Hostile Traveler

As I work through putting a proper links page together, I’m running across some interesting stuff. One forum site that I visited is called Japan Forum which has some great user-contributed photo galleries in addition to their forum sections. I know I’ve said this before, but forums like this are a superb way to get to know a place you’ll be visiting without resorting to the sterilized travel guides.

One of their galleries is dedicated to the teenage girls (and guys) that dress up in fashions that range from odd to truly bizarre (though, I have to admit, quite interesting). They tend to hang out in an area of Tokyo between Shibuya and Shinjuku called Harajuku, hence the name Harajuku Girls.

I know I’ve made some references to some of this in past blog entries, but a picture is worth a thousand words and all that. The fascinating thing for me is that even within this subculture exists further subdivisions - specialty groups that tend to cluster together. For example, there are groups of girls that get these super-dark fake tans and dyed blonde hair called Ganguro:

Yeah, I know - WTF? comes to mind. You also get gothic lolitas (kind of like the first picture) and all sorts of other variants. Really, check out the gallery I mentioned to see things that range the gamut, including a Marx brothers thing. Yeah, I shit you not.

There’s another group of people that dress up like their favorite anime or manga characters, which is called Cosplay. Some of these costumes are amazingly elaborate, and there are professional cosplayers that make a living doing it.

Once again, there’s a cosplay gallery at JapanForum, but be a bit careful in that some of the shots may not be stuff you want to look at work. It’s not tentacle porn (which, really, demands its own post), but it’ll likely generate some questionable looks.

Well, just a little subculture post. Next time: North Korea.

* Images provided by Wikipedia under Creative Commons licensing. Basically, I feel like too much of a perv taking photos of teenage girls so I’ll leave that to others.

When I travel to another country, I’m always fascinated with what the local culture is like, from art to food to social interactions to how people view the rest of the world. I have a particular interest in Asian countries because they are so diverse, and in some ways, so alien to what I know. I don’t mean that in a bad way - for some reason I love to be in a situation where I don’t speak the language, can’t read a thing, and don’t identify culturally with most of what is around me. It’s a learning experience, and a bit of an adventure I guess.

Japan is one of those places that I find so interesting, yet so alien at the same time. While the youth seemingly embrace all things Western, much of the culture is still closed off to gaijin - foreigners. It’s not as common as it once was, but you will still see ‘No gaijin’ signs posted in front of bars, restaurants…and, more importantly, places that cater to more illicit activities. I think I mentioned in an old entry a section of Tokyo’s Shinjuku district called Kabukicho, which is perhaps the largest red light district in the world. As a foreigner, however, you’re not likely to gain entry into any of the various hostess bars, clubs, and so on….that is, unless you’re a Western woman working at one. The other thing is that while Kabukicho is fascinating in a lot of ways, it’s also a place where you don’t want to be carrying around a camera snapping photos. Most of the businesses there are run by Yakuza (aka The Japanese Mafia), who are not the sort of people you want to be messing with.

That leads me to what inspired this posting. I ran across an article in the Washington Post written by an American that worked as a crime reporter for Japan’s largest newspaper. From the article:

I came to Japan in 1988 at age 19, spent most of college living in a Zen Buddhist temple, and then became the first U.S. citizen hired as a regular staff writer for a Japanese newspaper in Japanese. If you know anything about Japan, you’ll realize how bizarre this is — a gaijin, or foreigner, covering Japanese cops. When I started the beat in the early 1990s, I knew nothing about the yakuza, a.k.a. the Japanese mafia. But following their prostitution rings and extortion rackets became my life.

He goes on to talk about how large the Yakuza is (80,000+ members) and some of the ways they make money, from the illicit (child pornography, prostitution) to investing in banks and financial institutions. The problem came when the writer got too close to the topic he was covering:

Three years ago, Goto got word that I was reporting an article about his liver transplant. A few days later, his underlings obliquely threatened me. Then came a formal meeting. The offer was straightforward. “Erase the story or be erased,” one of them said. “Your family too.”

The article itself is a short but very interesting read (you can find it here) and the author, Jake Adelstein, is coming out with a book on the topic called “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on Japan’s Police Beat”. Now, how much is factual versus hype I can’t say, but it should be an interesting read nonetheless.

So, the moral of the story is: Dangerous things can be fascinating, but it’s wise to keep your distance.