passed by the garbage cans near the exit of the Oedo line, I noticed they were taped shut. To top it off, there was a policeman patrolling the street behind the Canadian Embassy, and he wasn't there to ticket the illegally parked scooters. My guess is the extra security has to do with the over 300 death threats posted to the Internet since the killings in Akihabara a few weeks ago.
Want to know what scenario worries me the most? Some nutjob mixing together a batch of hydrogen sulfide on a crowded train or subway.
Update: Twitter friends say the extra security could be related to the G8 summits. That would explain the cop outside the Canadian Embassy.
Update #2: The illegally parked scooters got ticketed. He looked pretty bored wandering the neighborhood all day. I guess he needed something to do to pass the time.
Tags:
crime,
security,
terrorism
Supposedly similar posts:
May
19
2008
I came upon this article by accident. (I hope you don't mean that literally. -ed.)
Don't you realize that although you did your civic duty, you also stopped the practiced skills of an art form. Chikan can indeed be considered an art form. Where else can one find throughout history that an entire culture has tolerated and encouraged the groping of its female population. Video and film industries have sprung from the art of Chikan. Techniques that have been passed down from generations of men to their sons on the groping of females so that the act becomes one of pleasure for both the male and female. Although many women will not admit it, I truly believe that they love the attention of being touched and fondled, not to cause injury but to make women feel loved. For many of these women the anonymous touch of a man's hand rubbing her buttocks with his hands or erect clothed penis is an act of appreciating her beauty. There are millions of Asian females who know that their breasts are small in size, appreciate that Asian males touch and fondle them in respect of their beauty. When a woman's undergarments are lowered as in panties or raised as in a bra, the material is never damaged or torn. That is a rarity. Also very rare is for a female to have her clothes cut off with scissors.
With this new all female trains thing in Japan and new laws, the beauty and spiritual joy of the art of Chikan will soon disappear forever.
Frotterism is not an art form. It's a sex crime, like rape. Nampa, otherwise known as "picking up women," on the the other hand is not illegal and requires some finesse. It also empowers the woman by giving her the choice of shooting you down, but gropers are too cowardly to accept those terms.
Every woman who's accosted on a crowded train is someone's daughter, sister, girlfriend, wife or mother. It makes me happy to give them a safe zone, knowing that I'm doing it from them and for the people who care about them but aren't there. I don't do it because I'm all high and mighty, I do it because I've found that it makes me feel good. The same goes for giving up my seat to someone who needs it. I guess I'm just lucky that being kind to others what does it for me.
Tags:
chikan,
crime
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Feb
21
2008
This is getting ridiculous. The first incident was intolerable, what are we up to now, four in the past month?
Details are sketchy, but a Philippine woman living in Okinawa claims that she was attacked by two US marines in a hotel on the night of the 17th. Police are investigating, and the two marines have been identified and detained.
Meanwhile, since February 20th military personnel and their family members (over 55,000 people in total) stationed in Okinawa and at Iwakuni near Hiroshima have been forbidden to leave their bases until further notice. I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever, and I completely understand the indignation felt by the citizens of Okinawa. The military either needs make a very, very serious effort to get its act together or leave Okinawa entirely, preferably the latter. At this point, it seems like the entire country is against them being there.
Link
Update: Looks like Asahi got some of the facts wrong. Today it's being reported that the local police are seeking an arrest warrant for only one person in the US Army, and it's being investigated as a rape instead of an attack.
And we all know that the US military isn't going to pull up stakes and leave, no matter how many crimes are committed by its members. The common perception among citizens and politicians from Okinawa is that every time someone in the military commits a crime, US officials offer a token response but nothing ever really changes.
Link
This BBC article has a more level-headed report on the latest incident and how the Japanese media is focusing a disproportionate amount of attention lately on crimes committed in Okinawa by members of the US military. For example, here's something I haven't read on any Japanese news site:
Last year just 46 US military personnel were arrested on Okinawa in connection with criminal cases, a tiny proportion of those stationed there, and that figure was less than half the number five years ago.
Tags:
crime,
marines,
News,
Okinawa,
stupidity
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Feb
18
2008
I don't know how many people are familiar with popular websites in Japan, but 2ch is the most widely used online forum. The interface is absolute crap, but that's par for the course when it comes to Japanese websites. Check out the Wikipedia article for more info. It's pretty interesting, especially the story about Densha Otoko.
On the first of this month a 23 year old vagrant used his cell phone to post a message on 2ch saying that he was going to kill an elementary schoolgirl in Chiba Prefecture on Feb 15 at 3pm. As a result, over 15,000 community volunteers and parents in Chiba were mobilized to ensure the safety of children going to and from the nearly 1,300 schools in the prefecture. When the police tracked down the person who posted the threats, he said he wrote the messages because he thought the replies were funny. The authorities disagreed.
Link
Another link, so you can see what a typical 2ch thread looks like.
If you want to see how far and wide his threats reverberated through the net, Google this: 千葉の女子小学生を２月１５日１５時に殺しちゃいます
Tags:
2ch,
2channel,
crime,
News,
stupidity
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Dec
06
2007
It sounds like there's at least one policeman in Tokyo who wants to attribute as many crimes as possible to foreigners, according to a comment that was left on my blog a few days ago:
…several years ago we spotted a ‘Peeping Tom’ on our balcony watching my wife undress (on the 13th floor!) She said she had been followed home from the train a few times and felt like she was being watched in the past. I chased the guy down the street, but he got away. In my statement I told the police it was a Japanese man, but they said that was impossible - a Japanese man would NEVER do such a thing. They said he must have been Filippino. I told them I’d spent much time in the Philippines and the perv definately was not Filippino. The police then told me I probably couldn’t tell a Japanese man from a Korean, so they altered my official statement to say “he was an Asian man, possibly Korean.”
I don't know why else he would claim there's no such thing as a Japanese peeping tom. All he'd have to do is check their arrest records or go to any store that sells adult DVDs and see their collection of nozokiya videos. Maybe it was his first day on the job…
Tags:
crime,
peeping tom,
xenophobia
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